Page 33 of The Summer Request
“Come on. Everyone’s thinking it!”
Lisa made a face. “I mean, I wasn’t thinking it before, but now I’m thinking it.”
Michelle put up a hand. “No. Stop. I wish I’d had one before my husband died. I would’ve been able to stay in my house, for one thing.” She turned to Chloe. “I don’t think Lou is a killer. Don’t worry.”
Chloe let out a nervous laugh. “That’s good. I would like to avoid being killed if at all possible.”
Val put her arm around Chloe and put on her serious face. “Have you ever worried that he might kill you?”
“Not until now.”
Lisa laughed, clearly trying to break the tension. “I don’t think you have to worry. Just leave that loser behind.”
“Wait.” Val, apparently done with pretending she was Chloe’s therapist, plopped herself into the computer chair. “Are there any other emails we can see?”
“He has a lot of emails,” Chloe said with a shrug.
“What about around the time Justine died? Can we get into his phone records?”
“I don’t have that kind of access,” Chloe said. “I can look in the trash folder and see if there was anything he was trying to erase.”
“That’s a good idea,” Lisa said. “I wish I’d come up with it.”
Chloe clicked over and slowly scrolled down. “Spam, junk mail…fan mail…something from me. That’s rude. He said he never got that.”
Michelle bit her lip. The man was an adulterer and a glutton, but lying about an email Chloe had sent him was a new low, apparently.
“Hang on.” Chloe clicked on an email. “This is weird. I don’t know who this is.”
“What does that say?” asked Lisa. “Oh. That’s an angry one. It looks like a threat.”
Val leaned in, reading aloud. “‘Dear Mr. Emerald, I guess your price tag for your Bar Harbor story getting out is less than a hundred thousand dollars. Good luck with that.’ It’s signed ‘Your boy SB.’”
“What do you think that’s about?” Lisa asked.
This was getting silly. Lou probably got threatened and blackmailed all the time, especially with his unscrupulous morals. “Probably another secret family. Who knows?”
Val shook her head. “No, this email is from a guy. Someone named Sam Beverly.”
“Sam could be a woman,” Lisa argued.
“The picture is clearly of a man. Not even a man—a teenager.”
Michelle leaned in. She was right. “Okay, I think we’ve gotten enough information for the day. We’d better get going before the tide comes in and we have to swim back. Thanks for your help, Chloe.”
Chloe nodded, her eyes distant. “Any time.”
Val patted her on the shoulder. “Hey, keep in touch, okay? If you need any showbiz advice, I’m your woman.”
They left Chloe to grapple with what they’d found and exited through the backyard. Thankfully, going down the stairs was much easier than going up. The gorgeous view of the coast helped, as well as the relief that they were finally leaving.
Michelle wanted to reiterate how low the insurance payout was, but she couldn’t get a word in. The excited chatter between Val and Lisa told Michelle all she needed to know. Their dumb murder theory had just gotten dumber, and she was the last one clinging onto any semblance of reality.
Twelve
The walk back to the car was steeper than Lisa remembered. She fell behind again, but this time she wasn’t in a hurry to catch up. They weren’t rushing now. They’d found what they needed, and as much as she hated to believe it, Val seemed to be on to something.
Her phone rang, and she waved Michelle and Val on, welcoming the excuse to take a break and enjoy the view for a moment more.
