Light in Shadow (31 page)

She plunged through the thick hangings into the tiny lobby and raced out into the hall.

Behind her, she heard Kimberley running toward the entrance.

She whirled and tugged frantically on the heavy, gilded doors. Kimberley burst through the curtain, stark madness in her eyes. The doors swung ponderously closed a split second before she reached them.

Heart pounding, Zoe angled the second long candlestick through both elaborately curved handles, effectively barring Kimberley inside the theater.

Half a second later, the heavy doors trembled. In her fury, Kimberley had thrown herself against them.

Zoe fled down the hall.

She rounded the corner into the living room and collided with Ethan.

“What the hell?” He grabbed her arms. “Are you okay?”

Muffled shots thundered at the other end of the hall.

“Kimberley,” Zoe gasped. “I locked her inside the theater. She's got a gun. But I don't think she can get out.”

Ethan eased her aside and went to the arched opening.
He looked cautiously around the corner. Another shot boomed.

“Oh, man,” Ethan said. “She sounds really pissed.”

“Actually, she's really crazy.”

They gathered in
Ethan's office the following morning. It was a large crowd, including as it did Zoe, Arcadia, Bonnie, Singleton, and Harry Stagg. Ethan went across the street to the small café and bought six cups of coffee. What was one more item under miscellaneous expenses?

“I was wrong about Forrest all along,” Zoe said soberly.

Ethan frowned. He had been worried about her today. She had come through the dangerous events last night with flying colors, but this morning she was definitely looking depressed. Now he finally understood why.

“Don't blame yourself for picking the wrong bad guy.” He sat forward at his desk. “You were right about the fact that Preston was murdered by someone who knew him. The police should have looked deeper than they did.”

“For two years I blamed Forrest, though. No wonder he thought I was a real nutcase. Preston didn't change his will because he thought Forrest was dangerous in the physical
sense. He was just afraid that his cousin wouldn't do what was best for the company.”

Arcadia, seated on the window ledge, swung one foot in an absent motion. “Ethan is right, you can't blame yourself for thinking that Forrest was the killer. It was a perfectly logical assumption under the circumstances.”

“I agree,” Bonnie said forcefully. “Logical enough that the cops should have probed the alibies of everyone connected to Preston Cleland much more thoroughly than they did.”

“If they had done their job,” Singleton said, “they would have turned up the interesting fact that the one person who did not have a good alibi for the day of the murder was Kimberley Cleland.”

“No one even considered her, least of all me,” Zoe said.

“Because there was no obvious motive,” Arcadia pointed out. “After all, you knew that Preston was not involved with anyone else, so why would you even consider the possibility that a woman might have murdered him?”

“When you come right down to it,” Stagg said, examining the café logo on his plastic cup as if it contained the key to a great secret, “Forrest has a lot to answer for, even if he didn't pull the trigger.”

“Damn right, he does,” Ethan said. “If he'd mentioned his theory that Preston was having an affair, the investigation would no doubt have gone in a different direction. One that could have led straight to Kimberley.”

Zoe wrapped both hands around her cup and studied the contents. “That brings up another question. If he suspected that his wife was having an affair with his cousin, why did he look the other way? I can't see Forrest putting up with a cheating spouse.”

“Maybe he loved her too much to face the truth,” Bonnie suggested.

“Forrest Cleland?” Zoe gave a ladylike snort. “Passionately in love with anything except Cleland Cage? Get real.”

“You know what?” Ethan said softly, “The question of
why he chose to ignore the possibility that Kimberley was having an affair with Preston, or anyone else, is a good one.” He looked at Zoe. “What do you say we ask him?”

 

Forrest met them
in the lobby of Las Estrellas resort. He looked weary and grim when he sat down across from them in a quiet section of the spacious room.

“I hope this isn't going to take long,” he said, glancing at the face of his titanium watch. “I just got back from a long session with the police and in a few minutes I have to call the lawyer I hired for Kim.”

“Gee,” Ethan said. “We sure do apologize for wasting your valuable time. After all, it's not like we've got any right to a few answers. Your wife did try to murder mine last night, but what the heck, not like we're talking about anything
serious
here.”

“Save the sarcasm, Truax. What do you two want?”

Zoe looked at him. “We want to know why you chose to look the other way if you thought Kim was having an affair.”

Forrest clearly looked startled. “But I never thought Kim was having an affair with Preston or anyone else. And, in point of fact, she wasn't.”

“No, but she was obsessed with Preston,” Ethan said.

“Apparently.” Forrest rubbed his temples. “But I was unaware of that. I had my hands full with the negotiations for a new acquisition at the time. I wasn't spending much time at home.”

“So how did you arrive at the conclusion that Preston was involved with someone?” Ethan asked.

Forrest paused, evidently searching his memory. Then he shrugged. “Kim mentioned it in passing one day shortly before Preston was—” He stopped and came at it again. “Shortly before she killed him. She just said it very casually. Like it was gossip she had picked up at the country club. I don't know why she would do that if it wasn't true.”

“Maybe you weren't paying attention,” Ethan suggested softly.

Anger flared in Forrest's face. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Zoe shook her head. “Maybe unconsciously Kim dropped some clues hoping that you would pick them up.”

