Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) (23 page)

Holy shit.

Carl drew out three thousand dollars the
morning he died.

Chapter Thirteen

Dammit. Carl had withdrawn three thousand in
cash.
Three thousand
. Then he’d gone for a hike? In Brax’s
gut, the man’s actions didn’t make sense.

Carl and Maggie had been having marital
problems. Maggie had reamed him. Carl displayed an overzealous
reaction to a dart game and a proposed resort. Then he’d cashed out
three thousand dollars and fallen off the side of a mountain.

Coincidence? Not in Brax’s experience. Though
he believed her reasons for crying murder were due more to her own
sense of guilt, Maggie might be right.

Could the money have been on him when he
died? Did Teesdale take it? Brax thought the sheriff incompetent,
but not a thief. More importantly, Carl’s unidentified assailant
would have gotten to the money first. Before the chickens and way
before Teesdale.

Dammit, dammit. Brax should have known
something more was up than ten years of marriage becoming routine.
Carl had bled the bank account for weeks in small but consistent
amounts. Maggie had told Brax that, and the statements confirmed
it.

Money and murder went hand in hand.

Brax, for his part, had wanted only to smooth
things over, bring the issue to a swift resolution, and get back to
his vacation. He’d fobbed his responsibilities off on a bestselling
relationship book. He’d
planned
to give his sister short
shrift.

Now Carl was lying in Teesdale’s basement.
Jesus. He should have done something. Anything. Instead, he’d
fucked up his duties.

Same as he had in Cottonmouth, he’d ignored
signs screaming at him.

His initial thought was to wake up Maggie.
Now. She had to know more than she’d told him. Her husband had a
net worth of almost a million, and, by her own admission, she
checked his balances on line. Did she know about all the accounts?
Why was she hiding shit from him when she’d flat-out asked for his
help?

One last unbearable thought pounded at
him.

Had Maggie discovered the withdrawal, then
followed Carl up that trail, and fought with him about it?

He was a cop, and the golden rule was look
first to those closest to the victim.

He would not follow the rule with his own
family, and he didn’t give a goddamn what anyone said about that.
He’d make damn sure Teesdale didn’t follow it either. Brax’s gut
told him Maggie’s reactions were born of guilt over her last words
to Carl. If she’d had anything to do with his death, then for the
last two days, she’d given the performance of an Academy
Award-winning actress. No. No one could have faked her reactions
along the way. Not the ballistic anger, nor the disabling pain.
Maggie had denied to herself that Carl was dead, then she’d cooked
up the murder scenario. To appease her own guilt. That was all.
Nothing more.

So where the hell was the money?

The cash or a paper trail leading to it had
to be somewhere in Carl’s office. When Brax found it, he’d tackle
Maggie. In the morning, when she’d made it through this first
hellish night and the temporary oblivion provided by Xanax.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath,
draining his anger as he exhaled. Emotion—whether it was anger,
self-pity, or guilt—interfered with a job to be done. It always
fucked up an investigation, and he damn well couldn’t afford the
luxury of self-recrimination. He needed a clear head.

Brax flipped through the notebook. Carl had
written down, presumably, every credit card he possessed, and his
insurance policies, with contact name and number, from home owners
to car, including a life policy. The pen used appeared to be the
same, black, with the same degree of legibility, as if Carl had
cited all the pertinent information in one fell swoop.

Why? Nobody was this methodical. Even Brax,
who considered himself relatively organized, would have to scour
his wallet to obtain each and every credit card number. Thank God
the billfold had never been stolen. Had Carl truly been about to
leave Maggie and written out the data in order to help her pick up
the pieces once he was gone?

Brax found the remaining pages of the
notebook empty. He opened each desk drawer on the right side to
uncover only the usual assortment of office supplies. Almost the
usual. A calligraphy set lay in the bottom left drawer. Calligraphy
didn’t seem Carl’s style. Nor did the fact that he owned an
extensive quantity of colored pens.

