The Secrets She Kept (27 page)

“No apologies necessary—” her grin turned slightly wicked “—
if
it was because you were too busy at Coldiron House.”

“I was...pretty busy,” she admitted and quickly pulled Jade in for a hug so her sister wouldn’t be able to tell that she was suddenly and inexplicably on the brink of tears.

Jade stiffened. She wasn’t much of a hugger; she preferred to show her affection in other ways. But Nancy was used to that, so she wasn’t offended.

“And? How’d it go?” her sister asked.

That split-second reprieve, during which she’d managed to dodge her sister’s piercing gaze, helped. By the time Jade could see her face, Nancy was once again able to fake a smile. “It was...incredible.”

“Wow. That’s better than good.”

“Easily the hottest thing
I’ve
ever experienced.”

“Really? But wait, maybe I shouldn’t be so excited. The hottest thing
you’ve
ever experienced isn’t saying much.”

Nancy managed a laugh. “Not all of us can be as adventurous as you are.”

“I’m a lesbian. I
have
to get creative. I could tell you—”

Nancy shook her head. “Enough!”

“It’s so much fun to shock you. You’re one of the few people I know who can still blush. Which means I probably won’t get many details about last night.”

“You’ll get this—he’s a talented lover.”

“Whoa! Big deal. You told me that before, remember? Did he ask to see you again?”

“I could go back over, if I want.”

Jade’s eyebrows knitted. “He doesn’t care one way or the other?”

“He asked me to return tonight. He sounded as if he’d really like that, but...”

“But
what
? You had fun! Why the hesitation?”

“I’m just another girl to him, Jade—someone to keep him busy while he’s here.”

“I doubt
that’s
true.”

Nancy recalled the text she’d seen from “Dahlia.” “Trust me. It’s true. I’m afraid of getting in too deep. I’d rather not be devastated when he leaves.”

Jade bit her lip. Nancy expected her to immediately change her position, to retrench, but she didn’t. “You’re strong. You can survive it,” she said at length. “Life is all about taking chances. If you care about him, go with it and see where it leads.”

“Last night you told me I was walking into the lion’s den. Now that I’m agreeing with you, telling you I nearly didn’t make it out alive, you’re saying I should
go back in
?”

“Someone like you...you deserve to find love. That won’t happen if you’re always protecting yourself. Sometimes you’ve got to reach for what you want.”

Nancy cocked her head. “I’m not sure whether you’re good for me or not.”

“Don’t you think he’s worth it?”

If he was as invested as she was, Nancy knew she’d make any sacrifice. But a relationship that was too one-sided wouldn’t go anywhere. “I think you’re blinded by the love you have for me,” she said. “You want me to be happy.”

“I won’t deny that.”

Nancy caught a glimpse of something that stopped her from making any type of rejoinder. A black Mercedes had just pulled into the lot—and she recognized it. “He’s here!”

“Who’s here?” Jade turned around to see for herself. “Aw, lover boy,” she said with satisfaction.

“Please don’t embarrass me! And in case that isn’t clear, that means no more talk of blow jobs or...anything along those lines.” Nancy whispered this, even though there wasn’t any chance that Keith could hear her from outside. He was just getting out of the car.

“I won’t embarrass you.” Jade threw her a look that suggested Nancy was being ridiculous to mention it. But Nancy shouldn’t have believed her. As soon as Keith walked through the door, Jade gave him an obvious once-over and said, “I hear you really know how to please the ladies.”

Keith’s eyebrows slid up but, fortunately, he didn’t act too shocked. “Glad I can do something right.”

“That’s it,” Nancy said. “You’re leaving,” she told Jade.

“Oh, relax.” Jade waved her off. “He can take a joke.”

He blocked her path to the door. “And she can’t leave. I need to talk to her.”

Although he’d played along with Jade so far, Nancy could tell he wasn’t in the mood for jokes this morning. “What is it?”

“It’s about my mother.”

Jade sobered, too. “You want to talk to
me
about your mother? Should I be worried?”

“Not at all. I’m hoping you can help me.”

“How?”

“Someone broke into Coldiron House last Wednesday night.”

Jade glanced at Nancy. “I don’t mean to be callous, but...wasn’t your mother already dead by then?”

“Jade—” Nancy said, but Keith cut her off.

“Yes, she was. That’s why it’s odd—that four days later someone would break into the house.”

“I still don’t understand what I have to do with any of this,” Jade said.

“I’m trying to find a certain young woman who flagged down Marcus Coleman as he passed the turnoff to the cliff late that night. She could be an islander, but he didn’t recognize her, so...maybe she wasn’t.”

“I know Marcus. I remember him from high school. He just got out of prison and is
not
a nice dude. I certainly wouldn’t put him at the top of my list of people here who can be trusted.”

