Chapter Ninety Kiersten
Chapter Ninety
Kiersten
Kiersten stood in her kitchen, fists curled at her sides as she tried, and failed, to fight back the tears burning her eyes.
The cannisters that had belonged to her great-grandmother lay smashed on the floor, sugar and flour strewn across the hardwood. Yellow stuffing pushed through slashes in her sofa cushions, like exposed flesh from an open wound.
It would take days to clean this up. And thousands of dollars to replace the items the vandals had broken or damaged. They’d left the kids’ bedrooms untouched, and most of the basement. But they’d trashed the main floor and the master bedroom.
“I’m sorry about this, ma’am.” A female police officer with a sympathetic smile touched her arm before heading for the door. Kiersten nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
It was almost midnight. The detective had left a few minutes ago, and the other two officers were leaving now. They’d dusted for fingerprints but found nothing. The animal who’d done this had worn gloves.
Garrett put his hands on her shoulders and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. “C’mon. We’re not sleeping here tonight.”
He led her outside. The crisp November air sent a shiver skittering along her skin as they crossed the street to Rosamund’s house.
The moment she’d heard about what happened, Rosamund scooped up the kids, bringing them all over to her house, preventing them from seeing any of the damage, from realizing that bad guys had been inside their home, ripping their things apart.
Now the boys were asleep in Rosamund’s basement while the girls slept in Guinevere’s room upstairs, an impromptu block-wide slumber party.
Garrett opened the front door without knocking.
He and Kiersten made their way through the lamplit foyer to the kitchen on the backside of the house.
Brendan and Piper sat with Valentina and Reggie at a kitchen table spread with a cheerful yellow tablecloth.
Rosamund moved around the kitchen, putting food on a tray.
And Miles stood at the island, pouring steaming tea into a line of mugs.
“Tea?” Brendan asked with a wry smile. “At a time like this? Maybe we need something a little stronger.”
“Tea was created for times like this,” Miles said as he handed Brendan a cup of chamomile.
“Sorry it’s not an elegant charcuterie board.” Rosamund leaned over to set a bowl of popcorn and a plate of brownies on the table, along with a bag of Hershey’s Kisses, a hunk of cheese, Ritz Crackers, pretzels, and a bunch of grapes. “This is all I have on hand at the moment.”
“You obviously haven’t been using your Table of Sustenance meal-planning workbook,” Piper said, her voice bitter.
Kiersten and Garrett squeezed around the backside of the kitchen table to sit on the banquette beside Piper and Brendan.
“Thank you, Rosamund. This is perfect.” Kiersten reached for a Ritz Cracker. “I’m starving.”
“We have some good news,” Reggie said, looking over at Kiersten and Garrett.
“About Lillian?” Garrett asked.
Reggie nodded. “Her son just called. She’s awake and alert. Her speech is slurred, but they think it’s temporary, and they expect her to make a full recovery. She could be back home by the end of the week.”
“Thank God.” Kiersten sagged against the banquette in relief.
“We’ve been talking”—Piper glanced at Garrett and Kiersten—“and we think they must have trashed our houses while we were at that stupid party.”
“I can confirm that,” Miles said, setting his mug on the table.
“I checked my cameras, and one person entered each of your homes right after the kids walked down the street to meet Chip at the house under construction. Both of the intruders wore ball caps and hooded sweatshirts, but they each had a very different build. One was big, sort of hefty. The other skinny. They emerged about twenty minutes later.”
“Chip Davis and Trey Davis?” Piper asked.
Miles shook his head. “Chip and Trey were talking to the cops while the person who ransacked your house was still inside.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Kiersten frowned. “Because the person who broke into our home only took one thing.”
“What’s missing?” Piper asked.
She lifted her gaze and met Piper’s eyes. “Dottie’s diaries.”
Piper inhaled sharply. “Did you—”
“Yes. I hid them both in the bag of birdseed. And now they’re gone.”
She watched as Piper exchanged a look with her husband.
“This rules out Hawkeye Slaughter,” Brendan said.
