'Til Death Do Us Part (36 page)

He closed the door and, gesturing for me to take a seat on the couch, leaned back against the mahogany desk, one butt cheek on and one off. It was the kind of position that said, “I don’t need to get too comfortable because you won’t be staying long.”

“So what’s going on?” he asked impatiently.

“I don’t know if you’ve talked to your contacts at the police department this week, but they think my accident Monday night was just an isolated incident—that I was run off the road by somebody who was just in too much of a hurry or had flunked his anger management class.”

He regarded me pensively, not giving away whether he’d heard from the police or not.

“I take it you don’t buy their theory,” he said.

“No, I don’t,” I said. “The driver was way too hostile for that. Plus, I was attacked in New York as well. It’s very clear that someone’s after me, and I’m convinced it has something to do with the deaths of Peyton’s other bridesmaids.”

“You don’t think they’re accidents?”

“No.”

He lifted his hands, palm side up, then let his arms fall, so that they smacked the front of his thighs.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Bailey,” he said. “You’re a smart girl, and you seem convinced. But where’s the proof that someone killed these women? And for God’s sake, what’s the motive?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said, sitting up taller on the couch—though it did little to correct the discrepancy in our sitting positions. “It seems Robin may have suspected that Jamie’s death was related to something that happened the weekend of your wedding. And the more I investigate, the more I think that may be true.”

He stared at me above his glasses. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Do you remember the night of the rehearsal dinner? You and Trip were having a discussion with each other about work.”

He scrunched up his mouth in irritation. “How could I possibly remember something I was talking about at dinner nine months ago? It’s like asking me what kind of aftershave I was wearing that night.”

“Just let me finish. It wasn’t at the dinner. It was in the church, during the rehearsal. And it was a very heated discussion. You and Trip were behind some screens, and you didn’t realize all the bridesmaids were on the other side.”

Using his index finger as a hook, he pulled off his reading glasses and, rotating his position, tossed them behind him on the desk. I wondered if he did that so I couldn’t see the expression registering on his face.

“Okay, it’s sounding vaguely familiar,” he said, facing me again. “But so what? Trip and I have plenty of heated discussions. It’s the nature of our business.”

I managed a smile, trying to demonstrate that I wasn’t being combative.

“I can imagine,” I said. “But there was something you said that night that interests me. You wanted to know why Trip hadn’t taken profits on one of the deals he was working on. I’m wondering if Trip could have been doing something unethical with the business—like hiding certain losses—and Jamie realized it after hearing your discussion. She might have tried to blackmail him about it.”

David rose from the desk. I could tell he’d taken a large breath because I could see his chest swell beneath his gleaming white shirt. With a hand on each side of his waist, he took a few steps toward the window and then turned back again.

“So where is all this leading?” he asked. “You’re not suggesting that Trip killed those women, are you?”

“I’m sorry, but I think it’s a possibility. Jamie had a chip on her shoulder from what I can tell, and she was trying to fund a project of hers. If she thought Trip was up to no good, she may have asked him for money in return for keeping her mouth shut. As a matter of fact, it seems she suddenly got the money she needed shortly before she died.”

“And what about Robin and Ashley? Why would he want to harm them?”

“Before we get into that,
was
Trip doing something he shouldn’t have?”

He screwed up his face in concern—though it seemed forced to me.

“Quite honestly, I’d be
very
surprised to find Trip was up to something he shouldn’t have been. He’s extremely good at what he does, and we’ve had a terrific run. There’d be no reason for him to hide losses. I know I was barking at him that night, but I was probably feeling more stress than usual because of the wedding, and I did have some concerns about a few transactions. Not that I suspected anything unethical. They just didn’t make sense to me.”

“And . . . ?”

He shrugged. “Trip reassured me. After Peyton and I returned from Greece, I took a look myself. Everything seemed perfectly fine.”

I wasn’t sure I could believe him. If Trip had done something dishonest, it could all come crashing down on David in the end, so he may have been lying to protect himself and his business.

“So my theory makes absolutely no sense to you?”

“As I said before, you’re a smart girl, Bailey, and I’d be stupid to out-and-out dismiss what you have to say. I’m going to take a look at things again, even more closely this time. How would that be?”

“That would be good. I think it’s important to be sure there’s nothing he might have been trying to cover up.”

“Great. In fact, I’ll look back at those records before I come home tonight. Like I said, I didn’t spot any red flags when I examined them before, but perhaps I overlooked something. Why don’t we discuss it later? Though for now, I’d prefer to leave Peyton out of this.”

“Sure,” I said. I could tell from his body language that I was being dismissed now—he’d edged his way down the room, closer to the door, and was rocking on his toes, signaling that he was eager for me to be on my way.

“Where’s Trip tonight?” I asked, rising from the couch. The last thing I wanted to do was bump into him.

“He left at least an hour ago. I know you’re feeling very tense over this whole thing, but I honestly don’t believe you have any reason to worry about Trip. Are you going straight back to our house?”

“I’m headed out to the farm for a brief stop. I should be at your place within an hour.”

“Fine. I’ll call and make sure the housekeeper makes up a plate for you.”

He did that thing again of kissing me on both cheeks, as if he were the ambassador from France, and then offered me a politician-style handshake. Something was definitely odd. As I rode the elevator to the lobby, I considered whether I could simply have hit a nerve with him. He’d obviously been worried last spring about Trip’s transactions, and he may have done exactly as he told me—talked to Trip, taken a quick look at the records, and then dismissed his doubts. Now here I was giving him a reason to face them again. But it might be more than that. What if he’d actually looked at the records and found out that Trip was guilty? Earlier I’d assumed that if he’d caught Trip in illegal shenanigans, he would have dismissed him. But David valued Trip highly, and perhaps he’d let him off with a warning because he hadn’t wanted to jeopardize his money machine. A scary thought scooted across my mind: What if David was in with Trip on everything? Could David have helped Trip kill the bridesmaids? Or had he even done it alone?