He started on the left-hand drawers, only to
find more of the same innocuous reserve of office supplies, and a
well-read science-fiction book by a guy named Waldo Whitehead. Brax
recognized the author and the name of the book,
Death Game
,
from the bestsellers lists. Damn, the title was strangely
prophetic. Carl hadn’t struck him as a reader, and a desk drawer
was an odd place for it. He flipped through, hoping for a secret
cache of notes that would explain everything. Yeah. He could hope,
but he was a cop, and he knew things were never that easy. The book
contained nothing of interest. He left it on the desktop.

Shoving the rolling chair back from the desk,
Brax returned once more to the filing cabinets. If Carl had been
idiotic enough to write down all his passwords and methodical
enough to detail all his credit facts, he might also have written
down, in detail, what he’d used the money for. Hopefully including
the three thousand he’d withdrawn yesterday morning.

The answer had to be somewhere in this
goddamn trailer.

He yanked open the first drawer on the third
filing cabinet. It contained documentation on major purchases, the
cars, a new stove, the Jacuzzi on the sunporch. He’d kept every
warranty booklet and instruction manual for everything he owned,
right down to the four-slice toaster he’d bought over three years
ago. In alphabetical order by type of purchase, the booklets filled
the entire cabinet, though Carl hadn’t crammed the drawers, leaving
plenty of space in between for new additions.

He had not, however, documented any new
purchases beyond those expenditures he’d made for his spelunking
equipment. As Maggie had testified, he’d used his credit card for
those items, and the last major purchase had been made over four
months ago.

No three thousand anywhere and no accounting
for where the money had gone. Nor anything indicating what he’d
done with smaller amounts he’d taken out over the last few months.
Shit.

The fourth cabinet turned out to be empty, as
if Carl had planned for future expansion. At least, Brax presumed
it to be empty until he got to the bottom drawer.

A paper grocery sack had been shoved in but
not squashed down. Two spools of ribbon, one red, one silver, their
unsecured ends curling, lay on top.

Paper sack. Something about a paper
bag...and...and...ah, he had it. Carl came in with a grocery bag
the night of the Big Fight. Maggie had accused him of buying porno
magazines to entertain himself. Carl had not revealed what was in
that bag.

Brax batted aside the spools of ribbon and
lifted out the bag, taking it over to the drafting table. Too light
to hold even one magazine, he unfolded the evenly turned down
opening.

Heavy-weight antiqued scrolls, each tied in a
bow with a red or silver ribbon, filled the bag to capacity. He
pulled out one, marked with a calligraphic number six. The bag, in
total, gave up twenty rolls, each with a number painstakingly
written in a different color on the right end.

Hence the calligraphy set and the unusual
number of pens. Every detail an investigation uncovered always had
a reason. A detective just had to find out what it was.

Brax scattered the scrolls, prowling through
them until he located number one. He stared at it far longer than
necessary, his belly screaming with that bad feeling common to cops
and people snooping where they didn’t belong.

The ribbon knotted when he tried to undo the
bow. In the end, he slipped it off, the bright red cascading to the
floor. Unfurling the paper, he pressed it flat to the table. The
ridiculous curlicue font, made more difficult to read by the fact
that it was in bold, confounded him for a moment. He flipped on the
desk lamp attached to the top of the drafting table, and the words
suddenly jumped out at him.

He followed three paces behind her, leaving
room between so that he could watch the play of sinuous calf muscle
as she walked. Her short skirt barely covered her butt cheeks, her
bare legs smooth and tan, and her boots topped with bulky hiking
socks.

Jesus. This could not be what he thought it
was. He kept reading.

The contrast of feminine to utilitarian
raised his temperature. Sex was about alluring contrasts and minute
sensuous details. A soft breeze blew across his back, then caught
the hem of her skirt, lifting it. He’d hoped for a tantalizing
glimpse of silk. Instead, he was rewarded with firm, delightful
flesh.

Brax folded his arms, laying his head down.
Damn, damn. The fantasy. Simone had written it. He’d know that
voice anywhere. He’d dreamed the words of her website teaser over
and over. Her writing was unmistakable. He forced himself to read
on.

