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23
Stacks of cash were tossed inside the duffel, bundled in narrow white sleeves with the red Booze Dog stamp.
Cora’s hands began to shake. For a moment all she could do was stare at what must’ve amounted to over a hundred thousand dollars. This had to be the missing money Eli was searching for. But why would Magnus have it?
With frantic, jerky movements, Cora zipped the bag and shoved it back against the wall. She pulled herself from under the bed and rose to her knees to stand.
“Everything okay?” Magnus asked from the doorway.
Startled, she jumped to her feet, holding up the stalk of orchids. “Yes! I’m so sorry. I was admiring your plant because I love orchids. They’re one of my favorite flowers of all time, so I wanted to see if these were real, which they are. So that’s really great that you keep real orchids, because I know they’re not easy to take care of. But I broke it by accident. I’m sorry,” she repeated, giving him her best fake smile with a sinking feeling in her stomach. He was smart, and wily and there was no way he’d buy this act. Even to her own ears, she sounded guilty and flustered.
“They’re real,” he said smoothly, holding out a glass of wine. “Drink?”
Cora walked over on shaky legs, pretending everything was normal. Just a normal drink with a normal dinner date who had not recently committed larceny and maybe homicide. No big deal. She accepted the glass and took a tiny sip, eyeing him over the rim of her glass. He seemed calm and amiable. Maybe he hadn’t caught on, after all.
“The salad’s done,” he said. “I need to throw the steaks on the grill. Ready to head outside?”
“Sure. I’m just going to run to the restroom.” She eased around him and made a beeline for the guest bathroom she’d seen on her way down the hall. Once inside she locked the door and yanked her phone from her pocket, relieved she hadn’t left her phone in her purse in the living room. With shaking hands, she quickly texted Liam.
At Magnus’s house on Cedar Lake. Found stolen money! Come get me. Call station. Am dialing 911 but can’t talk.
She waited, praying Liam would respond immediately. When a couple of minutes went by without a response, she pretended to wash her hands. Then she dialed 911.
The dispatcher picked up, and Cora began to whisper, but Magnus interrupted when he called out, “Cora? Everything okay?”
“Yes, I’ll be right out.” She heard the dispatcher asking questions but had no way of responding without being overheard. Staying silent, she slid the phone into her pocket, knowing it was protocol for the dispatcher to report the call and send someone out to investigate. Cora hoped it would be fast enough. Once Magnus started grilling, she could make an excuse to get away and try calling again.
She left the bathroom to find him leaning against the wall near the master bedroom door. He was staring at the floor and appeared to be deep in thought.
She pasted a bright smile on her face. “Ready.”
He glanced up, and for one heart-stopping moment she saw something cold and calculating in his gaze, but then he snapped back to his charming self and led her down to the shore.
There was a beautiful entertainment area with an outdoor gas grill and a low fire pit surrounded by decorative rocks. Across the lake, she could see a few other houses nestled in the trees. The gardens around Magnus’s house were well maintained, but the surrounding wooded area gave one the feeling of seclusion and peace. Even though they were less than thirty minutes outside Providence Falls, they could’ve been anywhere. It was like being on a movie set. Unfortunately, the movie wasn’t going to be a happy one.
Magnus wrapped an arm around her shoulder as they stared out at the water lapping along the shore. The weight of his arm, his nearness, felt like a blanket of prickly thorns, but she pretended everything was fine.
He smiled down at her and said, “I’m really glad you came out with me tonight. Thanks for giving me the chance to see you.” Then he pulled her in for a quick hug. All her senses were screaming at her to jerk away, but she eased from his hold and took a seat on one of the chairs like nothing was amiss.
Magnus fired up the grill and made small talk. She answered when appropriate, but she got the feeling neither of them were paying attention. He seemed distracted, which only heightened her alarm. Was he trying to manipulate her into a false sense of security right now? To what end?
His movements were smooth and easy as he seasoned the steaks and told her about his last trip to Hawaii, but there was a slight lack of tone inflection in his voice that she hadn’t noticed before. “Have you?”
Cora realized he’d just asked her a question. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Have you been to the Hawaiian islands?”
“Not yet, but it’s definitely on my bucket list,” she managed. “I’ve heard the beaches are gorgeous.”
“Paradise on earth,” he agreed, launching into the pros and cons of visiting Maui during the height of tourist season.
Cora tried to feign interest, but her mind was busy calculating how long it would take for the police to arrive, and whether or not Liam got her text message. She hoped he was already on his way. All she really needed to do was stall Magnus long enough until someone arrived, but her self-preservation instincts had kicked in to high gear. For all she knew, Magnus was a stone-cold killer. Maybe he and Lindsey stole the money and had a falling out, and then he killed her. She began cataloging her surroundings, automatically scoping out escape routes out of habit. There was a small rowboat down by the dock. The road out wove through the trees, but she could run if she had to. She was dying to check her phone to see if Liam had responded, but she didn’t want to draw attention to it.
Magnus finished at the grill and took a chair beside hers to watch the sunset.
“It’s really beautiful,” Cora offered, pretending to sip her wine. If she needed to make a run for it, she didn’t want a foggy head to slow her down. “A person could get used to this.”
“Could you?” he asked suddenly, studying her face like she was a coded message he was trying to decipher. “Would you want to live like this? Summer houses, fancy cars, easy living.”
