Executive Perks (30 page)

“What?”

“When you looked into the window. He must have thought you were Samantha. That must be what shook him up so.”

“Samantha? The dead girl?”

“Yes. I guess Victor was convinced he was seeing her ghost.”

Virginia shook her head and Aaron was just now realizing her clothes seemed to be dry. “He must have been imagining things.”

Aaron hesitated. “I saw it too.”

“It wasn’t me, Aaron. I was in the cellar trying to figure out how to rescue you, when Rye and the rest of them found me.”

“I found her before you showed up, Aaron, and then we could hear Victor with you, through the pipes just as he said. We got up here as fast as we could without alerting him.”

Aaron still stared down at Virginia. “You didn’t…”

“No, I didn’t.”

“There has to be a rational explanation for this. I saw her—you, I mean—clear as day.”

“Yeah, well, you’re welcome for rescuing you even though we had to go through a hurricane to do it,” Rye said.

Aaron turned to his friend and laughed. They could figure this all out later, since they seemed to have caught the culprit. He felt as though a huge weight was lifted off him. “We don’t have hurricanes in Oregon, Rye. Anyway, what’re you complaining about? You’re still on the clock, aren’t you?”

“Needless to say,” Rye said with a smile, wiping his glasses.

* * * * *

By the time they’d ridden out the storm and gotten back to New York so Victor could be questioned by the cops running the investigation, Baker had picked up Brian to question as well—for good reason, as it turned out. Both men who married into the Beckett family had a lot to answer for.

Baker let Virginia and Aaron watch the questioning through a one-way window. Victor had waived an attorney, more evidence of his dangerous arrogance, and was sitting with the detective.

“So who was Samantha to you,” Baker started out, “and why did you murder her?”

“She was my granddaughter.” Sitting in the barren little questioning room, on a plain metal chair at a small table, it was hard to believe Victor had been such a threat. He just looked like a defiant old man in the harsh fluorescent light, an orange jumpsuit making him appear more pathetic than his tailored Brooks Brothers suit undoubtedly did or even the wet suit had. “And I didn’t murder her. Virginia did.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Oh, not technically, but it was all her fault. Samantha came to see me about a month ago. She had learned who her father was and she—”

The policeman finished for him. “Was blackmailing you?”

“No! Of course not. I took one look at her and knew she had to have some Beckett blood in her somewhere. When she told me her father was my poor dead Jeremy, well, from the look of her, so much Beckett in her appearance, I had no reason to doubt it. A fairly simple search of birth records confirmed it. Jeremy had never known. Her mother, by all indications, was trash, no more than a one-night stand really.”

“Jeremy,” Virginia explained to Aaron, “was my cousin. He died a long time ago in a boating accident.” She turned back to listen through the window, unseen by this man she’d known all her life, but evidently never known.

“So,” the policeman prompted, “how did your granddaughter figure into all this?”

“She didn’t. We met for lunch a few times. At first, I thought she wanted me to introduce her to the rest of the family, but she demurred. She said we should get better acquainted first. She was a darling girl. And that bitch killed her.”

Baker didn’t comment and Victor continued. “After a while, I shared with Samantha my plans for the company. She wasn’t a mindless moralist like Virginia and her father and most of their hypocritical clan. She saw things my way. She thought my plan to harass Virginia with Mr. Winston and cause her to lose her legendary cool quite innovative. She admired my technical skills.”

“Yeah, I take it all those calls to IT weren’t necessary,” Virginia grumbled.

“So you’re good with tech,” Baker prompted.

“I could walk circles around those pimply boys they get at BFD to service their pathetic machines.”

“Why all the subterfuge, then? Why not admit your talents with computers? Unless your pranks with Miss Beckett and Mr. Winston weren’t your first forays into cybercrime”

Victor stayed silent on that one, finally saying, “That impertinent young man was a great disappointment to me. He was supposed to take over her company. Not fall into cahoots with her.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s crushed he disappointed you. Back to the point, though. Did your granddaughter learn about your plan and somehow object to it and you had to kill her?”

“Of course not. I told you. She thought my plan was brilliant and I didn’t kill her.”

“Well, then who did?” Baker asked.

“I don’t know, but I hold Virginia responsible. I told Samantha about the funeral home episode. A prank really, but with such a bite given my history with Virginia. I assumed she’d dissolve into hysterics and Mr. Winston could use it as leverage to get her out of the company. I imagined I’d get a tape of the sobbing cowardly weakling she really is. I was intending to send it to Mr. Winston in case he needed further leverage. But I admit I underestimated the slut quality in her. I didn’t know I’d be making a porn film.”

“Did you send Samantha to plant the cameras or lock them in and something went wrong?”

“She was my granddaughter, not my hired help. No. I had peons for that. An investment banker by the name of Phillip Carstairs was my willing accomplice. Willing for a price, of course, as with most things for bankers. I’ll be more than happy to give you his address.”

“Thanks. We’ll pick him up for questioning. So what was Samantha doing at the funeral home?”

“I can only imagine she went there for some other reason, probably to help me out, poor girl.”

“Okay.” Baker rose from the table. “I’ll send somebody in to take you back to the cell.”

Two seconds later, Baker was in the room with Aaron and Virginia, looking at the old man through the one-way window.

Aaron shook his head. “So someone killed this poor girl and dumped her body in a completely locked funeral home? That doesn’t make sense, Detective.”

The policeman nodded to the door. “For that, let’s talk to the other member of the illustrious Beckett family I got as my guest here.” He waved them out, and into another room with a one-way window, this time looking in on Virginia’s brother-in-law. Baker left them and showed up in the room with Brian a moment later.

Virginia shook her head. “This is really embarrassing.”

