Leslie LaFoy (51 page)

“Has Lindsay actually changed her Will yet?” Jack demanded, desperate to put all the pieces together before it was too late. “Who knows about her decision? It's important, Otis. You've got to answer me.”

“Note … this morning … with Ben … asking …”

Ben.
The bastard son whose father had used him to amass a fortune for another man's child. Ben, who knew how the shell game worked and could continue to work it for his own gain if … if Henry and Agatha inherited … if Ben, the loyal servant, was the only one alive who knew how to play the game….

Panic struck Jackson like a fist, knocking the air from his lungs and clenching his gut. Breathless, his heart racing, he tightened his grip on Vanderhagen's lapels and roughly demanded, “Did you send Ben to get the trust ledgers for Lindsay just now?”

Vanderhagen's eyes were bulging and his adam's apple bobbed furiously. A bloody froth trickled from the corner of his mouth, but he managed to answer, “No. Only key … my desk.”

The muffins. The muffins had been poisoned. He'd bet on it. Sweet Jesus. If he was right about Ben, Lindsay would be the next to die. And Ben couldn't afford to waste any time. Ben was the liar. The actor on the stage of greed.

“Stay with him,” Jack commanded the others as he rose to his feet. “I've got to get to MacPhaull House.”

He ran, not looking back.
God, let me be wrong. Please let me be wrong.

A
MOVEMENT IN THE STUDY DOORWAY
caught her attention. Lindsay looked up from the correspondence she was sorting to find Ben Tipton standing there, his hands in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the carpet in front of the desk.

“Hello, Ben,” she said. “I didn't hear you come in. Was it a successful auction?”

His lips moved, but she didn't hear a thing. Perplexed, she came around the desk, saying, “You'll have to speak up, Ben. I can't hear a word you're saying.”

He lifted his gaze, slowly focused it on her, and then drew a long, deep breath. “I said that I'm going to kill you,” he said softly as he removed his hands from his pockets. In his right one, he held a pistol.

Her blood went cold. Ben? Ben wanted to kill her? “Why?” she asked, her mind racing.

“You really are the stupidest woman God ever thought to put on the face of the earth.”

Her own pistol was in her reticule. Her reticule was on her vanity upstairs. It was of no use to her up there. Was Ben any better a shot than she was? Primrose and Emile were at the market. But Abigail was somewhere in the house. So was Lucy. Did she want them involved in this?

No. No, she didn't want them hurt. But if they were to hear and go for help … God, her mind was going in too many directions at once. She needed time, she needed to focus on something so that she could think straight. “Since I am so stupid,” she said with all the calm she could muster, “would you mind explaining why you're doing this? It seems to me that if I'm going to die, I ought to a least know why you think it's necessary.”

“You're a wealthy woman because of all that I've done for you over the years. I deserve to be wealthy too.”

“Richard acknowledged you as his son and left you a considerable sum of money. Haven't you seen his Will?” she asked, trying desperately to find a way out of the nightmare.

“No, Otis Vanderhagen hasn't deigned to share the details yet. But he doesn't have to. My
father
was ever so honest about what he intended to do. There'll be a bone tossed my way, what's left, I'm sure he'll say, of the ineritance I've already spent. But I want more than a bone. I deserve more.”

“Then I'll write you a bank draft,” she offered. If she
could put the huge desk between her and Ben's apparent madness … “How much do you want?”

“I want it all and I'm going to get it.”

“Fine,” she agreed, edging backward and gesturing to the books lying open on the desk. “Tell me what to write and it's yours.”

“Stop right where you are,” he commanded, lifting the pistol to shoulder height and aiming the muzzle at the center of her forehead.

Lindsay froze, suddenly and absolutely certain that he was indeed capable of shooting—and with great accuracy.

“It's not that simple,” he went on. “Thanks to Mr. Stennett's tenacity and Otis Vanderhagen's mouth, you now know how the game is played. You could write me a draft and then go to the authorities and tell them everything. I'd be arrested and imprisoned and you could have it all back.” He shook his head slightly. “No, the only way is for me to kill you. Henry and Agatha will inherit and then I can go on with the scheme my father and Otis Vanderhagen so kindly put into place for me. I can have it all, and without either of them ever knowing that I'm stripping the assets.”