“Why would she want me to think she was involved with Preston?” Forrest demanded. “She must have known that if I believed anything of the kind, I would have filed for divorce on the spot.”

“I'm sure she did know that,” Zoe said quietly. “Which is very likely why she just hinted carefully around the edges. She was crazy, but she wasn't stupid. A part of her was still sane enough not to want to jeopardize her cushy position as your trophy wife.”

“I still don't get it,” Forrest said. “Why hint at all?”

“Don't you see?” Zoe asked. “If you believed that Preston was having an affair with someone,
anyone,
it would have made her private little fantasy that much more real to her.”

There was a short silence while Forrest absorbed that.

“Hadn't thought of it that way,” he said at last. “When she mentioned the possibility that Preston was seeing someone on the side, the only thing that occurred to me was that you—”

“Had a motive for murder,” Zoe concluded.

“I'm sorry,” Forrest said evenly. “But I could see what the two of you meant to each other. I was afraid that if you had found out that Preston was cheating on you, you might have gone a little crazy.”

“But you never mentioned that possibility to the cops,” she said.

“No,” he said.

“Because you knew that I could still control my shares from prison?”

Forrest flattened his hands on his thighs. “I know you won't believe this, but I honestly thought that you would be better off at the hospital. Harper said he was sure he could help you.”

Zoe took some deep breaths. “I will never forgive you
for that. Do you have any idea of what it was like there? Harper did not even allow visits from the patients' friends because he said it interfered with the course of therapy. Not that anyone outside the Cleland family even knew where I was, thanks to you. Everyone I ever knew vanished from my life.”

His jaw tensed. “Maybe if I had been paying more attention to what was going on at home, I would have realized that Kim was the crazy woman, not you. Perhaps I could have stopped her before she went too far.”

Zoe did not know how to respond to that so she kept silent. Ethan did not move in his chair, but she could feel him analyzing the currents that flowed both above and beneath the surface.

“Things have not been going well between Kim and me for the past few months,” Forrest said eventually. “She's been drinking a lot. There was a scene at the club a few weeks ago. She flew into a rage with no warning. I was planning to talk to my lawyer about a divorce, but I had decided to put it off until after the board meeting. I knew it was going to cost me a bundle to get rid of her, and I needed time to work out a strategy. Looks like things will be even messier now.”

“Probably,” Ethan said without any trace of detectable sympathy.

There was another heavy pause.

After a while, Zoe reached into her crimson tote and pulled out an envelope. She gave it to Forrest.

He accepted it with a frown. “What is this?”

“A proxy made out to you so that you can vote my shares at the annual board meeting. I know you'll do what's best for the company.”

His hand clenched around the envelope. “You know I'm going to reject the merger.”

“I know.”

“That means I won't have the cash to buy you out for another two years, at least. Maybe longer.”

“I sort of figured that. Luckily I've got a day job.” Zoe
got to her feet and hitched her tote over her shoulder. “Shall we go, Ethan?”

“Sure.” He rose from the chair and took her arm.

Together they walked out of the lobby and into the warm, bright glare of the desert sun. In the distance, the mountains raked the endless blue sky.

Ethan opened the door of the car for her. “What made you decide to do that?”

“Give him the proxy?” She slipped into the passenger seat. “The Clelands aren't a nice family but they
are
a family. That company belongs to them. More than that, it's what holds them together as a clan. Now that I know that Forrest didn't kill Preston, I don't have any reason to destroy them.”

“Even though they treated you like a second-class Cleland?”

For some peculiar reason, she felt lighter and happier than she had in a long, long time. She smiled up at him, blinking a little against the dazzling light.

“I'm not any kind of Cleland now,” she said.

“Damn right,” he said. “You're a Truax.”

He closed the door.

Three days later,
on a warm, scented night, they went out onto the pool terrace after dinner and reclined on two of the padded loungers.

Zoe braced herself as she did every time things got quiet between them, wondering if this would be the moment when the subject of the impending divorce came up.

“How did you know that Jeremy Hill killed Camelia Foote in the theater?” Ethan asked.

The question startled her. It wasn't the one she had been expecting.

“I was just guessing,” she said carefully. “Making up a story to lure Kimberley into confessing. Did Hill kill Camelia there?”

“I think so. I finished Foote's diary, and I put together some information I found in some letters that were written by people who were guests here that night. I also got lucky and turned up some personal notes written by the chief of police who investigated Camelia's death.”

“What did you discover?”

“Jeremy and Camelia were seen going into the theater sometime around midnight by at least two different people. No one remembered seeing Camelia again after that although Hill was very much in evidence. The chief considered all of the guests' statements extremely shaky because everyone was drunk. But he also talked to the members of the household staff. Remember I told you that one of them noticed Hill returning to the house from the direction of the gardens just before dawn?”

“Hill went outside the second time to dispose of the body in the canyon?”

“Probably. I think that after the quarrel in the theater, Hill hid Camelia's body behind the bar and locked the theater using her keys. He went to bed late, along with everyone else. When the household finally seemed quiet, he went back downstairs, unlocked the theater, and carried Camelia outside to the canyon. Probably cleaned up whatever blood there was, too. He would have found water and sponges and towels in the bar. Could have packed the soiled stuff in his suitcase.”

