A Wedding To Die For

19

I took Diva’s face between my hands and put my nose an inch from hers. “James Beadford adopted his own daughter, cat!”

She was not impressed by my lightbulb moment. She struggled free and ran off, leaving me with a handful of calico hair.

I should have considered this possibility sooner. Why else would James Beadford have brought the child of the woman who’d nearly ruined him into his home?

I had to tell Megan, but was tonight the right time to load her up with a heavy dose of family and company history, none of it too pretty? No, I wanted the DNA report in hand and Kate sitting beside us when that conversation took place. Kate’s the expert on dealing with emotions.

I unzipped the cookie bag—I definitely needed a chocolate fix—and ate while I dumped the contents of my purse onto the kitchen table to look for Jug’s card. Three cookies later I had him on the line and he sounded as cheerful as when we’d last seen each other.

“Sorry I don’t call sooner, miss. But Martha, she be having so much trouble.”

“Oh no. Her pregnancy?” I asked.

“Yes, but everything irie now.”

“Irie?”

“Means everything fine. We got us a new daughter yesterday. We call her Rose.”

A tiny lump formed in my throat. “Thank you, Jug.”

“Me the one be thanking you. Where you get so much money to be giving it to your taxi man?”

“Doesn’t matter. I want to hear about the baby. How big is she?”

“Let me figure in American.” He paused. “Ten pounds. So hard on Martha. She say no more babies, mon.”

I laughed. “I don’t blame her.”

“But I got more news, miss. Found your midwife. The one who delivered that baby you been asking about.”

“You’re kidding!”

“She be some booguyaga. I’d never trust no birthing to her. Gravelicious woman, though, so your money talked loud and clear. She told me everything.”

I wasn’t sure what those odd words meant, but I got the gist. “And what’s everything?” I asked.

“That she was paid to drug your lady after she gave birth—kept her drugged about a week, if she remembers right. She gave the little girl to a lawyer from the U.S. and told the mother the baby died.”

“This lawyer’s name didn’t happen to be Caleb Moore?” Moore—the man who’d handled the Beadford adoption.

“Ya, mon! That’s the one. You know him?”

“Not personally, but I know who hired him.”

“I see you been working hard on this, miss. Me, too. I found out who made the fake death certificate. Man be dead now, but you be needing that, too?”

“Not now, but maybe later. You’ve done a great job, Jug. Kiss that new girl for me.”

We said our good-byes, and I’d no sooner hung up when Jeff called. By the time we finished talking, the cookie bag was empty. He told me his stakeout had been productive last night, but now he had a mountain of paperwork and would probably crash at the station tonight. Boo-hiss, I thought after I hung up.

After my nonstop cookie fest, I skipped dinner and instead managed to get a few more boxes unpacked before Travis and Megan arrived. I made a pot of coffee for Travis and me. Megan said she was too jittery for coffee. She did seem fidgety, and with each passing day she was looking more washed out, her porcelain skin now blotched and her eyes heavy with fatigue and worry. How I wished what I had learned about her past could bring her some relief, but that didn’t seem remotely possible.

Travis helped me move several boxes blocking one chair in the living room, and once we were seated, Megan spoke.

“I think Travis wants to explain why he lied to you.” She squeezed his hand and nodded. “Go ahead, honey.”

Travis looked like a dog after a neutering—pained, pissed off, and sad. “Truth be told, I had to keep my story straight. It’s what I told Fielder so I thought I’d better stick with it when you asked.”

“Why lie about knowing Megan had hired me, even to Fielder?” I asked. And why keep lying, I said to myself, Jeff’s impression of Travis still fresh in my mind.

“I wasn’t about to talk about Megan’s private business. Not with Fielder. It wasn’t right.”

“So you were protecting Megan?” I sipped my coffee and leaned back against the sofa cushions.

“Who said she needed protecting?” he shot back.

Megan switched her grip to his knee. “It’s okay, Travis. Abby’s helping us, remember?”

He released a long breath. “Yeah. I know. But I’ve never seen you hurting like this, Meg.”

“I can help you,” I said, “but you need to come clean, Travis. What did you argue about with Megan’s father because I saw it. Holt must have heard it and Fielder now knows it.”

His stare went from Megan to me, and all the tension and then some returned. “That’s no one’s business.”

“You don’t believe that and neither do I,” I said. “What’s the big secret? At least tell your lawyer if you won’t tell me.”

“What happened between James and me that day will stay between him and me. Just know I would never hurt Megan by killing her father.”

“But if you have nothing to hide, I don’t see—”

The sound of breaking glass made me start, and coffee spilled onto my jeans. Good thing it wasn’t hot enough to do any damage.

“What was that?” said a wide-eyed Megan.

Diva provided a clue when she flashed past us and raced up the stairs.

“She probably knocked something over in the kitchen,” I said. “Let me make sure she didn’t hurt herself.”