“For yourself.”

“Absolutely. Why share if you don't have to?”

“I can see the logic,” she offered, her heart pounding furiously. “Very sound, actually. But why have you picked today to carry out your brilliant plan? Wouldn't tomorrow or some day next week work just as well? I'd prefer to wait, if it's all the same to you.”

“I understand why you would. Unfortunately, if we waited, you'd have time to change your Will and leave all your pretty money to Stennett. He wouldn't be as easy to lead as Henry and Agatha will be. And then there's the fact that Stennett will be gone tomorrow. No, I think it's best and easiest if you die today.”

He stomach slid down, leaden and cold, to rest on the soles of her feet. “You're going to say that Jack killed me?”

“Of course not. God, you're so stupid,” he sneered. “I'd have to arrange for him to have no alibi, and it's such an unnecessary amount of effort. As for why today… It's a perfect opportunity. I might have to wait years for another
one as perfect. Now kindly gather your skirts and get up the stairs to your room.”

Relieved to know that Jack wasn't going to be blamed for whatever Ben planned, Lindsay exhaled and marshaled her thoughts. “Why upstairs?” she asked, knowing instinctively that she shouldn't go.

“A spurned lover doesn't normally kill herself in a study. She does it in her bedroom, the place of her humiliation and shame.”

No one who knew her would believe she would commit suicide. “Wouldn't it be more believable for me to wait to kill myself after Jack's gone?” she proposed, trying to shake his confidence and buy herself some time to think. And perhaps just the tiniest piece of luck. “There is hope until Jack actually sails, you know.”

Jack, I need you. Please help me. Please.

Ben snorted. “There is no hope of a reconciliation. I heard about him railing at you outside Vanderhagen's office yesterday. The whole city knows about it, about your failed affair. Given your past, no one will be the least bit surprised to learn that you couldn't bear the thought of being publicly embarrassed a second time. Now be a good little girl and get up the stairs to your room.”

Oh, God help her. It made sense. It was entirely believe-able. “No,” she declared, inching backward again. “You'll have to shoot me right here and figure out how to explain my obvious murder to the authorities. I won't play into your hands.”

“You stupid—”

An enraged screech reverberated through the room in the same instant that a flash of movement came from the doorway behind Benjamin Tipton. Lindsay's brain barely had time to recognize her housekeeper before Ben whirled about and swung his arm across Abigail's face.

“Abigail!” Lindsay screamed, darting forward as her friend dropped the closed umbrella and crumpled to the carpet.

“Stay, Lindsay,” Ben snapped, stepping into her path and pointing the pistol at her head again.

Abigail moaned and Lindsay froze in her tracks. “Don't
hurt her,” Lindsay pleaded. “Please, don't hurt her. She was only trying to protect me.”

“Do as you're told and I'll try to think of some way she can keep breathing.”

Lindsay nodded and watched as Ben backed toward the weakly struggling woman. His eyes never left Lindsay as he bent down, grabbed a fistful of gray hair, and used it to haul a whimpering Abigail to her feet. “Thank you,” he said mockingly, “you're just what I needed.”

In one smooth, quick movement he jerked Abigail in front of him, put an arm around her waist, and pulled her back against him. For a split second the pistol shifted away from Lindsay, but before she could blink, the muzzle came to rest against Abigail's temple.

Lindsay clenched her teeth. Never in her life had she hated a human being as much as she did this vicious monster. If she got even half a chance, she'd kill him. Jack had been right; when you were pushed hard enough, you could do things you never imagined that you could. And you could do them with a smile.

“Now, upstairs, little Miss Lindsay,” Ben said, “or I'll put a bullet in her brain.”

Lindsay went because she had no other choice and because he wanted her to go where her pistol was. Never turning her back on him, she stepped into the foyer, across it to the base of the stairs, and started up. Abigail started to struggle when it came her turn to start up the stairs. Ben growled and pressed the muzzle harder against her head.

“Don't fight him, Abigail,” Lindsay cried. “It'll be all right. Don't make him angry. Just do what he wants.”

Abigail looked up at her. One eye was swollen closed, the other was awash in tears.

