Chapter 16
Sixteen
HARPER’S HAND SHOOK as she grappled with her keys.
Being home wouldn’t feel like home. While her condo had once been a haven of safety, now she saw only isolation, despite the neighbors.
Safety was at Deck’s ranch for now. When it would return here, she didn’t know. She only knew it wasn’t now, not yet.
Deck waited while she fumbled with her keys, finally sliding one into the lock and entered.
Darkness engulfed them—no moon peeking through the cloud-covered sky out the front window. A sky ready to let another snowstorm loose. “I’ll get the lights.” She moved for the front table lamp, but her hand never made contact.
“That’s weird,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“My lamp’s not where it usually is.” Had she moved it before leaving? No. She never moved it. Trepidation snaked down her spine, and Deck pulled his Glock.
“Stay by the door and be ready to call 911.”
Adrenaline streamed through her limbs, heating her, posing her for fight-or-flight. Which would she choose now that she was back on home territory? She hoped fight. Hoped things would be different and she’d be back to her bold self.
“Next closest light is by the sofa, right?” Deck whispered.
She nodded, still close enough for him to note the movement.
His gun still drawn, he moved for the light, and she moved with him, instinctually. Half because she didn’t want to be alone and half because this was her home and she wanted to protect it.
Deck reached the light, and the switch clicked.
She took in her condo and stumbled back. Someone had trashed the place—plants tipped over, soil tossed across her terra-cotta floor, sofa cushions astray on the floor . . .
“What? Why?”
“I’m going to sweep all the rooms,” Deck murmured under his breath.
She nodded once again, following him until they’d cleared the condo. The entire place was a mess, but the only thing missing appeared to be her laptop. “Why?” she mumbled again. “Who would do this?”
“My guess,” Deck said, sliding his Glock into the back of his pants, “is Big Max.”
“I thought you’d go with Nick because I have Tay’s journal, and it might hold some incriminating evidence, but why would he want to take my laptop? And why would Big Max want it?”
“Who knows.” Deck shrugged. “It holds a lot of information. For Max, it has ties to me and the gang. For Nick, ties to Taylor. It really could go either way, but a bust-into-your-house is more Max’s style.”
“Just like at your place.”
“Right, and that was before we even talked to Nick. And who knows how long ago this occurred. We just happened to find it today.”
“Good point.” She stared around her wreck of a place. “I guess I better start cleaning this up.”
“Don’t you want to call Joel first?”
“No. I’m sure whoever it was wore gloves, but we can at least call and tell him. I mean, you guys are baseball buddies. You can just let him know about it. I’m too tired to do a full report.” She sighed. “I better put my energy into cleaning up.”
“Hang on. I have a better idea.”
Two hours later, the entire MacLeod clan and their significant others had her place sparkling, and true-to-Deckard form, he’d had Sheriff Joel Brunswick swing by and take a look before they started. She just had to drop by the station when it was convenient and file a report.
“Thank you,” she said to Deck when they were the last ones there.
“It wasn’t me. Grey gets into cleaning.”
She surprised herself and laughed. Just for a nanosecond, but it was laughter all the same. “He definitely got into it.”
“Why don’t you grab a bag of stuff you’d like at the house, and we’ll head back to the ranch?”
She bit her bottom lip. “You still want me there?”
“After this, absolutely.”
Valid reason, but not what she was hoping for. “I’ll be back.” She moved into her bedroom and packed some clothes and essentials. Men’s toiletries left a lot to be desired if you didn’t want to smell like a forest. Not that she minded the scent on Deckard one little bit.
“I want you to stay with me.”
She spun around. Deck leaned against the doorjamb. One boot crossed over the other, one hand braced on the jamb. How long had he been there with that soft smile tugging at his lips?
She slipped her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry, you said . . . ?” He’d actually said it, right? She wasn’t imagining things, was she?
He pushed off the doorjamb. “I want you to stay with me. I—”
The doorbell rang.
Nooooo! She’d say ignore it, but Deck was already two steps from the door with his gun drawn again.
“Who is it?” he called out.
“Mrs. Pearl. I have your mail, dear. Or whoever you might be.”
He glanced back at her, a brow raised.
“My landlady.” She pushed past him and opened the door. Mrs. Pearl stood on the other side with a curious smile on her aging face.
“This is Deckard, Mrs. Pearl.”
“Oh . . .” The petite woman wriggled her way inside with a giggle. “So nice to meet you, dear. And you are . . . ?”
“I’m a friend,” Deck said, shaking her extended hand.
Mrs. Pearl pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and checked him out. “Well, a good friend to have.” She nodded.
