Holly

  Neither of them heard the attic door open.

  Chapter Seventeen

  LORRIE POURED A SCOTCH AND YET AGAIN CONGRATULATED himself on his magnificence in handling Holly. He had spent four long weeks wining and dining her and introducing her to the right people.

  It was a shame about her background, he thought. Her father’s family was good, no property, no money, but good quality. However, her mother’s family was little better than…than that gardener Taylor lusted after, he thought, smiling. But then he’d done some lusting after that man, too. What was it about the lower classes in tight T-shirts with their great, roaring motorcycles?

  He sipped his scotch and looked through the mail. Nothing but bills, all of which he threw in the trash. Soon he’d have a docile little wife to pay all the bills for him.

  He ran his hand along a wall, felt the bulges in the plaster, and smiled. He’d renovate everything. From top to bottom he’d restore and renovate until Belle Chere was what it had once been. Soon the Beaumont name would be what it had once been, before men like his father had ruined it.

  Smiling to himself, he walked into the living room and imagined silk curtains, brocade-covered sofas, an eighteenth-century armoire on the far wall. He imagined a white-coated servant serving him his icy scotch on a silver tray. A sterling silver tray. Monogrammed.

  Yes, he thought, it was going to happen just as he and Taylor had planned it so long ago. That summer when he’d been just sixteen and hiding out from the world in embarrassment over his father’s latest fraudulent land deal, Taylor had been twenty and as obsessed with her rich little stepsister then as now.

  Taylor’d been so full of herself that summer; her beauty had been at its peak. She’d decided that she’d had enough of being second to Holly. “It’s always the little heiress they want to meet,” Taylor told Lorrie that summer. She’d hidden in the bushes and spied on Holly—something she’d done since her mother had married Holly’s father—and seen them together.

  From the first moment, Lorrie and Taylor had recognized each other as kindred souls. “So what do you want with her?” Taylor’d asked him. No introduction, just a blurting of those words.

  Lorrie shrugged. “Free labor.”

  Taylor had nodded sagely and sat down by him. She told him that she was planning to marry Charles Maitland. At sixteen, Lorrie had been shocked. “He’s old and he’s already married.”

  “He’s rich and he has a pedigree, both of which I need.”

  Lorrie had laughed. He felt the same way. When there was something you needed, you went after it.

  The summer had ended badly for Taylor because Charles had refused to divorce his ailing wife and marry the young, beautiful Taylor. “I’ll get him,” she’d told Lorrie. “If it takes the rest of my life, I’ll get him back for the way he’s treated me.”

  Lorrie hadn’t heard any more from Taylor until many years later. By then his plan to get his hands on his wife’s millions had failed. He’d managed to procure about two million from her without the ferocious men her first husband had left in charge of the money finding out, and Lorrie had invested it. His plan was to later go to her in triumph and show her what he’d done. If he stole and tripled the money it would be all right—and she’d give him more.

  But Lorrie found out that he’d inherited his father’s touch with investments. If he invested, the stock failed.

  His wife’s “overseers,” as he called them, found out about the money and showed her. She divorced him in an instant. He’d begged and pleaded and made lots of promises, but to no avail. Years of Lorrie’s drunken, all-night parties, plus the string of beautiful young men in the guest bedrooms, had made her deaf to his pleas.

  During the divorce, Lorrie’s law firm gave him notice. After all, his wife owned the firm, and she was the one who’d made sure her young husband was given credit for winning cases he’d never even worked on. It had been a matter of pride to her. To marry a young, beautiful man because he’d filled the empty place her husband’s passing had created made her an object of ridicule. To marry a brilliant young lawyer was another matter.

  In the midst of all this, Taylor had gone to Lorrie and made him a proposition. It seemed that Taylor regularly snooped in her stepsister’s computer files, and she’d found out that Miss Hollander Tools had been carrying a torch for Lorrie for years.

