Devlin's Light (48 page)

With a
whoosh
of an exhalation, India dropped the weapon on the floor and knelt to turn the figure over.

“Oh, my God!” she cried. “Taylor! I forgot all about Taylor!”

“So it would seem,” said a voice from behind her in the darkened hall.

India turned to face her former sister-in-law.

“Thanks, India,” Maris said. “I was wondering how I was going to get rid of him. Guns are so noisy, and knives are so messy. You know how I detest a mess.”

“You bitch,” India hissed, every muscle tensing with the effort to remain still, to determine if her adversary was armed and, if so, with what sort of weapon.

“Now, is that any way to greet long-lost family?”

“You were never family. What trick did you use to get my brother to marry you?”

“Why India, you know that the oldest trick still works best.” Maris laughed derisively.

“You told him you were pregnant?”

“Can you believe he fell for it? ‘Ry, what will I do? Who will take care of my baby and my sweet young daughter?’ Of course, three weeks after the wedding, I had a ‘miscarriage’… but, well, Ry was such a sucker for that little brat, I could probably have gotten him to marry me anyway.”

In the dark, India could all but see Maris’s mouth twisted unpleasantly. There was no touch of Corri’s sweetness anywhere in the face that stepped into the dim light that flooded in from the streetlamp outside the front window.

“She’s not yours,” India stated flatly. “Corri’s not yours.”

“Of
course
she’s not mine. Do I strike you as the maternal type?”

“Whose, then?”

“It seems my cousin Angela had a real wide streak of bad luck a few years back. Got herself knocked up and run over by a car inside of eleven months. Corri was two months old when she died. My mother took care of the baby. Not that it matters.”

“It matters,” India said softly.

“Oh, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Now
you
want to adopt her. This whole family suffers from severe white-knight syndrome, you know that? You’re every bit as sappy as your brother was, India. And almost as annoying. I’ll tell you, it was worth ‘drowning’ to get away from him.”

“Why did you marry him, then?”

“India, have you been gone so long that you don’t know that the Devlin family owns the largest section of privately owned beach on this side of the Delaware Bay?”

“It’s not exactly the French Riviera, Maris. That stretch of beach couldn’t be worth that much.”

Maris laughed. “You are very short-sighted, India. I’m surprised you haven’t been able to figure it out.”

“Why don’t you explain it to me?”

“Well, you’re right about that stretch of beach not being the Riviera. The sand is coarse and it’s always got dead,
smelly things on it. Most notably those big, disgusting horseshoe crabs.”

Maris looked at India meaningfully.

“You still don’t get it? Let me give you another clue. India, what is the only thing that horseshoe crabs are good for? Other than covering the beach with all of those disgusting, slimy eggs.” Maris laughed derisively.

“I don’t have the faintest idea.”

“You know, Ry always bragged about how smart you are. I was so sick of hearing your name. India this and India that. I couldn’t stand you. Everyone thinks you walk on water. It’ll be such fun to watch you sink.”

India’s fists clenched tightly.

Maris sighed with studied exasperation. “I can see I have to explain this to you. India, do you know what LAL is?”

India frowned, trying to recall. “Some substance from horseshoe-crab blood. Nick mentioned it once.”

“Limulus amoebocyte lysate. LAL. It’s the standard agent used internationally to test medical drugs for contamination by bacteria. It sells for three hundred dollars an ounce. It’s also being tested as a cancer inhibitor. The government regulates how much blood can be taken from a crab—can you imagine?—but if you owned access to a steady supply of crabs, if you owned a large enough section of beach, the government would never know how many crabs were bled or how much blood was taken from each.”

“A laboratory that had an unlimited amount of blood could control the market,” India said flatly.

“Bingo.”

“You married my brother with the intention of killing him for the beach …”

“And can you imagine my horror when I found out that I would have to share it with you?” Maris rolled her eyes. “Of course, I didn’t realize that at first. My mistake—I should have investigated better.”

“Why didn’t you just kill him early on and get it over with?”

“Now, how obvious would that have been? Man marries penniless woman, three weeks later is found dead?
Duh.”
Maris rolled her eyes. “The spouse is always the most logical suspect, India, you of all people should know that.
No, I had to put some distance between me and the event, if you will.”

