Cliffhanger (The Belinda & Bennett Mysteries, Book One) (18 page)

"Already
taken care of," Belinda said. "I'm okay."

Carmichael held
her gaze for a minute until he felt sure she meant it. "Have you had any
word on Kyle?"

Belinda shook her
head. They'd all agreed it was best to keep his return quiet. "We need
your help. Seeing that you're one of the top lawyers in Portside, I thought
you'd probably know most of the others in the area."

Belinda could
instantly see his feathers start to fluff out. "Who do you want to know
about?"

"An
immigration lawyer named Mark Byrne," Bennett said.

Carmichael sat
back in his seat with his hands on his stomach. "Please tell me you
haven't hired him."

"No,"
Belinda said. "He assaulted me, and he's possibly connected to Jeff."

"That
doesn't surprise me as Byrne is definitely connected to Stellan." Carmichael grunted. "He always had to drag that poor boy into his mischief."

Bennett gently
pulled Belinda back into her seat as she'd slid to the edge of it.

"Stellan
likes his schemes," Carmichael said. "You no doubt heard about
different things he was involved in as a kid. Well, it only got worse. I'd
heard he hadn't come by all of his money honestly, but it was confirmed when
Jeff came to me for advice on how to extract himself from a scheme Stellan had
gotten him tangled in. He left out specifics, needless to say, but gave me
enough to know it was something very illegal and that Byrne was somehow
involved with them."

"When did he
come to see you?" Belinda said.

"Right after
he got into town apparently. I don't think he wanted anyone to know about
it."

"So what did
you tell him to do?" Bennett said.

"I advised
him to delicately remove himself from the situation, paying them both out if necessary
and go back to California and stop answering Stellan's calls."

Belinda thought
about her conversation with Jeff at the party. "Did Jeff...did he seem
like something else was bothering him?"

"Like what,
my dear?"

"Like...like
something heavier than that?" Belinda leaned forward. "Murder."

Carmichael
blinked through his glasses. "Murder, Belinda? Because of the people he
was connected to?"

"No, because
of what happened to Mark."

Carmichael
processed her statement, saying "oh" several times in different
tones. "Jeff was a disturbed young man." He shrugged. "He only
opened up about the scheme."

"Thank
you."

"It's
nothing. And you'll..." Carmichael waved his hand in lieu of finishing the
thought.

Belinda smiled
knowingly. "I'll be sure to mention this to Nana when I talk to her."

Carmichael
smiled.

They left him
yelling for his secretary about the tea he'd asked for hours ago. Belinda
stared thoughtfully ahead of her as they retraced their steps to the park. If
Jeff had tried to extricate himself from the sour business affair and Byrne was
also at the party that night...well, it looked like a distinct possibility that
Byrne killed him. On the other hand, Jeff had wanted to talk about the sailing
accident, which was now confirmed as not an accident, and he seemed absorbed
with that, not some crooked alliance. Maybe there was more to Mark's death that
Jeff knew that even Stellan didn't realize.

As warned,
Bennett immediately drove her home, ordering her to stay put for a while.
Yawning, Belinda wasn't feeling like disobeying anyway. At her door, Bennett
looked like he wanted to do more than just say good-bye, but he told her he'd
see her soon and trailed away. Disappointed again, Belinda watched him drive
off and closed the front door.

Chapter 21

The time spent on
the rocks confirmed one thing. Well, two actually, from Belinda's perspective.
One, someone other than her and Kyle knew about and used the back path up to
the Mayhew house. Second, and this was completely unrelated to the case,
Bennett was unrelentingly appealing. She never thought she'd see the day she
could walk away from fishing and say that she enjoyed it. But wonders never
cease and that day had officially come.

Belinda skipped
into her home, completely ready to cozy up in her bed with something to munch
on, half of her body still damp from their fishing experience, and her heart
racing from the afternoon's events.

Kyle met her in
the hallway. "Why are you so happy?" She stopped short, realizing she
was humming. "You're all wet." Kyle sniffed, making a face. "And
you smell like fish. And your wrist is bandaged. What have you been doing?"

