Chapter Twenty-One
“This isn’t so bad.” Courtney stuck her head in the en suite—oohing and aahing to lift my spirits. “You can think of it like a staycation.”
“Argh,” I groaned, flinging myself down on the couch. “The only one thinking of this like a vacation is Lily. Four people have died in our home or outside of it within the last three weeks. None of us can relax anymore.”
I looked around the plush hotel room. Two sectionals claimed most of the space in the sunken living room.
Beside it was the mini-kitchen—already loaded with prepared food from room service.
In the bedrooms, foam-topped mattresses waited to welcome us with downy arms, and don’t get me started on the Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom.
The Lantana Royal Suites delivered on the luxury, but not on the number of bedrooms. It wasn’t often they needed a suite for four adults and their daughter, so Lily had her own room, I had the main bedroom, and the guys were sleeping on the pullout couches while alternating every night who slept in the bedroom with me.
It was fine, and it was safer, but it wasn’t home. We hadn’t been in our actual home for over a week. We moved out and into the hotel the morning after Reynard died.
“Are you okay?” Courtney dropped next to me and rested my head on her shoulder. “This whole thing has got to be wrecking your head.”
“That’s an understatement,” I muttered, cuddling into her side like a baby.
It was just me in the hotel room again. Rhodes and Micah were at work, and Alex was with Lily at Taekwondo.
We signed her up the week before. When you lived in a town that was going to shit, it was never too early to start learning how to defend yourself.
“I have no idea what to feel right now,” I said. “I was ready to bust into Reynard’s room and punch his teeth down his throat, but I didn’t want to trigger the man into killing himself!”
“You can’t know he did that because of you,” she argued.
“Lucky for me, I can. The coroner determined he swallowed the pills no more than an hour before we found him. During that hour, I was pounding on his door, screaming that I knew what he did and the police were going to haul his ass to prison.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “He obviously panicked and...”
Courtney hugged me tighter. “He made his own choices, babe. First, to steal from and abuse your mother, and then to swallow a handful of pills instead of facing the consequences. Do not spend a second of your time blaming yourself. Reynard Agassi was the lowest, most vile scum. He doesn’t get to become a saint in death. ”
She was right. I knew she was right. But guilt didn’t always listen to truth.
“What are the police saying? Can they recover what he stole?”
I shook my head. “They’re being way more forthcoming about the investigation into Reynard than they are about Mrs. Prado’s, Layton’s, or Omma’s, but unfortunately, they still don’t have much to say.
“Reynard’s bank accounts were empty. He didn’t have more than three hundred dollars to his name, but Rhodes calculated that he stole over two hundred thousand.”
“Fucking hell!” Courtney gaped at me. “He got away with that much and no one knew? How?”
“He charged a whole mess of experimental, natural, or Eastern treatments that Omma never received. All the money that was supposed to pay for them just went right in his pocket.” I scoffed.
“There wasn’t any sign either. He was careful not to suddenly roll up to the manor in his new Maserati, but whatever happened with the money, he spent it fast and hot. ”
“Dick.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Courtney dropped her head back on the couch, sighing.
“Not to keep you even more depressed by switching to another dismal topic, but have you considered that Reynard could’ve killed Omma?
” she asked. “I know Rhodes was lying about seeing him in the garden, but when you threw that lie at Reynard, he was so fast with that alibi. Even then I thought it was a little too convenient that he had a photo with the clock in the background ready to go the second you asked.”
“I did consider it,” I confessed. “I mean, I was looking for an evil bastard that wanted to hurt my mother and that turned out to be Reynard the whole time. Of course I considered that he might’ve killed her too, but why?
“He couldn’t use her illness to steal from the estate if she was gone. If anything, he had more motive to keep her alive. It just doesn’t make sense that he’d kill her.”
“Good point. Only a fool kills the golden goose,” she said, echoing Rhodes.
“Have you thought of anyone else it could’ve been?
Last I heard, Mrs. Finley refused a plea deal.
The case is going to trial just like you said, and she’s going to use this charade to give her and Colin’s trauma a platform while the real killer skips into the sunset. ”
“There’s no one, Court.” My lips burned uttering those words.
