At Wolf Ranch (26 page)

She put her hands on the knobs, turned, and pushed the doors wide. “Oh. My. God.”

“What?” Gabe asked.

“Nothing has changed. This is exactly what the room looked like when my parents lived here. Well, almost.”

Ella stared at the lavender walls, deep purple cover on the four-poster bed, the antique dressers, and her mother’s collection of antique mirrors. Several ornate silver hand mirrors lay on the dresser along with her mother’s crystal perfume bottles. No fewer than ten pictures of her mother were scattered about the walls and tabletops.

“Honey, I know you said your dad adored your mother, but seriously, this is a bit much,” Gabe said, staring around the room.

“Uncle Phillip’s obsessed with her.” She could not believe her eyes. “Jeez. This is just bizarre.” She turned her focus back to the daunting task ahead. “Sam, there are several missing watercolors worth a fortune.”

“I’ll need the paperwork.”

“It’s with the insurance stuff. Let’s check the safe.” She walked to the closet door and hesitated, turning to glance at Gabe. “I’m afraid what I’ll find in here.”

“More creepy,” he suggested. “It can’t get worse than him killing your sister, dating a woman who he dressed up as your mother, and sleeping in a room where no matter where you look your mother is staring back at you. Didn’t Felicity or Mary say anything to you about this?”

“No. They weren’t allowed in here. Lee worked exclusively for my uncle. He preferred it that way.”

“To keep his secretes. Where is Lee?”

She turned to Sam. “You might want to find him.”

“On it,” one of the other agents said, leaving the room.

Ella sucked in a deep breath and opened the double doors to the walk-in closet. The air whooshed out of her with relief. Nothing strange awaited her. Her mother’s cheval mirror stood in the corner. An ornate decorative wood carving stood atop a chest of drawers. Her uncle’s suits and clothes hung around the room, his shoes lined up on the shelves. Her mother’s things were in fact missing.

“Where’s the safe?” Sam asked.

She walked to the six-foot-tall painting on the wall.

“At least your uncle kept one of the paintings,” Gabe commented.

“He couldn’t get rid of this one. It’s bolted to the wall.” She opened the drawer next to the painting and rubbed her finger along the upper edge of the frame, feeling for the button. She pressed it and the lever behind the painting clicked and the painting popped from the wall on the left side. She swung the frame wide, revealing the huge safe behind it.

Sam opened a folder behind her and stepped forward, pointing to the combination noted in the papers from her lawyer about her parents’ original will. He spun the dial and stopped at each of the three numbers, turned the handle, and opened the heavy door, revealing the contents inside. Stacks of cash, files, her father’s watches, cuff links, and tie tacks and clips. Sam pulled out the trays to reveal her mother’s jewelry, but most of it was missing. She remembered the trays full of sparkling gems in a rainbow of colors.

“Lela and I used to love to play dress-up in our mother’s clothes and jewels. Now, some bitch is doing it and acting a part for that bastard.” She turned to Sam. “I want it all back.”

“You’ll get it,” he assured her.

“I don’t see the locket he took from my sister’s body. It’s got to be here.” She left the small room to the FBI agents and stood in the middle of her parents’ old bedroom.

She stared around the room at all the photos of her mother, which led her to the ornate carved box on the table by the window. She opened the lid and discovered her mother’s collection of drawings and paintings she and Lela had done as children. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she sorted through the pages. “She kept them. It makes me sad and happy at the same time to know she kept these.”

“She loved you and Lela. I’m pretty sure my mom has a bunch of my school stuff too.” Gabe hugged her from behind and glanced at the pictures with her. “I don’t think any of mine are of flowers.”

“No, cowboy, they’re probably all of horses.”

“Like yours,” he pointed to the picture she’d drawn in probably second grade, of her atop a brown horse. She’d drawn a tiara on her head.

“Most girls dream of a knight in shining armor atop a horse come to save them. Not you, honey, you’re already a princess, ready to ride off all by yourself. You don’t need no stinkin’ knight.”

Unable to help herself, she laughed. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want a cowboy all my own.” She turned and kissed his cheek, but caught the worry in his eyes that despite all they shared, they still wouldn’t be together.

She put the pictures back in the box and closed the lid. She turned and stared at the room again and tried to think like her uncle. By all outward appearances, everything looked in its place. Like him. Perfectly crisp suit and shirt with ties that gave him just enough flair. Cuff links and tie tacks to showcase his wealth, but not too much to put people off. The outside hid what was within.

