Arresting Developments (12 page)

“Dex, the trunk, the trunk.”

He frowned back at her and she pointed to the trunk over by the fireplace. The one with the guns locked inside. Except it wasn’t locked anymore, and the lid was standing open.

She and Dex splashed through the water that was already up to their ankles and reached the trunk at the same time.

The guns were gone.

Chapter Thirteen

Amber perched on the edge of a wing chair by the window in the house’s second library, the upstairs one, while Dex finished making his rounds on the other side of the room, insuring everyone was okay. Like the great room, the east wing library had plenty of seating, but it was spread out in small groups throughout the stacks of bookshelves so that not everyone was visible at once. That’s why Amber had chosen these specific two wing chairs for her and Dex—because at least there was no one behind them, just a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Ten feet away, the bookshelf ended and there was an aisle that opened up, like a hallway in the middle of the room. She kept watching that dark opening while trying to keep an eye on Dex.

He finished speaking to Freddie and Buddy, who were seated to the right of the door that led into the hall, nodded at Mitchell, who was curling up to go to sleep on one of the couches, and headed toward Amber.

He glanced toward the bookshelf behind them, perhaps to make sure no one could possibly squeeze behind it to listen to them, and took his seat. They both leaned toward each other, but they continued to watch the others.

“What did you find out?” she said, keeping her voice low.

“I didn’t want to announce the guns were missing, because I didn’t want to cause a panic. Instead, I was more subtle, or tried to be, asking each person if they were okay, if they’d gotten what they needed from downstairs.” He motioned to the stacks of goods everyone had deposited in the common area against one wall, their new pantry, essentially.

“I’m guessing no one admitted to sneaking into the great room and breaking into the trunk.”

“Well, I didn’t think they would. But based on what everyone said, I was able to pretty much corroborate most of their stories. I’m ruling out Amy, Freddie and Derek. And, of course, you and me. But so far I can’t prove the rest of them didn’t have an opportunity to get to that trunk. The lock was busted, which implies the thief didn’t have a key. But the only person who did have the key was me, so that doesn’t help.”

“Aren’t you ruling out Buddy?”

He shook his head. “No. I can’t. No one seems to remember seeing him carrying anything but a case of water upstairs. If he wasn’t carrying other things, then where was he while the others were in the pantry?”

She stared across the room at Buddy and Freddie, who were sitting on opposite ends of a couch now, eyes closed, apparently falling asleep sitting up. “I just can’t imagine that Buddy would take the guns. Assuming that the person who took the guns is the killer, why would Buddy shoot Mallory? He didn’t know her. And if you’re the true target, which seems likely, then again, Buddy barely knows you. What motive would he have to want you dead?”

“Okay, with me as the target, who stands to gain something by my death? It would make sense that only Garreth, Derek and Mitchell should be the true suspects. I pay each of them a healthy salary, with excellent benefits. Even Garreth, who takes other clients besides me, earns a generous retainer whether he does work for me each week or not. And our contract pays him escalating amounts above the retainer if he ends up working full-time on any particular issue. With me out of the picture, he’d be at the mercy of my replacement, who might very well hire a different lawyer for future work. I just don’t see him gaining anything with me gone.”

“All right. Makes sense. As long as the gain is financial. Have you done something to him that might make him want revenge?”

He laughed. “Revenge? Garreth? We’re not exactly drinking buddies. It’s all business. If anyone had revenge on their mind it would be Derek. We’ve both dated the same women before, although not at the same time, of course.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

He grinned. “There’s been some jealousy in the past, on his part. He claims sometimes women see me and leave him because of my money.”

“Is that true?”

He shrugged. “Probably. But we usually end up laughing and drinking over the memories later. So far neither of us has been particularly successful in the relationship department, long-term.”

“Was Mallory one of the women you both dated?”

He shook his head. “No. She was my mistake alone.” He grimaced. “Sorry, that sounds callous now. There’ve only been a couple of women we’ve actually both dated. The last was Ronnie—Veronica Walker. She was a bit...aggressive. It took some convincing before she understood that it was really over. I considered a restraining order until she finally quit coming around. I heard Derek dated her a few times after I broke up with her. But, as far as I know, that was very brief.”