"Fishing,"
Belinda said, her eyes darting to Kyle's hand and what he was holding more
importantly.

"Fishing?
You?" Kyle laughed. "I know I was checked out for a few days, but did
I miss something? Do pigs fly now?"

Belinda put her
good hand on her hip. "It wasn't a casual fishing trip if you must
know."

"Obviously."
Kyle pointed to her wrist. "Was Bennett there?"

"Yes, he
was."

Kyle smirked.
"So did you catch anything? Other than him of course."

"In fact, I
did." Belinda stuck up her nose proudly.

"What kind
of fish did you catch?"

"I don't
know what it was. Some sort of small, silvery thing." Belinda showed the
fish's approximate size with her hands.

"Impressive.
So where is it? You probably got one filet, if that, from the sounds of
things."

"I told you,
it wasn't a casual fishing trip. I threw him back."

"Wait, wait,
wait. You touched a live fish?" Kyle tossed his head back and laughed.
"Who is this guy? He must have the Book of Belinda hidden away somewhere
with all these secrets on how to convince you to do certain things. I sure
never could get you to do anything like that."

Belinda narrowed
her eyes. "That's because you're my brother."

"Ah, I see.
It's because you don't want to make out with me after touching the dead
fish." Kyle grinned. "Now about the bandage. Did you slip and fall
too?"

Belinda picked at
the edges of the bandage until she heard Bennett in her head telling her to cut
it out. She tried to explain in brief what she'd done that afternoon, including
Bald Guy's arrest.

"It was him
spying on you," Kyle said. "It's got to be."

"Bald Guy
probably caught you at the museum too. He seems like a real jerk."

"He must be
if he's working with Lily."

Her eyes wandered
back to what Kyle held. "What do you have there?" She pointed at his
hand. Kyle tossed a book in the air, catching it with his other hand and held
it out to her. "Our yearbook?"

Kyle smirked.
"Your yearbook. I couldn't find mine."

"You went
and dug this out? Why?"

"Just
curious with everything going on." He shrugged. "I thought you might
want to see it too." Belinda smiled, flipping through the pages of the
hardcover book. He couldn't find his wallet that morning, but their
yearbook.... "Now that you've learned how to fish and gotten over your
phobia of slimy things, you can move on to case solving and really blow Bennett
Tate's clockwork mind." He dodged her swing with the book and ran into his
room, shutting the door before she could strike again.

"I like his
clockwork mind," she said through the door and she could hear Kyle
chuckle. Belinda sighed and took her book and plopped onto her bed, then
groaned when she realized she'd forgotten to change out of her wet clothes.

She flipped
through the pages of the book, scanning all of the messages. Most of the notes
were bland congratulations with a lot of phone numbers mixed in. She was pretty
sure she didn't call half of those people.

Belinda purposely
took her time reading them anyway, not wanting to admit to herself whose note
she wanted to hurry up and find. Eventually, she came to it. Mark's note was actually
just a sketch. A simple doodle of a special knot. Belinda traced the lines.
Though she hadn't looked at it in years, Belinda could still see it exactly in
her mind. Mark had taught her to tie knots one summer when they were younger
and it had become their symbol, almost an inside joke. The thing that had
solidified their friendship ages ago.

Then the summer
after graduation, that knot became their symbol for a meeting place. Mark knew
about this abandoned warehouse that the Mayhews owned. They'd meet up there and
sometimes Mark hauled
Sea Stud
into the docks and they'd go out to swim
for the afternoon. Belinda had never even told Kyle that she and Mark had met
up alone sometimes. But her mind rewound to the photos Lily had of her and Mark
on the boat alone. Did Lily know about the warehouse?

She scrambled
through her purse, digging out the business card from Stellan. She flipped it
over, the address of the supposedly abandoned warehouse written in black ink.
Obviously, he hadn't meant to give her that information, but she knew Byrne and
Stellan were connected now, and not because of Byrne's private investigating
skills, so it was too late. Byrne was now also connected to Lily. She tapped
the card against her chin.
Sea Stud
was in that warehouse, she could
feel it.