By the time I slid back into my Jeep, my head was pounding, the same headache that had been ambushing me on and off for the last few days. It was due, I was sure, to both stress and mental exhaustion. I felt at times as if my brain were going to burst from the endless questions racing through it. Yet tonight, finally, I had the feeling I was closing in on something. It was time now to head out to the farm to see Phillipa and learn exactly what she knew.

I was extra cautious when I left the parking lot. David had said Trip was long gone, but I wasn’t going to take his word for it. I kept my eye on my rearview mirror the entire drive out to Ivy Hill, but no one was on my tail.

The closer I got to the farm, the more adrenaline I felt pumping through my body. I couldn’t wait to hear Phillipa’s revelation. As I turned the bend on the last stretch of road toward the farm, I gasped. A light was burning in one of the uppermost windows of the silo.

Who could be in there at this hour? Or was this part of some weird plan of Phillipa’s to spook me? I didn’t trust her, and I returned to the idea that she might be laying some kind of trap for me. I counted three cars in the parking lot, but I didn’t get out of the Jeep until I spotted activity through the window of the larger barn.

It was clear as I stepped into the kitchen that things were winding down for the night. One girl, whom I recognized from my first day at the farm last week, was swabbing the counter with her coat on, and the other two, in coats as well, were lingering nearby, clearly waiting for the third to finish. They looked up in unison when I stepped into the room.

“Oh, hi,” said the girl at the counter, recognizing me. I remembered that Peyton had called her Ginger. “We thought you were Phillipa.”

“Phillipa?”
I asked. “Isn’t she here? I was supposed to meet with her.”

“She’s on her way to the party,” Ginger said. “Peyton called here a little while ago and told her to hightail it over there. When we heard your car we thought she’d forgotten something.”

“I can’t believe it,” I exclaimed. “Did she say when she’s coming back?”

“Oh, she won’t be back tonight. We’re locking up now.”

“Did she leave a
message
for me?” I asked. I could hardly blame Phillipa for being dragged away by Peyton, but that didn’t stop me from being miffed.

The three women exchanged looks and shook their heads.

“Give me a second, will you?” I asked, pulling my cell phone out of my purse. I’d shut it off earlier when I’d gone into David’s office, and as I checked it now I saw that I had a voice mail. It was Phillipa, about fifteen minutes earlier, explaining that Peyton had demanded her presence in Darien and that she hoped we could speak tomorrow. Again, she said it was urgent.

“We really need to lock up,” one of the girls said a tad petulantly.

“I’m sorry,” I told her, shoving my phone back in my bag. “Where’s Mary, by the way?”

“She’s sick today,” Ginger said. “That’s why everything is such a mess.” She flipped a light switch near one of the refrigerators that darkened the half of the barn she was standing in. It made me think of the light burning in the silo.

“Why is there a light on in the silo? Is someone over there?”

Ginger walked toward the cluster of us by the door and glanced out the window with her neck twisted so she could see upward.

“Shit, one of the workmen must have left it on,” she muttered. “They started working in there again. Peyton will kill us if we don’t turn it off.”

“Let her,” said one of the other girls. “There’s no way I’m going in there.”

“Look, why don’t I turn it off,” I volunteered.

“You don’t mind?” Ginger asked, surprised. “It would give me the freaking creeps to go in there.”

I shook my head. I wasn’t exactly relishing the idea, but this would finally be my chance to see the spot that Ashley had fallen from.

“I’ll tell you what. When I get inside I’ll flick the light to show I’m okay. Just give me the key and then I’ll give it to Peyton later. I’m spending the night at her house.”

“Well, there’s no lock on there yet. You just have to shove to get the door open. It sticks like crazy.”

She hit a code in the security box by the door and then flipped off the last of the lights. In the darkness I became conscious for the first time of the kitchen’s night sounds: the hum of the refrigerators, the
whoosh
ing of the dishwasher. The four of us filed silently outdoors.

Each girl had her own car, and they called out good-byes to one another before climbing in. Ginger glanced back at me as she unlocked her door. From the expression on her face, it was clear that she thought I was out of my mind for hanging around.

“Do you want us to wait?” she called out.

“No, that’s all right,” I said. “Oh, by the way, someone is ripping off your tapenade recipe. I had it at a party here in town tonight.”

“We don’t do tapenade,” she said.

I pondered her remark as she climbed into her car. She started the engine and waited. From the trees behind the farm came the call of an owl, two short toots followed by a long one. I glanced toward the silo, where the one light from the second level cast a glow onto the wet, melting snow below. Time to hustle. I wanted to see the top floors of the silo and then get the hell out of there.

My boots weren’t waterproof, and the path to the silo was puddled with melted snow. By the time I reached the silo, my feet were soaked and squishy. As predicted, the door to the silo was unlocked, but I struggled with it just as Peyton had done last week. It made a loud groaning noise as I pushed it open. There were no lights on in the lower chamber, but some of the light from the upper level filtered down, and I could see the outline of the circular staircase. Before entering, I took one quick look behind me. Toward the south I could see a glow along the horizon, the lights of Greenwich, but right here on the farm, it was empty and silent.