Amber tapped the arm of her chair and considered what he’d said. “Okay, so Garreth has no obvious reason to want you dead and seems to benefit more with you healthy. Derek is a friend and you’ve had some quibbles in the past, but it doesn’t seem to have impacted your friendship or his position on your board. You did say he was a board member?”

“Yeah. He’s one hell of a smart guy. He sits on several boards, not just mine.”

“Does he get to run the company with you out of the picture?”

He smiled. “That’s not how it works. For one thing, it’s privately owned, not publicly traded. So the company would pass to my benefactor in my will.”

“Who’s your benefactor?”

“Jake Young.”

“Faye’s Jake?”

“One and the same. He doesn’t know he’s the benefactor, though. I’m sure he assumes I’ve willed my assets to my family.”

“Your family?”

“Mother, father, brother. All of them live in California. I haven’t seen them in years. And there’s no reason to talk about them.”

She disagreed, but since they were trying to solve a murder, she was willing to let it drop for now. “Then we’ve got one more person to consider—Mitchell.”

Dex grew quiet and stared out the window. Was he thinking about his family? Or was he maybe thinking that Mitchell was their best suspect? She gave him a minute, but when he didn’t respond, she waved her hand in front of his face.

“Dex? We were talking about Mitchell. Do you think he could be our suspect?”

He turned to look at her, his eyes dark, troubled. “As a matter of fact, I do. Mitchell’s been my assistant for a couple of years, but I don’t know much about his private life. Except for one thing. He was infatuated with Mallory.” He waved his hand as if to dispel any bad thoughts she had. “We didn’t both date her or anything like that. I brought her to an outside-the-office company event where everyone brought their families or dates.”

“Like a company picnic?”

“More or less, a get-to-know-you kind of thing, supposed to make teams work better together according to a consultant who recommended that I do those. We hold them twice a month, usually at a restaurant. But sometimes we’ll go to a movie or bowling or something like that. Just the top execs and their families, about twenty-five or thirty people at any particular outing. I remember Mitchell being like a puppy dog following Mallory around that first time. When she mentioned it to me later, I didn’t think much of it. But he did it again, at another event, and I had to tell him to leave her alone.”

“How did he take that?”

“As you’d expect. He’s a grown man. He was embarrassed and resentful but got over it fairly quickly. Or, at least, I’d thought he had. When he found out that I’d broken up with Mallory, I remember hearing from one of the other guys that Mitchell called her to offer his sympathies and a shoulder if she ever needed it. I remember thinking that was a bit odd, to offer your boss’s ex-fiancée a shoulder to cry on. Especially when the two of them weren’t even close.”

“Sounds kind of creepy.”

“Yeah, knowing that Mallory’s dead now, murdered, it seems way creepy.” He glanced around the room. “And I don’t have a clue where Mitchell is right now.” He suddenly rose from his chair and held out his hand. “Let’s get out of here. We’re both tired after not getting much sleep last night. And I’d feel a lot safer closing my eyes with a locked door between us and whoever has those guns—whether it’s Mitchell or someone else.”

* * *

T
HERE
WAS
NO
passion or heat between them this time. They were both far too tired for that. But nothing felt better to Amber than being curled up in Dex’s arms on the big, soft feather bed in her room. It had only taken a few minutes for both of them to fall asleep, and she’d slept better than she had in years, feeling safer than she ever had, even knowing that Mallory’s killer was still in the house somewhere. The door was locked, her Colt .45 was sitting on the bedside table. She had no reason to worry, as long as they were cocooned in here together.

Or, at least, she shouldn’t. But something had jerked her out of a sound sleep, and she had no clue what it was. The sunlight against the window blinds, what little peeked through the cloudy skies outside that were still dumping rain down on them, told her it was probably already afternoon. But the sun wasn’t bright enough to have woken her. So what had?

Dex’s arms tightened around her and his mouth moved close to her ear. “You heard it, too?” he whispered. “Close your eyes. Pretend you’re asleep.”

She squeezed his hand around her waist to let him know that she’d heard him, and she kept her eyes closed, breathing deep and even.

