Finding Julian (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Instead of driving to Jamestown
,
Seven called Detective Walters and told him what we’d found out about Mr.
Cornwell’s secretary. After scolding us for getting involved in police work, he
said he’d look into it.

The police had seized her back-up drive
and had a technician check out the IP address and date. Ms. Vaughn—Rachel—said
Mr. Cornwell used her computer to send the message to her email, so that part
added up. What they still couldn’t figure out was whether or not she was
telling the truth, about the message and the wills.

I felt agitated at the guesthouse. Seven
made me promise not to go out looking for Rachel Evans and just let the police
handle it. So, I waited until after he went to his room to shower before
hurrying out of the waterfront community to catch a bus to Jamestown. There was
no way I could just leave it to the police. They weren’t probing enough. And I had
to know what the deal was with Ms. Vaughn.

After reaching Jamestown, I got off the
bus at Watson Avenue and entered the quiet neighborhood in search of Rachel’s
house. I walked for nearly five minutes when the end of the street came into
view and I stared out at Dutch Island Harbor. Then, right there on my left, was
number 82.

I slowed in front of the house, keeping
my fingers near the emergency speed dial on my phone. Just in case. Walking up
the entrance, I surveyed the house for any sign if she was home—if in fact it
was the right house.

There was no car in the garage and the
blinds were drawn. I swallowed down what felt like a rock in my throat as I
stepped closer to the storm door. It made a creaking sound as I pulled it open.
That did nothing for my anxiety.

Taking a deep breath, I remembered how
nice Ms. Vaughn was to me when I met her that time in Mr. Cornwell’s office. I
told myself there was nothing to be afraid of. Raising my hand to the door, I
knocked briskly and waited for her to answer.

Some time passed and still there was no
answer. I leaned to the side and tried to see through the window. It appeared
dark with the blinds. I couldn’t see a thing.

I went back to the door and turned the
knob. It was locked. I had no idea when she’d be back and I didn’t want to come
all this way for nothing. I took my time and slowly went around to the back of
the house, trying to remain discreet so neighbors wouldn’t see me sneaking in
and call the police.

I lightly opened the storm door and
tried the knob. It was unlocked. I opened it and entered the kitchen, then
tip-toed across the floor into the living room. I browsed the place, making
sure there wasn’t anyone at home before I started looking around for anything
that might be helpful.

I lowered a bit as I walked over to the
window and peeked outside. Then my eyes glimpsed the pictures on top of the
chest by the window. It really was Ms. Vaughn’s house. There were pictures of
her and a little boy, possibly her son. I picked one up and stared at him intensely.
His sea blue eyes looked familiar.

Setting the photo back down on the
chest, I began to rifle through the drawers. There were only utility bills
among other things useless to me. I made sure to fix the stuff back the way
they were then I walked around the corner to her bedroom.

The room was as neat as the rest of the
house. I paused in the middle and peered around for a second before my eyes
landed on a box inside her opened closet. I walked over and took the box out,
stooping down to go through it.

There were folders from Mr. Cornwell’s
office with different types of claims on the front. I went through the pile
until getting to one with nothing written on it.

Sitting on the carpet, I flipped it open
and skimmed through the papers. My name popped up on one of the pages. It had
information about me dating back to when my mom and I lived in Warwick. I
assumed it belonged to Mr. Cornwell only there were papers with stuff about
Seven and his family as well. I didn’t understand why Ms. Vaughn—Rachel—had gone
through the trouble.

I let out a breath in frustration then
put everything back together. Setting the box back in its rightful place, I
straightened the area to make sure nothing else was disturbed. That’s when my
eyes caught sight of a smaller box in the corner of her closet. I reached over
and plucked it out of the tight spot it was in. Then I pried it open.

“Uh,” I gasped. There was a gun inside,
and a paper splattered with blood. I covered my mouth, utterly shocked by the
sight.

“I see you’ve found something you
shouldn’t have,” Rachel’s delicate voice rang from the doorway throughout the
bedroom.

Startled, the box fell from my hand and
I staggered backwards.

She glided over to the edge of the bed.
“I really wanted to keep you unharmed for the time being, Julian, especially
since you’ll be important in my future.”

I collected my thoughts to say the
obvious truth, “You….killed him.”

Rachel shook her head and made the
tsk-tsk sound. Inconspicuously, I managed to squeeze my cell phone in my jeans
pocket as she began pacing the room. Hopefully, my phone had dialed emergency
and they would be able to trace the call.

“I had to. Robert just wouldn’t listen
to me. He insisted on keeping the will as is, but after Cole Vanderson got sick
like I planned, I knew it was time to take matters into my own hands.”

“What do you mean like you planned?” I
gritted my teeth.

“Well, allow me to start from the
beginning, since you won’t make it out of this room alive.” She grinned. “I
made two separate wills that are absolutely nothing like the original. And
secondly, I fabricated that whole story about Robert leaving a last message to
me. I believe that’s pretty obvious by now.”

She went back to the doorway and leaned
against the wall. “You see, I’d lost so much because of your father and I
wanted him to not only die just like my husband did, but I wanted the Vanderson
empire to shatter with him.”

I fidgeted in place. “Then it wasn’t a
heart attack.”  