Drawn to the French wardrobe, she pulled the double doors open. Here was the man within. Several candle holders surrounded a picture of her naked mother, standing by a bank of windows, the light highlighting her body. She had her arms raised to her hair, a clip in her fingers.

“Wow! How do you think he got that shot?” Gabe asked.

Ella pushed the framed photo over, hiding the picture. “I don’t want to know. If memory serves, that is the master bedroom in the Paris apartment. It looks like she was putting her hair up to take a bath.”

“Peeping through the door and taking pictures of her.”

Outraged, she clenched her fingers into tight fists at her sides. “There’s got to be a special place in hell for someone like him. Jail is too good for that asshole. How dare he do that.”

The photo might have caught her attention, but the wood box with the solid gold wolf on the lid held it. “Sam, check this out.”

Sam stepped around her and pulled the box out with his gloved hands. He set it on the table next to the bed and a vase of her mother’s favorite white lilies. He tried to open the lid, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Puzzle box?” Gabe asked.

“I think so,” she said. “It probably belonged to my father, though I don’t remember it.”

“You guys have a screwdriver or something we can use to pry this box open, Sam?”

“No! I’m not ruining this box. Give me a second to figure it out.”

“Ella, it’s just a box.”

“It was my dad’s.”

Sam handed her a pair of latex gloves. “Put these on. Anything you find in there is evidence. I don’t want you to compromise it.”

Ella put on the gloves and studied the box. In the end, she found the box gave up its contents easily by pushing the wolf’s tail down. A latch clicked open and the top popped. “No wonder Uncle Phillip used this one. It’s probably the simplest puzzle box my father owned.”

Ella lifted the lid, knowing what she’d find, but feeling the punch to the gut all the same. She pulled out her sister’s bloodstained locket.

Gabe wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

Ella placed the locket in the evidence bag Sam held out to her. She reached in and pulled out the silver and black Beretta twenty-two pistol, removed the magazine, pulled the slide, and checked the chamber. She counted three bullets in the magazine.

“Sam, how many times was Mr. Reiser shot in the mugging?” she asked.

“Four, why?”

“Plus one used to shoot the airplane mechanic’s wife in the head. Three bullets left in the magazine that holds seven.” Ella sighed.

“Plus one in the chamber,” Gabe added. “There’s your five shots. That’s the murder weapon.”

“I’ll have the team run ballistics to verify the bullets from those two murders match the gun,” Sam said.

Ella put it in the evidence box Sam handed her from one of the evidence techs.

The purple leather-bound book drew her attention. She pulled it out and opened the cover, her mother’s pretty script scrawled across the pages.

“Your mother’s diary?” Gabe asked.

“Yes.” Ella flipped through the pages to the end. She turned the book toward Gabe.

“What’s with all the gibberish?”

“Code.”

“Another puzzle?”

“My parents had a secret code to write love letters, so no one but the two of them knew what they said.”

“Can you decipher it?” Gabe asked.

Sam handed her his small notebook and a pen. It took her several tries to remember the key to the code, but once she got it started, the rest came easily.

“Phillip wants to own me as he wants to own all Stuart built. He killed my husband. He’ll kill me, too, to get what he really wants. But it will never be his. I will lure him to the estate, and I will finish him to save my girls. I love you Ella and Lela with my whole heart
.”

“That’s it? That’s all she wrote?” Sam asked.

Hard to read through her tears, but she skimmed the last several journal entries. “She writes about his growing interest in her and how uncomfortable it makes her. She says he talks about running the Wolf empire with her by his side as it should have been all along.”

“His obsession for her drove him over the edge,” Gabe said, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips, kissing her palm.

“It’s insane that he thought he even had a chance with her. Anyone who saw my parents together knew she loved my father. He adored her. If she discovered Uncle Phillip killed my father, she’d have wanted revenge.”

“From the note she wrote, it sounds like she meant to kill him,” Gabe said.

“If he was obsessed with her, she’d have been able to get close to him. So, she lured him to the estate, knowing he’d come like an eager dog ready for a pet. Whatever she tried to do—poison him, shoot him, whack him in the head with a shovel—he turned the tables.” She pressed a hand to her sour stomach. “He hung her. I can’t imagine all her fury unleashed to kill that bastard turned to agonizing fear when Uncle Phillip’s so-called love turned to murderous rage. To do that to the woman he supposedly loved . . .” Reality hit her like an elbow to the gut, it stunned and hurt her. “I wish she’d killed him.” She slammed the diary down on the table, letting her rage reign. “All these years, I thought love killed her. I thought she loved Daddy more than she loved us.”