“So you pretended to be dead for two years? How did you plan on resurrecting yourself?”

“It’s all so simple, India. You want to hear the story that I’m going to tell when I come back? It’s such a heartbreaker.” Maris leaned back against the wall, her left hand on her hip, the right hand still out of sight in her jacket pocket. “When the storm came up, my little boat was tossed about like a toy. The current took me miles from Devlin’s Light. Then, as the storm intensified, poor little me was tossed out of that tiny rowboat like a rag doll and into the bay, where I was struck on the head by my boat. Fortunately, a passing boat saw me fall out and rescued me. Sadly, when I awoke, I had no recollection of my name or anything else, for that matter. It’s taken two years of therapy for me to regain my memory. And here, now, I return to Devlin’s Light, only to find that, in my absence, my beloved husband has been killed.” Maris raised her left hand to her face in a motion of sheer melodrama.

“You will not get away with this. There will be an investigation.”

“And they’ll speak with the person who ‘rescued’ me, and with my ‘therapist.’” Maris waved her hand as if all were immaterial. “You’d be surprised what you can buy with enough cash, India.”

“Where would you have gotten so much cash?” India said aloud, then she knew. “From Lucien Byers. His two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Maris laughed. “Well, of course, it was Lucien’s money.”

“I can’t believe you thought you could get away with this.”

“India, the only thing that’s keeping us from getting away with it is
you.
Don’t you see? If the land had passed to me, as Ry’s widow, none of this would be necessary now. I would just take what was legally mine and leave Devlin’s Light as a bereaved widow. After selling off all the land, of course.”

“And I suppose you had a buyer already lined up?”

“Now, was that
pun
intended?” Maris started to pull her right hand from her jacket pocket.

At that same instant, the hall light flashed on. Maris was startled, and in that split second, India’s best right hook connected neatly with Maris’s jaw with a force sufficient to lift the smaller woman off the floor and send her crashing backward against the wall, from which she slid into a quiet heap on the floor.

“Nicely done, sweetheart.” Nick nodded appreciatively from the doorway.
“Very
nicely done.”

“Thank you.” India bent over Maris to search for the gun India feared might be there. She was relieved to find empty pockets. “Did you hear?”

“I heard everything.” Nick opened the front door as Chief Carpenter’s patrol car pulled up in front of the house.

“So did I.” Taylor sat up, rubbing the back of his head.

“Oh, Taylor, I am so sorry.” India leaned down to help him up.

“I’m okay. I was only out for a minute or two. But once she started, I thought I’d let her go ahead and finish her confession.” The young officer stood up on knees that wobbled just a bit. “I knew you were in no danger, India. I had my gun, which I would have used if I had had to, but I could see Nick in the hallway behind you two. I knew you weren’t in any real danger.”

“So, look what we have here.” Chief Carpenter strolled into the front hallway, his hands on his hips.

“Did you pick up the other half of the duo?” Nick asked.

“He’s in custody. Thanks for the tip, Nick. That was pretty clever, you putting it all together like that.” Carpenter patted Nick on the back.

“Who’s in custody?” India asked.

“Lucien Byers.”

“I don’t get it.” She shook her head.

“That’s because you don’t have the benefit of the information I got this morning from my mother’s P.I. The information I waited up to tell you, but you, er”—he glanced at the chief and back at India, then dropped his voice to add—“you thought it could wait till tomorrow.”

“And what information was that?”

“That about three years ago, Lucien Byers purchased a medical laboratory that had been instrumental in developing the techniques of extracting LAL.”

“Byers was behind this?”

Nick nodded.

“Why did he come to the house with those phony documents?”

“Once they realized that the trust provided for joint ownership of the property, he knew he had to get around you to get to the beach. He figured if he had access to even a small portion of the beach, it would be as good as having the whole thing. With you in Paloma, you’d never know what was going on.”

“What would be going on?”

“He’d be raiding the beaches for horseshoe crabs.”

“And taking them to his lab to extract the LAL.”

