Allison Brennan - Love Is Murder

The Delarosa sounds like exactly what I need when I get out of the army in August. I had planned on reenlisting, but knowing you are waiting for me, three years for my country is enough. I can’t tell you how I feel when I get a letter from you. I am counting the days, and will write when I have my final discharge papers. I wish we could email like we did before you moved to your sister’s, but I reread your letters every night. Keep them coming, love .

I’m so sorry the lodge finances are in such dire straits. If anyone can turn it around, it’s you. Steve sounds like a smart, determined young man, I look forward to meeting him .

I hope you can convince your sister not to sell, at least before I can spend a week or ten making love to you in paradise .

The picture is me and my squad before we went out on recon two weeks ago. Buddy didn’t make it back. He’s the one in the Jeep. He was a damn good man .

Love you, Beth, with everything I am .

Andy

Lucy looked at the picture, and first found Buddy in the Jeep. Her dad was working on base by the time she was born, and her oldest brother Jack had enlisted when she was still a toddler. She knew what these men went through.

Was the fact that Beth was dating a soldier clouding her judgment? Lucy hoped not, but she hadn’t found anything in Beth’s room to indicate that she was embezzling money.

Lucy carefully put the letter back exactly as she’d found it and the box on its shelf, next to a framed photo of a man in uniform that must be Andy. Lucy went thought the bottom drawer of her desk and found bank statements. Up until last April, she’d had deposits of a little over five thousand dollars a month. Since April, she’d made small deposits monthly of fifteen hundred dollars. Unemployment? Rent checks? Did her sister pay her a salary?

Beth hadn’t withdrawn much money, either-she had a balance of just over nine thousand in her checking account, about the same in her savings, and two CDs of ten thousand dollars each, maturing at different times, both purchased before she’d moved here.

Suddenly, Lucy felt guilty for poring over Beth’s finances. There was nothing here to show that Beth had been stealing. She put everything back and would have left, but someone was in the kitchen.

Steve and Grace.

Heart thudding, she eavesdropped.

“Please, Steve, don’t do this. Your health is more important to me than anything.”

“I need to. On Monday I’m going to Jackson and getting a mortgage. I need you to sign with me.”

“You’ll be in debt for the rest of your life. You’ll put yourself in an early grave. I can’t go through that again. Not what I went through with your father. Him dying in my arms because we couldn’t get him to the hospital fast enough.”

“Please, don’t-”

“We can sell. That will solve all our financial problems.”

“I’m not selling!”

“Beth, tell Steve that a mortgage isn’t the solution.”

Beth must have stepped into the kitchen, or had been silent at first. “Actually, I’ve been thinking it might be a good option. Not a large mortgage, but ten percent would be more than enough to replenish the emergency funds. I’ll stay here, at least another year, and work out a budget and growth plan. It’s my forte.”

“But it’s not about the lodge, it’s about Steve!” Grace said. “His health.”

“You need to go to the doctor, Steve,” said Beth. “I’ll help you with the mortgage papers-we’ll go to my old boss, he’ll find us a good program. But then you have to promise to go in for the tests.”

“All right,” Steve agreed.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Grace said.

“It’s a win-win,” Beth said. “Steve gets what he wants, you get what you want. Steve, can you help me clean up the guest rooms?”

“Sure. Thanks, Beth.”

“You’ve grown on me. I want you happy and I want you healthy. Okay?”

Lucy didn’t know if Grace had left, and she couldn’t open the door to check. Though she wasn’t dressed for the weather, she went out the side door and walked around the porch to the front door. The snow was still falling, but didn’t seem as severe as earlier this morning. Drifts had accumulated against the porch, and she couldn’t even see the stairs. She shivered and tried the front door, but it was locked.

Dammit, that wasn’t a smart idea. She knocked, getting colder by the second. She knocked again and the door swung open.

Grace said, “What are you doing outside dressed like that?”

“I stepped out to get fresh air and must have locked the door or someone else did. I was only out here for a few minutes.”

She shook off in the foyer, feeling like a wet dog, her long hair already damp against her cheeks. She tucked it behind her ears. “Thanks,” she added when Grace didn’t say anything.

“Beth said your brother was sick.”

“Stomach flu, I guess. I don’t know but he’s finally sleeping again. I think I’ll go check on him.”

She walked upstairs, feeling Grace’s eyes on her back.

Fifteen minutes later, Lucy was bundled in ski clothes. She knocked on Angie and Kyle’s door. Kyle opened it. He was disheveled. Angie leapt off the bed and headed for the bathroom; Lucy noted she was naked.

She blushed. “I’m sorry-I didn’t mean to, well-”

“It’s okay. Is Patrick better?”

“Yes, but still queasy. Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

He closed the door behind her. Angie emerged from the bathroom in a robe. “I need your help,” she said.

“Like when you asked me to talk to Beth about Trevor?” Angie asked.

“Right. I need to go to Patrick’s truck, but I don’t want anyone coming with me. At least, anyone but one of you.”

“I don’t get it,” Kyle said.

“I have to trust someone, and I don’t have anyone else. Alan and Heather are probably fine, but Patrick thinks you’re on the up-and-up.”

“What’s going on?” Kyle asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, not willing to give up the fact that Vanessa was murdered. “But something is weird around here, and I think Patrick figured it out but then he was drugged. He’s not sick-he was intentionally drugged. And he doesn’t remember what he did last night.” That wasn’t a total lie.

“Was Vanessa drugged, too?” Angie asked, wide-eyed.

“I honestly don’t know. But I talked to the sheriff, and he’s working on getting deputies here by the end of today, but there’s no guarantee.”

“I’ll go with you,” Kyle said. “What do you need?”

“Well, I need a lookout because I’m going to search the barn. And Patrick’s gun is in his truck. And then-I need to get into the cottage.”

“You’re going to break into Grace and Steve’s house?”

“No, not exactly. I have a key.” She’d taken it from the office where everything was neatly labeled, even the extra key to the cottage. Considering Beth’s immaculate room, Lucy wondered if Beth had reorganized when she came over the summer.

“I’ll be downstairs in five minutes,” Kyle said.

Lucy turned to leave. Then she asked, “Yesterday, when you were dizzy, what had you been drinking?”

“Orange juice, why?” Then he shook his head. “You think there was something in the juice? Is that what Patrick drank?”

“No, but Steve has been dizzy and I saw him drinking orange juice last night.” She asked Angie, “Did you have some?”

“No, and I told Kyle he should have asked.”

“I just wanted some juice. Beth said to help myself between meals.”

“That was your third glass.”

“It was good.”