Her Last Letter (2 page)

“Wolfgang.”

“Oh, right. How are those two doing? The guy cracks me up. Mr. Macho. He’s got more muscle than any man I’ve ever seen up close.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to Linda lately. If I don’t call her, I don’t hear from her.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. Moody.”

“Like you?”

“I suppose, though I am getting better.”

She stared at me, her green eyes trying to bore through to my soul. I valiantly kept guard at the entrance.

“Well, I hope so,” she said, slapping her thighs, then rising from the chair. “Okay, I seriously doubt you’re telling me the truth about this so-called flu, but if so, maybe I’d better cruise out of here and let you get some rest. I wish you were coming along, but I think I’ll take that hike after all. Need to stretch my legs and breathe in some good old mountain air. But call me later-if you want to talk. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I did feel sick after Caroline left, but now it was more mental than physical. I crawled into bed and tried hard to sleep, hoping to hide from myself for a while. I dreaded the moment I would eventually have to face Trevor. There wasn’t a chance I’d ask him about any of this, not until I’d figured out what to do. Though I believed he had nothing to do with Kelly’s death, and felt certain in my heart that he was, in fact, the man I knew him to be, still, I had to at least consider the possibility that my husband, the man I loved more than any man I’d ever known-had slept with my sister, and then murdered her....

The side door slammed downstairs, and I woke groggily. It seemed like only minutes later, but I’d slept for several hours. It was five o’clock, early for Trevor to be home. I could usually expect him around six or six-thirty, though many nights he arrived much later, depending on his workload.

“Hey, Gwyn,” he called out.

“Up here.”

I threaded my fingers through my hair, then turned toward the mirror. The puffiness around my eyes had receded, but sleep lines had formed along my cheek.

I rose and walked to the top of the stairs, watched as Trevor took them two at a time.

“Ah, you were sleeping, weren’t you?” he said, a wry smile turning up his mouth.

“Yeah, you caught me.”

“I had one hell of a good day. I might get the listing on a big group of condos, a new development outside of Denver, called Whispering Pines or something. You remember Robert Morris?”

“No, who?”

“You know, we met him at that party your sister gave. The sharp dresser. Oh, you met him. Anyway, I got a call from him today, and he’s interested in possibly listing with us, and of course, I’m the guy he wants to do the selling.”

I watched his eyes, animated as he described his project, and then his hands, moving deftly through the air, fingers pointing out architectural wonders only he could see. Those same fingers could at any given moment touch my arm or face and bring shivers of lust when even barely applied. He was six feet one to my five seven, his body trim and lightly muscled. He had thick dark hair and facial features faintly European, strong Roman nose, firm jaw. He possessed the capacity to summon at will a supremely confident charm that mesmerized women and drew the respect of men. And I’d seen his hazel eyes, sometimes a moody brown or a startling blue-green depending on the light, stop a conversation mid-sentence. But it wasn’t the color, or the shape, or the thick flirty lashes that made his eyes so sexy, it was the way he looked at you-as if he could see no one else. He could have had any woman in the world, I believed, and yet he’d picked me. Countless times, I’d asked myself why.

“I think we should go out and celebrate,” he said, loosening his tie. “And then, I think we should get some use out of that fireplace downstairs.” He reached out and drew me to his chest, enveloping me in the lingering scent of his cologne, one I’d bought him last Christmas, something French and expensive. “We’ll take our clothes off, sip some wine, and make love for at least three hours. How does that sound?”

“I love how that sounds,” I said, nuzzling my nose into the warmth of his neck, temporarily filing the events of the day into some impenetrable place to be, for now at least … forgotten.

That night I dreamt of my sister, who in the dream was still alive and only ten years old. We were playing hopscotch in the driveway, and I was letting Kelly win because I loved to hear her shrieks of happy laughter each time her stone hit the mark and mine overshot it. I was, after all, six years older and could win every game if I chose to. Linda had wandered over and immediately Kelly crossed her arms and stopped playing, her lower lip protruding. I assumed they’d fought about something and I asked Kelly, then Linda, what it was about, but neither would talk. As I watched, a thundercloud passed over the sky and when I looked back, Linda was holding a magic wand and waved it over Kelly, turning her into an emerald-eyed lizard. Then Linda, her expression one of pure evil, raised her foot to stomp on Kelly and I tried to shout,
No! Stop!
, but my mouth wouldn’t move. I couldn’t form the words.

