“Jealous of who? The twins?”
“Yes. She’s nice to them around me but I’ve heard she can be sarcastic and a little sneaky.”
“How so?”
“Oh I don’t know. Little things I’ve wondered about. Twice Payne’s been up for a big award only to have her horse suddenly seem incapable of clearing the jumps.”
“Like it had been drugged or something?”
“Maybe. Gemma talked to me about it once. She said when it happened, she saw Lyndsey laughing. I didn’t believe her, but now I wonder.”
“Anything else?”
“She drinks a lot. In fact, I heard her on the phone today. Tonight she’s going to that club that just opened just outside of town with a friend. Something to do with cats.”
“Alleycats?”
“That’s it. She made it sound like some kind of celebration.”
“I don’t think we can get her arrested for going to a club and being in a good mood. I’d be in a pretty good mood if I inherited that much money.”
“No, but when she drinks she gets chatty. I was thinking maybe I could wait up for her and get her to confess.”
Charlotte thought about Mariska’s attempt to get Crystal to confess. “That’s a lot harder than you think.”
Mina chuckled. “Probably. I’d be the last person she’d tell. Too bad I’m not a handsome stranger.”
Charlotte perked. “What’s that?”
“That’s who she’s going to find, right? At the club? A handsome stranger? Isn’t that why girls go to dance clubs?”
Charlotte grinned. “Mina, you’re a genius.” She turned and called over her shoulder as she headed for the door. “Call me later and let me know when Lyndsey goes out.”
Charlotte practically jogged to her car. Inside, she texted Declan.
I have a job for you.
He sent back a video clip of a baby with terrified eyes running away that made her laugh out loud.
She pulled out of the driveway and headed home. She had planning to do. Hopefully, it would be easier to pull a confession out of Lyndsey than it was to get one out of Crystal.
And this time, I won’t mess it up.
She was feeling hopeful about Lyndsey, but she still didn’t know what to do about Crystal. In her mind’s eye, she saw Crystal curled on her bed, snoring after crying herself to sleep.
I should have found a way to read that pink paper in her hand.
At the time, she’d been in a hurry to escape the room and gather the ladies.
Something on that paper had made Crystal cry. It even made her kick out her dirtball boyfriend. A horrible man she’d defended at the Hock o’Bell.
She’d found the note while retrieving drugs from her closet, so chances were good it had been stuffed in her stash.
Who would know about her hiding place but her? Maybe Mark, but if he’d left it there she would have confronted him, not thrown him out.
Who else knows about hidden stashes?
Friends? Parents?
Parents. That’s it.
The note had to be from Alice.
But if she’d left a note…
Chapter Twenty-Eight
One Week Ago
“Mina!”
Lyndsey stopped spreading mayonnaise on her sandwich, the knife hovering over the bread as she listened.
“Mina!”
The roar came from upstairs. Uncle Kimber was on a rampage. Lyndsey sighed. This was the first Wednesday in months she was going to have her day to herself.
Everything had gone so well.
She’d been spending her Wednesdays ingratiating herself with the old bastard, fawning over him, telling him everything he wanted to hear, listening to his intensely boring business stories. He seemed to enjoy their time together, and he was so out of it he didn’t even notice she’d come upstairs behind Mina’s back. But every time she brought up his will and her plans to open a true equestrian center on the property, he’d shut down and start babbling about the twins.
She’d told her mother, who told her to start looking through his stuff to find something on him.
Well, her mother’s first suggestion had been to show him her tits, but she thought she’d try finding something to blackmail him with first.
She had her doubts. He seemed too out of it to understand any new threats. But she’d started rooting through his drawers searching for anything useful or valuable. If she couldn’t talk him into leaving her the property, she needed to get something out of him. She needed a leg up in life and she deserved it. He’d never paid her any attention. He always favored the twins.
It was time to pay.
She found the key to success in the back of his sock drawer. A piece of white paper, half in and half out of the back of the drawer, crumpled from being opened and closed for who knows how many years.
A paternity test.
Uncle Miller wasn’t the twins’ uncle.
He was their father.
She’d stood there with the ragged paper in her hand, gaping at the snoring old bastard. Furious at him. Furious at the twins.
Those spoiled little…
What a piece of trash he was. Not only was he the world’s worst father figure—a self-centered ass to the end—he’d had an affair with his brother’s wife.
She’d always wondered why he’d let those stupid twins into his home. Now it made sense. Of course he’d take in his own daughters.
But why had he taken her? The daughter of the woman who’d killed his brother and sister-in-law? Lyndsey had always assumed it was because Mina had demanded it. Maybe it was. But maybe he was grateful. Maybe not having to worry about his brother discovering the affair had been a relief to him.
Maybe I’m his daughter too?
She tore apart his drawers that day, pulling them out like weeds, searching behind them for more tests, but she found none. Later, she asked her mother if there was any chance