“Right. But he was afraid that killing you would focus too much attention on the whole matter. He preferred conning you to killing you. He figured he could get you to negotiate a settlement to keep the Devlin name out of a lawsuit.”

“So there never was a land sale? That was part of the scam?”

“Which explains why my mother’s P.I. could not locate any of the alleged players. The attorney, the settlement clerk, the title company—none of them existed.”

“All that, for a few miles of beach.” India sat down on the bottom step. “My brother was killed over a few miles of beach.”

“Which, in the long run, would be worth millions of dollars,” Chief Carpenter reminded her.

“If you were willing to exploit it,” India said sharply.

“There are many who wouldn’t hesitate a second to do just that very thing.”

From behind India, a robed August appeared at the top of the steps and slowly descended. Her eyes darted around to take in the tableau in the front hallway: India, seated as if weary on the bottom step, Nick standing protectively nearby, the chief of police standing over a sullen Maris Steele Devlin. August stared at the young woman who had been presumed drowned for the past two years.

“It was Maris, Aunt August. She faked her drowning. She’s not dead,” India told her.

“Hmmph, I’m not surprised in the least,” August pronounced
from the third step, her arms folded crisply across her chest.
“Malum vas non frangitur.”

India looked up over one shoulder to where her aunt stood glaring at the crumpled heap that was Maris. “I’m sorry, Aunt August. It’s been a long night. You’ll have to help me with that one.”

“A bad vase doesn’t break.”

Chapter 30

Maris sat against the wall, one hand rubbing the back of her head, the other holding her chin. With sullen eyes she watched the crowd that seemed to sprout in the front hall of the Devlin home.

“My lip is split,” she whined, casting malevolent glances at India from across the wide hall.

“Be grateful it isn’t your skull,” India replied coldly.

“Where’d you learn to throw a punch like that?” Chief Carpenter was clearly impressed.

“Boxing lessons,” India told him.

“I’d say they were worth every penny.” Nick sat down next to her on the step and put an arm around her. “That’s one hell of a right hook you’ve got.”

“I get a phone call.” Maris pointed to the chief as if instructing him. “I want to call Lucien Byers. He’ll get me a lawyer.”

“Well now, I don’t know that I’d waste my one call on him, since in about twenty minutes or so you’ll have a cell-to-cell connection, so to speak,” the chief told Maris pointedly. “And come to think of it, he may not be real quick to help you obtain counsel. No, if I were you, I don’t know that I’d be counting on Mr. Byers right now.”

“What are you talking about?” Maris glared at him.

“Mr. Byers was picked up about an hour ago, on a tip from Mr. Enright. Good work, by the way, on the part of that investigator of yours, Nick.” Carpenter tipped the brim of his hat in Nick’s direction. “Anyway, Mr. Byers sure had a lot to say. Why, he was still talking when I left to come over here, and he told me what you were up to tonight. The bottom line is, I suspect that he is going to distance himself as much as possible from you, him being our star witness against you and all that.”

Maris laughed harshly.

“You must think I am incredibly stupid.”

“That’s probably the nicest thing we’d say about you,” India muttered.

Ignoring India, Maris scowled and told the chief, “I know this routine. I’ve seen it a hundred—a
thousand
—times on TV. The cops separate the suspects, they tell each of them that the other blamed the whole thing on them. … I’m not falling for it. Lucien would never—”

“He already has. We have his statement describing how you lured Ry to the Lighthouse that—”

“How?” India’s head shot up.

“Well, Lucien tossed some little pebbles to Ry’s window to awaken him. When Ry got up to look out, the first thing he saw was the light at the top of the tower. Of course, he went to investigate, just as Maris knew he would do. When he reached the top of the steps, Maris was waiting for him.” Chief Carpenter recited the story as Byers had related it to him. “Maris flashed the light directly into his eyes, blinding him, so that she could push him over the railing. I’m sorry, August, India.” He nodded to the Devlin women, then added, “Byers says he had no idea that Maris was going to kill Ry.”

“That’s a lie!” Maris all but spat at him. “I told him that was what it would take to get Ry out of the picture. It was her”—she pointed to India—“that he didn’t want to kill.”