Page 61 of Haystacks and Hoaxes

“Why do you want to speak to Mila Kingston?” He trained an unblinking stare on Helen.

“Because I owe her an apology. A big one. A bunch of big ones.” The snarky bravado that hadflavored theShe Saidcolumn for years was gone. In its place was a nervous, contrite creature with red-rimmed eyes and a green flannel shirt she kept tugging down in the front. A suspicious bulge rose from her midsection.

Mila sank into her chair. “You’re pregnant,” she declared quietly.

Helen nodded, shoving a handful of limp brown hair over one shoulder.

“Troy?” The question flew from Mila’s lips before she could call it back.

Helen nodded again. “It’s why I had to come forward. It was one thing to help him bend a few rules when we were only dating. It’s another thing entirely to do it with a baby on the way. I’m afraid,” she admitted, pressing a hand to her blooming belly. “For my life. And hers.”

For a second or two, Mila feared she was going to be sick. Helen’s pregnancy was so far advanced that she and Troy must have been together when Mila had still been engaged to the guy.

“I never signed up for murder,” Helen continued in a dreary voice.

Mila sat there, stunned, while Helen vomited out the truth —all of it. In a nutshell, Troy was the one who’d embezzled funds from his parents’ car dealership years ago. Not Carla Kingston. He’d only made it look that way to give his family a reason to press charges against her. They subsequently dropped the charges after they’d blackmailed her into investing her oil royalties in the overseas shell account that had been posing as a global mutual fund. Carla hadn’t known who was blackmailing her. However, she’d remained complicit in the scheme out of fear of going to jail.

Only after the Bentleys had discovered the shareswould soon pass to Mila did they press Troy to make a play for her romantically. It had almost worked.

Mila shivered at how very close it had come to working. She’d literally been about to walk down the aisle when word of Troy’s unfaithfulness had reached her.

After she’d broken their engagement, Troy had flown into a drunken rage and accosted his Uncle Monty at gunpoint, demanding his inheritance early. When Monty Chester had refused, Troy had locked him in his storm cellar and entombed the whole shebang in concrete. Then he’d gone on a rampage to make Mila pay for her refusal to marry him. If she was gone, her oil shares would remain in her mother’s name, and he could continue to blackmail her for the royalties.

He’d gotten so careless and reckless that Helen had talked her brother into serving as an imposter for Pat, the maintenance man. Her brother was the one who’d sabotaged, then repaired the walkway outside Mila’s apartment. He’d also planted the bomb-making evidence in Carla and Chet’s home to implicate Mila’s mother. At the time, Helen had been willing to do anything to keep the father of her child out of jail.

But the further Troy had sunk into alcohol fumes, the greedier he’d become. It had no longer been enough for him to steal Carla Kingston’s royalties. He’d gotten a taste for more. He’d wanted his uncle’s royalties, too.

“I’m sorry.” Helen pinned a beseeching look on Mila. “Please believe me! I never meant for anyone to get hurt. Not Monty Chester. Not you.” She shook her head wearily.

Mila’s breath seeped out of her. “You didn’t think the blackmail was hurting my mother? Or the attempts to end my life were hurting me?” She’d almost died, for pity’s sake! More than once! “You helped frame my mother for crimesshe didn’t commit. She was arrested!”And she’s no longer speaking to me because of it. The emotional fallout was something her family might never fully recover from.

“You’re right.” Helen spread her hands. “I wanted you to pay for taking Troy away from me.”

“He was a predator,” Mila gasped. How could the twisted woman sitting in front of her blame her for that?

“I know that now.” Helen pressed both hands to her belly. “And I’m sorry for it. Sorrier than you’ll ever know. That’s why I’m trying so hard to make things right.”

Luke Hawling leaned across the table to insert himself between the two of them. “Helen, do you have any proof that Loretta Bentley and her husband were involved in Troy’s criminal activities?”

“Enough to bury them.” She gave a mirthless laugh. As it turned out, Mr. and Mrs. Bentley were the ones behind the oil equipment robberies at Canyon Creek Petroleum. “They almost got caught transporting one of the pumpjacks away in pieces.” She waved her hands in agitation as she explained. “They ended up hiding the parts beneath the hay huts at Mr. Monty’s place next door, just until the heat died down.” Over the next several days, they’d sold the equipment on the black market to make a quick buck. “All except the last two pumpjacks they stole right before Christmas.” She gave the address of the warehouse the Bentleys were holding them in until a buyer could be secured.

“Then they had me publish the story about the thefts to drive down the price of shares in Canyon Creek Petroleum so they could use the royalties Carla Kingston had been sending them to buy even more shares.” By then, they’d set their sights on a majority holding in the company, an accomplishment that wouldn’t take placeuntil Monty Chester’s oil shares were transferred into Troy’s name. “He would’ve died eventually,” she concluded in a hushed voice. “I don’t know why they got so greedy.” She dropped her head on the table and muttered her parting gift to them — the name of the hotel in an adjoining town where the Bentleys were hiding.

She was led away in handcuffs. Before nightfall, all three Bentleys were arrested, and the charges against Carla Kingston were dropped.

The nightmare was over, but that didn’t mean Mila’s family got to walk away unscathed. The damage had already been done — years’ worth of it.

She texted her mother off and on for the rest of the evening. There was still no response.

The next day

Mila wokeup with a headache and had to pop a few pain pills to get moving.

“Happy Birthday, Mila!” Her brother came up from behind her to give her a bear hug.

Yeah. Happy stinking birthday to me!She couldn’t have felt less like celebrating. “I don’t want flowers or any gifts that come in boxes,” she grumbled. “Honestly, Deck? I just want to return to my place. It’s safe for me to go back, right?”

“Yep.” He gave her another bear hug before letting her go. “I’ll help you move all your plant babies back this evening. Your boyfriend said he’d help, too.”

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