Cruel Intent

Obviously, no introductions were required. From the guarded way the two men looked at each other, Ali was reasonably sure they were already acquainted-and that there was no particular love lost between them.

Billy had been cordial enough with Ali. Now he glanced pointedly at his watch, as if to say that he did mind-a lot. “I suppose,” he allowed gruffly. “As long as it doesn’t take too much time.”

Dave polished off the last of his doughnut. “So tell me about yesterday,” he said. “We’re trying to get a time line on Mr. Forester’s activities. He claims he was here on the job all day long. Do you happen to recall what time he showed up?”

Ali knew better than to hang around listening to the interview. Leaving the two men alone, she went back outside and made her way over to the canopy-covered patio. Leland had started the propane heater, and the outdoor space was warmer than it was inside the house. The butler had covered the redwood table with a clean white cloth and had stocked it with several thermal carafes of freshly brewed coffee and stacks of Styrofoam cups. The spread included a selection of baked goods-a platter of blueberry muffins and a box of mixed doughnuts with one (Dave’s, presumably)-conspicuous in its absence.

Ali was pouring herself a cup of coffee as Leland emerged from the fifth wheel with sugar, cream, and a fistful of spoons. “A good morning to you, madam,” he observed. “A bit nippy, but lovely.”

Ali looked out at the bright, cloudless sky arching overhead. “Yes,” she agreed. “It is lovely.”

“I see that Detective Holman is hot on the trail, as it were,” Leland continued. “He’s asking some of the same things he asked yesterday and checking our recollections for any inconsistencies.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth. I told him that Mr. Forester is usually soft-spoken and remarkably even-tempered, but that he seemed a bit out of sorts yesterday-impatient and irritable.”

That was how Bryan had seemed to Ali as well. They fell silent as Brooks laid out the spoons, lining them up with military precision.

“From the way Detective Holman asked his questions, I’m quite sure he believes Mr. Forester is responsible for what happened to his wife,” Leland continued thoughtfully.

Ali nodded. “He’s not the only one. According to my mother, everyone in town has already decided he’s the guilty party.”

Leland shook his head. “I’d hate to think he would be capable of that kind of thing. Then again, I know for a fact that you can’t always tell what someone is capable of, even if you think you know them.”

Ali knew he was thinking about Arabella Ashcroft. Her seemingly normal appearance had belied the fact that she was a remorseless serial killer.

Before Ali could reply, tires sounded on the driveway. She looked up to see Bryan Forester’s pickup truck come to a stop near the garage. As Bryan strode toward her, Ali hurried to meet him. Not surprisingly, the look on the man’s face was grim.

“That’s Dave Holman’s car, isn’t it?” he asked. “What’s he doing here?”

“Asking questions about whether or not you were here yesterday, which you were,” Ali said.

“Great,” Bryan said. “Just what I needed, having him going around to all my jobs asking questions.”

“But what are you doing here?” Ali asked. “Your guys are doing a great job on their own. After what happened yesterday, I would have thought-”

“We need to talk,” Bryan interrupted. “In private.”

CHAPTER 4

With a discreet but understanding nod in their direction, Leland disappeared into his fifth wheel. Ali led Bryan over to the canopy-covered table. “What about?” she asked.

Bryan sighed and ran one hand over his eyes as though he couldn’t imagine where to begin. “It’s about your cabinets,” he said.

“The kitchen cabinets?” Ali asked. “What about them?”

“Since it seems likely that I’m going to have to be off track for a while, I was trying to line up materials so the guys could keep on working and we can finish up the jobs that are already in process,” Bryan said. “I’m self-employed. If the jobs don’t get finished, I don’t get paid, which means I’ll probably end up firing my crews and declaring bankruptcy. With the drywall going up, I knew it was only a matter of days before we’d be ready to install your cabinets. I noticed yesterday that they hadn’t been delivered yet, so I called to check. The person I talked to said she’d look into it. Today she called me back to say that they were never ordered.”

“Not ordered?” Ali asked. “How can that be? I distinctly remember giving you a check. You said I needed to pay half at the time we ordered and the remainder when they were delivered and installed.”

“That’s right,” Bryan said. “I remember that, too. You did give me a check. So did the people on the other two jobs. All three checks were deposited in the company account, but as far as I can tell, Morgan never faxed the order to the cabinet company. They have no record of it. The good news is that I have a copy of the three files on the laptop in my truck, so at least we don’t have to start over from scratch. I’ve already e-mailed the specs for each of the three jobs to High Design Cabinets. The problem is, they don’t have any record of the payments, even though the money for those three deposits is no longer in my business account.”

“It’s not there?” Ali asked.

Bryan shook his head morosely. “None of it.”

“But that was a lot of money,” Ali objected. “I seem to remember the check I wrote for the cabinet deposit was well over thirty thousand dollars.”

“Thirty-three nine, to be exact,” Bryan answered. “And the other two orders came to nearly the same amount. One was a little more and the other a little less. Altogether, it comes to right around a hundred thousand.”

“So where did the money go?” Ali asked. “Maybe your wife simply made a mistake.”

“I believe I’ve found the money, and it’s no mistake,” Bryan said grimly. “A couple of years ago, when Morgan’s grandmother passed away, she left her daughter a tidy little sum of money. Morgan had always been self-conscious about her figure. We agreed that she’d set that money aside in a separate account so she could use it if she ever decided to go ahead with breast enhancement surgery. Which she did. Once the surgery was over, I thought the account would be empty, but it’s not. It has well over a hundred thousand dollars in it-almost the exact amount that’s missing from the three cabinet deposits.”

“You think Morgan was embezzling funds?” Ali asked.

Bryan nodded. “That’s how it’s starting to look. I think she was hiding money away and getting ready to take off. It’s also what I need to talk to you about today. The money is in an account that’s in Morgan’s name only. With everything that’s happened, the bank says I won’t be able to touch a dime of it until after probate and this is all straightened out. High Design says they’re willing to start building the cabinets on a rush-order basis, but to do that, I need to send them money-money I don’t happen to have at the moment. I mean, I do have some money, but if I use that to pay the cabinet bill, I won’t be able to meet payroll. One way or the other, I’ll be out of business.”

“So what do you need?” Ali asked.

“I was hoping you’d go ahead and pay the second half of the cabinet bill. That would be enough to get them started building them. Hopefully, by the time the cabinets are ready to ship, I’ll be able to get the amount you’ve already paid freed up from Morgan’s account.”

“You’re asking me to give you another check?”

Bryan shook his head. “The way things stand, that’s probably a bad idea. I’d rather you have your bank wire the funds directly to High Design. That way, if something else happens…”

“What something else?” Ali asked. “What more could go wrong?”