So, what if her father wasn’t actually just wandering around drunk somewhere? What if she had killed him too? She said she had killed three people, but by my count, it was much more than that. There was her mother, possibly her father, Matthew, the fiancé, and now Arlen. The first four didn’t have any money to pass on to her. So, if she was killing, it wasn’t for money. She had another motive. The mother, father, friend, and fiancé could all be explained. They knew her secrets and they had to be eliminated, but what about Arlen? This was a different situation because money was involved, and that seemed to be what she cared about.
Would a man as rich as Arlen really marry a woman without looking into her first? Without seeing if there were any skeletons in her closet? It seemed unlikely. Passing down the trust to her looked even more unlikely than that. So, maybe Arlen was a completely different situation.
I spent the rest of the night digging into Arlen, all his companies and anything that might relate to Lorelei in any way. Finally, as dawn was breaking in the sky, I found something that couldn’t be just a coincidence. Murray Claybourne, Lorelei’s fiancé, worked at a sub-corporation that Arlen owned. He hadn’t just worked there, but ran the company. Lorelei had been poor and struggling for so long, so it would make sense that she would attach herself to someone like Murray. He was rich enough to take care of her and protect her. Maybe that’s why she chose him. But as I dug deeper, I saw that Murray and Arlen were actually at several functions together over a year’s time. I looked back at the photos I had found of Murray and Lorelei together, examining them closely. Sure enough, in one of the photos, Arlen was standing in the background, talking with another person. They knew each other. They had met before. So, what if she didn’t kill off Murray because he found out about her past. Maybe she killed him off to get to the bigger fish. Arlen Henning.
Deciding I had enough to go to Eric with, I started packing up my shit to put away when something caught my attention. I studied the information about the mine again, looking closer at the company that owned the mine. It looked familiar. I opened my computer back up and went through all of Arlen’s holdings. There it was in black and white. Blackwood Mining Company, run by Blackwood Corporation, a subsidiary of an umbrella corporation that belonged to Arlen Henning. He fucking owned the mining company. He was responsible for it closing, and Murray was right there beside him. She didn’t kill Murray because he found out about her secrets. She killed him because he was responsible for what happened to her family. She was introduced to Arlen by Murray, and when Murray died, she went after the big fish, killing off the man truly responsible for making her family destitute.
I sat back and stared at the screen, all the information blurring together. I had failed to do my job. I had become so wrapped up in all this shit that I didn’t even see what was right in front of me, because I fell for her. I fell for a woman that killed other people in cold blood, all in the name of revenge. But was she really so different than Carly? If she killed these people out of revenge, out of a need to avenge her family, could I really blame her? And then there was the biggest problem, no matter how much I learned about Lorelei tonight, I was still fucking in love with her.
Lorelei
I had a driver pick me up at the airport and take me back to the estate. Walking through there was painful, not because Arlen was dead, but because I hated this place so fucking much. And as soon as I walked through the door, who was there to greet me? Bartholomew and Elena. I hated them, but I had to keep up appearances.
Plastering a sad smile on my face, I asked, “How are you both doing?”
“Oh, cut the shit,” Bartholomew spat. “We both know you killed our father.”
I flinched back in surprise, though I’d been expecting it. “I understand you’re hurting, but I didn’t kill your father. He died of a heart attack.”
He sneered at me, but Elena, the little bitch, walked right up to me and slapped me across the face. My face stung, but I didn’t show that it affected me at all. She was just a spoiled brat, but I would win in the end, and I would make sure they got nothing.
“Elena, it’s so good to see you again.”
“I don’t wish I could say the same. What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be hiding somewhere?”
“This is still my home, and I have nothing to hide from.”
“That’s not what I hear,” Bartholomew smiled, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Apparently, the police would like a chat with you.”
“And I have no doubt that you put that thought in their heads.”
He shrugged. “They came by to talk. I just told them what I know.”
“And what exactly is that?”
He grinned again. “Why would I tell you that? I wouldn’t want you to have time to craft a story for them.”
“Well, since there’s no story to craft, I think I’ll be just fine.”
I walked past them up the stairs and ignored them the rest of the day. I decided I couldn’t stay in the master bedroom anymore. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded of my time with Arlen.
I