“I bet your stock goes down,” Aaron teased and she elbowed him as they watched an identical scene in an identical room, this time with Brian in the orange jump suit.

Baker asked, “What was Samantha to you?”

“I already told you.”

“For the record,” Baker indicated the tape recorder.

Brian complied easily enough, although the sweat on his forehead and his agitated manner indicated he was probably in the stages of some drug-withdrawal regimen. “She was a whore, literally. I tend to like a certain type and when my, er, usual contacts sent her over to a hotel for me one night a few months ago, I knew her likeness to Virginia had to be more than a coincidence. At first, I thought old man Beckett must not have been as straight-laced as he always pretended. I thought he must have had a little action on the side and this girl was actually another of Nora’s sisters. Not that the stupid bitch cared about it.” He spoke almost comically toward the tape recorder. “Samantha, I mean, not Nora.”

“You told your wife about this?” Baker asked.

“Of course not. You’re not too bright, are you, buddy? No, I meant Samantha. Samantha didn’t know who her father was and she didn’t care. I had to piece it together, since her whore of a mother was dead too. Then, when I did figure it out, I had to prod her to go to Victor.”

“You put her up to that, then?” Baker asked, though apparently he knew already.

“Of course. I wanted to blackmail the bastard, but Samantha resisted. I guess that too-good-for-the-rest-of-us Beckett blood trumps, even when it comes diluted and on the wrong side of the blanket. But the whore was good for something. She told me what that sly old asshole was up to with Virginia. And I was all for it. Don’t get me wrong. But I thought Victor’s plan could be improved upon.”

“Improved on how?” Baker kept the narrative flowing as Brian stopped intermittently, gulping the glass of water in front of him.

“Well, I knew nobody could get Virginia out of BFD unless she was taken out on a stretcher, gasping for her last breath of air. And even then, she’d probably be giving orders.”

“So you set out to kill her.”

“Duh. And the funeral home was the perfect opportunity. Victor had already been behind the fire at Bransport. I figured that a fire in the funeral home would be blamed on him when it was finally all unraveled. And meanwhile, BFD could go on the block and I could get what was coming to me, finally.”

“But how did killing Miss Beckett end up with killing Samantha? Obviously, it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity.”

“No, it was a case of a bitch getting into things she should have stayed out of. We were driving over to the funeral home, with the key to the padlock Samantha had pinched from Victor, and everything was going fine when I mention my plan. The bitch freaks out. Starts grabbing the wheel from me. Says she doesn’t want to kill anybody and she sure doesn’t want to frame her grandpa. I’m telling you, she went nuts. So I had to belt her one to settle her down. I don’t know, I guess I hit her harder than I thought. She was out and there was blood all over my BMW.”

“Which, when we got a search and seizure warrant for the car, was still detectable in trace amounts,” Baker noted, again presumably for the record.

“Yeah, so, when I parked at the funeral home, I realized she was dead. So I improvised. I undid the padlock, dumped her body in the funeral home and got right out of there, locking the door behind me.”

“What was the point of that?” Baker asked, looking genuinely curious for the first time in this interview.

“Shit, I don’t know. I guess I thought Virginia and Winston might be blamed. I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. For one thing, I needed my fix. But, oh no, now I remember. I was going to set the place on fire after I dumped her but then I heard these sirens coming out of nowhere and I figured I better just high-tail it out of there. Which turns out to have been the right decision.”

Brian was smiling, as if he wasn’t in custody.

Jesus, what an idiot. Aaron shook his head. “You’re going to do better with guys marrying into your family from now on, Virginia.”

Virginia smiled. “Yes, I think so.”

* * * * *

They were back in the house on the island, both of them wanting to go there. The Vincents and the third bodyguard were gone—but not after profusely apologizing for “dropping the ball” by not seeing Victor on the island and refusing to take their fee. Aaron didn’t fault them, but he appreciated their integrity. The real caretakers were not back yet from the impromptu vacation Aaron had imposed on them, so he and Virginia were fending for themselves.

It felt nice.

She curled up beside him on the sofa in the library in front of the roaring fire, Captain Seabridge brooding down on them, and Aaron finally felt comfortable enough to bring up the one thing that had been bothering him. He wanted no secrets between them, and if she wanted to go back to the mainland after he told her, so be it.

“If there’s one thing I trust, Virginia, it’s my senses.” He ran one finger lightly down the side of her cheek. “I didn’t just think I saw something in the window that night. I saw something.”

She looked up at him with a skeptical smile. “Something maybe, but you can’t believe it was Samantha Mallory’s ghost.”

“Probably not.” He reached into one pocket of his jeans and brought out a round brass object.

“What is that? Is that a watch case?”

He flipped the object open. “I guess. I found it in Captain Seabridge’s desk over there, though I swear I’ve been in there a dozen times before and never seen it.”

Virginia peered over. “Is it his watch, you think?”

“No. It’s not a watch. There’s a picture in it.”

“Let me see,” she said as he held it out of her reach.

“Remember when I said I didn’t know what Captain Seabridge’s distraught lover looked like.”

“Arabella?”

“Yeah, Arabella. Well, I didn’t. But I do now.”

He held the case open in the palm of his hand to show her. It contained a miniature portrait of a woman from the neck up.

A blonde woman with extremely familiar features.

“Jeez, I know they say everyone has a twin, but this is getting ridiculous.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I thought so too. She looks a little like you, doesn’t she?”

“How do you know this was Arabella?”

He showed her the inside of the portrait case.

“To J. S. with love from your Arabella,” she read aloud.

“I don’t know if it was Arabella or Samantha, but I would say one way or the other, this house has a ghost.”

She shivered. “A ghost who was watching over us that night.”

“You don’t want to get out of here, then? Go back to New York?”

“Not a chance. I think we should let poor Arabella see how a real love story ends.”