Secrets Read online

  Through all of it, Cassie marveled at what kind of life Althea had had that she knew so much about federal agents that she knew just what they would do. And the bigger question was, Why hadn’t they changed their tactics in the last fifty years?

  It had been easy for Cassie to find her car parked with the others in back of the garage. Althea had bought a MINI Cooper in Fort Lauderdale, payed cash for it, and had placed it in someone else’s name. It was hidden out of sight from the house. The only car that Charles allowed in front of the house was a silver Mercedes.

  One of the guests saw Cassie as she ran around the side of the house to her car. He had been playing one of the people who’d been riding when Florence Myers was murdered, and Cassie didn’t remember his name. She feared that he’d sound the alarm and give her away, but he gave her a look of envy, then raised his hand in farewell. It looked as though all the guests would be there for a while as they answered questions about Charles’s murder.

  Her little car started right away, and she sped down a narrow dirt road that led out the back of the estate. The front driveway had a helicopter, three police cars, and an ambulance on it, but the back was the service entrance and empty.

  She’d written down Althea’s directions about how to get to the local airport, and although she got lost a few times she was there in forty-five minutes and the plane was waiting for her. Standing in front of it was a man with red hair and a beard, and when he saw Cassie’s car, he waved.

  She smiled back at him and felt that she had just pulled off a major coup. She had escaped Jeff, Thomas, and a small herd of police. She was sure that later there’d be lectures and recriminations, even penalties, but at the moment it felt wonderful to be free of all of them. And that house, she thought. It was good to be out of that house where so much bad had happened. The image of Charles Faulkener on the bed was still in her head, and the sunshine felt good.

  “Just on time,” the man said. “Exactly like Althea said you would be. I’m Bruno.” He held out his hand to shake hers.

  “Cassie,” she said, shaking his hand and grinning at him. All she could think was that she’d made it. She was sorry she was going to miss the look of shock on Jeff’s face when he found her gone, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “Get on board,” Bruno said. “I’ll get you two started in just a minute.” Turning away, he walked toward the little building at one side of the runway.

  “Two?” Cassie said aloud, then thought that Althea had probably bummed a ride for her on a prescheduled flight.

  She climbed the stairs onto the plane and when she stepped through the door, she halted. Jeff sat there, a magazine in his hand, a paper bag on the seat beside him.

  Cassie couldn’t move, just stood there, staring at him. He didn’t look up but picked up the bag. “I bought some bagels and doughnuts,” he said. “But I guess that now that you’re a fitness fanatic you don’t eat doughnuts. And I got you some milk. I hope it’s still cold, but it’s been a while since I got it. It took you longer than I expected to get here.”

  He looked up at her. “If you don’t come inside the plane, we can’t leave.”

  All Cassie’s good feelings of having escaped left her. She took a seat across the narrow aisle from him, sat down heavily, then took the bag and opened it. She pulled out a custard-filled doughnut slathered in chocolate icing, and a bottle of milk.

  Bruno got on the plane, shut the door, and sat down in the pilot’s seat. “You two okay?”

  “Fine,” Jeff said. “Just great. How about some doughnuts, Bruno?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Cassie ate in silence, staring straight ahead. Jeff went back to reading his magazine. A half hour into the flight, she turned to him. “How did you find out?”

  “Are you speaking to me?” he asked.

  “Get off it! How did you find out that I left?”

  “Easy. I’ve lived with you, remember?”

  Cassie glanced at the pilot and saw that he was concentrating on flying the plane, and besides, it was too noisy for him to hear. “What is that supposed to mean? You’ve never ‘lived’ with me.”

  “Enough to know you. And I’ve certainly found out a lot about you in the last few months. I couldn’t see that a woman who’d hide in a cabinet in some man’s house while he sat there and watched TV would docilely wait for the police. Especially since she might fear that they’d take away her precious key. After the way you dug around on the floor looking for that thing I knew you’d do whatever you could to find out about it.”

  “I didn’t think you were looking at what I was doing when I was ‘digging around’ as you call it.”

  Jeff smiled at her. “I was looking at a lot of things.”

  Cassie took a bagel out of the bag. “Althea told you where I was, didn’t she?”

  “She told Thomas, but, truthfully, I think she wanted to tell. She didn’t want you to go to Hinton alone.”

  “And of course you think that I can’t do anything on my own. No doubt you think Florence Myers’s murderer is still there. He’s probably a hundred and twelve by now and just waiting for someone to go to a bank that doesn’t exist in a town that doesn’t exist and open a safe-deposit box that’s empty.”

  “Actually,” Jeff said as he looked inside the bag, “Hinton has been renamed Fairmont.”

  “Fairmont?” Cassie asked, eyes wide, then leaned back in her seat and smiled. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Having met Althea, I’m not surprised either, but we did miss it. It’s a tiny place, with just a couple of stores, a church, and a bunch of farms. The Hinton Bank is now the Bank of Fairmont and it’s a savings and loan. They deal mostly in farm equipment, but they still have the safe-deposit boxes in the back.”

  Cassie looked at him. “Are you telling me that the rent on that box has been paid for all these years?”

  “Yes. After Hinton died, all his effects were given to Althea. Ruth wanted nothing to do with him. Some of the clothes Althea lent me for this weekend belonged to him. In his papers was the bill for the box, but no key. She set up an account at the bank that gets enough interest to pay the rent for the box. It’s just sat there for over sixty years, paying itself from the account.”

  “Waiting for the key to be found,” Cassie said.

  “Yeah,” Jeff said. “After the murder, Faulkener was pretty much in a rage at Althea and wouldn’t let her back in the house, so she couldn’t get the key.”

  “In all these years, surely she could have found some young actor to go to one of Charles’s mystery weekends and dig up the floorboard.”

  “I don’t think she cared,” Jeff said. “She’s led a very busy life, so maybe she didn’t think about whatever had been put under Faulkener’s bedroom floor.”

  “What sparked her interest now?”

  “I don’t know. Probably boredom. Or maybe it’s the years. Charles Faulkener is older than Althea.”

  “Not that I believe you, but why were you sent to the weekend?”

  “Leo has been assigned to Charles’s case for years and—”

  “Leo is a CIA agent too,” she said, more a statement than a question. What she’d seen of the man was beginning to make sense. “Tell me, was there any robbery of Althea’s jewels?”

  Jeff grinned. “No. Sorry. I made up the whole story. But you helped us catch a robber—and murderer. I didn’t like your methods, but you did it.”

  Cassie nodded. She was almost becoming used to everything she’d been told being a lie. “Okay, go on.”

  “Leo knew that Faulkener had recently been diagnosed with cancer and that this would be his last chance to find out the truth about the murder. He always said that the key to finding out what happened lay in Althea and what she knew. He’d been heard to say that all he cared about was living long enough to outlive Althea Fairmont.”

  “Why did he hate her so very much?” Cassie asked.

  “She told him he couldn’t act,” Jeff said.