Deadly Reunion (19 page)

“We were at the annual Harvest Ball at the Gold Rus
h Country Club,” Melodie said. “It’s a member’s only event.”

Grace looked at her watch. “This late?”

Melodie looked irritated. “It was just ending when Sheriff Bellamy called.”

“Since when is he a member?” Hope asked
, pointing to Kyle.

“Oh, I’m a prospective member,” he said smiling. “I’m surprised you haven’t been asked yet, Hope? I barely unpacked before they were begging me to join.”

As fun as it was to see her sister at a loss for words, Grace decided it was time to bring everyone’s attention back to her and her impeding imprisonment. “Excuse me! Do I get some kind of bail or something?”

“Could someone explain to me what is going on?” Kyle asked, clearly confused.

Grace, for the second time that night explained her side of the events. A quick look at Kyle’s face told her that he didn’t believe her any more than anyone else in the room, with the possible exception of Mr. Collins. She always did like Mr. Collins, such a sweet man, she thought, as she smiled at her lone ally in this horrible affair.

S
heriff Bellamy shook his head. “Okay, Ms. Holliday, perhaps some kids did break in tonight, but I don’t believe for a second you just walked in there to clear them out. I think you decided to take advantage of the situation. When you found the school open, you went in there to do some investigating.”

“Ms. Holliday!” Kyle said in
a patently false outraged voice.

Bellamy continued, ignoring Kyle’s outburst. “I can tell you
, me and my deputies have been all over that school. We don’t need some slick investigator from New York mucking things up,” Bellamy said, turning to glare at Kyle. “Now, what I want to know is, did you put her up to this?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Sheriff, I can assure you Mr. Drake has been with Melodie and I all evening,” James said. “If she did this it had to be on her own initiative.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Steve chimed in. “She was probably trying to score points with her boss.”

Mr. Collins tried to shush him, but Steve continued. “I mean, the night of the reunion, she made such a big deal out of her being a detective, and we all know she’s just his secretary. She was telling all of these outrageous stories.”

Grace
scowled at Kyle.

“
She clearly just wants attention.” Steve looked over at Kyle, carefully gaging his reaction. Kyle, his face grave, glared back.

“
It’s kind of sad, actually,” Steve said, looking down at his shoes. “Oh, hell, why don’t we all just forget this night happened and let her go?”

“Thanks Steve,” Grace said
, through gritted teeth.

“Well, we don’t need any amateur detectives mucking about
, either,” Bellamy shouted, pointing a thick finger at Kyle’s chest. “You need to control your people.”

“Sheriff, I assure you that this is not how I run
Kyle Drake Investigations. I’m sure Ms. Holliday was only trying to help,” Kyle said trying to smooth things over. The last thing he wanted was for Grace to be thrown into jail.

“
Drake,” Steve said, walking up and slapping a hand on Kyle’s back, “I know it’s hard to do, but sometimes it’s best to let problem employees go. I can’t tell you how many secretaries I’ve had to fire. You know, I’d be happy to help you out with anything you need here.”

“She’s just a little excitable,” Kyle said reluctantly.
“I’ll have a talk with her.”

Traitor, Grace
thought. “Oh no. I completely understand, sir, if you need to let me go.”

Grace sat
back in her chair, amused, as he started to backtrack. “That's not necessary, Ms. Holliday. You're a good assistant. We just need to talk.”

Melodie
stepped forward and laid a hand on Kyle’s shoulder, as she looked down at her. “Grace, you ought to be grateful Kyle is still willing to talk to you, and not fire you on the spot. A lot of people would love to work for a boss as kind and understanding.”

To Grace’s shock and horror, heads started nodding up and down in agreement.
Apparently, there was a consensus forming among her family and friends that she was lucky Kyle was still willing to put up with her. Even the officers seemed to agree.

“Oh
, I don’t think grateful really captures my feelings on the subject.”

“Honestly, Grace, I really think you should apologize,”
Melodie said, while winding her arm through Kyle’s. “Did you know what she was planning on doing tonight, honey?”

Honey
? Grace thought, as she glared up at Kyle.

“No,
I thought she was staying in for the night.”

She suddenly found her normally passive father towering over her, “You told us you were going to a late movie.”

“It's the lying that
really disturbs me,” Kyle said, following her father to the corner of the room where her mother, James Simpson and Mr. Collins were quietly speaking to Sheriff Bellamy. Grace shifted over on the bench as Melodie sat down next to her.

