Nine Man's Murder (11 page)

Amanda must have realized the futility of denial. “I’d been building a case against Capaldi, but when he destroyed the evidence in that warehouse, he destroyed all I had worked for. I had to improvise. I knew that key would lead us to Capaldi’s coded ledger. It was an emergency backup plan.

“Thanks to a contact, I knew Capaldi intended to burn down the warehouse before we could get to it. But I had a warrant to search Capaldi’s mansion. During the search, I was able to smuggle out the key. After Capaldi torched the warehouse, I went in and planted the key.”

“I should have realized. Those questions you used to ask me … Oh, you were good. I never suspected the truth. Maybe I didn’t want to.”

“Reeve, I had an investigation to conduct. It was my job—”

“Your investigation forced Capaldi to set his own warehouse on fire. A man died in that fire, Amanda. The foreman—or at least we assume it was the foreman. His body was burned beyond recognition. And now your investigation has put my life in danger.” Reeve headed for the doorway, turning his head as he passed through. “Good luck with your promotion.”

32

I
t was all
being raked up again, Gideon thought. The movie set. Their assignment. That night. The strange, clattering noise. The obscure set as he went off to investigate. And then all at once the ground below seeming to disappear … all support falling out from under him … the perilous drop …

He had turned to religion to find his footing. Religion would be his support, his sanctuary. He had memorized the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes; the least sinful thought would set his fingers telling his rosary beads instinctively, without thinking.

Gideon had not even noticed Bennett seating himself in the chair a few feet from his wheelchair.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” Bennett asked.

“This is wrong. All of it. We should come clean.”

“It’s all going to be set straight,” Bennett assured him.

“You lured me there under false pretenses. You said you needed my help.”

“I did.”

“You took advantage of me. I lost my calling because of you.”

“I bailed you out of jail.”

“You got me arrested to begin with.” Gideon shifted his eyes away.

“We have a deal,” Bennett said.

“And I expect you to keep up your end.”

“Oh, I will. You’ll know, I promise. Before the weekend is over.”

There was a strange assurance in Bennett’s voice. And then for the first time, it struck Gideon. Until now, he had been too preoccupied to notice.

“Everyone knows you’re Bennett, not Aaron, now,” Gideon said. “So why are you still—”

Jonas was approaching, eyeing them in a peculiar way.

* * *

A
father … right,
Reeve thought, returning to his room. How could he be a father? He was a man on the run. Thank goodness he’d had the foresight to take out that “insurance policy.” Happening to find out that Gideon was a priest had been a stroke of luck. But the rest was pure genius: Walking into the confessional that day and confessing his—and Capaldi’s—illegal activities. Gideon now possessed secrets Capaldi would do anything to keep from the authorities. Of course, Gideon’s knowledge would protect Reeve only as long as it was a threat Reeve held over Capaldi’s head. Once that knowledge was revealed, Reeve would lose his leverage.

Fortunately, Gideon was bound by his oath to keep the words uttered in the confessional secret, no matter how strong his sense of duty to report them. Gideon would keep Reeve’s secret for as long as Reeve was alive. But if something were to happen to Reeve, Gideon would be freed from his oath, wouldn’t he? There would be nothing to stop him from reporting Capaldi’s crimes to the police. And straight-laced Gideon would certainly report them. This was Capaldi’s incentive to keep Reeve alive. As long as Capaldi knew that Reeve had confided in someone but didn’t know who, he couldn’t afford to harm Reeve.

Somehow Reeve had to find a way to let Capaldi know about this. Then he could finally stop running.

Something was wrong. He could tell the moment he entered his room. Something was there that had not been there before. He surveyed the room from the doorway. A sheet of paper was lying on the bed.

A note, folded in half.

Reeve–

Meet me in my room at midnight. Be discreet. Do not knock or say a word. Just enter quietly. Come alone. We have things to discuss.

—Mandy

Something had slipped out of the unfolded note and had fallen onto the bed. Reeve picked it up.

A key.

The key to Amanda’s room?

Why would she want him to come to her room? To apologize for putting his life in danger? To make amends … ?

But she wanted something from him in return. He was the key to getting back that daughter of hers, she had said. Maybe she was using him all over again. Well, this time he wouldn’t get taken in. This time, he would use her. One evening of pleasure—she owed him at least that much. And was apparently prepared to provide it.

Odd, though, that the note had been typewritten …

33

W
onderful timing, Bryan.
Bryan had arrived at his room as Jill was struggling with the lock of her bedroom door.

“Need any help?” Bryan asked.

“No. I’m fine.”

Three days on a mountaintop with a murderer was preferable to three days of this. “What did I do now?”

Jill turned around. “Have you forgotten already? It was only two weeks ago.”

“No, Jill, it started fifteen years ago. Sure, I was a playboy then, but I kicked the habit.” Bryan lowered his eyes. “I can’t help it that your father is Paul Templar.”

“I know. My father set your mother up to take the fall. But he didn’t kidnap Prissy, and he didn’t injure her or kill your parents.”

“Look, Jill. I don’t want to blame him.”

“I know, Bryan. You need to blame him.”

* * *

A
manda was feeling
sleepy as she mounted the dimly lit staircase. It had taken forever to break free of Bennett trying to be friendly.

Poor Reeve. Amanda could imagine how he must feel. But she couldn’t have told him about Imogen five years ago—she just couldn’t. And she couldn’t have just abandoned Imogen to some orphanage. Thank God Jill had insisted on helping. Amanda could never have risked doing to Imogen what her parents had done to her.