“Of course not, it’s an untraceable
drug,” she gloated. “I slipped it into his coffee the last time he came to see
Robert at the office.”

Rachel dipped her head and eyed the box
at my feet. “The evidence is all there. Only, no one will find it at the bottom
of the Atlantic Ocean.”

I glanced down at the box as well. “What
about me? Why’d you leave the estate to me?”

“Because,” she chuckled. “You were
supposed to marry him and then, after some time, you would be killed by your
jealous half-sister, and as your husband, he would in turn inherit the estate
and Vanderson’s wealth.”

“Well, you’re already too late. I signed
the estate over to Mackenzie—”

“No you haven’t,” she barked. “I
threatened Mr. Douglas and I know very well Marlene’s lawyer won’t have the
papers ready because I’ve dealt with them.”

My eyes shot up at her then.

“Oh don’t pretend to be disappointed,
Julian. I hear you’re enjoying Narragansett quite a bit.”

Rachel laughed deviously, while I
lowered my eyes to the floor and tried to decipher who was helping her in all
this.

Her cackling stopped all of a sudden and
I looked up. Rachel was coming at me with a knife. I slid to the side and
escaped her aim. She resolved herself and lunged at me again.

“Come here!” she shrieked.

I spun instantly and kicked her in the
stomach. Rachel grabbed her belly and moaned, falling down on one knee.

I tried to get the box by the closet,
but I had to jump back as she stabbed at me before I could get past her towards
it.

Shuffling backwards, I took off out of
the bedroom just as she composed herself and came at me again. The moment I
turned the corner for the living room, Rachel yanked at my back and shoved me
into the chest by the window. I hit my side on the edge and stumbled to the
floor.

No time to get distracted by the pain, I
crawled quickly past the chest and pulled it down in her way to buy myself some
time. Rachel’s eyes flashed with even more anger as her pictures smashed on the
floor.

“Damn you!” she growled, climbing over
the fallen chest.

Pushing off the floor, I gripped my side
as I bustled over to the front door. There wasn’t any time to unlock it. Rachel
had already scrambled over the chest and was right behind me. I ducked just in
time as the knife came stabbing at me again. It got wedged in the door. I
elbowed her out of my way and made for the kitchen.

She staggered a bit, but Rachel was too
determined to kill me. She pried the knife out of the wood and hurried after me
as I made my way through the doorway. I rushed for the kitchen door but she
caught my hair, pulling me down on my back. I hit my head hard on the tile. So
hard I didn’t have the energy to keep fighting.

Rachel stood over me. Getting ready to
shove the knife in my chest, she raised it in the air and whispered, “Say hello
to your daddy for me.”

The front door kicked in right then and
I heard Detective Walters yell, “Drop the knife, Rachel!”

“No!” she ignored him and plummeted for
me. A shot fired. I looked up. Rachel had been hit in the shoulder. She was
only inches away from my chest.

Rachel fell over as the cops rushed
inside. An officer pried the knife out of her hands. Detective Walters came
over and helped me up off the ground, escorting me outside. Seven was there.
Relief washed over him as he saw me come out of the house.

He hurried over and flung his arms
around me. “You’re so stubborn,” he scolded. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

I slipped out of Seven’s embrace to ask,
“How did you know?”

“Well,” Detective Walters explained,
“your friend here called us and said he thought you might be in trouble. Also,
there was a dispatch at the station about some emergency call from this
location.”

“My cell phone,” I muttered, thankful.
Turning to Seven I said, “My father was really murdered. It’s all in that box
inside her room.”

“I’ll check it out, Julian,” Detective
Walters said. “We also have another thing to charge Rachel for, even though we
still couldn’t find any evidence about her faking that last message from Robert
Cornwell.”

My brows went up. “What else has she
done?”

“Rachel attacked Jennifer Henry two
hours ago in the restaurant’s parking lot. Beat her unconscious, not enough to
kill her though so she was able to ID her.”

“She’d been watching us,” Seven
proclaimed.

Detective Walters nodded. A police
officer brought out the box and handed it to him. He took out his pen and used
it to rifle through the items inside, examining the gun, then the sheets of
paper.

“This gun looks like the model used to
kill Robert Cornwell. I’ll have to test the bullet to be certain. I’ll also
have the blood on these papers tested to see if it matches Cornwell’s.” He used
the pen to unfold the sheets of paper. “This looks like the will of Mr. Cole
Vanderson and a paper describing an untraceable drug called Anectine, otherwise
known as succinylcholine. This can definitely be used to cause heart attacks.”

He peered up at me and Seven. “Why don’t
you two get out of here? Once we’ve had the evidence analyzed the evidence,
I’ll send the original copy of the will over to your family.”

We nodded our agreement then headed for
Seven’s car. As I got to the passenger side door, I turned in an afterthought.
“Detective, what about the person that helped her?”

Detective Walters spun and stared at me
with narrowed eyes. “Someone helped her? We’ve had no evidence of that
whatsoever, even if she mentioned someone keeping an eye on the family in the
letter she contrived. That could’ve been another lie.”

“Yes, but she mentioned something about
someone marrying me to inherit the estate. So, what if she did have someone
else working with her in all this?” I remembered the boy in the pictures. “What
about her son?”

He shook his head. “Nathan Evans drowned
at ten years old. I found a death certificate while looking up Rachel.”