Fatal Trust (5 page)

“That’s Dylan,” Ben said as he sprinted down the hallway.

“What’s going on?” Lexie asked, running behind him. Her
heart was hammering like a woodpecker on speed.

“Damned if I know.”

By the time they reached Dylan’s doorway, the screams had
stopped. Ben opened the unlocked door and flipped on the overhead light.
“What’s wrong?”

Lexie had been braced to see Dylan’s dead body, but he was
sitting up in bed, his face nearly as white as the sheet he clutched. His gaze
was fixed on an overstuffed chair against the wall.

“Grandfather.” His voice was low and wobbly. “Grandfather
was here, in this room.”

Cecilia hurried from the hallway to her brother. “You were
dreaming.”

“Or drunk,” Jeremy said, stepping into the room and
tightening the belt of his black silk robe.

“I wasn’t. He woke me up.” Dylan pointed at the chair. “He
was sitting right there.”

Ben walked over to the chair and pointed to the floor lamp
beside it. “Are you sure you didn’t mistake the lamp for Grandfather? In the
dark, the white shade might look like Grandfather’s hair.”

“It was Grandfather.” Dylan’s voice was stronger, steadier.
“He was sitting, then he got up and disappeared.”

“Grandfather’s dead, Dylan,” Cecilia said softly. She sat
down on the bed beside him, her scarlet robe a vivid contrast to his pale face.

“I know that. I meant it was his ghost.” Dylan released the
sheet and turned to Cecilia. “You remember how we used to hear things when we
stayed here. Things that couldn’t have been trees or the wind or an old house.”

Cecilia nodded. “We always thought Grandfather had staged
it.”

“But what if he didn’t? What if the house was haunted
before, and now Grandfather’s joined the party?”

“What did he do?” Ben asked. “Just sit and look at you?”

Now that her anxiety about Dylan had lessened, Lexie noticed
that Ben was wearing only a pair of running shorts that accentuated a tight
butt and a muscular chest with a light dusting of hair. She immediately
refocused on Dylan.

He was shaking his head vigorously, his loose hair flapping.
“Grandfather told me he knew what I’d done and asked why I’d done it.”

“Then what?” Seth asked.

“Then I screamed, and he disappeared.”

“I can certainly understand your dreaming about Grandfather,
being at Nevermore so soon after his death,” Ben said. “We’ll probably all
dream about him.”

Dylan shook his head again. “It wasn’t a dream.”

“We’ll discuss it in the morning.” Ben headed for the door.

Dylan grabbed Cecilia’s arm with both hands. “I can’t sleep
here. What if he comes back?”

Ben turned back toward Dylan. “You can sleep in my room.
I’ll sleep in here.”

“Do you think staying here’s a good idea, Ben?” Cecilia
asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not in the mood to share my bed with
Dylan, and Aunt Muriel forbade me from sleeping with Lexie.”

Lexie suddenly realized that Muriel was the only family
member absent. “Where is your aunt?” she asked.

“Asleep, I assume,” Ben said. “She sleeps with earplugs, and
her room’s at the far end of the hallway.” He raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you
stay in here with me? Aunt Muriel didn’t say a thing about us sharing someone
else’s room.”

“I don’t think that would be appropriate,” Lexie said, since
“no way in hell” definitely wouldn’t be appropriate in front of this audience.

“You’re probably right,” Ben said. “Aunt Muriel’s already
overwhelmed saying rosaries for Grandfather’s sins without having to fit in
more for us.” He stepped up to Lexie. “How about a kiss in case I don’t survive
the night?”

He rested his hands on Lexie’s shoulders. His bare chest and
masculine scent made her pulse jump. His lips brushed over hers, sending a bolt
of liquid heat swirling through her stomach and lower.

She frowned.

Ben chuckled, removing his hand. “Don’t look so worried. I
promise I’ll survive.”

She was obviously exhausted, Lexie thought as she walked
back to her room. She certainly wasn’t attracted to Ben—he wasn’t at all her
type, and she was mature enough that her brain controlled her hormones. Her
brain seemed to have taken tonight off, but that had to be due to fatigue,
stress, and her recent celibacy. She’d have reacted to any halfway attractive,
half-dressed male the same way. After a good night’s sleep, she’d be back to
viewing Ben as nothing but the necessary evil he was.