Piper nodded. “It had to be Chip and Trey Davis, or someone connected with them. Those diaries have no value for anyone else. And they had to tear our houses apart to find them because we hid them so well.”
Kiersten rubbed her hands over her face. “That’s why he invited us to that stupid party. That’s why the waiter kept plying us with drinks. He wanted us to stay as long as possible to buy them time. Aspen didn’t even know we were coming.”
“That’s also why he offered childcare.” Rosamund set her mug down with a disgusted clunk. “To get the kids out of the house so they could search it.”
“And when we declined, he lured the kids away.” Kiersten reached for another brownie.
Piper took a thoughtful sip from her mug. “And that gave him an opportunity to frame the kids, make us look like unfit day drinkers, and search our houses.”
“I’d bet you my next royalty check they’re behind everything that’s happened on Beaverbrook Lane,” Rosamund said in disgust.
“But why exactly?” Kiersten asked. “What do they gain from all this, besides getting their hands on the diaries and covering up Dottie’s murder?”
“I can tell you why,” Reggie said. “They’re trying to force us to sell our houses.”
They all looked at Reggie. “What do you mean?” Brendan asked.
“My daughter’s been getting calls from Chip over the last couple months.
He says he’s concerned about me.” He rolled his eyes.
“Says he sometimes finds me wandering the cul-de-sac, looking confused. He said I drove up on the curb the other day and knocked over his mailbox, which is a damn lie. He told my daughter she should think about selling my house and moving me to assisted living . . . before someone gets hurt.”
Kiersten’s mouth dropped open. “But you’re in better shape that I am!”
“I know,” Reggie said indignantly, spinning his finger in the air. “I’m in better shape than all y’all.”
Valentina nodded vigorously. “My son Paolo and my nephew in Milan get emails from Chip. Just last week they got an email saying I am bothering you”—she pointed at Piper and Kiersten—“when you are doing home school. He says I am a pest. A nuisance to my neighbors. And he says this neighborhood is not safe for me and my sister. He says we have crime and vandalism, that Paolo and my nephew should sell our house and find a nice, safe retirement home for us.”
Kiersten’s mouth went dry. “I heard the same thing from Lillian’s son just now at the hospital. He said he’d gotten some concerning phone calls from Chip about his mother and asked if she’s a burden to us. Apparently Chip claims he goes over there every day to check on her.”
“That’s a damn lie. I can tell you that for free,” Reggie said indignantly.
Kiersten swallowed a bite of her brownie. “Lillian told me that Trey comes by frequently to ask her about selling her house. And the day of the Harvest Festival, Chip tried to tell me our neighborhood isn’t safe, that I should be careful and keep my wits about me.”
“So what do we do with this information?” Garrett asked. “I mean, I’m not a cop or a lawyer, but expressing concern about your elderly neighbors isn’t against the law. Even if those concerns are actually lies.”
Kiersten glanced at the people sitting with her in Rosamund’s kitchen. Two hours ago she’d been ready to pack her bags and leave Beaverbrook Lane behind.
But as she looked at her neighbors, she realized she couldn’t leave. Not now. These people were more than neighbors. They were family. And you didn’t abandon family when times got tough.
“But terrorizing and harassing people is against the law,” Brendan pointed out.
Piper’s forehead creased in a deep frown. “Do you remember that story a few years back, about those executives at eBay who harassed a couple by sending them sick things in the mail.”
Miles looked at her over the rim of his mug. “I do remember that story.”
Kiersten nodded. “They sent things like cockroaches.”
“And spiders,” Rosamund said.
They all looked at each other.
“Those bastards,” Reggie whispered.
Kiersten’s eyes narrowed. “He’s trying to drive us out of our houses so he can tear them all down and build new ones. Like he’s doing with those two-million-dollar homes he’s putting up at the end of the cul-de-sac.”
Never in a million years would she have thought of doing something so nefarious to another human being, much less a neighbor.
Rosamund frowned. “But Miles hasn’t gotten any hissing cockroach deliveries or weird things in his trees.”
They all turned to look at Miles. “True,” he said, swallowing a sip of tea. “But I’m renting.”
“What?” they all asked in unison.