Harper bit back a smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Pearl.” She took the mail from her hands and nicely but firmly guided her back to the front door.
“Your box wasn’t too full, but I know you were off on one of your forays, so I held on to it for you.”
“Thank you so much. I appreciate it.” She’d had the post office hold it, but they always missed some at the beginning or end of her trips.
“No trouble, dear.” Mrs. Pearl craned her neck to see over Harper’s shoulder. “Good-bye, other dear. Lovely to meet you.” She gave Deck another once-over and smiled. “Don’t be a stranger.”
Finally, Harper managed to get her fully through the door and shut it behind her, Mrs. Pearl’s humming along the corridor still reaching their ears.
Harper leaned back against the closed door and covered a laugh. Not that it was wrong to laugh, but given everything, in many ways it felt wrong. But . . . she laughed again. “She was totally checking you out.”
“I know.” Deck faked a grimace—clearly fighting off a smile. “I feel debased.”
He couldn’t hold the straight face any longer, and they laughed together.
“Maybe I should have given her one of these.” He jutted out his butt in an exaggerated model pose.
She laughed harder.
“Or one of these . . .” He gave a wind-blown head flip, like the great Fabio.
She doubled over, her sides hurting from the laughter, and he kept it up, God bless him, the laughter overcoming her. It would end, but she’d enjoy it until it did.
Half an hour later, she climbed into Deck’s truck and her cell rang. She checked the caller ID. “It’s Susan.” She accepted the call. “Hey there.”
“Hey. Sorry I didn’t call back sooner. The reading of the will took a good while.”
“Why so long?”
“Nick had quite the battle with the lawyer, Miss Collins.”
“About?” She looked over at Deck, then shifted the phone to speaker, giving Susan a quick heads-up as she was doing so.
“Okay.” Susan streamed out an exhale. “I’ll start at the top. Taylor named Steve the executor of the will and—”
“She left him the money?” Harper rushed in.
“In a way.”
Harper frowned. “What do you mean, ‘in a way’?”
“I’ll get there, but here’s the juicy part. Taylor left some of her money to her charity, of course, but left the bulk of it to Blake Brookes.”
“Blake Brookes? As in her tennis instructor at the club?”
“That’s the one.”
“Why Brookes?” As he preferred to go by.
“Nick claims that’s who she was having an affair with and that her leaving him the money proved it.”
“Wow. He must have flipped.”
“Completely. Claimed it was a farce, and when that didn’t work, he told Miss Collins he’d be contesting the will, which she said wouldn’t get him far, then he stormed off soon after.”
Oh, how she wished she could have seen that.
“Was Brookes there?” Images of a drag-out fight in the parking lot between Nick and him flashed through her mind.
“No. He was invited but passed.”
“So does he know what he was left?”
“Sounds like not yet.”
“Well, that’ll be exciting news. What about Steve? Surely Taylor didn’t leave her brother out.”
“He was the beneficiary of her life insurance policy and inherited the properties in her name.”
“Was Nick still there for that part?”
“Yes. It was right before Nick’s last wicked try.”
She looked at Deck, and he shrugged.
“Wicked try?” she asked.
“You’re not going to believe this, but he even complained Taylor wasn’t in her right mind when she changed the will.”
“What! That’s baloney.”
“He tried everything. It was really pathetic.”
“Sounds like it. I wish I’d been there to see him get no money after cheating on sweet Tay.”
“Unfortunately, he’s not totally out.”
“The other insurance policy?” Harper sighed. She and Deck discovered it in their digging earlier in the day.
“Yep. Nick took out the policy on Taylor two months ago.”
“And it’s worth?” They’d only seen the fact that he had one.
“Two million dollars.”
Her jaw slackened. “You’re kidding?”
“Afraid not, sweetie. Nick just got two mil from poor Tay’s death.”
It broke her heart to learn the cheating scum still got money. Any money. “The timing is interesting. Only two months ago. I wonder why.”
“You and me both. And, according to Tay’s lawyer, who we talked to after Nick stormed out, Taylor changed her will and policy beneficiaries only a few months ago as well.”
“Probably when she found out Nick was cheating.”
“That’s my guess,” Susan said.
And it was why Harper needed to read through Tay’s journal. See if she could garner any clues from it.
Nick had done too much and moved too fast to wrap things up. Like he was rushing to avoid discovery. . . . Had he killed his wife? And if so, how?
She glanced at Deck, and he expressed a world of consolation through his kind gaze. They’d find the truth. She wouldn’t stop digging until they did, and Tay’s journal was the place to start.