“Grace, don’t worry, I’ll talk to
Ky,” Melodie said soothingly.

Ky
? While processing this new bit of trivia, Grace continued glaring at Kyle’s back.

“I know he seems upset now
, but I'll calm him down. Don't worry. I won't let him fire you.”

“Thanks. I can't tell you how worried
I am about that,” Grace said. Melodie not sensing the sarcasm smiled sweetly, gave Grace a hug, and walked over to speak to Hope who, Grace noticed, distraught over her twin’s predicament was soothing herself by filing her nails.

Grace watched as Kyle sauntered over to her with a smug expression on his face.

“Yes. Hopefully, I will be able to keep this job. I don’t know what I would do without it. I mean, where else can you find a fake job—” Panicking Kyle quickly pulled Grace out off the bench and dragged her into the hallway away from the rest of the group. “Fake boss. No pay. I don't know what I would do with the rest of my life without this job. Hopefully, I can pick up the pieces of my life . . .”

“Shh,” he said, placing his hand over her mouth. Realizing they were alone, he removed his hand and smiled down at her.
“What did you do? I thought you were just going to meet Adam for dinner and go home.”

“Things changed,” she said
crossing her arms and glaring at her family and friends filing out of the waiting room and into the hallway. “What happened to you? I thought you and Melodie were just going to go to that French restaurant in town.”

Kyle grinned sheepishly. “We ran into James Simpson
after lunch, and he invited us to the country club ball. I tried to call you, but your phone just went to voicemail. You're not going to quit on me, are you?”

Grace raised her hand to her heart.
“You mean I'm not fired?” she asked sarcastically. “Oh thank goodness. I was so worried.”

“Oh
, come on. What was I supposed to say? I’ve convinced Bellamy that you’re just a tad bit overzealous. I told him that I’m going to keep a close eye on you. Thanks to James, he’s agreeing not to bring charges. Please don’t quit,” he pleaded with her.

“I'
m not going to quit. Not now. Everyone in that room thinks I'm an idiot. If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to find out who killed Crystal. I’m hoping its Steve, but whoever it is, just so you know, even if you figure it out first, I'm taking credit for it.”

“Fine by me,” he said, pleased she wasn't giving up.

“First thing tomorrow we are going to talk to Adam, and he is going to tell us everything he knows.”

CHA
PTER FOURTEEN

G
race pulled back
the white lace curtains, hanging in her parent’s living room, and looked out at the empty street. Kyle had promised he would pick her up early the next morning. She should have remembered that Kyle’s definition of early was a few minutes before noon.

She let the curtain drop and considered asking her parents for the keys to their car. She c
ould catch up with Kyle later. After the events of last night, she was ready to get started. Despite her best intentions to stay out of the police’s way, she was failing miserably. Sometime between being arrested and her parents arriving at the sheriff’s office, she had decided that she was deeply involved in this murder investigation, whether she wanted to be or not.

At least now
, she and Kyle wouldn’t be flying blind. They had a lead. If it could be called that. A nice six-foot, curly-headed, bad-boy director lead. Adam knows something and she was determined to drag it out of him, even if she had to pull every little curl out of his head.

She caught a glimpse of red peekin
g out through the lace curtains and pulled them back to get a clearer look. Finally, she thought, as Kyle pulled into the driveway.

“Nine o’clock, Gracie,” her father warned, as she pulled the front door open.

Grace let out a long-suffering sigh. “Dad, I am too old to have a curfew.” After her family had left the police station, she and her parents had spent the remainder of the night arguing about the new rules of the house, which, Grace felt, were very much like the old rules of the house.

“Gracie, I completely agree
, but you heard your mother. You may not be afraid of her, but I am. I have plans to watch the championship game tonight and I don’t want that interrupted. So do as your mother says.”

“This is ridiculous.
Hope didn’t get home ‘till one o’clock the night before; why don’t you talk to her, too?”

“We didn’t have to
pick Hope up at the jail, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered as she dashed out the door.

Noticing that Kyle had already moved to the passenger seat, Grace moved to the driver’s side and sank down into the rich leather seat.

Feeling better than she had in a while, she threw the car in gear and bac
ked out of the driveway.