She scooped at the skirt, laughing and
turning to him. “Oops. Guess I forgot my underwear.” God, he wanted
her. Here, now, under the hot sun, against the warm earth.

Brax read until there was nothing left to
read. To his everlasting shame, his jeans bulged with a painful
erection. Though the room was empty, he felt like a voyeur. He’d
eavesdropped on Carl’s fantasy.

On Simone’s fantasy.

Jesus, he could only pray it wasn’t
their
fantasy. Simone and Carl. God, no. He could pray, but
he was beyond hope.

The woman in that fantasy was not Maggie.
Yes, Maggie had blond hair, but there, the similarities ended.
Simone had described herself. She’d beefed Carl up to stud status,
letting him do his fantasy lover bit six times in different spots
along a mountain trail. He’d managed to come six times, too.

Six sex scenes in the space of twenty pages,
all so vivid that Brax had a hard time not imagining himself doing
those things.

Godammit. She’d written a sex fantasy for
Carl. Brax had known it, in his heart and gut, he’d known. He’d
wanted to believe she wrote it for Maggie and Carl,
starring
Maggie and Carl, the way Doodle had said Simone wrote snippets for
his wife.

Goddamn Simone.

That woman was not Maggie. No
forty-two-year-old woman could possibly contort her body into those
positions. He wasn’t sure a twenty-year-old could, either. That was
definitely not Maggie.

Shit, shit, shit. The money, the withdrawals,
now this. Why had Carl printed each page out on fancy paper, then
rolled them into a scroll and tied them with a fricking ribbon?
Godammit.

At first, he retied the ribbons. Five pages
in, he no longer gave a damn. The untied scrolls had rerolled
themselves and cascaded to the floor as he tossed them aside. They
crackled beneath his quick stride to the computer.

His flesh hot, his body aching, he booted up
Carl’s email program, flipping back to find the password page in
the spiral notebook. Sure enough, the email sign-ons were there,
too. Brax typed them in, then perused the emails in each of Carl’s
folders. Nothing from Simone, nothing from her website. Carl hadn’t
saved the original message. And Brax wanted to see it. He needed to
see where the hell that fantasy came from. He had to have it before
he accused her.

But Carl had left no trail. He’d documented
every goddamn detail of his life, but he hadn’t kept Simone’s
emails. Brax clenched his fist with the need to pound the desk in
frustration. Afterward, he could never say why he decided to
download Carl’s unread emails.

He waited for what felt like an eternity for
fifty-two emails. High-speed wasn’t as high-speed as he needed
right now. When they hit the inbox, most could immediately be
marked as spam. Only one held any meaning for Brax.

An email from Simone’s website. His fingers
trembled as he guided the mouse and clicked.

“If you’re planning what I think you’re
planning, you are dead meat. And I do mean dead meat. Rotten
maggot-infested buzzard bait.”

Her words hit him like a left jab to his
jaw.

Jesus H. Christ. Simone had threatened Carl.
Now Carl was dead. Buzzard bait, just as she’d said.

* * * * *

Simone heard a car engine turn over, but by
the time she’d rushed to the window, the drive was empty. Brax’s
SUV was gone from Maggie’s front drive.

“Where’s he going?”

Della came to stand at her side. They both
stared out into the dusk.

“I don’t know.” An obvious answer, unless
Della thought she’d suddenly become a mind reader. Where he’d gone
was less important than why he’d rushed off without coming back
inside. Brax had found something in Carl’s trailer, but what? And
why had it sent him driving off without a word?

A shiver ran across Simone’s shoulders, and
she rubbed her arms to dampen the trail of goose bumps.

* * * * *

Brax charged into Teesdale’s office to find
the man perusing the pages of a magazine. He’d changed from his
rumpled uniform to casual and left his hat on the credenza behind
him. He read for another thirty seconds before closing the
periodical and setting it on his desk. Gently.

“Have a seat, Braxton.”

Brax didn’t take a seat nor did he start his
questions in the order of priority. He’d leave Carl’s personal
effects, including the cash, for last. A whammy at the end.

Wrong. The most important question was for
Simone. He’d whammy her
after
Teesdale.