“Rhodes said he was in Omma’s office, and I believe him.
Reynard didn’t have a motive. Mr. Layton was silenced before he could tell us what he knew—if he knew anything.
The only question left is where your boytoy, Mr. Stevens, went when he left the party”—I gave her a knowing look—“but I guess you know something about that.”
She smirked unashamedly. “He went upstairs to get the condom we used when we fucked in the downstairs closet.”
“And there you go.”
She laughed, but quickly sobered. “There has to be something we missed. I don’t know, maybe Mrs. Finley did do it. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one.”
“Then what’s the simplest explanation for why Mrs. Prado was killed? What’s the explanation for who killed Mr. Layton when Mrs. Finley was safely locked in a holding cell?”
Courtney had no response for that.
“I’m sorry, Courtney, but I just don’t believe what the detectives are saying now.
That Mrs. Finley killed Mrs. Prado and Omma, and an unknown assailant who hated Layton Lager went after the heir.
” I slid her a look. “Before telling me to butt out of police investigations, Davis told me that there have been some serious disputes between Lager factory workers and management.
The workers have been complaining about unsafe working conditions, terrible pay, and crappy benefits.
“One of the floor managers even socked Layton Senior, Charles’s dad, in the face when an argument between them got out of hand,” I said.
“Davis didn’t confirm or deny, but it’s pretty clear they’re looking at the factory workers as the main suspects in Mr. C’s murder.
That’s a lot easier than admitting the middle-aged attempted murderer in their holding cell is lying. ”
“Okay.” Courtney shifted on the couch, taking my hands. “I want you to look in my eyes and hear me. It looks bad right now. It feels like we’ve hit a dead end, but we haven’t. No matter what, we won’t stop until we discover the truth and put the right psychopath behind bars. Got it?”
“Got it,” I mumbled.
“Uh-uh, you have to do better than that. Got it?!”
“Got it!” I belted out. “We’re taking that bitch down!”
“Fuck yeah, we are!” She clapped. “But we’re not doing that this minute, so distraction time. Let’s do something that’ll put a smile on your face. Oooh,” she cried. “This fancy hotel has a nice bar. Wanna get drunk and dance on the tables till they throw us out?”
“You got a taste for the bad-girl life, didn’t you? You can’t wait to go back to jail.”
She fell over herself cracking up.
“Not that, but can you help me with something?” I got up, went into the bedroom, and came back holding two laptops.
“The videographers sent us all of the footage from the party. We’re supposed to pick our favorite moments, and their boss will cut it all together into movie magic.
” I handed her Alex’s laptop. “There are hours’ worth of stuff from ten different cameras, so I need help going through it. ”
She hesitated. “Babe... are you sure?”
I swallowed hard, sinking on the couch. “I know it seems ghoulish. Trust me, part of me almost deleted all the videos, but now...” I looked away.
“That was the last night—the only night—we were all happy in that house.
Up until nine thirty-fucking-seven, the men of my dreams were in love with me, my best friend was back in my life, everyone was in awe of me, the daughter I always dreamed of slept soundly, and the mother I always wanted finally had a good relationship with me.
“That’s what I want to remember,” I whispered. “That brief stolen time where we were a happy family.”
“I get it.” She rested her cheek on my shoulder, saying more without words than she did with. “I do.”
That’s how an hour later, the two of us were tipsy on champagne while watching me dance like a lunatic from every camera angle.
“Hera in heaven, why didn’t anyone tell me how stupid I looked?”
“We tried,” Courtney mourned. “Oh, how we tried.”
I snorted, spraying my sip on my laugh, and setting Courtney off giggling.
“Pull up the video from camera eight,” Courtney ordered.
She had long ago ditched her coat and shoes, and was now stretched out on the sectional in her bright pink minidress.
“It says that guy got the outside shots of the workers in the kitchen and all that. I want to see the dude who sneezed on his hands and didn’t wash, and the lady that flicked her booger in the pudding. ”
“What the hell, Court, what have you been doing in that bakery kitchen!”
Naturally, that set her off laughing so hard she fell off the couch and took me with her. We howled on the floor like a couple of loons—more than a little under the influence of the alcohol.
But I didn’t care.