And with any luck, she’d soon be on her way back to
Philadelphia. Because Dylan’s dream could very well have been triggered by a
guilty conscience, especially since he’d dreamed that Max had confronted him
about what he’d done, which could have been to commit murder. That put Dylan at
the top of the suspect list.

“What do you mean, you won’t be able to attend the summer
gala? Everyone who’s anyone will be there.” Elizabeth Barrington sounded as
scandalized as if her daughter had just admitted she was staying at Max
Windsor’s mansion and investigating his possible murder while pretending to be
Lexie, the cocktail waitress girlfriend of an auto mechanic.

Catherine sank down on the bed. She’d been on her way to the
shower when her cell phone had rung. She’d wanted to ignore it, but she
couldn’t blow off her mother.

She should have gone with her gut. “I told you I’m out of
town working, Mother.”

“Where are you?”

“Chicago.” Catherine wasn’t about to say she was in Minnesota,
since her mother would realize her work was related to Max. She’d listened to
her mother badmouth him enough when he was alive.

“Do your best to come home by the weekend. I told Steven
Wilmington that I was sure you’d be there.” Elizabeth sniffed. “I assume he
didn’t dare ask you to accompany him after how rudely you turned him down
before.”

“I wasn’t rude, Mother. I told Steven I needed more time
before I’d be ready to date again, and he understood. My divorce was just final
a few months ago.” Not that she’d have dated Steven if she’d been divorced for
decades. In his mid-thirties, he was already the definition of a stuffed shirt.

“Don’t remind me.” Her mother’s voice sounded pained, as if
someone had hammered a nail through it. “The sooner you remarry, the sooner
people will forget you were ever divorced. Especially since Neil’s already
remarried. You have no idea how hard it is for me to have a daughter who’s
divorced. No one in my family has ever been divorced.”

Catherine rolled her eyes.
It
hasn’t been a piece of cake for me either.
“I can
imagine, Mother.”

“Steven’s from a very good family.”

“Neil was from a good family,” Catherine couldn’t resist
pointing out.

“You were too involved in your career to be a proper wife to
someone like him, a surgeon who has such a demanding job. He obviously wanted a
wife who was willing to stay home and have children, since Deidre’s done just
that.” Her mother sniffed again, her phone equivalent of a condescending look.
“I don’t know why you insisted on working, since you certainly didn’t need the
money. I’m sure you won’t make that mistake again.”

Marrying someone who not only cheats with a
twenty-three-year-old massage therapist but also gets her pregnant? “I
certainly won’t, Mother.”

“Good. You know, if you wait too long to start dating again,
you’ll be too old to be attractive to any man worth having. I’d hate to see you
turn out to be a childless spinster like my sister.”

Catherine’s hand tightened around her cell phone. “Aunt
Jessica had a wonderful life.”

“She was a disappointment to our family in so many ways.”

“She was a bestselling author and in a committed
relationship with another bestselling author.”

“She wrote trashy romance novels, for heaven’s sake,” her
mother said. “And you know how I felt about Max Windsor. The only good thing is
that they never married.” She sighed loudly. “But I won’t speak ill of the
dead. Jessica was my sister, and I loved her.”

Catherine chewed her lip to keep from responding. Defending
Aunt Jessica to her mother was as big a waste of time as defending Max.

“You know, if you don’t show up, people will assume you’re
still heartbroken over Neil, since he and Deidre will almost certainly be
there,” her mother continued. “Self-pity is not an attractive characteristic.”

“I hope you’ll spread the word that work, not self-pity,
kept me from attending,” Catherine said. “Now I need to go. Give my best to
Dad.”

“I’ll do that. Please change your attitude about dating. A
Barrington does not give up because of one failure.”

“I know, Mother.” Rule Number 23. The one right before Rule
24, no self-pity. “Thanks for calling. I love you.”

She did love her mother. Although sometimes she didn’t like
her much. Probably because her mother seemed to consider her as big a
disappointment as Jessica had been.

Catherine tossed her phone onto the unmade bed and headed
for the shower.

“I told you I’d survive, Lexie,” Ben said, walking into the
dining room where she was savoring a cup of French roast. He dropped a kiss on
the top of her head.

Other than feeling a flick against her hair, Lexie’s body
didn’t react to the kiss, thank God. She’d been right—exhaustion had been
responsible for last night’s more heated response.