  In those same years, Taylor had been nurturing her hatred of Charles Maitland. She believed her life would have been different, better, if Charles had done what she wanted and married her. Over the years she’d blamed all her many failures on Charles and Holly.

  “People expect me to do something,” Taylor said. “They expect me to get a job.” She shuddered delicately. “My mother says, ‘Look at Holly. She’s worth millions yet she works twenty-four/seven for state and national preservationist societies.’ ”

  Taylor believed that if she’d been able to get her hands on Charles’s money no one would have suggested she have a career. And if she’d been able to claim Charles’s old-world name, she would finally outdo her stepsister. “Holly has money, but her mother was the lowest of the low. With Charles’s money and his old name, I’d at last be able to win over her.”

  On that day when Taylor had reentered his life, she’d told Lorrie that Charles’s wife had finally died so she, Taylor, meant to marry the man. “And make him regret turning me down the first time,” she said, her knuckles white against her drink glass.

  Together they came up with a plan that would solve all their problems. Taylor would marry Charles, and Lorrie would marry Hollander Tools—at least that’s the way he saw it. As for Holly herself, he thought little. All he really cared about was Belle Chere, and Holly was eminently qualified to put glory back into his home.

  “And then what?” Lorrie had asked idly. “Whatever do I do with a wife after the work is finished?”

  “Kill her,” Taylor said, making Lorrie pause, drink at his lips. “I’m her only heir now, but I’m sure her diligent firm of attorneys will immediately change her will once she marries you. You and I will jointly inherit.”

  “Murder?” he’d whispered. “I’m not sure…”

  “If she died we’d split about two hundred million dollars.”

  After that statement, Lorrie had never looked back. He and Taylor had met in secret four times and worked on their plans. They’d thought of ways to kill Charles and Holly together, but Taylor said she wanted Charles to live so she could make his life as miserable as he’d made hers.

  They connived and manipulated, with Taylor constantly dropping hints about Lorrie to Holly. “She thinks everything is her own idea.”

  “Does your mother?” Lorrie asked, curious.

  Taylor’s eyes slid to one side. “She…knows some of my true feelings for Holly, but I’m her daughter, so what can she do?”

  During this time of planning, Lorrie had borrowed and begged money from every source he could. He had three mortgages on Belle Chere. He needed money to set up a fake law office in Edenton to impress Holly. He had to buy an expensive car and designer clothes. He had to look prosperous if he planned to court her. He couldn’t look as though he needed her money!

  While he was buying these things, he’d had to let Belle Chere rot. It hurt him to his heart to see the deterioration as he loved every inch of every blade of grass. But he needed to make Holly feel the urgent need for restoration. Urgency would make her marry him sooner.

  Lorrie smiled. Last night he’d popped the question and even showed her a ring (not a real diamond, but she probably knew more about crescent wrenches than jewels), and she’d blushed rather prettily. She hadn’t said yes yet, but he was sure she would. Afterward, he’d called Taylor in triumph. He assured her that there’d be a double wedding. It was a done deal. He’d invested everything and this time, he’d won! He was going to marry Belle Chere to Hollander Tools. Laughing at his own witticism, he stopped when he heard a noise upstairs. The gardener! That gorgeous hunk who worked for Jam
es Latham was upstairs nosing through Lorrie’s personal documents.

  Frowning, Lorrie mounted the stairs to the attic. At the top, he stood in the doorway and looked at Holly—innocent, virginal Holly—naked and wrapped around the equally naked body of the gardener.

  In a flash, Lorrie saw the future. And he saw the past. He saw that for all his and Taylor’s planning, Holly had gone her own way. She hadn’t fallen for Lorrie; she’d reverted to her mother’s base nature and run off with the gardener. Lorrie didn’t know much about Holly, but he’d seen that she was—he hated the word—honorable. She was never tempted by party drugs or sexual suggestions. He’d thought she didn’t even like to stay up late.

  Now, looking at them entwined, and oh, so familiar with each other’s bodies, he knew where Holly had been every night he’d dropped her off early.

