Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

different. With Sally—it may sound adolescent and naïve—but with Sally I began to heal. I began to believe that it is possible to love and trust. She is not like other women.”

“You fell in love with her.”

He looked sullen and his face darkened. “You can mock if you want.”

“I’m not mocking, Gordon. The only bitter cynic in this room is you. So you fell in love, good for you. What else?”

He frowned at me. “Nothing else. We had discussed it and agreed that she would tell Ian and I would tell Pam, then we would both divorce our spouses and marry.”

I scanned his face and he scanned mine back. He looked like he was trying to understand what I was getting at. If it was an act, it was a good one. I said, “Where did that leave Pam and Ian?”

He shrugged. “Pam would get alimony and some kind of settlement, and Ian would continue as doctor in the village. I think the man is an insufferable prig, but I harbor no ill will toward him. I have no desire to see him bankrupt or broken.”

I waited a moment, watching him carefully. Then I asked, “Was Sally seeing anybody else?”

He looked startled, then laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just told you we were going to get married.”

“Like your son and his fiancée?”

He scowled at me. “What’s your point?”

“That just because people are engaged to be married, it doesn’t mean they don’t screw around.”

“Sally is not like that.”

“So she wasn’t screwing your son?”

He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “That’s your theory?” He laughed again. “You’re clutching at straws.” He gestured at me, then at Dehan. “This? This is New York’s finest? Give me a break!”

I glanced at Dehan. She shrugged with her eyebrows. I sat back in my chair. “Just a couple more questions.”

“I hope they’re a bit more intelligent than the last one, Detective Stone.”

“What were you doing in the broom cupboard?”

He went very still. “What?”

“When Cameron turned up to tell you what he thought of you, you had been doing something in the broom cupboard. What?”

He didn’t answer for a very long moment. Then he looked up at me and narrowed his eyes. “If you must know, Brown told me you had asked to look inside. I was curious to see what you had been looking for.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Yes, of course, some kind of secret door. I wondered if you had found one, but on inspecting all those shelves, as you must have done, it was clear there was no secret door there.” He sighed again. “Anything else, Stone?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“What? I am beginning to think I would have been better off allowing chaos and mayhem to reign. At least I might have got some sleep.”

“Tell me about your will.”

“My will?”

The answer surprised me, as did the expression on his face. It was hard to fathom. “Yes, Mr. Gordon, your will. Who else’s will would I be asking you about?”

He made a face, shrugged, shook his head. “It might make sense to ask about Charles’ will. After all, he is the one who has been murdered. I would have thought the pertinent question would be who benefits from his death, not mine.”

“I was under the impression,” I said, “that he had no wealth of his own. That your wealth would one day be his wealth.”

He shrugged again. “I have no idea what he had. I really wasn’t interested. I let him use the castle as an hotel. He made something from that. It entertained me to have guests.”

“Was he your heir?”

“For the moment, yes. Him and Pam. But obviously, in view of my upcoming marriage to Sally, it was in my mind to change my will. I hadn’t decided on the details yet.”

“Is Bee a beneficiary?”

“She receives something. Why? Why these questions about my will?”

I stood, stretched my back and heard the vertebrae crack. I took a few paces away, staring unseeing at the room around me. I was aware of something nagging at my mind, but each time I tried to grasp it, it dispersed like mist. Then I heard myself ask, as though the question had come from somewhere else, “What, exactly, is your fortune, Mr. Gordon?”

“What is this impertinence?”

I turned to face him. He was scowling at me.

“It’s a very simple question. What is your fortune? What do you own? This castle? The island? Is there more in Boston? Mainland Britain? What about stocks and shares? What is your income? How rich are you, and what is the nature of your wealth?”

He stood. “You’re going too damned far, Stone! I said I’d pay you anything you ask to clear up Charles’ murder, not to go prying into my private, personal affairs! It’s none of your damned business what my fortune is or what I’m worth!”

I shrugged. “Suit yourself. Either way, I know who killed your son, and your father. And I know how.”

Dehan stared at me wide-eyed, mirroring Gordon’s face across the table. His eyes bulged and so did his cheeks, erupting in a sudden expostulation, “You’re bluffing!”

I shook my head. “Makes no difference to me. Sounds like the storm is easing off. Tomorrow or the day after, we’ll be on our way to enjoy the rest of our honeymoon somewhere a little less remote and stressful. And you can sit there and tell the Scottish police to go to hell. But I guarantee, they will be asking the very same questions as me. You know why? Because I will have put them into their heads before I leave.”

He sneered at me, but without much conviction. “Forty years people have been trying to solve that murder, and now you’re going to come along and…”

I smiled. “It’s what we