She hadn’t spent the morning sitting on her hands waiting for Kyle. She had spent a good three hours trying to track Adam down. Granted, two and half hours were spent talking, or rather, listening to Beth
, but it wasn’t completely unproductive, she was able to discover that Adam’s Great Aunt Margaret was still alive and might know where he was currently staying and that the house next to Beth’s was for rent. Apparently, Beth’s next-door neighbor had suddenly packed up and moved out. According to Beth this was the third neighbor in just three years—something about the neighborhood just not agreeing with them—but Grace decided it couldn’t hurt to take a look, once she had cornered Adam, that is.

Shortly after hanging up with Beth, Grace had a pleasan
t conversation with Adam’s aunt, who was more than happy to give her directions to the family’s old lake house where Adam was currently staying.

Grace smiled, as she imagined surprising Adam at his hiding place. Nothing like having a goal in life to make one feel useful, she thought. Granted, ringing Adam’s treasonous neck
wasn’t really a life-long goal, but it would suffice for now.

It took Grace a few minutes before she realized that her cheery greeting hadn’t been returned, nor had her usually talkative assistant made any noise whatsoever. She spared a few seconds to look at Kyle sitting next to her. His arms were folded across his chest,
his mouth pursed together and his eyes were staring straight ahead. It’s just going to be one of those days, she thought.

“Kyle, what’s
—”

“Why didn't you call me last night?” he said
, before she could complete her question. “We are supposed to be working on this together. You know I would have dropped everything.”

“Gee Kyle, I’m sorry that you weren’t invited to go on a late
-night crime spree! You’ll just have to bring it up to our client when we see him.”

“Is that where we’re headed?”

Grace nodded and explained how she found the information. “We are not leaving until Adam spills his guts. I still cannot believe that he just left me there! What if that had been a homicidal maniac chasing us through the school? I could be dead right now. Dead!” she said, as she swerved around a slow moving car, prompting Kyle to reach out a hand, ready to grab the steering wheel if necessary. “You may have to act threatening.”

“Well, considering how mad you are now
, I think you would do a better job at that than I would.”

“He’s hiding something,
and if we want to actually solve Crystal’s murder and not just play detective we need to find out exactly what he knows.”

“Speaking of playing detective, I wanted to let you
know, James Simpson told me last night that he had me checked out.”

Grace felt
her heart sink into her chest. Seeing her expression, Kyle quickly assured her that everything checked out. “Allen gave us a glowing recommendation.”

Disbelief warred with relief. “How did you do it?”

“Remember
Allen’s mandatory engagement party and the mystery of the strawberry punch?”

Grace nodded.
It's hard to forget the engagement party from hell. Grace spent weeks living in dread of that party. The last thing she wanted was to spend her well-earned time off with people she could barely stand to be around during work. She intentionally arrived late and had already planned her escape, but to her surprise, her normally unhappy, desolate, miserable co-workers were happily partying and enjoying the night. Kyle appeared to be on his best behavior, preforming a magic trick for a few of the female staff. Nothing was on fire and several people were dancing.

Even the
boss, Franklin Straker, who made Scrooge look like a hippie, had gotten into the spirit. Without warning, he jumped on the conference room desk, promised every employee the next week off and a thousand dollar bonus. It didn't stop there, once off the desk, he grabbed his new secretary around the waist and kissed her passionately. By the end of the night, he was passed out under the desk, wearing nothing but a wedding veil. It turned out to be one of the best office parties she had ever attended. That should have clued her in that something was very wrong.

The next morning
, as she was enjoying her day off, she received a frantic call from work. An emergency staff meeting had been called. Turned out someone had spiked the punch, and Straker was not happy. He vowed to track down the culprit. To her knowledge, no one ever found out who the guilty party was.

“You know what happened?”

Kyle nodded. “Yes, and despite what you assumed, it wasn't me. It was Allen, and I have proof. I had taken a picture of Abry with a little top hat on, and it turned out Allen could be seen in the background pouring a bottle of vodka into the bowl.”

“If you knew who did it
, why didn't you say anything at the time?”

“Because of you.
I was very hurt that you immediately suspected me. Here I was trying to be good, and not cause any trouble. And what do I get? You, accusing me of that heinous crime. I was angry and decided not to tell you.” At Grace's disbelieving stare he added, “Plus, I didn't know what was in the picture until a few months ago and by that time everything had died down. Let's just say that Allen was very cooperative after I told him about that picture.”

