Derby Divas (Zoe Donovan Mystery) (19 page)

“I need to check something out,” I whispered to Levi. “If they start before I get back
, tell Willa I was feeling sick and make the presentation without me.”

“Where are you going?” Levi
asked.

“I’ll tell you when I get back.”

I got up, hopped off the bandstand, and made my way through the crowd. By the time I got to the spot where I’d seen the spectator, he or she was gone. I wandered to the edge of the forest surrounding the park and looked around. He couldn’t have gotten far. I saw a flash of something in the distance and headed in that direction. By the time I realized what I was doing, I was well away from the safety of the crowd.

I knew the forest like the back of my hand
, so I wasn’t concerned about getting lost, but after everything that had happened that weekend, I was feeling a significant level of apprehension. Someone had drugged Pandora, tampered with her car, killed Dezee, and kidnapped Pepper, though the last didn’t appear to be connected with the car crash, which was absurd because it meant that we had not one but two bad guys. It seemed as if Rizo had been hired to tamper with Pandora’s car, although I didn’t really
know
that the gym bag contained money.

I
was beginning to second-guess my impulse to take off into the forest on my own and was considering whether it would be wiser to turn around when someone grabbed me from behind and wedged a knife up under my chin.

“What are you doing following us?”
a voice asked.

“I wasn’t following you,” I tried.

“Then what are you doing wandering around out here?” The knife dug deeper into my skin.

My instinct told me to struggle
, but the more I did, the more force my captor put on my throat.

The best answer I could come up with was a lie that had turned into the truth.
“I’m feeling sick and needed to get some air,” I answered.

“It’s okay
.” Pepper stepped out from behind some shrubbery. “She won’t tell.”

“
We can’t take the chance,” the person with the knife said.

“Zoe
, are you going to tell anyone you saw me?” Pepper asked.

“No,” I gasped. Tears were streaming down my face as the pressure of the knife impeded my ability to breathe properly.

“You’re taking a big risk.” The person behind me lowered the knife but didn’t release the tight hold on me.

“Come on
, Izzy. It’ll be fine.”

Izzy?

“Isabelle?” I took a shot.

Isabelle let go of me and took a step back. I turned around and looked into the face of the man I’d known as Dezee.

“I thought you were dead.”

I rubbed my neck
, which, thankfully, wasn’t bleeding.

“As fa
r as everyone else is concerned I am, and I’d like to stay that way,” Isabelle warned me.

“But I saw your body. Everyone did.”

“I told you we should never have come back.” Isabelle was ignoring me and speaking to Pepper.

“I needed to explain to Pandora.
” Pepper bit her lip and looked at me with an uncertain expression. She turned back toward Isabelle. “You were right. We should have waited.”

“Explained what?” I wondered.

Isabelle raised her knife in a threatening manner. “If you tell anyone . . .”

“I won’
t,” I promised.

I looked at Pepper and then back at
Isabelle. Both were dressed in black. Neither spoke.

“Your father thinks you’re dead,” I said to Isabelle. “He
’s on his way to identify your body.”

“And he will.”

I frowned. She seemed fairly certain.

“He knows you
’re alive?” I guessed.

Pepper took a step forward. “Although we don’t know each other well
, I feel like I know you well enough to trust you.”

“You can
,” I promised.

“The more people
who know what’s
really
going on, the more we put ourselves at risk,” Isabelle cautioned.

“Let me guess,” I began. “The two of you are in love. You
’ve been since Stella was in high school. After Stella’s parents found out about the two of you, they fired Isabelle and sent her away. You tried to forget her,” I said, turning to Pepper, “but you found that her face haunted your every dream, so you left home and went in search of your one true love.”

“A little melodramatic
, but you’re basically correct.” Pepper smiled.

“
But you,” I looked at Isabelle, “thought that Stella would be better off without you, so you decided that you wouldn’t be found. You were as determined to stay gone as Stella was determined to find you.”

“Good
guess,” Pepper confirmed. “Really good. How do you know all of this?”

I blushed. I didn’t want to admi
t that we had read Stella’s diary, so I ignored the question and continued speaking.

“At some point I’m guessing you either ran into each other or Isabelle had a change of heart about being found and you reunited.
By this point,” I said to Pepper, “you were working for Pandora, and you knew that if your parents found out that you and Isabelle had reunited, they’d make trouble for you, so Isabelle became Dezee.”

“Actually, my parents didn’t know where I was,” Pepper informed me. “We were afraid that they were watching Isabelle in order to find me
, so she disappeared as well.”

I had to hand it to these women
; they’d thought this through.

“I assume that you
’re behind your own kidnapping,” I told her. “You figured that faking a ransom demand was the only way to get the money you feel your parents owe you
and
keep Isabelle in your life.”

“My gr
andmother left me money in a trust that I couldn’t access without my parents’ consent. I only took a small part of what was mine,” Pepper defended herself.

That m
ade sense.

“I suppose the two of you plan to use the money to start a life somewhere away from the scrutiny of your parents. There
’s just one thing I want to know: who died in the crash?”

Isabelle looked at Pepper
, who nodded.

“No one,” Isabelle informed me.

“We have a body,” I reminded them.

