He glanced at Kate. “We may have left Sara alone with a murderer.”
Thirty
Sara didn’t know why she was so afraid, but then, wasn’t most fear irrational? She was in the bathroom dropping toiletries into her carry-on bag. There was no proof that Bella was... What? A criminal? A murderer? Just because all the pieces of the puzzle fit together meant nothing.
She looked at her watch again. How long would it take Chris to exercise his horse? It would be longer than a dog since a saddle was involved. But Chris was Australian. Maybe he rode bareback.
Trying to get a grip on herself, she stopped and took three deep, slow breaths. In the whole time they’d been searching for Sean’s murderer, she’d never had any fear. Maybe that was because she’d always felt that his death had been a crime of passion. It had happened in the moment.
But Mr. Howland was killed because he knew something. There’d been no passion involved, just a cold-blooded need for survival. His life taken to keep somebody’s secret.
Sara looked at the case she was packing. Why was she bothering with that? Inside her head a voice seemed to be crying, “Out. Out. Out.” Over and over.
She left the bathroom, telling herself to grab her phone, her passport and her camera bag. The rest of it be damned.
The first thing she saw was that her phone wasn’t on the foot of her bed. But that’s where she was sure she’d left it.
She’d sent the text to Jack and Kate—her cutesy little one-word text that she now regretted—then she’d run upstairs to her room. She’d meant to write more to them, but instead, she’d started packing. At the time, getting her belongings out had seemed important.
She stood there staring at the empty bed. One of the worst things about getting older was the world’s assumption that you became senile. This belief was so ingrained that the “accused” began to believe it. Every time you forgot something, misplaced an item, you felt panic. Was this forgetfulness or the beginning of Alzheimer’s? Dementia?
All Sara could think was that she’d stupidly left her cell in the kitchen. She’d forgotten it, had walked off and left it.
She was going to have to leave the relative safety of her room to go get her phone.
Taking more deep breaths, she put her hand on the door. She was being ridiculous! Bella was in London. She’d known the woman for years. Just because some rotten things had happened in Bella’s life didn’t mean she was capable of murder.
Quietly, Sara unlocked the door and peeped out into the hall. It was empty—as was the entire hotel. It had that eerie feeling that old, abandoned buildings had. As though every deceased person who’d ever been there was waiting for the living to leave so they could come out.
“You write too damned much fiction,” Sara said aloud, then straightened and started toward the stairs.
Her cell phone was on the second stair down. Smashed. Its little screen was cracked in a rather pretty starburst pattern.
She bent to pick it up.
An arm grabbed her, a cloth was put over her mouth and she felt a needle in her arm.
When she woke, she was sitting in the passenger seat of one of the Oxley Manor trucks. Vaguely, she wondered if it was the same one used to transport Sean’s body. No, of course not. That was too many years ago.
She tried to move but her body had the consistency of overcooked spaghetti. Besides, something tight was around her waist. She was tied in! She managed to turn her head a couple of inches. Her eyes were blurry, but she could make out who the driver was.
“You’re awake,” Bella said. “The trouble you have caused me!”
“Friend,” Sara managed to say, although the word was slurred.
“You’re saying I’m your friend?” Bella laughed. “Never! It took me years to find you. I needed someone alone and rich. Do you know how difficult that is to find? Money attracts people. Rich old men buy pretty young wives.”
“Money,” Sara said.
“Of course it’s all about money, but even that wasn’t enough. First, I had to get rid of Bertram. My brother!” She sneered the word. “A rotten piece of vermin, he was. But his drunken son drove the car that day. I could have managed that kid but Bertram was another matter.”
“You found me,” Sara whispered. She was trying to move her arms. Maybe she could get out of the truck. Then... Her mind was too fuzzy to think past that. She couldn’t think how to untie herself.
“I researched,” Bella said. “I used my job at the hotels. I questioned every guest who stayed in the presidential suite.” She smiled. “I’d almost given up, then there you were. Writing those stupid, disgusting books, one after another, while money piled up in your accounts. I had contacts. I said I was doing background checks. In exchange for a free weekend I was told about your millions. Just sitting there. Your brother in prison, no husband, no children, no one at all. You were what I needed, what I had to have.”
When she stopped the truck, Sara saw they were at the Preserve. There was still yellow police tape around the site. The gate was standing open.
“That night when you thought we first met, in the restaurant in New York, I planned that. The rain was a godsend. How could you turn away someone as drenched as I was?”