“I think he’s telling the truth,” Keith argued. “I also think...if this person came here from somewhere else, she would’ve needed a place to stay, since she couldn’t get off the island in the middle of the night.”

“You’re wondering if I had a young woman staying at the Drift Inn last Wednesday night.”

“Yes. A woman wearing a trench coat and a scarf.”

“To be honest, I don’t remember anyone like that. But you know how the Drift Inn’s built. It’s garden-style. You don’t have to go through the lobby to reach the rooms, so I would only have seen her if she was the one who checked in.”

“You don’t remember anything unusual about that night?”

“No. And I was on duty. But...let me check the registration records. Maybe that’ll jog my memory as to who was there.”

“Any chance we could do that right now?”

Jade pursed her lips. “I’m all for helping out a friend, but since that information is supposed to be kept private, I’d rather have Chief Underwood make the request, if that’s okay.”

“I’m sure she’ll do that eventually. But by the time she knows what I already know, and makes those registration records a priority, the trail could be cold.”

“What are you talking about?” Nancy asked. “What do you know?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “That she’s focusing on the wrong person.”

Fresh worry made Nancy grip the edge of the counter. Rocki, Maisey, Keith—they’d all been through enough. “Landon?”

“Rocki.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No. Underwood’s in Louisiana now. Along with the Lafitte police, she’s searching Rocki’s house.”

Nancy nudged Jade. “Let him take a look at the registration records. If that turns up nothing, no one’ll have to be the wiser.”

“Except that Violet’s working today,” Jade said. “She’d love to take over as manager if I get fired.”

“Can’t you act like you’re there to get something else and make a copy of the records at the same time?” Nancy asked.

“Probably could, but...what if it goes the other way? What if I
do
find something?”

“That would be a
good
thing,” Keith said. “You could help solve a murder
and
keep an innocent person from going to prison.”

“You haven’t mentioned the part where I could lose my job,” she grumbled.

“If it comes to that, I’ll buy the Drift Inn so Violet never takes your place,” he told her.

Jade threw up her hands. “Oh, what the hell. It’s not like I plan on managing a motel for the rest of my life, anyway. And you’re not going to use the information to harm anyone, so I don’t have to worry about that. Come on.”

Keith started to follow her out. Then he turned at the door, walked back and kissed Nancy. “I’ll call you later,” he said.

25

JADE HAD HIM
wait in the car while she ran in. Keith watched through the window as she spoke with the woman behind the counter before disappearing into the back.

It took longer than he’d expected, but when Jade finally came out, she hurried toward him with a coat draped over one arm. Thanks to a sudden gust of wind, he could see she had a file hidden underneath it, which was encouraging.

“Everything go okay?” he asked as she climbed in.

Tilting her head to peer into the lobby, she slid the file into view, careful to keep it below the dash. “Yeah, but let’s go before Violet realizes I wasn’t just picking up the coat I left here last week.”

He put the car in Drive and pulled out of the parking lot. “That took a while.”

“Violet was all worked up. Chief Underwood sent Les Scott over first thing this morning to get copies of the records, so she was kind of freaked out. ‘Do you think whoever killed Josephine Lazarow was staying
here
?’ That sort of thing.”

“Were you working the night my mother was killed—or was she?”

“She was. That’s partly why she’s so worked up. ‘Whoever it was could’ve killed
me
.’”

“Did she say if Les found anything?”

“She has no clue. She copied the records, put them in a manila envelope and he came by and picked them up.”

Keith had tried to call Chief Underwood earlier, as soon as he’d heard from Landon. He’d wanted to ask if she’d found some piece of evidence he didn’t know about. But she hadn’t picked up. He was fairly certain she was avoiding his call. Now that she felt Rocki might be his mother’s killer, she didn’t fully trust him, or she would’ve said something about the search when he spoke with her last night. She must’ve been talking to him from a motel room in New Orleans or somewhere closer to Lafitte than South Carolina, since she’d arrived at Rocki’s house so early.

“Tell me you got the records for Saturday
and
Wednesday.”

“Of course.”

“Did you see anything that stuck out while you were making the copies?”

She removed the sheets of paper from the envelope. “I didn’t even look. I was in too much of a hurry. But I can go through them now.” She frowned as she perused her own handwriting. “Okay, of the forty rooms we have available, we rented nineteen last Wednesday night.”

“That’s more than I was expecting—for winter.”

“We usually get forty to fifty percent occupancy on weekdays, which, during the winter, are busier than weekends.”

“Do you recognize any of the people?”

“Quite a few. Peter Mann was in town. He comes over to sell restaurant supplies every six months or so. Leland and Tina Hatch are hoping to open a B and B here in a year or two, when Leland retires. There were some biologists researching the marine fauna. They took two rooms. Leslie Harrison checked in.” She shot him a look. “But she only needed the room for a few hours.”

