The Summerhouse Read online

  “I think you’re right,” she said softly. “I think that another time would be better for a visit. I think . . . Tell Valerie . . .” Ellie couldn’t think of any more to say, so she did just what she’d been trying not to do: She turned tail and ran back into the guesthouse and shut the door firmly behind her.

  Twenty-three

  When Ellie made up her mind to do something, it didn’t take her long to start moving. “My strongest point and my weakest,” she’d told Daria. If the decision was good, then great, but if the decision was to leave behind a possible career in art and follow a man . . .

  Anyway, an hour and a half later, she was packed, had made her apologies to Valerie, and was sitting on a bench on the front porch of the summerhouse waiting for a driver to pick up her and her luggage and take her back to L.A. Valerie had said that Woody was sending a plane to fetch some of Lew’s relatives at the airport, so she wouldn’t be causing anyone to make an extra trip. Valerie had been so upset at the news of Lew’s death that she hadn’t paid much attention to what else was going on around her.

  So now Ellie was sitting and waiting. Her daring little escapade had turned into horror—and now she was going back to her own personal nightmare.

  For three years she’d thought about what she’d like to do to that man if she could do it all over again. She’d loved imagining hiring a private eye to stalk her ex. She’d thought long and hard about how she’d hire someone to get close to him and find out where he’d hidden the money he’d stolen from her. She’d spent months, even years, imagining all the things she wanted to do to him.

  But now she was sitting on a cushioned bench, the California mountains were in front of her, and she dreaded having to do any of it. She just plain dreaded it. Years ago when she’d been complaining about her husband to someone, the person had said, “If you don’t like him, why don’t you divorce him?” “Too much trouble,” Ellie had answered instantly.

  Martin loved chaos and confusion. He gained strength from causing misery to other people. But Ellie needed peace and quiet. Only in peace could she think and make up stories and daydream and—

  “Get in.”

  Ellie looked up to see Jessie sitting in an open Jeep that had skidded to a halt in front of her. He was frowning at her as though she was doing something he didn’t like.

  She didn’t obey him. “I’m returning to L.A.”

  “No,” he said. “I need you.”

  At that Ellie blinked. Was this modern courtship? “Maybe you don’t understand that I’m married, and, whether I want him or not, I do have a husband.”

  With a look of annoyance, Jessie leaned across the seat and threw open the passenger door. “Not that way,” he said. “I mean, I do need you like that, but that can wait. Get your damned divorce before I take you if that’s what you want to do, but right now I need your brain.”

  “You’d sure make Madison happy,” Ellie muttered, but she still sat on the bench and didn’t get into the car. “Someone is coming to pick me up. I must return to the city.”

  “No one is leaving the ranch today,” he said. “Sheriff’s orders. He thinks Lew may have been murdered.” Jessie didn’t blink as he watched Ellie’s reaction to his announcement.

  “His wife?” Ellie asked softly.

  Jessie didn’t say anything, just sat there in silence. And Ellie knew that he wasn’t going to tell her anything until she did what he wanted her to do. She wanted to stand her ground and not give in to him, but her writer’s curiosity was stronger than her willpower. With a grimace, she got up, went down the porch stairs, and got into the car. He didn’t speak until they were moving.

  “No,” he said at last. “Not his wife. She was really broken up about his death.”

  Ellie kept her eyes straight ahead. “I see,” she said. She felt Jessie glance at her, but she didn’t look at him. This wasn’t her problem. She had major problems of her own that were going to start very soon. And she had only three weeks.

  As Jessie drove, it occurred to her that she should have asked him where he planned to take her. But he didn’t say and she didn’t ask as he drove down a dirt road. At one point he stopped, got out, opened a gate, then got back into the car and drove through. When he stopped the car on the opposite side of the gate, Ellie was out before he was and she closed the gate behind them.

  “I like useful women,” he said when she was back in the car; then he put the Jeep into gear and kept driving. And Ellie smiled because “useful” is just what she’d liked about him.

  They rode together in silence for a while, and it occurred to Ellie that she should be annoyed with him: he was altogether too sure of himself. He’d known that he could get her to go with him, and he’d assumed—

  Oh, the hell with it, she thought. She’d had too much therapy if she was finding something wrong with being driven down a lonely road by a beautiful man.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked. “To some secret place where you plan to ravish me?”

  He had his eyes on the road, but she could see the tiny smile that came onto his lips. “I thought you wrote murder mysteries,” he said.

  “I do. But they’re also love stories. So where are we going?”

  “Away from everyone,” he said; then he turned a sharp left and they were in the mountains, in the trees, and before them was a beautiful lake. Stopping the car, he looked at her. “I want to know what you know. Tell me everything,” he said; then he got out of the car and walked toward the lake.

  Ellie followed him to where he was now standing at the side of the lake on a wide boulder, throwing rocks and watching them skip across the surface of the water.

  “I listened with my eyes,” he said. “Not my mind. And maybe because of that a good man is now dead.”

  Ellie knew that he wanted to talk, so she sat down on a rock and waited.

  “She’s beautiful, really a knockout,” he said, and Ellie knew that he was talking about Lew’s wife, Sharon. “And I felt sorry for her. She was talented and she said that she was trapped.”

  Pausing, he picked up more pebbles. “She told me that—”

  “She loved Lew so very, very much,” Ellie said in spite of her intention to keep quiet. And she couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  “Yes,” Jessie said, then turned to look at her. “How do you know all of this?”

  Now was not the time to go into her own problems. Ellie shrugged. “I’ve been through something similar. Did Lew ever complain about her?”

  “Never. He was proud of her. I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong if Sharon hadn’t told me.”

  “How many others did she bellyache to?”

  “I don’t know. I thought she told only me.” This time it was Jessie who sounded bitter.

  “So what’s this about the sheriff?” Ellie asked.

  For a moment Jessie’s mouth tightened into a straight line. “Me. My big mouth. This morning you made me wonder if Lew really did kill himself, so I said as much to the sheriff. Two hours later he arrested Bowie.” He looked at Ellie. “You remember the man who wanted to kiss you this morning?”

  At first she didn’t know what he meant; then she thought of the cowboy with the beer belly who had puckered up and made everyone laugh. The memory made her smile.

  “That’s Bowie, and he’s been taken in for questioning about Lew’s murder.”

  “What?” she asked. “He didn’t seem like a killer to me.”

  “No, he’s not. But he likes the ladies, and a few years ago there was an unfortunate incident with one of Valerie’s drunken guests. When she sobered up and saw Bowie in daylight, she decided to press charges. Woody had to pull strings and call in a lot of favors to get Bowie off.”

  “So now it’s happening again?” Ellie asked.

  “Not if I can help it!” Jessie said as he threw a rock at the water’s surface. Turning, he looked at her. “So if she murdered him, how do we find out?”

  He was looking at her as th