Fatal Trust (24 page)

Trey’s benign smile was at odds with the gun he still held.
“Max wrote that book before he knew me. Who’d have guessed how prophetic it
was?”

“I told Ben all about it when I talked to him this morning,”
Lexie said.

“I very much doubt that,” Trey said.

“You can check my cell phone,” she said. “It will prove I
talked to Ben this morning.”

“I’m sure you did,” Trey said. “But you couldn’t be positive
what Max had said or that you understood what he meant. You’d want to check
such a tenuous theory out first and make sure you were right before you
mentioned it to anyone, even Ben. That’s why you were in here.”

As if on cue her phone rang. “I’ll bet that’s Ben,” Lexie
said, reaching for her purse. “He knows I’m checking into this and will worry
if I don’t answer.”

“Don’t touch it,” Trey said. The phone rang three more times
before switching to voice mail.

“Why did you steal from Max?” Lexie’s heart was pummeling
her chest, making her voice shaky. “You have so much family money that you
refused a bequest.”

“I went through what my family left me years ago,” Trey
said. “It was damn tough to pass up that bequest, let me tell you. Max owed me
even more than I’d managed to take, for all those years I put up with him and
his ego and being at his beck and call. But if I’d gotten too much when he
died, some other beneficiary might have been upset enough that we’d have ended
up in court or have the trust audited.”

“Why did someone try to kill you?” Lexie asked.

Trey chuckled. “I fooled you all, didn’t I? I took the
poison myself. I figured that would make Ben look even guiltier of killing Max,
and I was right.”

Lexie’s eyes widened. “You risked your life to frame Ben?”

“It wasn’t much of a risk. It’s nearly impossible to drink
enough turpentine that it kills you. I also knew the doctor who treated me
would think of poison since Max had been poisoned, and as added insurance, I
put the almost empty vial where I knew the cops would find it.”

Her phone rang again.

“Let’s go,” Trey said, gesturing with his gun. “We’ll take
my car. Then people will think you’re still here.”

Lexie reached for her purse, the phone still ringing inside.

“Leave it,” Trey said. “Now start walking.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’re distraught because you just found a note Max left
you the night he was killed. He said he’d discovered Ben was trying to kill
him, planned to meet with him, and wanted you there, too. I’ll leave the note
in your purse. When people notice your car and purse are still here but you
aren’t, someone will find the note. Everyone will assume you went walking
around Max’s land and either killed yourself or were so distracted you met with
an unfortunate accident. Since you’d realized you’d not only let Max down but
also slept with his murderer.”

“Someone will see me leave with you,” Lexie said with more
conviction than she felt.

“Nope,” Trey said. “I dodged Igor, and the rest of the staff
has the day off. I also came around the back way, so no one saw me. Now walk.”

Lexie managed to make her legs move, although her entire
body felt numb. She couldn’t feel anything besides the hard nose of the gun
Trey was jabbing into her side. She looked around, frantically searching for
someone, anyone, as they walked from his office to Nevermore’s back door and
then to Trey’s Lexus SUV. They didn’t see a soul, with the only sounds their
footfalls over grass and dirt in an otherwise ominously silent world.

Trey opened the driver’s side door of his vehicle, gestured
with his gun. “Get in, and slide into the passenger seat. Don’t do anything to
attract attention. Because if anyone tries to rescue you, you’ll die with
another death besides Max’s on your conscience.”

Now he understood what a caged tiger felt like, Ben thought
as he paced back and forth between the walls of the prison cell, his eyes on
the bars that covered one side. Although tigers weren’t pacing because they
were too worried to sit still.

He called Lexie’s cell phone for the fifth time, once again
got her voice mail. No big deal. She probably wasn’t answering because she was
in the middle of something and assumed he was calling to tell her Cecilia was
on her way home. Or maybe Lexie’s phone had lost service. That occasionally
happened at Nevermore. Nothing was wrong.

But he couldn’t sit still, couldn’t quiet the worry buzzing
under his skin, jazzing his nerves.

Maybe he was being paranoid, but he’d feel better once he
talked to Lexie. Ben stopped pacing and called the main phone at Nevermore.