“No, Ella. Never. Even if she’d killed herself, that was her grief, not her love for him that drove her to it.”

The guilt ate a hole in her gut. “He made me hate her for leaving me.” She’d never allowed herself to grieve her loss and miss her. Those feelings swamped her now, threatening to drag her down into a pit of despair. The tears rolled down her face, but she held back the screams of agony.

Gabe cupped her face and swept his thumbs over her wet cheeks. His gaze held hers. “She didn’t abandon you, sweetheart. She tried to protect you.”

“He took them all away. My father, mother, sister. All of them gone, and for what? Money,” she spat out, like it meant nothing, because it didn’t compare to the people he took from her.

“He’ll pay, sweetheart.”

“The book doesn’t prove he killed your mother,” Sam said. “Unless he confesses, I can’t charge him. We could exhume her body and do another autopsy.”

“No. Leave her to rest in peace with my father. Soon I’ll bury Lela beside them. They’ll know I finished it, the way my mother and Lela both tried to do for me.”

Sam took the wood box from her lap. Gabe pulled her close and walked her out of the room and down the hall and back to the stairs. They walked through the living room to the dining area. Mary came out a door, carrying a tray.

“Mr. Bowden, I have a beer and a sandwich for you. Ella, dear, I’ve made you a vanilla latte, some fruit, and a chicken salad.”

Tears and her emotions back under control, she said, “Thank you, Mary. We’ll sit here at the table while the FBI finishes their work. Please make sure there is coffee and a snack for them if they’d like it.”

“Of course. I’ll take care of it right away.”

Gabe waited for Mary to go back into the kitchen to make more coffee for the ten cops upstairs. He reached over, plucked Ella from her chair, and set her on his lap. She immediately settled into him and reached for her coffee. She drank it absently, resting her head against him.

He picked up his snack and stared at it. “Did she seriously make me a filet mignon sandwich?”

Ella glanced at it, stole it from him, and took a bite. “Yep. With cheddar, Dijon mustard, and red lettuce with red onion. It’s very good.” She held the sandwich up to him, and he took a big bite.

“Damn, that’s good.”

Gabe set the bowl of fruit on her belly. He snagged a strawberry and popped it into his mouth. The blueberries were fat and huge. He pressed one to Ella’s lips, and she grabbed it with her teeth.

Sam came up behind them. “Ella, we’re ready to do the library.”

“She’s not going in there, Sam. Do your thing, but leave her be.”

“Gabe, man, it would be easier if she set up the scene for us and . . .”

“She’s not going in there. She needs to eat and take a minute for herself.”

Ella didn’t contradict him. Sam sighed and headed for the library without her.

“I can’t.”

“I know,” he said, hugging her close. “Eat.” She’d already eaten most of the sandwich and half the bowl of fruit. He didn’t mind sharing. Once he finished his half, he started on her salad. He loved the strange green dressing and pumpkin seeds with the shredded chicken and greens. “I need to hire a cook. This is really good.”

Ella laughed and shook her head. “Either that or you’ll have to cook, because you already know I don’t.”

Such a telling statement that she meant to live with him, but he didn’t dare take it as her intent.

“So, it’s left to me to take care of you.”

She leaned up and gave him a quick kiss. “You do it so well.”

Chapter 30

G
abe walked out of the bathroom dressed for the day and still feeling exhausted. He’d barely gotten three hours’ sleep. He stared at the rumpled bed and figured Ella probably got one. He wanted to pack her bag, put her on a plane, and take her back to Montana and away from this mess. Not going to happen, but that was exactly what she needed. He hated finding her crying in Lela’s room in the middle of the night. He’d done everything he could to show her how much he loved her and that she’d never be alone again, but it hadn’t been enough to make her smile and ease her grief. Part of him knew she needed to work her way through it in her own time and in her own way, but it still left him feeling inadequate. He needed to do something, because seeing her like that ate away at him and broke his heart.

She was a good, kind, loving, decent person who didn’t deserve any of this. He hated Phillip for what he’d done to her, to her family.

Gabe made his way down the stairs, amazed at the extravagance of her home. He’d seen pictures of places like this in magazines, but never up close. He glanced out the windows at the park and knew this neighborhood was probably the most expensive real estate in the country. Ella was used to this lifestyle. He was still trying to get used to it and felt like he should put his hands behind his back and not touch anything.

He walked through the living room and found Ella at the dining room table with Mary and Felicity, bent over notepads. Ella looked up and smiled when she saw him. The doorbell rang and Felicity rose to answer it. Ella stood and came to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a sweet kiss. She tasted of coffee and a bit of desperation the way she held her lips pressed to his. He hugged her close, but didn’t let go when she ended the kiss.

