Page 74 of Protecting the White Bear

“Pierre did?” Since Helen was in on the whole scheme, she couldn’t feel sorry for her. But she really couldn’t believe that Pierre would be in on it. Maybe his investments had soured, and he was looking at bankruptcy, and this was a way to dig himself out of the hole. “Where did Pierre get the money from?”

“How would I know that?”

“Where are Wendell and Helen?”

“I have no idea. My mistake was in going to Eloise’s house. We were going to split up, but we planned to eat pizzas first, since Eloise was buying them, and then leave. But that weasel, Denny, lit out of there with Eloise and stranded Teague and me.”

“Six pizzas?”

“Yeah. We would have taken anything that was left over with us to have as a snack.”

So no one else had been there then. “You said that Pierre went along with the kidnapping plan. But you also said Pierre was the mastermind in charge of it.”

“Well, he was. Denny learned from Helen that Pierre had tons of money. She wanted to get back with Denny. She thought if they did this scheme, she would pretend to be kidnapped, they would have accomplices get the money from Pierre, and then we would all go our merry way.”

“Wait, so Helen was in charge of the plan?” Man, this was hard to keep up with.

“Yeah, Helen thought up the plan first. I was there when she was seeing Denny and suggested it. She was all excited about how wealthy Pierre was. But when Denny went to Pierre’s house to ‘grab’ Helen, Pierre talked him into a new scheme. He couldn’t access the money unless he did a con, and then he would split the money with Denny and his cohorts.”

“All right. I’ll talk to you more later.” Monica left the room and joined Andy.

“It started out with Helen wanting to get the money and be with Denny, and somehow, Pierre took over the plan. But why involve you?” Andy asked.

“To make it seem more legitimate, maybe? He had sent me to rescue her, but Helen ensured I couldn’t follow them. I believe Helen devised the scheme, thinking she could win Denny back. She probably knew he was with Eloise now. But she most likely believed Denny would go along with it to get some fast money. She needed some way to get his attention. Then Pierre convinced Denny to let him in on the scheme.”

Andy stroked his chin. “Most likely because he wanted to keep a big chunk of the money, and he was angry with Helen for planning the con.”

“Right. That would make sense. It had to be money he could readily get and then claim his poor girlfriend had been kidnapped. I would be the patsy because—” Monica said.

“He steered you to the cabin he thought they might be at. But he had to make it look like?—”

“She had been kidnapped.”

“That would only happen if he sent you to go after her. Because he knew you personally, he felt comfortable telling you, and you wouldn’t alert other law enforcement that might get her killed. But it was just a ruse to give him more of an alibi,” Andy said.

Monica let out her breath. “It sure sounds like that. Otherwise, if he never called me and didn’t call anyone else, no one would know it was a kidnapping.”

“Exactly.”

“You don’t think Teague and Lionel would make that story up, do you?” Monica asked.

“No. It sounds to me that that’s all they know. Are you going to speak with Harvey?”

“Yeah. The DEA agents will have questioned him already. So I need to ask him if he knows about the kidnapping scheme. Even though I suspect he won’t know about it unless Wendell, his cousin, or Helen, his sister, blabbered about it to him.”

Monica had Teague and Lionel returned to their cells and then asked to interview Harvey.

“Perfect timing,” the officer said. “He was brought into the jail a half hour ago after being at the hospital.”

“Good. Did DEA agents question him at the hospital?”

“Yes, ma’am. I was on guard duty while they did.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Once Harvey was escorted into an interview room, Monica walked inside and sat at the table. She read him his rights. “All right, your sister, Helen, and your cousin, Wendell, are in trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

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