Leslie Harrison ran the ice-cream parlor and could’ve been Dolly Parton’s twin sister. She’d been fooling around on her husband for years. “Leslie’s still cheating?”

“She pretended she and Jeff were having an argument, so she needed the room all night because she wasn’t ‘about to stay under the same roof with him.’ But I wasn’t fooled. I saw her ‘guest’ sneak up to the second story. And I saw them both leave an hour later.”

Keith was driving, so he couldn’t read the list, but he gestured to it. “And the others?”

“We had a family—the Wilkersons. Mom, Dad and both kids. They have this goal of visiting one hundred lighthouses before the year is out and came to see ours.”

“They don’t sound like suspicious characters.”

“Definitely not. But neither are any of the others.”

“Any women who were alone?”

She lifted the top page to check the one underneath. “None.”

“Were any of the people who stayed on Wednesday the same as those who were at the motel on Saturday?”

She shook her head. “No. Completely new tenants. All of them.”

Damn. He’d had such high hopes for those records.

Once they reached Coldiron House, he’d look over what she had. Then he’d check to see who was staying at The Carriage Inn. That motel was smaller, and set on a back street, so he’d felt a stranger might not know about it. But there was always a chance.

His phone buzzed. When he stopped to put the code in at the gate, he glanced down to see why. Rocki had sent him a text.
They took my computer.

He parked in the drive. It wasn’t raining, so he didn’t see any point in using the garage. He and Jade wouldn’t be at the house long enough to bother.

“Holy shit,” Jade said. “This is gorgeous!”

“You’ve never been here?” he asked as they climbed the steps to the porch.

“I’m not exactly someone your mother would invite to tea. I saw her all over town, but I bet she only knew me as ‘that lesbian sister of Nancy’s.’”

“That’s entirely possible.” He let her in the house. Then he texted Rocki back.
What will they find?

On my computer? My plane reservations to and from Fairham.

Your phone already placed you on Fairham. Anything else?

I don’t know. I have no idea what they’ll perceive as incriminating. My life is falling apart so fast I can’t even think straight.

Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m doing all I can to find the real culprit.

What if they charge me?

They’re not going to charge you. But if they do, don’t say a word. Tell them you’d like a lawyer.

You believe I didn’t do it, don’t you?

Absolutely.

He started to put his phone away, then pulled it out again.
Did they find a wig?

A wig? Like for Halloween costumes? I’m sure we have a few—one for a witch, that kind of thing.

The fact that she didn’t immediately know what he was talking about encouraged him.
I’m asking about a regular brown wig.

No. I’ve never bought a wig in my life. They can check anything, anywhere. I wouldn’t even know where to get a decent one.

That’s good news. It’s going to be okay, like I said. How are you and Landon getting along?

We’re not. We’re like strangers. We barely talk. I heard two cops whispering about that naked picture Landon sent Mom. They said, “Who could blame her? My wife would probably do the same thing.” Everyone thinks I did it.

We’re going to prove you didn’t.

She didn’t reply, so he tried calling her, but she wouldn’t pick up.

“Everything okay?” Jade asked.

“No,” he said. “But let’s see what we can do to fix it.”

After slipping his phone in his pocket, he led her to the dining room, where they spread the papers she’d copied at the motel on the table. He recognized the names she’d mentioned in the car and asked about the rest. As she’d told him before, there were no women who’d rented a room alone. But he didn’t believe the woman who had stopped Marcus on the road that night
had
been alone. Someone had been inside his house...

“Could any of the females who were there be in their thirties?”

“No. They were all older.”

He made his way down the list, eventually pointing to a name three-quarters down. “What about this guy? Did he have a wife?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember her?”

“Not really. I never actually saw her. But she called the front office later that night, asking for an extra blanket. I was shocked that she’d need one. We have the big feather comforters on the beds at this time of year. They’re so warm. But she said she wasn’t used to the cold weather. Said it was summer where she lived.”

An uneasy feeling prickled Keith’s spine. “She said it was
summer
where she lived?”

“Yeah. They were from Australia. She and her husband had the coolest accents.”

Now Keith’s whole body was tingling. “Did she give you
her
name?”

“She might have. I don’t remember it, though. And her husband didn’t put her on the room, so...”

“How long did they stay?”

“Just the one night. Checked out early the next morning.”

He stared at the name “Harry Middleton” again. Was it merely a coincidence that there’d been a man from Australia staying at the Drift Inn on the night there’d been an intruder at Coldiron House?

It could easily be a coincidence. Keith had to acknowledge that. But “Harry Middleton” bothered him as much as the Australian accent. He couldn’t help wondering if it’d been fabricated by meshing the first name of England’s Prince Harry with Kate Middleton’s last. Some lies went that way—they sort of evolved from easy associations. “Did you check his ID?”