“You blackmailed him? If you were going to do that
, why didn't you use that picture to save our jobs?” Grace could tell from Kyle's expression that hadn’t occurred to him until now.

“Well,
it's better to use it now. You don't want to go back to New York, do you?”

“I think
we shouldn’t talk for the rest of the trip.”

“Don’t you want to hear about my date with
Melodie?”

“Date? I didn’t know it was that serious?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not.”

“I’m not worried
, but I’m not particularly interested, either.”

“Even about
her and David Hart and what caused Steve to push him down a flight of stairs?”

Grace reluctantly admitted that she might be interested in that.

“Larry had broken up with her after graduation, so she decided to date Hart in order to make Larry jealous. Melodie said it was a huge mistake. All he wanted to talk about was his ‘gift’. That’s what he called his art. Apparently, he never would shut up about it.”

“
How did Steve get involved?”

“Well, she
quickly got bored with Hart and decided to break it off. When she went to his studio, she found him in bed with another girl. She said she was so angry, she slapped him, he slapped her back, and then she ran off crying. She ran into Steve right after the fight and told him all about it. It was about a week later that she found out what happened to Hart. Crystal told her that Steve had tried to kill the guy.”

“She didn’t see it happen herself?”

“Nope, but Crystal must have.”

Grace made a left onto an old dirt road. Within seconds they came upon a small
dilapidated shack sitting next to the lake.

“This is it?” Kyle asked.
“When was this place built?”

“I think in the
‘50s.”

“17
50s or the 1850s? This can’t be right.”

“I followed his aunt’s directions,” she said
, opening the car door. Grace had to agree with Kyle. This didn’t look like a place Adam would ever set foot in, not unless he was planning on filming some type of backwoods horror movie.

They both reluctantly walked up to the little shack. Reaching the door fi
rst, Grace knocked. She watched as Kyle crossed over the porch to look into the only window.

“Do you see anything?

Kyle shook his head, as he took a step away from the window. “I saw a suitcase,” he said, carefully leaning over the rickety railing. “I don’t know—”

“Well, I do!
He must be here,” she said, banging on the door. “Adam open up!”

“Grace!”

“We know you’re in there! You can’t hide!”

“Grace!”

“What?” Grace turned around. Kyle was standing directly behind her, facing away from her with his hands up. She very carefully stood on her tiptoes to see over his shoulder. Adam was standing in front of them pointing a sawed-off shotgun at Kyle’s chest.

Unimpressed, Grace pushed Kyle out of the way. “Adam
, put that down.”

“Hi Grace,” Adam responded cheerfully while keep
ing the gun leveled at Kyle’s chest.

“You’re not going to shoot anyone, so put that down.”

“Grace, maybe we shouldn’t antagonize him,” Kyle whispered.

“How did you two find me?”

“He’s a detective or did you forget?” Grace asked, jerking a thumb back at Kyle.

“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”

Kyle nodded his head. “Absolutely! Everyone, in fact.”

“I told my family,” Grace said.

“I told several of my friends and colleagues in New York.”

“
I got the directions from your aunt,” Grace added.

“I even updated my
Facebook status before we got out of the car. Plenty of people know, exactly, where we are and who we were going to be with, so if we don’t show up . . .” Kyle added pointedly.

“Don’t wor
ry. I’m not going to hurt you. This is just for my protection,” Adam said, nodding to the shotgun. “Why are you here?”

“I know where the binder is,” Grace said
, surprising both Adam and Kyle.

“Where is it?” Adam asked excitedly, taking the last few steps up to the porch.

“It’s in the car,” she said, pointing behind him.

Adam lowered the gun as he started to turn tow
ards the car. Kyle took the opportunity to lunge forward. Grabbing the gun out of Adam’s hand, he quickly unloaded and pocketed the shells.

To Grace’s and Kyle’s surprise, Ad
am didn’t even seem to notice. He sprinted to the car, throwing the passenger door open and looking around the inside. “Grace, where’s the binder?” he shouted over his shoulder. “Did you hide it under the seat?”

“No. Sorry Adam, I lied.
I don’t have the binder. Never did.”

Adam slid out of the car
, and sat heavily on the ground. He looked like a kid who had just been told Santa didn’t exist. “Why would you do this to me?” he asked plaintively.