Igor answered and informed him that he hadn’t seen Lexie.
Ben had him check out back for her car. It was still there, so she must be
around, although Igor had no idea where she could be. Cecilia hadn’t returned.
However, Jeremy was there if Ben wanted to talk to him.

Not his top choice, but he was desperate.

“Have you seen Lexie?” Ben asked when Jeremy came on the
line.

“Are you sure you should be talking to her?” Jeremy asked.
“It’s probably a conflict of interest since you’re in jail for killing her client.”

The smirk in his voice had Ben swallowing a cutting
response. That would only make Jeremy hang up. “Have you seen Lexie?” he
repeated, emphasizing each word.

“She’s in Trey’s office,” Jeremy said. “She was having
coffee with me when she suddenly remembered something she had to check.”

Thank God. Ben’s hand loosened on the phone, only to
immediately retighten. Why wasn’t she answering her phone then? “Will you make
sure she’s still there?”

“What am I, your servant? Cecilia might be willing to run errands
for you, but I’ve got more important things to do.”

“Check whether she’s in Trey’s office. Please.”

Jeremy let out a sound of annoyance. “Okay, but only because
I’m bored. I want to ask her to finish up and come back and talk to me.”

Ben heard footsteps, a knock on the door, Jeremy’s voice
calling Lexie’s name, a door opening. “She isn’t here,” Jeremy finally said.
“Although she left her purse by the desk, so I doubt she went far. Good
morning, Aunt Muriel.”

“It’s such a beautiful morning,” Muriel trilled. “I’ve just
finished an hour of meditation and yoga. You should try it. It’s very calming.”

“Jeremy, ask Aunt Muriel about Lexie,” Ben yelled into the
phone, trying to get both Jeremy’s and his aunt’s attention.

“I think it’s Ben who needs calming,” Jeremy said.

“We have to make allowances, as he’s in jail,” Muriel said.
“That’s bound to be upsetting.”

“Ask her, damn it!”

“Why are you so worried about Lexie?” Jeremy asked Ben.

“Because she’s looking for Grandfather’s killer and doesn’t
answer her cell phone.”

“Maybe she’s ignoring you,” Jeremy said. “Have you seen
Lexie, Aunt Muriel?”

“I think she went somewhere with Trey,” Muriel said.

“He’s still in the hospital,” Ben said.

“Ben said he’s still in the hospital,” Jeremy told Muriel.

“He must be out, because he was here this morning,” Muriel
said. “I saw him park his car and come into Nevermore.”

“I didn’t see him,” Jeremy said.

“That’s because he came around back, which you can only see
from the entertainment room,” Muriel said. “I decided to do yoga in there
because my knees are a little sore, and I thought the thick carpet would be
good for them. As an added bonus, the acoustics make it easy to concentrate on
your breathing. I may just have to use that room every day.”

“And you saw Trey leave with Lexie,” Jeremy said.

“I didn’t see Lexie at all, and I didn’t see Trey leave,”
Muriel said. “But his car’s gone now, so he must have left after I switched to
meditating. If Lexie’s no longer here, she may have gone with him.”

“Aunt Muriel says Trey’s car is gone—”

“I heard,” Ben said. Why would Lexie have gone with Trey?
“You said she suddenly left to check something. What?”

“I have no idea,” Jeremy said.

Jeremy was being his normal uncooperative self. Ben managed
to keep the last threads of his temper from fraying. “Did she say
anything
?
Aren’t you always bragging that you
have a nearly photographic memory?”

“Okay, I’ll tell you exactly what she said,” Jeremy said.
“Lexie and I were talking about one of Grandfather’s books.
Water
o
ver the
Bridge.
Aunt Muriel had left a
copy on the dining room table.”

“I’m not actually reading it,” Muriel said. “I have too many
other things to do before I die to waste time rereading one of Maxwell’s books.
But Seth wanted to take a picture of me pretending to read it.”

“Lexie said that you two had talked about Grandfather’s
early books, including this one where the lawyer was killed by a shark. She
thought Grandfather had probably chosen that fate as a play on all the jokes
about sharks not hurting lawyers out of professional courtesy.” Jeremy was
talking again. “Then she said, and I quote, ‘It was in, not is.’ I asked what
she was talking about, but she just said she had to check something in the
trust accountings and left.”