“I always check ID, but I admit I didn’t check his very carefully. He was
totally
credible, and he’d already paid for the room online, so I wasn’t worried that we’d get stiffed.”

“Was it a driver’s license or...”

“It was a passport with a blurry picture, which didn’t do him justice. He had to be sixty or so, but he was handsome in a polished sort of way. Reminded me of George Clooney.”

Keith rubbed his chin. Could this be who he thought it was? The age and accent certainly fit...

“Did you get his license plate number?”

“Why would I do that?”

“A lot of hotels ask for a license plate number, even with a rental.”

“Maybe in the big city, where parking’s a problem. Not out here, especially in the winter when the lot’s half empty.”

“Hang on a sec,” he said and went upstairs to get his mother’s phone. Fortunately, Chief Underwood had returned it to him when she’d brought it over, along with Josephine’s computer.

When he found it, he searched through his mother’s pictures until he came to one that showed her with a George Clooney type, as Jade had indicated. This had to be Hugh Pointer. Josephine had a lot of pictures of him and with him—especially over the past year.

Taking the phone, he hurried back downstairs to find Jade wandering around the house, admiring the furnishings.

“What’s it like to be so rich?” she asked.

“I’m not going to lie. It has its benefits.” He held out his mother’s phone to show her the picture he’d pulled up. “This isn’t Harry Middleton, the ‘credible’ older guy who checked in last Wednesday night, is it?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Yes!” she cried. “How’d you know?”

* * *

Landon could hear Rocki cleaning up in the bedroom. The kids were at school. He’d gotten them there late but, after the initial disruption of having the cops show up first thing, they were out of the house. He’d wanted Rocki to take them, to spare her the humiliation of watching the police search the house, but she was too upset to go anywhere. He sensed that by staying, she somehow felt she was protecting her belongings.

After dropping off Zac and Chloe, however, he’d come home to find that the police weren’t taking much care with the house, in spite of her presence. He couldn’t do anything to change that, either. He and Rocki could only stand by as half a dozen men, along with Fairham’s chief of police, ransacked every drawer, cupboard and closet and inspected every nook and cranny. They even rummaged through their underwear and the shoebox hidden in the closet where they kept their sex toys so the kids wouldn’t find them.

After the initial shock of being invaded by police officers, Rocki had watched in silence, tears streaming down her face.

Seeing her so devastated had nearly killed Landon. He wasn’t sure if Chief Underwood found anything she deemed “telling” or important. She hadn’t been particularly friendly to him, and he could understand why. She identified with the pain his actions had caused Rocki. That seemed to hold true even for the men on the Lafitte force, most of whom he knew from school, sports or business.

He’d destroyed his wife and created the worst experience of his life...

In the end, the police had taken Rocki’s hairbrush, her computer and a wig that she’d purchased with a Disney costume for Chloe some years ago. But at least it was over, and they hadn’t taken more. Although the search seemed to have lasted for days, the officers and Underwood were gone.

He called his mother to see if she’d get the kids and take them to her place after school, said he and Rocki were dealing with some “problems” and was grateful when she agreed. He hoped that brief respite would give him and his wife a chance to regroup before they had to face Chloe and Zac. If they could pretend that what had happened this morning was just some big misunderstanding, maybe the kids wouldn’t have to suffer along with them.

But he wasn’t convinced Rocki would be able to bounce back. The invasion of their privacy, especially at such a difficult time, had been hard on her.

Closing his eyes, he let his head fall against the couch, where he’d dropped a few seconds earlier. If only he’d never gotten involved with Josephine. Then he wouldn’t have had any reason to go to Fairham instead of Vegas, and Rocki wouldn’t have followed him there and this would never have happened.

But, bad as it was, he feared the worst was yet to come...

What if she went to prison? That wasn’t unheard of, even with people who were innocent.

His phone pinged, signaling a text.

Daddy, what’s going on? Chloe texted me that the police came to the house this morning! I’d call, but I’m in class.

Thank God for small favors, because he couldn’t bear to talk to Brooklyn right now, feared she’d see right through his “everything’s okay” act.
It’s nothing, babe
, he wrote back.
A misunderstanding about Grandma Josephine. When someone’s been murdered they have to look at everyone who was close to her.

I knew she didn’t commit suicide!

You were right. I think we all felt pretty strongly about that. Anyone who knew her would have a hard time believing she’d do something like that.

But why would they bother you guys? You live in Louisiana!

They’re just being thorough. We have nothing to worry about. But please don’t bother Mom right now. It’s been a hard morning.

I won’t. I have to put my phone away before I get in trouble. But call me later, okay?