The Pretender Read online

  “But you think I did it.” She figured they may as well get that out in the open. Harris insisted he believed her. This guy would never say that.

  “I think you’re the leading suspect, but that’s because I can read. The police think you’re the leading suspect.” Damon shrugged. “It’s all over the file.”

  “You could sugarcoat it,” Harris mumbled under his breath.

  Damon looked from Harris then back to her. “Do you want me to, Ms. Wright?”

  “Call me Gabby. The Ms. Wright thing has been an ongoing problem for years. I’ve heard every joke.”

  Damon frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  “Ms. Wright, as in right.” Harris made the connection then held out his hands. He didn’t say duh but it was right there.

  Damon shook his head this time. “You repeating the same word doesn’t help.”

  Needing to move on, Gabby took over. “Did you want to question me today?”

  “I wanted to know if your sister kept a diary.”

  The question hung in the air for a second. It wasn’t the one she expected from him. She remembered the police asking and officers looking for one, but it struck her as an odd place for Damon to start the questioning. “What?”

  “It’s kind of an easy question.”

  “Sorry. I was expecting . . .” It didn’t really help her case to start listing off the accusations against her, so she dropped it. “Never mind.”

  Damon took off his glasses and played with the arm as if he was trying to bend it into another position. He peeked over at Harris. “Did you need something?”

  “I’m keeping her company.”

  Damon’s smile came back. “Lucky her.”

  She didn’t know what was happening, but she sensed she might need to duck if the testosterone kept flying. As interesting as a debate between those two might be, she wasn’t in the mood to play den mother. “Tabitha wasn’t really a diary person. Not a paper one anyway. Not that I remember. She did a lot on her laptop and she loved to read.”

  “Right, but there wasn’t a laptop in the house when the police got here,” Damon said, as if he had the entire police file, all however many boxes of it memorized.

  Harris shifted. “What?”

  Damon didn’t even spare Harris a glance as he answered. “It’s missing.”

  That piece never made sense to her. Tabitha didn’t keep financial information on the thing. She had professionals who handled her trust. So why would the killer take the computer? “I know, and it’s not possible. She lived on that thing.”

  “You said something about true crime to me the other day?” Harris asked.

  There it was. An example of how he remembered a throwaway fact. It impressed her even though she was determined not to be impressed.

  She looked at Damon. “That was Tabitha’s thing. She was part of this group that informally investigated unsolved true crime cases. They searched for clues and came up with theories.” As far as habits went, Gabby thought it was weird, but it fit Tabitha. She liked puzzles, and she really liked the idea of bringing a family peace. “She was really good at it. Read every forensic book there is.” That memory stopped Gabby, made it hard for her to catch her breath. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “How so?” Damon asked.

  “That someone with that much interest in cases and solving them would become a crime statistic.” As soon as the words were out she regretted them. She didn’t think of her sister in those terms and she could already see Damon filing the information away for his report.

  He kept right on asking questions in a clear, calm tone. “Did she meet in person with this group?”

  “Not that I know of. It was online. A pretty big forum, actually, but she also broke off into smaller groups for specific cold cases. Tabitha didn’t have that many friends and didn’t just invite people over. But she did collect articles. She printed stuff out all the time. All of it should be in the library.” She sighed. “Of course, so should the laptop.”

  “Can you show me where?” Damon stepped back and gestured toward the main house.

  “No.”

  He froze. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not ready to go back in the house yet. Give me a day.” God, it had been fourteen months. She had no idea what one more day would do, but she needed to prepare, to wipe her brain clear of the last memory she had of the inside. Tuck the horror away and drown it in darkness.

  “Ah, I see.” Damon’s gaze hesitated on her for a few extra beats before he glanced at Harris. “Mr. Tate . . . or may I call you Harrison?”

  “Harris is fine.”

  “Why don’t you come with me and get started?”

  Harris shook his head. “I was going to—”

  “It’s okay.” She rushed to stop whatever Harris planned to say next. That space she said she needed was not a lie. “You go with the investigator. I wanted to say hello to Kramer.”

  Harris stared at her then nodded. “Then we’ll meet up later.”

  Harris followed Damon out of the garden and over to the main house. Harris got as far as the foyer of the big house before he stopped. The hardwood shined and there wasn’t one bit of clutter anywhere. The rooms that were visible looked comfortable rather than fancy, but in that paid-a-fortune-for-the-lived-in-look kind of way.

  A breeze blew through the two-story opening from a sitting room on one side to a small study on the other. He looked in both directions and saw the windows at the sides of the house were open. White sheers rustled in the wind.

  A curving staircase with a railing carved out of mahogany wound to the next floor in front of him. A hall on either side of the grand floating staircase led to the kitchen and dining room. To a downstairs bedroom . . . and to the library. Eventually out to an atrium and an in-house theater.

  There was a lot of space to cover but his feet refused to move. All he could do was stand just inside the door. One shift in any direction and the memories came rushing back—the deadly quiet. The smell he couldn’t place. The blood.

  “You okay?” Damon asked in an uncharacteristically soft voice.

  Harris focused and he saw Damon staring at him, the concern clear in his expression. “Not really.”