“I don’t like waking up without you,” he grumbled.

“I couldn’t sleep. Too much to do.”

“You need your rest.”

“I just need you.” She laid her head on his shoulder and sighed.

He kissed her on the head and glanced over her at Sam, who walked in the door, talking on his phone.

“Yeah, he’s right here,” Sam said, handing the phone to him.

Ella let him go. “Hi, Sam.”

“You need to sleep,” he said, seeing the same dark circles and bloodshot eyes Gabe saw this morning.

“Hello,” Gabe said into the phone, not knowing why Sam handed it to him.

“Hey, man, it’s Caleb.”

“Oh, hey. What’s up? Why are you calling Sam and me?”

“Good news. Summer and I are pregnant.”

Gabe’s heart soared. “Congratulations. To both of you. When?”

“Late September.”

“That’s great, Caleb. Really fantastic. I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks. We’re really happy, too. Listen, I won’t keep you, I know you’re in the thick of it with your girl this morning, but I wanted to say I’m happy for you too. Blake and Dane rave about Ella. I can’t wait to meet her.”

“You will soon.”

“Call me when things settle down. We need to catch up.”

“Will do. And give Summer a big kiss for me.”

“Definitely. Bye.”

Gabe handed the phone back to Sam, unable to hide the huge smile.

“What is it?” Ella asked, looking from him to Sam, easily reading how happy they both were.

“My brother knocked up Sam’s sister. We’re going to be uncles.” Gabe high-fived Sam and they both smiled like crazy.

Ella laughed at the two of them. “Congratulations. When’s the baby due?”

“End of September.”

“This is going to be one lucky baby. They already have an uncle to play cops and robbers and another to play cowboy.”

He and Sam both laughed, but Gabe caught the sad look in her eyes that she’d never hear her sister say she was pregnant. She’d never get to tell her sister the same. They’d never share the experience of being pregnant and delivering their babies. So many things they’d never share, and all of them reflected in Ella’s sad eyes.

“Maybe if this one wises up, the baby will have a rich aunt who takes her shopping on Madison Avenue.”

Ella’s gaze locked with his. She didn’t say anything about becoming the baby’s aunt, but gave him hope when she laughed and said, “What if it’s a boy?”

“Can you buy a dirt bike on Madison Avenue?” Sam asked.

“I guess I better find out. Just in case,” she added.

Gabe wanted to know if that meant just in case it was a boy, or just in case she became his wife. He didn’t even question that’s what he wanted. He wished he knew how to make that happen. Asking her was easy, but the reality of it seemed a lot harder to figure out, especially when he was standing in her multimillion-dollar home on 5th Avenue in New York City when he belonged on his ranch in Montana. Correction, their ranch. The one she owned the lion’s share of because no way could he afford that house and massive piece of land. Despite all that, he wanted her, everything else be damned.

Sam broke the tension. “Shall we go see how your uncle is doing this morning?”

“Let’s,” Ella said, turning to the table and jotting down several things on the notepad Mary left.

“Ella, what were you discussing with Mary and Felicity?” he asked, seeing the long list of items on the paper, even though it was too far away for him to read.

“Packing up Rose’s place and this one so I can sell them.”

“Ella, isn’t it a bit premature to sell this place? This is your home.”

Ella turned to him. “I can’t live here, Gabe. Not anymore. No by myself.”

“But . . .”

“I’ve got the estate outside the city, and I can buy another place in the city, but not here. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“It is. This is just a place, filled with things. You know what I learned last night when I saw Rose? As much as I hated seeing her in my mother’s things, they aren’t as important as my memories of my mother, father, and Lela. Keeping this place or letting it go won’t change my memories of them. They are so much more to me than this place, or the things that belonged to them.”

“It’s just, you may feel differently once some time has passed.”

“Not about this place. I’m not getting rid of everything, but I need to do this.”

“I just want to be sure you don’t regret it.”

“You were right. I’ve outgrown the life I’d been leading here. I intended to change that when Lela and I turned twenty-five and took over the company. A good time to start fresh and go in a new direction. After what’s happened, everything has changed. I’ve changed. I want more than just running the company. I can’t live in the past with my family’s ghosts. It’s too hard and it’s killing me. I want a life worth living, filled with love and happiness and friends and hopefully family. I’m trying to get that, Gabe, but first I need to close the chapter on this part of my life.”

Gabe took her hand. “Then let’s do that. Let’s finish this.”