I watched in horror, screaming and screaming on the inside-as Linda’s foot came down.

I woke late the next morning. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, and felt as if my brain were cloaked in a dismal leaden fog. I turned over in bed to look for Trevor, but only a concave impression of his body remained amid the rumpled sheets. He’d already left for work.

Though I’d managed to sidetrack thoughts of Kelly’s letter yesterday while Trevor and I made love, now all the unanswered questions returned to haunt me.

My plan this morning, before my life had been turned upside down, was to complete a graphic design project I’d promised as a favor to my old boss. Now it would have to wait-at least until this afternoon. I took a fast shower and headed out the door.

I’d been over to the old house just two days before to tag the bedroom furniture that needed to be moved. My usual habit was to stop by the house every few weeks, then drive by every few days to make sure the lights went on at night and trash had not blown into the yard. Though the neighbors kept an eye on things to some extent, it wasn’t their first priority. Linda kept after me to sell our old homestead, or at least to rent it, but I wasn’t ready to let go. It was the last place Kelly had lived, the house where we all grew up, a repository of memories both good and bad. But that wasn’t why I was going there today.

The two-story frame house was a mile out of Glenwood Springs and had been there for over fifty years. It sat on a small lot, a tiny square, with one towering pine dominating the front yard. For the last two years since Kelly’s death the house had remained undisturbed, the furniture the way Kelly had arranged it, the kitchen utensils still in the drawers. The only thing that had changed since we were children was Kelly’s room upstairs, a room that had once belonged to all three of us girls. In those days, two sets of bunk beds took up most of the room and fights had been frequent-the lack of privacy a constant source of irritation.

I parked my red Jeep Wrangler in the drive and walked up the stone path. Traces of snow still clung to the edges of the porch, but would probably melt by this afternoon, the temperature predicted to rise to forty, a mild and sunny end of October day. I unlocked the front door and stepped inside, assailed again by the stuffy lack of ventilation. Carefully, I surveyed the living room. Everything appeared to be in its place, still, something bothered me. Then I trained my eyes on the ashtray next to Dad’s chair. Had it moved? Hadn’t it been facing in the other direction the last time I was here? Well, maybe Linda had stopped by. She didn’t often, but maybe she had.

I wasn’t sure exactly where to start. The boxes with Kelly’s journals had joined many other boxes when Linda and I had gone through Kelly’s things. We had quietly sorted, sadly organized for over a month. And we’d fought. Linda wanted to throw out or give away almost everything, but I insisted we keep the majority. In the end, very little moved out of the house.

I began my search in the little room, the one my father had used for his business when he wasn’t at the store. I opened the closet and stared in. Boxes sat upon boxes stacked three high. I pulled one off the top and began.

By two o’clock I’d found the box I’d been looking for, down in the cellar, but it had been opened and for the most part emptied. Only the very old journals sat at the bottom of the box. The rest were missing. I was too tired to look any further, so I gathered the box in my arms and took it out to the car. There was one other place they might be.

I dialed Linda on the cell phone from the Jeep. Unfortunately, Wolfgang picked up.

“Hi, Wolfgang, is Linda there?”

“Well hello, Gwyn, nice to hear your voice. How have you been?”

“Fine.” I waited.

“Well,” he said after a pause, “you must be in a rush, no time to talk I guess. Linda’s outside in the hot tub right now, soaking in the bubbles, where I was heading. Would you like to join us?”

“Not today.”

“I’m sure Linda has some extra suits, though I don’t think I’ll use one. That wouldn’t bother you would it?”

“Wolfgang, I have to go.”

“We could just hang out.”

“Right. Very funny. Please tell Linda to call me later.”

“Sure. I’ll certainly do that.”