  Footsteps echoed on the floor as Damon walked to the base of the staircase and glanced up. When he lowered his head again his expression had changed. He seemed ready to battle. “I need her to move around freely.”

  It took Harris a second to realize he’d missed part of the conversation or a turn in the topic. “What?”

  “You can’t follow her around like a lost puppy.” Damon exhaled as he crossed his arms in front of him. “I want her to use that shovel her uncle saw her holding, or another one she can find.”

  Rather than fill in the blanks, Harris ignored the comment. “How are you going to see that when you’re standing in here?”

  Damon shook his head. He probably winked, too, because he did that a lot, but he wore the sunglasses again, so it wasn’t clear what was happening behind his eyes. “It’s cute you think Wren didn’t set up camera surveillance on the island.”

  Harris started to question, but of course he knew. Wren didn’t miss much. “When the hell did he do that?”

  “The minute after he saved your ass fourteen months ago. He wanted to see what the police were doing and finding. He mentioned something about needing to ‘guide’ the investigation.” Damon took off the sunglasses and twirled them in his fingers. “Personally, I think he doubted your claims about not leaving fingerprints and wanted to be ready to ‘lose’ the evidence if needed.”

  The police had been everywhere that afternoon. The press had descended almost immediately. Most of Wren’s energy at that time seemed to be spent on the subterfuge needed to extract Harris. The cleanup, the boat, the people who hid him. But Wren must have been working the crime scene angle as well. That meant he either had people planted in the police department or somewhere in the law enforcement chain.

  Harris didn�
�t want to know.

  “Tabitha’s laptop? Suddenly that seems even more important.” Harris hadn’t asked for every detail about what was happening in the investigation. He knew Wren followed it closely and that was good enough. But now the pieces mattered. Harris needed to fit them together to form the bigger picture.

  “Did you see it that night?” Damon asked.

  “I knew about it because I had tapped into it, but I wasn’t looking for it when I was here. Honestly, all I remember is the body.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing Wren handled the laptop while you were strolling around on that other island.”

  Harris could only imagine. “I didn’t stroll. To be completely accurate, I swam and nearly drowned.”

  “It sounds like whatever the two of you did, separately or together, was a waste of time because the killer already had the laptop. Not that it did him or her any good.” Damon finally stopped playing with the glasses and shoved them into his shirt pocket. “The laptop being missing is one of those things the police didn’t disclose publicly, by the way. I saw it in the confidential report Wren . . . what’s the word you like to use? Liberated.”

  “Shit.”

  Damon let out a harsh laugh. “I have a feeling we’re going to be saying that a lot while we’re investigating.”

  “So, your plan is to watch her to see if her uncle is right.” Which would be interesting because Harris definitely planned to keep watching her. He really hoped to be touching her soon. Kissing her.

  “There isn’t a camera inside the guesthouse, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Jesus. Harris hadn’t even thought of that. “Okay.”

  “Or is there?” Damon smiled. “Fine. There’s not, but the holy-shit look on your face was pretty fucking great. It’s rare to see you panicked.”

  “Let’s get back to the actual case. Tabitha’s true crime fixation thing?” Harris wasn’t sure where that fact fit in.

  “Yeah, I need to find documents or some background so we can figure out what private chat groups she was in. The main forum Gabby talked about should be easy enough to find. I’m not sure about the rest, but we need to know what she was doing and checking out the people she talked with. She may have found the wrong case or upset someone.” Damon sat down on one of the lower steps. “Let’s hope the person who took the laptop didn’t think to take her actual files.”

  “I do remember a lot of paper on the floor that night.” Harris stared down the long hallway again. “But there must be a million books back there.”

  “You look a little green.”

  A tightness banded Harris’s chest. Regret, guilt. He had been battling both since he stepped on the island. Shifting artwork around, passing it from one person to its rightful owner, never bothered him. He slept just fine. Watching the life drain out of Tabitha had changed everything.

  He dealt in things. Moving them around, evening the score, settling old debts. Insurance companies paid out or someone learned a hard lesson in karma. No one paid with their life. “I’m going to get some air.”

  “Harris, so we’re clear. You know I’m going to follow this case wherever it goes.” Damon sat with his elbows resting on his knees and an arm dangling between his legs. “I’ll protect you because that is always going to happen. Always. But my loyalty doesn’t transfer to her.”

  The words meant something. When Damon pledged his support, he meant it. Harris didn’t take it for granted, but he hoped Damon would spare a bit of that loyalty for Gabby. “She’s innocent.”

  Damon shook his head. “No one is.”

  Chapter 8

  Gabby didn’t go back to the guesthouse or the garden at dinnertime. She wandered over to Kramer’s house to say hello. The fact that Kramer and his son, Ted, were putting hamburgers on the grill early tonight was just a bonus.

  They asked her to stay and she didn’t play coy. She’d been around them, eating with them, for as long as she could remember. Kramer’s dedication to first her parents then Tabitha never wavered. He’d worked at the family’s home in Bethesda, Maryland, where she grew up. When they died and the house was sold, Tabitha asked him to come to the island with her.

