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Mick continued to relate the story. “Once he figured out who Hester was, Charlie tried to convince her that Victoria was alive and well and begged her to leave them alone.”
Caroline stepped in. “But she didn’t believe him and thought he was trying to distract her and take the gun.”
“The old ‘they both reached for the gun’ defense?” Jared asked.
Mick nodded. “It went off.”
“Miss Hester hit the tub,” Caro added.
“Charlie panicked, picked up the gun with one of the blackmail notes to keep his fingerprints off, and stuck it in his back pocket.”
Jared rolled his eyes. “For someone in a panic, he had the presence of mind to try to avoid prints.”
Mick didn’t try to convince Jared that his suspicions were wrong. Jared hadn’t been there to hear the older man break down. But his words had convinced everyone in that kitchen that he’d been telling the truth. Every one of them would be willing to testify to the emotion of the moment when it came time for trial—if there was one.
“How’d the gun end up in our attic?” Gwen asked with a little shiver.
“It fell out of his pocket, along with the notes, when he climbed through the access door to get away,” Mick said. “He’d been spending his days at the inn—he knew the ins and outs, so to speak.”
Gwen and Jared exchanged an intimate look and a smile. Mick, remembering that the two of them had first fallen in love at the inn, didn’t question it.
“The thing that really damaged Sophie was admitting that she’d gone up the back stairs,” Caro said, shaking her head as she thought it over.
Mick squeezed her closer, liking the way she felt against his side. Liking having her here, on his porch, with his family, in his world. “They found her footprints, and Miss Hester’s, and read too much into it. Plus Sophie, being the good girl she is, picked up what she thought was a piece of trash off that back stairwell and threw it away in one of the upstairs bedrooms.”
“Let me guess,” Jared said, “one of Miss Hester’s blackmail notes? That’s why both sets of prints were on it?”
“Bingo,” Caro and Mick said in unison.
They talked for another hour, discussing Charlie’s future, the manslaughter arrest, the pending investigation and trial. Mick felt certain that the man would be okay, as long as the justice system worked. He hoped, in this case, that it would.
Eventually, Gwen and Jared left, leaving Mick and Caro alone on the porch swing.
“You okay?” he asked her softly. They’d had no real alone time since the previous day. God, things had been such a whirlwind, he hadn’t even asked her what had happened on the set today.
“I’m fine. Really.” Then she laughed softly. “It’s amazing how quickly a studio can change its tune when it’s one of their own employees involved in a murder investigation, rather than a celebrity.”
Mick knew without asking what she meant. The studio was no longer going to be exploiting the real murder, not when they might very well get hit with a lawsuit or something by Miss Hester’s next of kin. But he doubted that. Pastor Bob seemed the type who would want to move on and forget the ugliness as soon as possible. Putting it out there for public consumption would mean exposing his sister’s past, something no brother would want to do. He seemed content to move on with his life—with Louise Flanagan, who hadn’t left his side in days.
“I have to tell you something,” she said softly.
His spine straightened. The tone in her voice told him he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
“Yes?”
She drew in a deep breath, then released it. Her warm exhalations caressed his neck, and he tightened his embrace.
“I have to leave tomorrow.”
Christ. Tomorrow. “So soon? I thought you had until the end of the week.”
She dropped her head, looking away. “Things changed because of the case. Now that Charlie’s gone, and Jacey quit to take off with Digg, there’s nothing left to do here.”
“Of course.”
They fell silent. Now nothing lay between them—no murders or TV shows. Now there was only their past and their desires, their feelings and their geography.
And one more thing.