The tiniest creak, like a squeaky door hinge, sounded from across the room.

Suddenly Dex jumped out of the bed. Amber opened her eyes just in time to see him disappearing through an opening in the far wall, his footsteps echoing back to her. She blinked in shock as she realized what she was looking at was a hidden door, much like the small panels her grandpa had for storing things in the walls. But this opening was large enough for people. It looked like a hallway. She turned and reached for the gun on the table, but it was gone. She curled her fingers into her palms.
Please let it be Dex who took the gun.

She hopped out of bed and ran to the opening. It wasn’t completely dark. A wall sconce about ten feet in cast more shadow than light, but it allowed her to see enough to realize what she was looking at. She’d lived in this house off and on for years and had never realized it had secret passageways. Was that how the killer had shot Mallory and disappeared so quickly? Had he discovered one of the openings and used it to get in and out of her room?

“Dex?” she whispered, in case he was still close enough to hear her. No answer. And she couldn’t hear footsteps, either.

She couldn’t believe he’d chased whoever had opened that panel. It was foolhardy and dangerous. And brave. She couldn’t fault him for that. He wanted to catch the killer as much as she did, but he should have waited for her. She knew this house inside and out. Okay, not the secret passageway, or passageways, but she knew the rest of the house. Dex didn’t. If he went through another panel he might get lost in a part of the house he’d never been in. And he was following a killer who had at least four guns—the one he’d used to kill Mallory, plus those that Amy, Aunt Freddie and Buddy had given up.

She had to help him.

She ran to her dresser and grabbed some jeans and a T-shirt and quickly tugged them on. Then she took the only weapon that she had, her knife, and attached the sheath at her waist. Bringing a knife to a gunfight wasn’t the best possible scenario, but at least it gave her a chance. She drew a deep breath, then stepped into the passageway.

* * *

D
EX
FLATTENED
HIMSELF
against the wall, the revolver in his hand as he inched toward the next turn. He’d only caught glimpses of the person he was following, but he’d seen enough to know that he was definitely chasing a man—which ruled out Aunt Freddie and Amy, not that he’d really considered them suspects. But he was also chasing a young man, which ruled out Buddy, and he was chasing someone over six feet, close to his own height of six-two, which ruled out Derek, who was an inch shy of the six foot mark. That left only two possibilities—his assistant or his lawyer. Both of those possibilities left a bitter taste in his mouth. He’d trusted them with some of the most intimate and important details of his life, and one of them had betrayed him in the worst way, by killing an innocent woman. And now, whoever was stalking these dark halls had committed another sin—he’d threatened Amber by opening that panel into their room.

Dex hadn’t been taking the search for the killer all that seriously, hoping to just wait it out until the storm cleared and the water level went down and they could get the police in here to take over. But now he realized he couldn’t risk waiting any longer. He had to step up his game and figure out who was behind everything. Waiting and risking that Amber might get hurt—or worse—was unacceptable.

He tightened his hold on his gun and ducked down to make himself less of a target, then whirled around the corner, pointing the gun out in front of him. There, the silhouette of a man at the far end of the passageway ducked back behind the corner.

“Throw your gun out and give up, Mitchell,” Dex called out, making a guess as to the identity.

Laughter echoed back to him, then the sound of running feet.

Damn. What did that mean? That it wasn’t Mitchell? Was it Garreth, then? Dex took off running toward the next corner. He stopped and ducked down again, peering around the edge of the wall. The light from a sconce reflected off metal. He swore and lunged back just as a bullet ripped through the corner of the wall, its boom echoing through the tunnel.

Dex raised his gun again and ran past the wall, firing off two quick rounds. The man at the other end dove behind the next corner. Dex took off, running as fast he could. Both his footsteps and the other man’s pounded against the hardwood floors. When he reached the next turn, he didn’t stop this time. He raced around it, ready to end this.

He turned the corner at full speed. Ah, hell. He raised his arms to protect his face, unable to stop as he slammed against the wall that marked the end of the passage. Stinging pain shot through his shoulder as he busted through a hole in the drywall and slid to the floor. Plaster and dust rained down on him and he waved his hand in front of his face.