Page 91 of The Bride Wore White

“How did you find out?” Maud asked.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” Maud said. “Clara did not know the truth, not until the end. I told her that night when I went to see her at the hospital. At the time I thought you were intending to have her committed, you see. I wanted her to know who had induced her visions and hallucinations. I wanted her to suffer.”

“We all wanted her to suffer.” Rollins swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Well, maybe not Gilbert. He was the chosen one. The thing is, he wasn’t interested in Dover Industries. Clara never accepted that simple truth. When it came to Gilbert, she really was delusional.”

“Yes.” Maud turned to face him. “Do you have any other questions?”

“Just a few more.” Rollins swallowed half the whiskey he had just poured and lowered the glass. “How, exactly, did my father manage to drop dead so conveniently all those years ago? Was that your doing, by any chance? I’ve always wondered. Only you and Mother were home that night. Gilbert and I were at the movies.The rest of the staff had the night off. That was a rarity in the Dover household.”

Maud watched him intently. She no longer looked weary. There was a feverish light in her eyes. “Yes. I made his favorite soup and put the poison into it. Clara and I watched him die. It was very gratifying. And now I’m going to watch you die, just as he did.”

Panic ripped through him. There was something wrong in his chest. His heart was beating much too fast. He was getting light-headed. It was suddenly hard to breathe.

“What?” he said, bewildered. He looked at the whiskey glass, horrified.

“I put the poison into the whiskey because you always drink whiskey. I know you very well, Rollins Dover.”

His knees gave way. Without warning he was on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. Maud came to stand, looking down at him.

“I stood over your father the night he collapsed at the dinner table,” she said. “I made certain he knew that I was the one who had killed him. You should have seen his face. The fear. The pain. The helpless rage. The same expressions I see on your face now. Like father, like son.”

Through the gray fog that was swiftly clouding his vision, he watched her go to the suitcase. She unlatched it and looked inside, smiling a little.

“Of course you didn’t bring the money,” she said. “No surprise. The Dovers are all liars.” She reached inside and took out the gun. “Never mind. This will do nicely.”

Chapter 45

She poisoned Rollins Dover, probably watched him die, and then she used the gun he had brought with him to kill herself,” Luther said.

“Yes.” Jack studied the two bodies on the floor. “In the end she succeeded in destroying the Dover family and the empire that Clara had built. Dover Industries won’t be able to survive this.”

They were standing in the hallway of the house Clara Dover had rented with the intention of witnessing her revenge against Prudence. The crime scene did not require any psychic interpretation. It was obvious that Rollins Dover had driven all the way from San Francisco with the intention of shooting Maud Hollister. She had tricked him into drinking poisoned whiskey, and then she had used his gun to take her own life.

Luther went to the phone and picked up the receiver. “I’ll call the police. It’s their problem now. I don’t envy whoever gets the job of notifying Dover’s widow. I understand the couple has only been married a few months.”

Chapter 46

Another sunny Southern California day, another gorgeous wedding production at the Burning Cove Hotel.

The reception was held in the courtyard. The cake was a multitiered confection of elegantly sculpted icing. The guests were formally attired. The bride wore white, a lot of it. The gleaming white satin, cut on the bias, flowed over her curves. A long white lace veil cascaded to the ground.

Prudence caught glimpses of the elaborately staged affair when she walked back to the room after enjoying a pot of Darjeeling in the hotel’s glass-walled tearoom. It was midafternoon and she was on her own. She had been thrilled when Jack had accepted Luther’s invitation for a round of golf. She knew the two would probably spend the time talking about the conclusion of the investigation, but that didn’t matter. The important thing was that Jack was out on the golf course with a friend, doing something that friends did together. It was only a round of golf, but she took it as a sign that he was returning to real life.

A celebratory shout went up from the wedding guests. It was followed by a round of applause. Prudence glanced at the scene in the courtyard and saw that the newlyweds had just cut the first slice of the cake. The pair looked and sounded happy. Weddings were all about hope. All about the future.

She was startled by the sense of wistfulness that whispered through her. She did not dream of a white gown and veil. She could do very nicely without the cake. She had no need of a gold ring on her left hand. But she was in love, and she was ready for the next step in the relationship with Jack—commitment.

One of these days,she thought. Jack just needed a little time. He was still in the process of reentering the world. It was never going to be easy for him—the scars would not magically disappear—but he could deal with the physical damage. He had always been able to handle that. It was his fear that he might be going mad that had turned him into a recluse. But he was moving beyond that terror, and she was delighted and relieved.

She had a newfound fear of her own, however. She wanted him to love her, but not because he was grateful to her.

She turned away from the wedding scene and continued on to the room she and Jack were sharing—for how much longer? With the case closed, they seemed to have slipped into a strange sort of limbo. Sooner or later decisions would have to be made. Probably sooner. Neither of them could afford to live at the Burning Cove Hotel indefinitely.

A round of applause went up from the bridal party in the courtyard.

The bride wore white.

---