He loved to tease me like this, hoping to amuse me I supposed, though he never did. I’d tried for Linda’s sake to like him. Unfortunately, he always managed to turn me off. He was a good-looking man, classic Nordic blond, fair skinned, well built, clearly Linda’s type, but he was way too into himself. I could see it bothered him enormously that I’d never warmed up to him. I don’t know why. Maybe he needed women to like him for some reason. Still, it was hard to believe he could murder anyone. A flirt, yes, but a murderer? Of course, I’d met a lot of odd characters in my lifetime. How many had I ever thought capable of murder?

Kelly had known only three men that Linda and I would consider serious boyfriends: Wolfgang, Trevor, and before that, Josh, my friend since childhood. But there was no way I could believe Josh could commit such a horrible crime. He was just too good. And what possible reason would he have to harm Kelly?

Craig Foster, my sister’s boyfriend, was the only one police were looking for in connection with her murder. He was the one who ran right after her death. He’d been the only real suspect. But now that I’d found Kelly’s letter, it occurred to me that Craig may have had some other reason for running. And the one that was taking shape in my mind was that he’d been framed.…

I worked in my studio for the rest of the afternoon. Along with the project for my old boss, I had a private art exhibition coming up soon in Denver and hoped to complete several new paintings. It was something I wanted to do, something I enjoyed doing. Though my training was in graphic design, I loved to paint, and I wasn’t half bad.

Of course, I didn’t need to work anymore to earn a living. That changed the day our father passed away and left the three of us girls accumulated assets worth over eighteen million dollars. Then Kelly died, and her share was divided between Linda and me. As if I wanted it. I’d have burned every dollar if it meant I could have my sister back.

I remember the shock I felt, and the looks on Linda’s and Kelly’s faces as we sat in the lawyer’s office listening to our father’s will. Certainly we’d suspected there would be something. Dad was always working, never home, at the sporting goods store or off somewhere.
But eighteen million.

Our father had come from money, though he’d rarely spoke of his family or of their wealth, except on the few occasions when he’d been drinking. Huddled together on the floor behind the couch, my sisters and I would quietly listen in as he rambled on about the past. We learned that Dad had run away at nineteen to become a mountain man. He didn’t want to work like his two brothers for his father, a successful Midwest beer distributor. Our father didn’t like the changes he’d seen take place in his brothers, their bickering, their greed. He’d spent several years on the road, then met our mother in Cheyenne, Wyoming, my mother’s birthplace. They’d moved on to Denver, Colorado, where my father opened his first sporting goods store. He was a natural, a good businessman. Making money ran in his veins whether he liked it or not. Wily and tightfisted, Samuel Everett let no man get the better of him. You did not ask him for money. You earned your money, you saved it, or you went without it. And that, of course, applied to his children. But harsh as it felt at the time, he’d praised us for our accomplishments, and encouraged us, loving us in his way. And each one of us had loved him back.

I lifted my paintbrush, stopping to eye the piece in front of me, a scene depicting climbers ascending an icefall, bright sunlight glinting off their crampons and pickaxes. Restless, I stood and walked to the easel in the far corner of the room and turned it toward me. It was Kelly’s portrait, half-finished. She’d posed for this one even though I’d insisted I could use the camera. But Kelly had liked the idea of sitting for me, and she’d done a good job, hands folded quietly in her lap, meditating almost. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to finish the painting, not for two years.

When Linda didn’t return my call by five, I called her again. She answered this time, obviously intoxicated.

“Gwyn,” she said too loudly. “Hi, how
are
you?”

“I’m okay. You still in the hot tub? You sound like you’ve been drinking.”

“Not
that
much. I feel pretty good though.”

“I need to ask you something. Is Wolfgang there?”

“Yes,” she said. “Why, is it a secret?”

I heard water splash and worried she’d dropped the phone into the tub. “Linda, you there?”

“Ye-e-e-s.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I told Wolfgang to cover his ears because we wanted to have a private conversation.”

“
Linda.
“

“What?”

“Forget it. We’ll talk later. I’ve got to go.”

“No, come over. I haven’t seen you in ages. I miss you.”