Belinda ran out
of her room, bumping into Kyle coming out of his. "Are you all
right?" he said. "You look a little wild-eyed."

"No,
no." Belinda wanted to rope her heart and pin it to the ground to keep
calm. "I just remembered I needed something from the store. I wanna take
care of it before I get comfortable." She forced a smile.

Kyle looked her
over, still damp, and definitely excited or nervous about something. He watched
her suspiciously while he offered her some chocolate candies, which she turned
down, and pushed past him down the stairs. The door slammed and Kyle chewed on
his candy thoughtfully and went to check out her yearbook.

As Belinda zipped
out of her driveway toward the warehouse, an unseen spy left to meet her there.

~ * ~

The warehouse was
located on the water outside of Portside. For all intents and purposes it
looked abandoned to Belinda, but she knew that Stellan's family had earned
their wealth the hard way and that this metal box was once the flourishing
headquarters of his family's business. Something fish-related, Belinda thought.
How they earned their money had changed over the years, but they apparently
still held a soft spot for how it all started. Why else would they keep such an
eyesore?

Belinda parked on
the edge of the property, scoping out the uneven parking lot before heading
toward the warehouse. Whatever life existed outside of the property was hidden
by trees and brush. It seemed the sentimentality for the place stopped with
just holding onto the property. Belinda wondered if they'd used it for anything
in recent history, or at least since Stellan's father died.

She marched
toward the main warehouse, which looked like the most promising place to keep a
boat. Belinda took a deep breath and slowly twisted the knob of the door on the
side of the corrugated metal. She switched on a flashlight, waving it around
before stepping all the way inside. Belinda crept along, keeping her eyes and
ears alert for any signs of wild creatures taking refuge in the rafters, especially
ones with wings.

Once inside,
Belinda could see a couple of tables set up with boxes stacked on and around
them. Curious, she slowly pulled back one of the box flaps that was loose,
prepared for something furry with teeth to jump out at her. But she only found
inanimate papers. Official looking. She flipped through a stack, and lifted up
one of several little booklets. Visas? Passports? Belinda pursed her lips. Bald
Guy was an immigration lawyer. A bird flew around the roof, scaring her to
death and she dropped them, pushing the box away.

She picked up
speed in a diagonal line from the door, spotting something with her flashlight
in the opposite corner toward the back. Sure enough, it was a boat. She ran the
flashlight back and forth to find the stern, noticing there was another door on
that end. Belinda flung it open to let light and air inside and stood behind
the stern to read the name.
Sea Stud
.

Sometimes she
felt that the boat became the center of attention in the whole story instead of
the people involved. It was the setting for a horrible tragedy, and it stood
there now in decay as a sign of how deeply that event had affected certain
people. Kyle was just letting it rot, along with his passion for sailing.

Belinda reached
her hand out to the stern, touching the peeling letters that spelled Portside
under the boat name. She wanted to get onto it, but it was too high up on the
pilings to reach the sides and there was no swim platform to grab hold of. She
flicked the flashlight back on and reentered the dark warehouse, spotting what
looked like a crate. After trying to pull it across the rock-infested pavement
while still holding the flashlight, Belinda set the light on top of the box,
and made it across to the boat in much better time. She set the light down on
the deck, and with her uninjured palm and one leg, pulled her body up and under
the railing. She stood up to find her clothes had wiped off all of the dirt
build-up on the boat and dusted herself off as good as possible.

She opened the
hatch to the cabin, more spacious than you would give a sailboat that size
credit for. After scoping out the situation with her flashlight, she took a
deep breath and climbed down, a tiny bit scared of what she would find down
there besides dirt. The interior had apparently been stripped of anything not
native to the boat. Not that you could keep a lot of knickknacks around on a
moving craft, but she knew Mark had had some personal touches on board that
were now missing.

Belinda leaned
against one of the dining table benches. Goodness, she had a lot of memories
wrapped up in this piece of fiberglass. So many summer days sailing in the bay
and striking out beyond into the straight Atlantic. Anchoring in various
alcoves to swim. Curled up in sweatshirts and watching the sun set over the
water. Mark kissing her that one time...

And then
Belinda's lights went out.