  But what Lorrie saw most was that he was in debt and there was going to be no rich wife to bail him out.

  Taylor! he thought. All this was Taylor’s fault and she was going to pay. She was going to do whatever needed to be done to get the money she owed him. She was going to get Charles to pay for the renovation of Belle Chere. Whatever, whoever, it didn’t matter. Taylor was going to pay!

  Turning, he went down the stairs to the entrance hall. On second thought, he went back to the library, reached behind a copy of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, and pushed a button. The bookcase swung open and revealed a shallow case full of rifles and pistols. He chose a 9mm, made sure it was loaded, then slipped it into his briefcase.

  If verbal threats didn’t work, maybe a gun would, he thought, as he left the house.

  Chapter Eighteen

  HOLLY WAS THE FIRST TO AWAKE, AND FOR A LONG time she lay still, Nick’s head on her shoulder, and caressed his hair. He’d become so familiar to her in the last weeks. She knew his every gesture, his every sound.

  Visions of their time together over the last weeks flew through her mind—and all she seemed able to see was laughter.

  Nick had asked her to marry him and she feared that if she did, the laughter would stop, and she couldn’t bear that. She couldn’t bear to see his eyes change from love to hatred.

  Again, the words “last time” ran through her mind. She had an overwhelming feeling of sadness, a premonition that today was their last time together.

  She kissed his hair and ran her hand across his bare back.

  Nick shivered so violently he woke. Raising himself on his elbow, he looked at her. “I think someone just walked over my grave.”

  She smiled at him, caressed his cheek.

  “Love me?” he whispered.

  Holly opened her mouth to say yes, but she didn’t because suddenly all hell broke loose. The blare of many police sirens seemed to surround them.

  “Your father found out about us,” Nick said.

  Holly pushed him away. “Idiot,” she said as she grabbed her clothes.

  Pulling on his shorts, Nick went to the window. “There are six police cars,” he said. “And a truck full of dogs.”

  Holly’s eyes widened and in the next minute they ran down the stairs. By the time they reached the front door, the sheriff and three deputies were there. A dozen uniformed men and women were spreading out around Belle Chere, some with dogs on leashes.

  “You’re Miss Latham, aren’t you?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “What—”

  “Do you know the whereabouts of Laurence Beaumont?”

  “Lorrie?” She put her hand to her throat and glanced at Nick, who stepped forward.

  “We’d like to know what’s going on.”

  The sheriff signaled for the two men behind him to step inside. “I have a search warrant for the house and grounds. We’re going to need help. Do you know this place?” he asked Nick.

  “I do,” Holly said. “I can help you—” She stopped talking as a female deputy stepped from the back of a car, her eyes focused on Holly alone. “Miss Latham, I think you should go home immediately,” the sheriff said solemnly.

  Holly took a step backward and Nick put his arm protectively around her shoulders.

  Over her head, Nick and the sheriff exchanged a look of understanding.

  “I can show you around,” Nick said. “I know the place pretty well, but give me a minute.” He pulled Holly into the library and looked into her eyes. “I don’t know what’s happened, but I’m sure it’s horrible and I can see that it involves you. Whatever it is, I want you to be brave. Can you do that for me?”

  Holly nodded, but her heart was in her throat.

  “I’ll be with you as soon as I can, but for now I need to stay here and help.” Smiling at her, his fingers found the chain of the necklace he’d given her and pulled it out of the inside of her top. Holding the big canary diamond to his lips, he kissed it. “For now I’ll put my love in this. Keep it close to your heart always.”

  Holly’s heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t speak. In the hall the uniformed woman waited for her, waited with whatever terrible news that had made the sheriff tell Holly she needed to go home.

  Nick kissed her forehead, then led her to the woman. He gave her fingertips one last squeeze, then she allowed herself to be led away.

  When Holly was inside the car, Nick turned to the sheriff.

  “What happened?”

  “Double murder. Taylor Latham and Charles Maitland were killed by Laurence Beaumont. He escaped and we’re looking for him. Any ideas where he might hide?”

