Dig Two Graves by James Harper (important books to read .txt) 📗

‘You don’t sound very bitter. I would be.’

She gave him a knowing smile.

‘I don’t believe that for a minute. It’s probably why my father hired you. He’s a good judge of character. And it was all such a long time ago. Besides, Merritt will look after me.’

‘Or you’ll tan his hide.’

‘Exactly.’

The light-hearted comment was better than voicing the first thought that had come into his mind. Her son Merritt had a very good reason to want Aunty Bella dead before old Thomas Carlson went to meet his maker.

It put him in a difficult position. He had to tell her about the failed attack. It was only fair. But he didn’t want it to sound as if he was pointing the finger at her son. In the end he just came out with it, let her arrive at her own conclusions.

‘Somebody tried to kill Arabella in the bar yesterday.’

Her hand was suddenly at her mouth, a whispered No! leaking out from behind it. And in her eyes the same thoughts that were in his mind. Neither of them gave voice to the unspeakable, but the job description had just changed. He didn’t only have to find her, he had to keep her alive. Perhaps protect her from her own family.

It wouldn’t be easy.

But it would have been less hard if he didn’t have a nagging suspicion that she hadn’t told him the whole truth.

5

Something was pecking away at the back of Evan’s mind. He needed time to think it through. Bella had surfaced after thirty years just as her father became terminally ill. That was a hell of a coincidence. And coincidence was nothing more than a convenient word to describe patterns that hadn’t yet become clear.

Bella had learned of her father’s illness somehow but hadn’t yet worked up the courage to return home from wherever she was living, as if from the dead. Hence the wistful and apprehensive note in her voice at the toast to going home.

Now, the failed attempt on her life would make her more reluctant still to return to the family home. Whoever wanted her dead would be watching the house if they had any sense. They might even have somebody on the inside.

He asked Blair where the bathroom was. Then pulled out his phone before setting off.

‘Can you show me where it is on Google maps?’

She laughed with him, a sound that made him feel guilty about all the suspicious thoughts running through his mind, particularly those concerning her son. At least he had an excuse to have his phone in his hand as he headed back to the house. The reception would be non-existent inside the massive building. He opened the browser, tapped in Thomas Carlson Communications illness, hit return.

The only item of any interest was a short article from five years previously reporting on Thomas Carlson standing down as chairman at the age of eighty-five. No mention was made of illness being the reason, just the usual guff about wanting to spend more time with his family. It was unlikely that Bella had learned of her father’s illness via the media. On a whim he did a quick search on Arabella Carlson disappearance and came up with nothing at all.

As expected, there was no service once he got deeper inside the house. He spent the appropriate length of time in the bathroom, disappointed to find that the toilet paper didn’t have a monogram on each sheet.

‘You found it okay?’ Blair said when he got back.

He dropped his eyes, worked an embarrassed smile onto his face.

‘No. I had to go in a corner, I’m afraid. But it’s okay, I asked Aldrich to clean it up.’

She stifled a giggle, shook her head in much the same way as Guillory often did, what shall we do with you?

‘I almost wish it were true.’

They both enjoyed the mental image for a couple of beats before he got them back on track.

‘Has your father’s illness been reported in the media at all?’

She looked more horrified by the suggestion than she had when he’d made the joke about being caught short.

‘Goodness, no. My father is the most private man you could ever meet. As I said earlier, he’s very old-fashioned.’ She then put on a very good imitation of his voice. ‘One does not mix business and pleasure. He always made maximum use of the media to promote the company, of course. As you’d expect given the business he was in. But to divulge personal details to the press? About his illness? So that the public can read about it over breakfast and laugh that all his money couldn’t help him?’ She shook her head energetically. ‘Not in a million years.’

It fit with what his quick search on the internet had suggested. As did the unlisted phone number and employing his own personal weasel, Aldrich LeClair, to fend off unwanted attention.

‘I suppose that’s what Aldrich is for, is it? To keep people like me away.’

‘That’s part of his job, yes.’

‘I get the impression it’s the part he likes the best. He’s a man who likes to say no.’ She didn’t pass comment, so he continued. ‘Has he been your father’s personal weasel for long?’

That got a reaction, another stifled giggle that wiped twenty years off her. Her answer rode out on the back of it.

‘It feels like forever, but it’s only ten years. Why?’

‘Background information, that’s all.’

She gave him a head-cocked look.

‘Surely you don’t think he’s involved?’

‘Would he benefit from your father’s death and the money not going to your sister?’

‘I can’t think how. He’d lose his job to start with.’

‘That’s going to happen soon enough whatever happens. That might be more reason to take measures to secure his future in some other way.’

He didn’t like the way the conversation was going. Her face said neither did she. The suggestion hanging in the air between them was that LeClair was working with her son, Merritt, to ensure that Merritt inherited from his grandfather—a service for which he