  The lives of the Kramers and Wrights were entwined. Her parents paid for Ted to go to the same private high school she did. Back when she had friends, Ted had been one of them. He was a bit younger, but not as young as Tabitha, and spent time with their family.

  Kramer was one of the people her parents took care of in their will. There was a trust that paid him and guaranteed him a home and benefits. That was all separate from Tabitha’s estate and protected. When the island finally sold, Kramer joked that there was a cottage waiting for him just outside of Annapolis.

  Lawyers and financial planners took care of all of it. From the fact Kramer had worn the same baseball cap for two decades, Gabby doubted the man spent much of the money left to him.

  They’d eaten a lot of meals together since she arrived back on the island. She didn’t have any other family left. Not any members who talked to her. Kramer and Ted never abandoned her. It was the one relationship she’d gone out of her way to keep.

  She sat at the picnic table on the small patio and watched Ted fiddle with the grill. He cleaned the grate. Played with the temperature. Clearly grilling was an involved endeavor . . . so she didn’t get in the way.

  “You hanging in there, Gabby girl?” Kramer groaned as he squatted down on the bench across from her with a beer in his hand.

  “Barely.” As she’d done for years, she skipped the liquor in favor of the big bowl of chips Ted had put out. Today’s variety was sour cream and onion. She’d eat any chip of any type any time. All were welcome in her world. Heck, she could down a family-sized bag on her own.

  “This island sure is crowded all of a sudden.” Kramer ended the comment by taking a long swig from the bottle.

  Ted laughed as he reached over his father’s shoulder to grab a handful of chips. “Dad thinks there are too many people wandering around here right now.”

  She didn’t disagree. “He’s not wrong.”

  “Ridiculous.” Kramer snorted. “It’s all a waste of time.”

  The endless parade of Stephen’s paid employees did get annoying, but there was a bigger issue. One she refused to forget. “If they really can figure out who killed Tabitha, I don’t care how many of them come.”

  “I get that.” Kramer reached over and put his calloused hand over hers. “But this group your uncle hired isn’t going to figure it out.”

  She was almost sorry Harris wasn’t here to hear that. “What’s your theory?”

  “Bah.” Kramer shook his head. “We’ve talked about this before.”

  They had. Many times. She chalked the circular conversations up to grieving, but she wanted to hear his reasoning again. “Humor me.”

  “Who knows. Probably someone from that online group of hers figured out she had money and came looking for a payday. But they underestimated how tough your little sister was.”

  Ted sat down next to his father and grabbed another chip. “Someone probably thought she’d be afraid to leave her room. Like she was some kind of shut-in.”

  Gabby understood the misconceptions about Tabitha and how so many people underestimated or believed the tales that went around about her. That still wasn’t the point. “But how did they get on the island?”

  “Swim, boat? They are long gone now.” Kramer shoved the chip bowl to the side, out of easy reach by either Ted or Gabby. “No one but gawkers come around these days.”

  She winced. “I’m afraid that’s about to get worse.”

  “We can take it.” Ted shot her a smile before he got up to tend the grill again.

  “Thanks for coming to help out.” She knew Ted had a life. Kramer mentioned Ted had started dating someone seriously, a woman in his office. He had other places to be. He wasn’t a longtime Wright family employee. He was a friend . . . one she’d pushed away when she pushed all the other ones away.<
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  He glanced at her over his shoulder. “It’s what family does, right?”

  “Still, I appreciate it.”

  “And he likes the paycheck,” Kramer said. “The only thing you and Stephen agreed on was paying for extra help to get the property back in shape after all that investigating.”

  Ted rolled his eyes. “Dad.”

  “Gabby here is a practical woman. She knows how the world works.”

  “Speaking of which.” Ted set a plate of steaming burgers in the middle of the table. “What’s with this art guy? Dad thinks he’s working with the investigator.”

  She tried to concentrate on getting the twist tie on the bag of hamburger buns off. “Probably.”

  “Then why is he bunking with you?” Kramer asked.

  She stopped playing with the bag and looked up at Ted. He smiled at her. Kramer stuck with scowling. “It’s hard to get excited about going back in the main house. Harris told me I could stay with him for now.”

  “With him? The place is basically yours.” Ted’s smile dropped. “Gabby, I didn’t think . . .”

  “It’s fine.” She ripped a hole in the side of the bag. “I need to get past the block because there is work to do. The investigator thinks there might be a diary tucked away somewhere, which I doubt because police have been in and out of there for months. The paperwork that used to be in there might even be gone.”

  “Did Tabitha hide things?” Ted asked.

  “Reading all that true crime stuff had to make her a little paranoid.” That had been the one thing Gabby constantly worried about, that her sister would retreat further and mentally disappear into these horrible crime scenes filled with danger and terrible endings. Gabby never dreamed she should worry about Tabitha actually being attacked. “Truth is, I won’t know what she left behind until I’m in there.”

  “The crime scene guys took care of most of it,” Ted said.

  Kramer slapped a second piece of cheese on his burger. “Good.”

  “Enough sad talk. Craig is riding over and picking me up.” Ted stole the chips back from his father’s side of the table and passed them to her. “We’re heading for a night out bar hopping. Want to come?”