I found her cowering under my bed. She hadn’t left any bloody footprints on the stairs or in the bedroom and was probably just spooked, so I offered a few soothing words and left her where she was.

“Sorry about the interruption,” I said when I returned to my guests. “Now, Travis. I—”

“They argued about money,” Megan said. “Travis was too embarrassed to tell you.”

Travis’s earlobes were red, his eyes downcast. Had they concocted this story while I was distracted? And if so, why? “Money?” I said, my tone infused with all the skepticism I felt.

“My father had agreed to pay for Travis’s last year at graduate school, but he took the offer back the day of the wedding,” Megan said.

“What a nice gift for his newest relative. And that’s the story worth lying about to the police? I don’t think so, guys.”

The sound of Megan’s cell phone prevented a response.

By the look on her face after she answered, the call was not welcome. “Slow down, Roxanne. I can’t understand you.”

Megan listened for a second, then said, “I’m at Abby’s house. Why do you need to know?”

More silence, then Megan said, “You’re scaring me, Roxy. What’s wrong with you?”

I held out my hand for the phone. “Let me talk to her.” God knows I’d had plenty of practice trying to interpret Roxanne’s peculiar communications.

When I had the phone, I said, “What’s up?”

“Like I told Megan, this is fate, Abby. They’re with you, just as they should be.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Please protect them from the vicious publicity that will certainly be generated by my confession. I am on my way now to turn myself in. Please let them both know I love them very much.”

“Wait a minute. What are you confessing to?”

“I killed them.”

A shiver shot up my spine. Roxanne’s calm, cold manner gave me the heebie-jeebies. “Who did you kill?”

“Uncle James and Dad. They interfered in my very private affairs, something they had no business doing.”

“Are you talking about your violinist friend? The one they sent to Boston?”

“I see you have been informed about the tragedy that has become my existence. And now I must say good-bye. Chief Fielder is waiting for me.”

The line went dead, and I stared at the phone for several seconds. The rumble of thunder above seemed fitting accompaniment to this strange development.

Megan broke the silence. “Did she say what I thought she said?”

“Yup.”

“And what was that?” said Travis.

“She confessed to killing her father and her uncle,” I answered.

Megan closed her eyes and shook her head. “That’s why she didn’t show up at the funeral home today. She was probably busy thinking up this latest drama. What is wrong with Uncle Graham’s girls?”

“Maybe she’s hungry for attention,” I offered. “I can’t see her killing her own father.”

“Sorry, but she’s a nutcase as far as I can tell,” said Travis. “I say either one of those cousins is capable of just about anything.”

“But they’ve had such a rough time, Travis,” said Megan.

“Lots of folks have a rough time and don’t end up acting psycho,” he answered.

Megan’s gaze fell to her lap, and she twisted her ring. “I know you’re right, but I still care about them both.”

“I understand. They’re family,” I said. “And if it helps, the night Graham died, I left Roxanne in the funeral home parking lot and went straight to see her father. I don’t think she had time to get to the hotel before me.”

“You don’t know for sure, though,” Travis said.

“Okay, maybe there’s an outside chance she made a dash to her father in travel speed worthy of NASCAR. But even though the girl’s not working with a full string of lights, I’m with Megan. She’s not a killer.”

“So what do we do?” Megan asked.

“Let Chief Fielder handle her,” I answered. This was a solution I liked. Oh yes. I liked it very much indeed.

“After the way the chief treated Travis, shouldn’t we go there or get her a lawyer, too?” Megan said.

“Why not wait and see what happens? If Roxanne is making this up, the chief will figure it out,” I said.

Travis reached over and took Megan’s hand. “Abby’s right.”

“I hope so,” Megan replied. But she didn’t sound convinced.

They left a few minutes later, the rain again reduced to drizzle. But the temperature had dropped a wicked twenty degrees in the last hour. I hurried upstairs and put on a sweatshirt, then adjusted the thermostat. But a chill lingered, one that seemed to come not from the change in weather but rather from my own discomfort.

Megan and Travis’s visit had unsettled me. These were two people I had come to care for, but they were both unraveling under the stress and revealing parts of themselves I wasn’t sure I liked. The once soft, sweet Megan seemed as nervous as a horse on a high wire. And Travis? The guy was a seething pot of emotion. Understandable? Sure. But still troubling.

Diva had followed me downstairs, and recalling the breaking glass, I decided I’d better see what she’d destroyed this week. Another sugar bowl? A glass she just had to stick her snout in?

Nothing seemed amiss in the kitchen, so I checked the laundry room—no problems there—and then decided she must have done her damage in the small glassed-in terrace. I flipped on the light switch by the entry, and sure enough, a Mason jar filled with clothespins that had been sitting on the picnic table now lay in pieces on the tile. I took one step into the room and stopped.

I wasn’t alone.