Page 26 of Oleander

“Yes, yes, I’m well aware. Something about the oleander she kept in her backyard. Silly woman. She knew how dangerous it was. But you couldn’t tell her anything. Always believing that she knew what was best. Well, I’ll make sure that they place a grand memorial at her headstone.”

He turned sharply, leaving the building. The women beside them were picking up the items he’d spilled during his temper tantrum. Voss stood there for a moment and stepped within inches of Remy and whispered.

“I’m not your enemy.” He walked away and Remy turned to Robbie, repeating what the man had said.

“We’ll have the boys check him out,” said Robbie.

“I’m sorry you had to endure that,” said Grace bending down to help them.

“It’s okay,” said the personnel manager. “We knew it was going to happen. We both have remote jobs that we work in the evenings, knowing this would happen sooner or later. Personally, I’m glad it happened with witnesses.”

“If you need something from us, just call,” said Robbie handing them business cards. They smiled and nodded, leaving the exhibition hall.

“What do you think?” asked Jessica.

“I’m not sure,” said Zoe. “What about you guys?”

“I think Ms. Martin has left clues that we haven’t found yet. Yes, she had diabetes and her blood sugar levels were low. Yes, she had oleander on her skin, a plant she was all too familiar with. Yes, he wanted her dead. But how do we tie all of that together?” frowned Robbie.

“We do what we always do,” said Grace. “We keep digging.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Grace, Zoe, Jessica, Remy, and Robbie related the events of the day, especially the last hour. Luke frowned, staring at the three women.

“Were you hurt?” he asked.

“Seriously?” frowned Robbie. “You think we’d let them get hurt? Even if we weren’t there, Monster was ready to rip his balls off.”

“Sorry, brother. I didn’t mean that you wouldn’t take care of them,” said Luke. “This is all feeling more complicated than it should. Dorothy was good about managing her diabetes. Kennedy and Layla spoke to her endocrinologist. She was faithful about reporting her blood sugars, taking her medications, and watching her diet. Even with her blood sugar dropping low, she would have known enough to drink some juice or a regular soda, anything to give it a kick.”

“We need a timeline on the fire in the oleander,” said Cam. “There had to have been flames or smoke. Did we speak with any neighbors?”

“Not yet,” said Eric. “I was going to speak with them tomorrow when Rod is available to go with me. Since he’s the new neighbor, we can serve two purposes.”

“If anyone has cameras or a camera on the doorbell, we might be able to tell when the fire was started. Even if she put out the fire, with the low blood sugar and oleander on her skin, why would she have gone to the front porch to sit. Why not call for help?” asked Hex.

“If she wanted to die, to bring us in to investigate Hollis, she might have thought that was the best way but it doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Luke. “Grandma? Grandpa?”

They all waited, looking around the room, waiting for them to appear. Sure enough, a few moments later they came into the room.

“What do you need, baby?” asked Irene.

“Is there any way we can speak with Dorothy? Just for a moment,” asked Luke.

“I’m sorry, son,” said Matthew. “She’s gone. Permanently. She felt she’d done what she needed to do on this earth.”

“Damn,” he muttered, nodding at his grandparents. “AJ? Hiro? Any word on the drives we found behind the paintings?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” said Hiro, “but Dorothy Martin was damn good at encrypting and hiding data. We’re still working on them to get them open.”

“You’re fucking joking?” frowned Eric. “How would an English teacher know how to do that?”

“Don’t ask me,” said AJ. “Seems like Dorothy had a lot of secrets we didn’t know about.”

“Which is what scares the fuck out of me,” frowned Luke. “Eric, you and Rod get to the neighbors today. We have to find something, anything that gives us a timeline of the events. We also need to figure out who Stuart Trager was paying off his debts to. I have a feeling that Burton was involved but it seems an odd connection.”

Eric left and drove to the station to pick up Rod. He still had a few hours left on his shift but the others were happy to cover for him.