Though it was Mom that Dad abused, primarily, Amanda had still been a victim of that abuse. Until Mom finally fled with Amanda; but by then Mom’s emotional scars were too deep. When Amanda was taken away, she bounced from foster home to foster home until finally being adopted at age twelve. How could Amanda ever hope to be a good parent, when her own parents had not been?

What was happening? The lights were suddenly smothered, covering the staircase with a suffocating dark.

If she could only silence the swish of her flouncy white dress as she climbed the stairs. For here in this black stillness, the barely discernible sound seemed to echo toward the waiting ears of someone concealed in the dark.

Where was he hiding? Amanda felt her body stiffen as she sensed the presence of someone behind her. She opened her mouth to cry out. But it was too late.

Powerful fingers wrapped around her throat like snakes, tightening their coils with cold-blooded reflex. She tried to scream, but a hand sealed her mouth.

Her struggle dislodged the madman’s grasp long enough to permit a distress call to escape. It was answered by a chorus of voices from above and below.

“Did you hear that?”

“Sounded like it came from the stairs.”

Heavy footfalls on the staircase drummed into her brain a welcome realization. Her assailant had released his grip and fled.

“Someone get the lights.”

Her hand rose to soothe her chafing neck, but any hoped-for relief was struck down by a body colliding with hers. The light snapped on. Jonas was standing above her, looking down. Reeve was running across the upstairs hall toward her. A bedroom door opened; Hatter stuck out his head, peering into the hallway cautiously. Bennett was mounting the staircase, followed by Bryan and Jill.

“Mandy, what happened?” Jill asked.

“Someone attacked me. Tried to strangle me.” Amanda sat on the stair, trying to control her trembling.

“Let’s have a look at you.” Jonas knelt beside her.

“I’m all right,” Amanda insisted. She would not let him near.

“What’s going on up there?” Gideon called from the base of the stairway.

“Someone tried to kill Amanda. She’s all right.”

“Well, it’s getting lonely down here.” Gideon’s voice sounded shaky. “Why don’t you come downstairs, since I can’t come up to you?”

Slowly they descended the staircase.

34

A
manda sat alone
on the drawing room sofa, refusing to lie down. Rest would relax her less than an unobstructed view of the others.

“Well, at least things are beginning to look up,” declared the ever-optimistic Gideon. “It’s the second time the killer has slipped up. That’s two failed attempts in a row.”

Bryan eyed him coolly. “I wouldn’t write him off quite yet.”

“I agree with Gideon,” Reeve said. “The killer has obviously set himself a task he’s not equal to.”

Bryan turned to Amanda. “How are you holding up, Manly?” he asked. “Jill, would you get Amanda a bottle of water? Sealed, of course.”

Jill left for the kitchen.

Amanda was looking at Bryan. “You haven’t called me ‘Manly’ since—”

“You insisted on inspecting the scaffolding.”

Fifteen years ago, the crew of Nine Man Morris had created a building construction site for a scene involving several stunts. Amanda and Jonas had volunteered to inspect the scaffolding for signs of tampering, but Damien had been reluctant to let a “girl” risk her safety.

“But you insisted that anything a man could do, a woman could do as well,” Jonas remembered.

“That’s when you started calling me ‘Manly,’” Amanda said to Bryan.

Bennett glanced around. “Wasn’t that scaffolding the scene of …”

“The accident. Yes.”

That day Julian Hayward, the senior stuntman, had been performing stunts on the scaffolding. But something went wrong. One of the beams gave way under him, sending him plummeting to his death.

“It was not even supposed to have been Julian’s scene,” Bennett recalled. “Adam Burke had been the stuntman for that sequence.”

“That’s right,” Reeve said. “Burke had injured his leg that morning and couldn’t perform the stunt.”

Julian Hayward’s protégé and rival, Adam Burke, had been carousing until late the night before. Stepping out of the elevated door of the trailer he had slept in until early afternoon, Burke sustained a fall that left him with a twisted ankle—an hour before he was to have performed a stunt.

“The director was just shooting cover shots that afternoon, mainly,” Bennett recalled quietly, “so he substituted Julian for Burke.”

“I’ll never forget that day,” Amanda said. That morning she had been alone with the director in his office when William Hayward, Julian’s makeup artist brother, entered. The actors had been complaining that the makeup was taking too long to apply.

“If you would provide the proper supplies,” William told the director, “it wouldn’t take so long.”

The argument was interrupted by a phone call. The three-member construction crew was supposed to complete work on the scaffolding that morning. One of them had called in sick and would not be coming in. No replacement could be found on such short notice. The director was vexed by the thought of further delay in a film already behind schedule.

“A delay might have saved Julian Hayward’s life,” Jonas remarked.

“William took Julian’s death really hard,” Bennett recalled. “Shortly after the accident, William suffered a complete nervous breakdown and was committed to Lakeview. An acquaintance of mine who works there told me that for long periods at a stretch, William refused to eat anything, till it completely altered his appearance. ”

Gideon nodded. “Even before the accident, William told me, he had been having nightmares in which terrible things would happen to Julian.”

Jill reentered the drawing room, water bottle in hand.

Amanda stood abruptly. “I don’t need anything to drink. I just need to get some rest. If I can.”

“If you can’t sleep, try counting blessings,” Gideon said.

Jill looked up. “Where have I heard that before?”

“It’s a proverb they used to use in my parish when I was a priest.” Too late Gideon realized his blunder.

“What?” Reeve barked.

“What are you talking about, Gideon?” Jill asked.

“I … they took away my collar.”

“Why?”

Gideon glanced helplessly at Bennett. “I got into some … trouble. I really can’t talk about it.”