Page 90 of The Bride Wore White

She was standing in the center of room 223 in the main wing of the Burning Cove Hotel. It was the room they had been moved to after one of Luther Pell’s security guards had driven her back to the hotel and she had discovered what had happened in the villa.

She had flatly refused to spend the rest of the night there. Yes, the body had been removed. No, there was no blood. Yes, the drinks cart and the poison had been taken away, and aside from the bullet hole in the wall, there were no obvious signs of violence. The Burning Cove Hotel knew how to take care of such things in a discreet fashion. It didn’t matter. She could sense the bad energy in the atmosphere, and that was enough to make her demand a new room. No one had argued with her.

It was nearly dawn. She was still dressed in the black eveninggown she had worn to the Paradise. The veiled hat and black gloves were sitting on the table near the window. Jack was sprawled in a chair, watching her pace the room and wave her arms a lot.

“To be clear, I did not actually sayWhat could possibly go wrong?” he said. “I may have said the other stuff, but I did not say that. There is always a possibility of error. I try to allow—”

“Oh, shut up.” She stalked across the room and swung around. Her gaze fell on the crystal paperweight. It was on the table next to her gloves. There were no chips or cracks in it. “I knew that paperweight would come in handy someday.”

Jack glanced at the crystal sphere. “You were right.”

She sighed. There was no point berating him for the risks he had taken that evening. He and Luther had both survived, and a would-be killer had been stopped. The heat in his eyes told her he was still riding the exhilarating energy that came with the triumph.

“I can see I’m wasting my time,” she said. “Okay, the stern lecture is over. Time to move on. Congratulations. Your analysis and predictions of Harley Flood’s actions were correct. An excellent example of the usefulness of the Wingate Crime Tree. Now what?”

Jack checked his watch. “Now we wait.”

“For what? We know the identity of the last one standing. Rollins Dover. He must have been the one who kidnapped me and murdered his brother. The only question is, how do we prove it?”

“It may not be necessary to prove anything,” Jack said.

“I don’t understand.”

Jack got to his feet and walked across the room to take her into his arms. “It’s not over, Prudence.”

She shuddered. “Are you certain?”

“That family is slowly but surely being destroyed from within. It’s like watching an avalanche. Some forces, once set in motion, can’t be stopped.”

Chapter 43

Maud Hollister had made her plans for the future. She longed to move forward with them, but she knew she had one more thing to do before she took the next step.

She was sitting in the darkened living room of the house Clara had rented only days earlier, thinking about the past and about how some people were doomed to live lives that had been cursed, when she heard the car in the driveway.

She went to the window, twitched the curtains aside, and watched Rollins climb out from behind the wheel of the Jaguar. She had known he would show up after the phone call she had made late last night. She had told him that she intended to go to the press with the whole sordid story, and that she would be able to back up that story with photographs of a certain birthmark, Clara’s check register, and evidence of madness in the bloodline. Rollins had begged her to keep silent. He had promised her a fortune. She had told him he had twenty-four hours to come up with the money, and then she had hung up on him.

He had come to Burning Cove, just as she had known he would. She had practically raised him. She knew him far better than he knew himself. She saw the monster in him, the same monster that had been in Gilbert and Harley. The monster that had been their father.

Chapter 44

I brought the money, Hollister.” Rollins walked into the living room and set the suitcase on the floor. It was almost over. He needed a few answers and then he could finish the business. “It’s all there.” He nodded at the suitcase. “By the way, my mother’s will was read yesterday. You are not in it. Neither was Harley Flood. But I suppose that doesn’t come as a surprise, does it? Clara was not a generous person.”

To his disappointment, Maud did not erupt into tears or shrieks of rage. But then, he reflected, she had known Clara very well.

Maud walked to the window and moved the curtains aside just enough to enable her to see the jewel-bright ocean. “No, Clara was not a kind or generous woman,” she said.

“I suppose we shouldn’t be too hard on her. I’m well aware that Clara paid for Harley’s boarding school and then, later, his years in that very expensive psychiatric hospital. My mother was, above all else, an excellent businesswoman. She kept very good records. I know all about those checks she wrote on her personal bank account,and I am aware of the blackmail she has been paying in recent weeks.”

“Do you?”

Not the dramatic reaction he had anticipated, Rollins thought. Maud looked weary, but other than that, he detected no sign of emotion. Disappointed, he went to the drinks cart and took the stopper off the flask of whiskey.

“I do have a couple of questions for you,” he said. “I think I deserve some answers, considering the amount of money in that suitcase.”

“What questions?” Maud asked, not turning around.

“Did Clara know that Harley Flood was Copeland’s third son? The one she thought was safely locked up in the asylum?”

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