He nodded. “After my wife passed away, I couldn’t bear to be in our home. Too many memories. So I sold my house and looked for a rental. I figured eventually I’d buy another place, but I just needed some time first. So I went on Zillow, and I found my house here on Beaverbrook.”
“So who actually owns your home?” Kiersten asked.
“It’s not a person,” Miles said. “It’s an LLC.”
Piper leaned forward. “What’s it called?”
“Dynamo Development Group. Something like that.”
Piper pulled out her phone and began typing furiously. Then she held up her screen, showing Miles the logo for Dynamo Moscow, a Russian Premier League soccer team.
“Does this look familiar?” she asked.
He squinted across the table. “It does actually. There’s a similar logo on my rental agreement.”
Kiersten’s head swiveled back and forth between Piper and Miles. “I don’t understand.”
“Bruno Orlov.” Piper gestured with her phone.
“He’s that shady parent at school, Alex Orlov’s dad.
When I met with him, he was wearing a Dynamo Moscow soccer jersey.
He named his real estate development company after his favorite Russian soccer team, in addition to running some kind of illegal sports-betting operation. ”
Reggie drummed his fingers on the table thoughtfully. “I’ve seen that name somewhere before.”
He and Kiersten exchanged a look. “Me too.”
Piper smiled. “You see it every morning when you run. Dynamo Development Corporation is doing that massive project a couple streets over on Haskel Avenue.”
Kiersten’s face lit up. “Where they tore down that one old house and they’re building six new ones on the same lot.”
Piper nodded. “It’s right there on the sign. Chip and Trey Davis are listed as his business partners.”
Valentina frowned. “I like you all very much, but if they made me a good offer, I would sell. No cockroaches or bloody papers are needed for this. So why go to this trouble?”
“Because they don’t want to make a good offer,” Piper explained, leaning forward.
“It eats into their profit margin. And cockroaches and scary notes are cheap. They want to scare us into selling our houses way below market value. Then they turn this whole cul-de-sac into a new housing development with river views.”
“If you chop down all the trees,” Reggie added.
“That’s exactly right.” Piper snorted. “If you chop down all the trees.”
“And if they price these new homes like the ones going up a few streets over on Haskel . . .” Rosamund began.
“And put multiple houses on each lot . . .” Garrett added.
“They’d make tens of millions of dollars,” Brendan concluded with a low whistle.
“And they’d advertise this new development to the Influencer’s hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. And document the whole teardown and rebuild process on her new HGTV show,” Piper said.
“Dottie is the wild card,” Kiersten said softly. “And now she’s come back from the dead to derail the whole project with her diaries.”
Piper nodded. “Richard would be arrested. Probably Margaret too. So much for the sweet little old lady who bakes pies in a frilly apron.”
“It would destroy Aspen’s wholesome trad wife brand if sweet old Grammy on the ’Gram is the pregnant mistress who murdered her husband’s first wife,” Kiersten said.
“Which would scuttle her HGTV deal,” Rosamund added.
There was a moment of silence as they processed this.
“So what do we do?” Garrett asked. “Go to the police?”
Piper exchanged a glance with her husband.
“We need more,” Brendan said.
“I agree.” Piper nodded. “Without those diaries, we have no evidence of foul play. No murder weapon. No motive. No confession. The police could ask a few questions, but that’s it. They need more to build a case and make an arrest.”
“Then we have to get those diaries back.” Kiersten gripped her mug. “They prove that Richard murdered Dottie.”
“But he’ll destroy them,” Rosamund said. “He could be burning them as we speak.”
“He’ll finish reading them first,” Piper argued. “To find out how much we know. That buys us a tiny bit of time.”
“We need to get into that nuclear-fallout shelter,” Kiersten said, snapping a Ritz Cracker in half. “I know Dottie left something for us. Some kind of clue.”
Piper gave her a grim nod. “And then we take him down.”
“This is even more exciting than bingo,” Valentina whispered.
“But, honey”—Brendan put his arm around Piper—“how do we actually get inside their house and do this?”
Piper looked at her neighbors and smiled. “I have an idea.”