“Is Dylan still asleep?” Cecilia asked.

“Yep.” Ben slathered a bagel with cream cheese and carried
it and his coffee to the table. “He didn’t even flinch when I went in to get my
stuff. Much as I hate to agree with Jeremy about anything, I think alcohol
played a major role in last night’s dream.” He sat down in the high-backed
chair beside Lexie.

“I’m not so sure,” Cecilia said, fiddling with the tennis
bracelet circling her wrist. “Dylan’s right about those noises we heard when we
were younger, tapping on the walls and strange footsteps and loud groans,
things like that. We thought it was Grandfather, but he always denied it and
insisted he’d bought some ghosts to haunt Nevermore. If anyone could arrange
for a few ghosts, it would have been Grandfather.”

“Provided you believe in ghosts, which I don’t,” Ben said.
“I heard the same kinds of things, especially when I was living here. I figured
Grandfather was behind it no matter what he said.”

“Did anything ever happen when Grandfather was traveling?”
Cecilia asked.

“Sometimes. I assumed he’d rigged it to go off while he was
gone,” Ben said. “Or that I was imagining things.”

“I believe Dylan saw your grandfather’s ghost,” Lexie said.

“You believe in ghosts?” Ben looked at her incredulously, an
understandable reaction to her outrageous statement.

She didn’t, but Lexie very well might, and that would give
her an excuse to quiz Dylan about exactly what he’d seen and hopefully trip him
up. “How can anyone
not
believe in ghosts? I watched this
series about haunted houses on the History Channel.” Which was true—she’d
watched for about two minutes until she’d concluded it was completely lame.
Lexie clasped her hands together. “I never expected to ever stay in a haunted
house myself. I can’t wait to talk to Dylan.”

“Whatever makes you happy,” Ben said, wrapping an arm around
her shoulders and giving her such an indulgent smile that she’d have slugged
him if his reaction hadn’t been because she was pretending to believe in
ghosts. “We can go for a walk before I head off to work. I’d like to show you
the lake. Assuming you can stand to wait to talk to Dylan.”

“I doubt he’ll be up for at least an hour,” Cecilia said.

Lexie got to her feet. “Then let’s go now.”

“It’s so nice to know you’d pick Dylan over me,” Ben said.

“Only to talk about ghosts to, and you know it,” Lexie said.
“That fake jealousy just makes you look like an idiot. I’ll meet you out front
in five minutes.”

Cecilia grinned. “The more I see you handle Ben, the more I
like you, Lexie. Enjoy your walk.”

Lexie and Ben made their way through the pines and birch trees,
taking the path that led down the hill to Forest Lake. The world was
cathedral-quiet other than the clomp of their feet and crackle of dry leaves.
Every breath of cool, pine-scented air seemed to scrub out Lexie’s lungs. After
walking maybe five minutes they reached the lake. Sunlight sparkled off the
crystal-blue water and made the rocky shoreline glow. A sky the same deep blue
as the water provided a stunning backdrop to the velvety green pine trees and
silvery birch that covered the hills surrounding the lake.

“This is beautiful,” Lexie said quietly. Speaking at a
normal volume seemed sacrilegious. “Is all of this Max’s property?” Other than
a dock and a storage shed, there was no evidence anyone else used the lake.

“Most of it. The rest is national forest.” Ben plopped down
on a flat-topped gray boulder the size of a loveseat. “I thought you said you
don’t believe in ghosts.”

Lexie sat down beside him. “I don’t. But I thought
pretending to would give me an excuse to quiz Dylan about last night, since
he’s the most likely suspect.”

“Why do you think that?”

“He said that Max told him he knew what he’d done, which I
assume refers to the murder. No one besides us knows Max was murdered. So why
would Dylan dream that if he didn’t do it?”

“Because alcohol makes people paranoid and irrational, even
in nightmares,” Ben said. “We also don’t know for sure that Grandfather’s
comment referred to murder.”

“True,” Lexie said, pulling a notepad from her purse. “But
Dylan also has a gambling problem and owes money to someone possibly connected
to the Mafia, according to Cecilia. He could be desperate for cash. Does he
have a job?”

“He freelances,” Ben said. “Believe it or not, he’s a
computer genius. He could earn a fortune, but he doesn’t have the greatest work
ethic.”