“Thanks,” Ben said, hanging up. Lexie had no doubt thought
of some issue related to the trust. She’d been in Trey’s office checking it out
when he’d arrived. She’d wanted to talk to him about it, so they’d gone
somewhere they wouldn’t be overheard by one of the beneficiaries. She’d left her
phone in her purse, which is why she hadn’t answered. It made perfect sense.
Being caged up was making him paranoid.

He plopped down on the bed. Lexie was fine.

She had to focus, to figure out some way to convince Trey
not to kill her. But Lexie was having trouble focusing on anything other than
the gun he was pointing at her with his right hand as he drove away from
Nevermore. The cold panic her heart was pumping through her veins had now
numbed her brain in addition to her body. This man had killed Max. If she
didn’t stop him, he was going to do the same to her.

Surely Ben would worry when she didn’t answer her phone.
Then what? Ben was stuck in jail. He’d also never suspect she was with Trey,
let alone in trouble because of it. No one had seen them leave Nevermore
together. And she’d never mentioned her suspicions about Trey to anyone.

After a couple of minutes, Trey turned off the road and
drove onto the grass, then into the pines and birch trees. He had barely enough
room, and branches and needles brushed and scraped the vehicle. After several
seconds he stopped and shut off the engine.

“This seems an appropriate place, where we thought Max died.
Get out.” He gestured with the gun.

“Where are we going?” Lexie asked as she exited. They weren’t
very far from the road, but the trees were so thick she couldn’t see the
blacktop.

Which meant no passerby would notice the dull gray SUV, let
alone wonder if something was wrong.

“This way.” Trey pointed his gun toward more pines and
birches. Lexie stepped through them, then onto a leaf- and needle-strewn dirt
path. “Stay in front of me. If you try to run, I’ll shoot you.

“I’ll bet you didn’t know this path was even here,” he said
as they trekked the gradual uphill. “Max had paths cut all over his land so he
could walk and cross-country ski everywhere. Overseeing his land like he’s some
kind of lord of it all. This will be a bit of a hike, but it’s worth it. The
path goes to a cliff a couple of hundred feet above Forest Lake. It’s a
gorgeous view, and I’m sure you’ll appreciate it. Since it will be the last
thing you ever see.”

The air was warm and muggy, but Trey’s words turned Lexie’s
chest into a chunk of ice, making it hard to breathe. She was going to die
unless she could talk her way out of this. “Why don’t you just leave me tied up
here? That will give you time to disappear. You don’t have to kill me.”

“Tie you up with what?” Trey asked.

“With my belt,” she said. “And your belt, and—”

“I really don’t want to disappear, and with you dead,
there’s a good chance I won’t have to,” Trey said. “You know, this is all Max’s
fault for getting you involved in the first place. And for living so damn long.
The rate he was going, he could have made it to a hundred. I wanted to retire,
especially after having triple bypass surgery. But I couldn’t until Max died.”

“Why not?”

“Because my replacement might have needed to check out
something from a prior month or year and noticed the accountings I prepared for
Max every month don’t match the actual financial statements. Or that the income
shown on Max’s tax returns doesn’t match the accountings, since I didn’t dare
cheat the IRS.
Now that Max is dead, I’ll prepare a final accounting for
the trustee with date-of-death values and the actual post-death transactions. No
one will look at past accountings, because the trustee doesn’t have to get
court approval of them, and no beneficiary is going to check out and
second-guess anything Max did while he was in charge. The beneficiaries only
care how much they get.”

“Why didn’t you just disappear with your money?”

“Because Max would have known something was wrong,” Trey
said. “When he figured out how I’d outsmarted him, he’d have been so furious
he’d have spent a fortune tracking me down. I had to kill Max so I could finally
enjoy my money and my life. The same reason I had to kill my wife.”

Lexie had thought she couldn’t feel any colder. She was
wrong. “You killed your wife? Everyone says she was so wonderful.”

Trey snorted derisively. “She was. You know what it’s like
living with a saint? She drove me crazy. But if I divorced her, she’d have
looked at my finances and maybe discovered my secret accounts. They’re right
about those tangled webs you have to weave when you deceive. Thank God I’ll
finally be able to quit lying once you’re out of the way.”