“It'll be all right,” Lindsay assured her again, resuming her backward climb up the stairs. “Just come up the stairs without fighting him.”

Abigail gathered her skirts in her one hand and obeyed woodenly, tears streaming down her cheeks. Lindsay continued to the top, mentally judging the distance between herself and Ben, herself and the door to her bedroom, the door to the vanity. Her heart thundered with the realization
that she wasn't going to be able to dash ahead and grab her own pistol without endangering Abigail. The attempt to save them both would have to wait until they were all in the room together. Meager as it was, it was the only hope they had.

Once Ben had maneuvered his captive to the top of the stairs, he pushed her forward, quickly closing the distance between them and Lindsay. She backed into her bedroom only a few feet ahead of them.

Even as she started for the vanity, Ben snarled, “Wrong way, Lindsay. Step over to the bed and pull off the sheet.”

She hesitated, knowing that if she obeyed, their one chance might well be gone forever. There was a slow, metallic click as Ben cocked the pistol. Abigail choked back a sob and Lindsay instantly darted toward the bed. She flung away the comforter and with trembling hands yanked off the linen sheet as she'd been instructed.

“Very good,” Ben congratulated her snidely. “Now, tear off a long, fairly wide strip, if you would. Use your teeth to begin the tear if you have to.”

“There's a pair of scissors in the drawer of the vanity,” she suggested, her voice quavering with fear and desperate hope.

“Women committing suicide in the throes of despondency don't think about getting scissors from the vanity,” he countered, smiling thinly. “And an intelligent man staging it all doesn't allow her to have anything that might be used as a weapon against him. Use your teeth and be quick about it.”

She accomplished the task slowly, straining to hear beyond the rasping of her own breathing, the shredding of cloth, and the confines of her room. Where was Lucy? Had she gone for help? Please, please let her have gone to get help. Let them come quickly and loudly so that Ben would be thrown into a panic. If he dithered, even for a moment, she could get to her pistol. She could kill him just as surely as he was going to kill her and Abigail.

“Reasonably well done for a stupid woman. Throw the end over the—” Ben frowned up at the area above her bed. “Well, there's a problem. Let me see … We need something
high and fairly sturdy.” He looked around the room and then his face brightened. “Ah, the curtain rod will do. Take the footstool over and put it on the window seat.”

“Lindsay, don't do it.”

“If you don't, the last thing you'll see are your beloved housekeeper's brains splattered all over your wallpaper,” he announced with a cold, tight smile. “Get on with it, Lindsay. I don't have all day.”

She retrieved the footstool from in front of the chair and headed toward the window. Could she throw it at him? she wondered. Would he flinch before he thought of pulling the trigger and killing Abigail? She didn't know and she couldn't take the risk with her friend's life. If only she'd asked Jack to pull down her curtains….

Jack. Dear God, she hoped Jack didn't believe she'd actually killed herself. He had regrets enough in his life without adding her death to them. Maybe he'd sail before her body was discovered. Maybe he'd never know. That would be for the best. She loved him so much, she didn't want his heart hurt again.

“That's a good girl,” Ben crooned as she placed the footstool on the cushion of the window seat. “Now climb up and tie the end of the sheet around the curtain rod. And tie it right. We wouldn't want it to slip loose at the wrong moment, would we?”

Lindsay hesitated yet again, considering the window itself and wondering if she'd survive the fall. But in leaping, she'd be leaving Abigail at the madman's mercy.

“Get up there and get the strip tied as you were told or she dies right now!”

Lindsay gathered her skirts and scrambled onto the cushion. As she gained her feet and stepped up onto the precariously balanced footstool, she said, “In case this ends badly, Abigail, I want you to know that it's not your fault. You—”

“In case this ends badly?” Ben chortled. “In case? Who do you think is going to come save you? Certainly not the little slip of a thing that opened the door for me.”

Lindsay's heart lurched. “What did you do to Lucy?”

“The front step was slightly too public to eliminate her
permanently, but I do believe I hit her hard enough that she's still lying quietly in the front shrubbery. Were you hoping that she went to summon help?”

Lindsay met her housekeeper's gaze and tried to smile bravely. “Jack will be here any minute,” she promised.
Please, Jack, please. If ever there was anything at all between us, please know that I need you. That I love you.