  “I want protection put on Holly,” Nick said.

  “Think he might go after her, too?”

  “She’s worth a lot of money, I think he wanted it, and I think he realized he wasn’t going to get it. I don’t know what he might do.”

  The sheriff turned to a deputy and told him to put twenty-four hour surveillance on Miss Latham until Beaumont was caught. He turned to Nick. “You wanta tell me who you are?”

  “Dr. Nicholas Taggert,” he said. “Come with me and I’ll show you where the firearms are kept. I discovered the cabinet by accident one day.”

  Longingly, Nick glanced out the open door. He wished he could be with Holly now, when she needed him, but in the last weeks he’d become very familiar with Belle Chere and he knew he’d be able to help the sheriff and his men search.

  But luck wasn’t with him. He didn’t get away from the sheriff until late the next day. He’d had no sleep and little to eat while he trudged through swamps and across fields. He’d climbed through every building at Belle Chere, snaked under floors. Lorrie’s scent was everywhere so the dogs smelled the man constantly. Whereas others took breaks, Nick didn’t. He felt that Holly wouldn’t be safe until Lorrie was in custody.

  Finally, on the afternoon of the second day, Laurence Beaumont was found. He’d broken into the house of a friend who was away at the time. Lorrie had been living on canned beans and champagne, and when found, he told the sheriff’s deputies that he was looking forward to prison food.

  When Nick heard the news, he almost cried in relief. Holly was safe!

  He was tired, dirty, unshaven, but he didn’t waste time cleaning up. He jumped in Lorrie’s rowboat and quickly rowed the short distance to Spring Hill.

  He ran up the hill to the house and when he was within a hundred feet of it, he knew it was empty. He didn’t bother to knock, but flung open the door and started running through the rooms. Upstairs, closets were empty.

  He found Holly’s room. Nearly all her belongings were gone. He picked up an earring from where it had fallen on the floor. It was a little ladybug and he’d seen her wear it a couple of times.

  Clutching the earring in his closed fist, he went downstairs, then outside to his own house. As he knew there would be, there was an envelope on the little table in the kitchen.

  He didn’t want to open it, didn’t want to see the words of farewell. After holding it a few minutes, he opened it.

  My dearest Nick,

  I’m sorry to end everything
this way, but we are leaving. I have never seen my father so upset, and my stepmother is in a very bad way. She is being kept sedated.

  I don’t know where we’re going, but I know we all need to be together now. Now we need to be a family and we need to try to heal.

  Perhaps someday you and I—No! I can think of nothing but what’s left of my family now.

  As for Laurence Beaumont—I can no longer think of him as “Lorrie”—no one has any idea why he did what he did, nor do we care to know. He is a monster and deserves whatever horror happens to him!

  I must go. I will miss you.

  Holly

  Nick held the note for quite a while. She hadn’t told him she loved him, hadn’t even signed the note “with love.”

  For a few minutes, he cursed himself. If he’d just told her the truth about himself, as he’d been warned to do, he’d probably be with her now.

  He looked back at the note. She’d said that no one had any idea why Beaumont had killed Taylor and Charles and that she, Holly, didn’t care to know.

  “But I do,” Nick said. “I want to know all of it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Six Months Later

  Christmas

  IT IS CHRISTMAS EVE, HOLLY THOUGHT, LOOKING around the bare rooms of Spring Hill and trying not to remember what had happened. The furniture had long ago been boxed and put into storage. For the last six months she’d been traveling in Europe with her parents, staying with one of her father’s old friends after another.

  For all her grief, Marguerite had been wonderful to Holly, introducing her to people and arranging parties for her. But every time Holly hinted that she’d like to return to the U.S., Marguerite became hysterical. It was as though, since she’d lost one child, she feared losing another one.

  Her father had been stoical, showing great strength in helping his beloved wife, but, several times, Holly caught him looking at her. She could almost read his mind: What if it had been Holly instead of Taylor who’d been murdered by that madman?