“The bod
y in the crash was already dead,” Isabelle said. “I drove the car and faked the crash. When the car went around the corner and out of sight, I jumped out. By the time the car had finished burning, there was no way to piece together the fact that the body had actually been on the floor on the passenger side
to begin with.”

“So the whole thing was planned from the beginning,” I realized.

“We needed to find a way to disappear. Isabelle is dead in the morgue and will be positively identified by her dad, and my parents will get proof that I was eliminated by my kidnappers. It was the only way to finally be together without looking over our shoulders all the time.”

“Only way? You
’re both adults. You’re in love. I doubt your parents could keep you away from each other no matter how rich and powerful they are.”

“During the year between graduation and my running away
to join up with Pandora, my parents kept me drugged and locked up,” Pepper informed me. “It’s only a fluke that I managed to get away. I’m the key that links them to my grandmother’s fortune, and they need to control me to maintain control of the money.”

“They locked you up?”

“They claimed I was suicidal and delusional. They got some fancy doctor to confirm that I was mentally disturbed and therefore unable to make my own decisions. I was committed to a mental hospital for fourteen long months. I tried to make my doctors understand that I wasn’t psychotic, but they wouldn’t listen.”

“My
God,” I gasped. “How did you get away?”

“
There was a fire, and in the confusion I managed to slip away. I didn’t have money or a place to stay, but luckily, I ran into Pandora and she helped me. I became Pepper, and for several years I was off the radar of my powerful family. Then, four months ago, my dad somehow found out where I was. He’s been trying to have me forcefully brought to the family ever since.”

“So you figured if you were dead
, you could finally be free?”

“Exactly.”

I took a moment to try to sort through everything the pair was telling me. It all made sense in a convoluted sort of way, except, “Like I asked before, whose body is lying in the morgue?”

“We aren’t sure,” Pepper admitted. “We purchased the body from a reliable source who
se father owns a mortuary. She assured me that no foul play was involved in providing the body and that there would be no grieving relative wondering what had happened to their loved one.”

Rizo, I realized.

“And you drugged Pandora?”

“I had to,” Pepper confirmed. “I wanted to just tell her what we were doing
, but she loved that car, and Isabelle wasn’t sure she’d go along with it.”

“Why use her car?” I asked.

“The story had to be believable.”

“But Pandora and Boomer didn’t
even decide to have the race until Wednesday afternoon. How could you have pulled this all together that quickly?” I asked.

“Dezee suggested to Boomer that a road race would be a good way to decide the matter of the grouping for the derby
before they even met for lunch, and we knew that if Boomer suggested a race, Pandora would never back down. They’re both so competitive.”

“Okay, last question, I think
: why not just let your parents have control of your money in return for letting you live your own life? Why go to the extreme of disappearing off the face of the earth?”

“Because there
’s one thing my dad cares about more than money: his reputation. He would never have allowed Isabelle and me to be together.”

“Because she
’s a woman?”

“Because she was an employee.”

Wow; I have to say I wasn’t expecting that.

“I really think I have to agree with Isabelle,” I
said to Pepper. “I know you want to talk to Pandora, but the police are looking for Rizo. They think she drugged Pandora and killed Dezee. I’m sure it will sort itself out, but in the meantime they’re keeping an eye on Pandora in case Rizo tries again.”

“I don’t want her to worry any more than she already has,” Pepper
said. “She’s been so nice to me.”

“I’ll fill her in when I get a chance
, and you can arrange to meet up with her when everything settles down a bit.”

“Will you give this to her?” Pepper handed me an envelope. “It
’s for the car.”

“I’d be happy to.”

Pepper hugged me.

“And if Rizo can’t work things out with the police
, let me know. I don’t want her to get in trouble for murder,” Pepper added.

“I’ll talk to Salinger and tell him I was mistaken
about what I saw. Is there a way I can get hold of you if I absolutely need to?”

Pepper looked at Isabelle.

“If you really need to speak to us, call my dad,” Isabelle suggested. “He’ll know how to reach us.”

Isabelle typed a number into my phone.

“It looks like your cute friend is heading this way,” Pepper commented.

I turned around and saw that Levi was heading in our direction. I doubted he could see us yet since we were shielded by a grove of trees
, but it wouldn’t be long.

Pepper
hugged me one more time, then faded into the dense cover of the forest.

“What are you doing all the way out here?” Levi asked.

“You’re never going to believe it.”

Fate is a strange thing. After a week of agonizing over giving Zak an answer to his proposal
, I was finally ready to say yes. Sure, I was scared, and my stomach felt like a full-on hurricane was going on inside, but I knew I loved Zak and I knew I wanted to be his wife. I’m not sure why the idea of marriage freaked me out the way it did, but I tried to imagine a life without Zak and realized that was a possibility I didn’t even want to toy with.

Levi had taken Scooter fishing
and they would be gone most of the day. Zak had originally planned to go with them but then ended up having some sort of important conference call to deal with. I was sorry Zak appeared to be getting involved in another of his projects since they tended to pull him away from Aston Falls, but I was thrilled he missed the fishing trip because it meant we’d have the entire day all to ourselves.

I’d dressed in my favorite sundress and even took care with my hair and makeup. After all
, you only get engaged once. I tried to imagine how it would feel to be someone’s fiancée. Zak’s fiancée.