“It was a risk,” Zoe said. “What if he had been seen with the body?”

“He could have wrapped her in his jacket and carried her in his arms as if she had passed out drunk. I doubt that anyone would have looked twice. It was probably common knowledge that they were having an affair.”

Zoe thought about it. “It fits.”

“I'm satisfied with it.”

“Going to publish the case at that Web site you told me about?”

“Not as long as I'm living here,” he said dryly. “I sure as hell don't want curiosity seekers knocking on my front door asking to see the murder scene.”

“I can understand that.”

Ethan folded his arms behind his head. “You didn't answer my question. How did you know that Hill killed her in the theater?”

“I told you, it was just a story I was spinning for
Kimberley. I wanted to rattle her a bit, make her incriminate herself.”

“Try again,” Ethan said.

She had known that, sooner or later, this moment would arrive, she thought. But she had hoped it would be later. She looked out into the moonlit night and thought wistfully about what might have been.

“You'll think I really am crazy if I tell you the truth,” she said quietly.

“So, it's true? You do sense things in rooms?”

“Sometimes.”

“I was afraid of that.” But he sounded resigned to the inevitable. Not angry or disbelieving.

She waited for the other shoe to drop.

The silence deepened.

“Intuition,” Ethan said.

“I'm weird, Ethan.”

“The older I get, the more I realize that everyone is a little weird in some way.” He shifted on the lounger. “So, have you got a plan for rescuing me from all this pink?”

She turned her head on the padded lounger and looked at him. But it was impossible to read his expression in the warm darkness.

“I'm working on one,” she said cautiously. “Not all pink is bad, you know.”

“I have it on good authority that prolonged exposure to it can rot a guy's brain.”

“Only if the brain in question is very weak to begin with. Yours is not.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“Good to know that.” Ethan paused. “How long do you think it will take?”

“To draw up all the plans and select all of the furnishings? Months, probably.”

“Maybe by then I'll have enough cash to pay for some of the remodeling and some new furniture. If nothing else, I can at least paint the place.”

“Bonnie mentioned that you got a new client today,” she said.

“Insurance job. They want me to verify some facts concerning a suspicious claim. Strictly routine, but it's the kind of bread and butter business that keeps a small agency going.”

“I like the sound of the word
routine
. We've all had enough excitement lately.”

“Uh-huh.”

Zoe waited, but Ethan did not offer anything more.

“So,” she said. And stopped.

“So, what?”

She gathered her nerve. “About our divorce.”

“It occurs to me that neither of us can afford one right now.”

She held her breath. “Are you suggesting we stay married until we can afford to get divorced?”

“It isn't just the money,” Ethan said. “I gotta tell you I'm not looking forward to becoming a four-time loser. No one looks kindly upon guys who have been married and divorced four times. We appear shallow to the untrained eye.”

“And then there's the problem of replacing the bed,” she offered.

“Don't remind me. I don't even want to think about having to buy a new bed right now. You know how much they cost?”

“Sure. I'm an interior designer, remember? I can tell you exactly how much a new bed costs. What you're saying is that we should stay married partly because of the financial aspects and partly because you don't want to deal with another failed marriage.”

“There's also the fact that we're sleeping together,” Ethan said softly. “Looks to me like things are working pretty good in some areas right now. Why fix it if it ain't broke?”

She pondered that. It was, she realized, the first time in a long while that she had dared to think about her own
future. Hope and possibilities, tantalizing and bright, glittered at the edge of her vision. If she stretched out her hands, she might be able to touch them.

“Those are all sound, sensible reasons for staying married,” she said, trying to keep her voice very even.

“I thought so.”

The desert night settled around them like dark silk.

She got up from the lounger, took the small step that separated them, and slowly lowered herself until she was lying on top of him, her legs tangled with his.

He framed her face with his hands. “Ah, Zoe.”

“It wouldn't be easy, you know,” she said, wanting to get it all out into the open. “We would be wise to take it very slowly. Keep our own homes for a while. Give each other some space. Get to know each other before we try living together.”

“Sure.” He traced her cheekbones with the edge of his fingers. “Nice and slow.”

She felt his body responding to hers, and she caught her breath. “We'll have to make up some of the rules as we go along. You're not the only one who's bringing a lot of heavy baggage to this marriage. I'm a genuine escapee from Xanadu, remember? It's true I was there for all the wrong reasons, but there's no getting around the fact that I've never been what most folks would call normal.”

“Neither have I.”

“I'm probably going to continue having some of my bad dreams, and I'm not going to stop sensing things in walls.”

He touched the edges of her mouth. “I've got a few bad habits of my own. Been known to be moody at times. Bonnie says I'm complicated.”

“So am I.”

“And you're a decorator.”

She smiled ruefully. “We all know your opinion of interior
designers.
”

“I agree it won't be easy and that we'll have to invent some of the rules.” He brought her mouth very close to his.
“But maybe that's a good thing in our case. What do you say?”

Hope and possibilities glittered.

“I say yes.”