Richard opened his door and called out, “Why are you making so much racket this early in the morning?”
“Well, we weren’t making any racket,” she said, “until you started yelling.” She motioned at Mack. “Of course, the cops are here, so you can always complain, if you want.”
Mack hopped out, looked at her quizzically, then looked at Richard and asked, “Is there a problem?”
Richard harrumphed, then walked back inside and slammed the door.
“He was just about to make a noise complaint,” she said helpfully.
He rolled his eyes at her. “So, you’re in trouble again?”
“Not deliberately,” she said honestly.
He laughed at that. “Says you.”
“My ex just left.”
He froze on the spot and then slowly fixed his gaze on her face. “Why was he here?” And then he swallowed hard. “Or did he stay overnight?”
Her eyebrows shot upward. “That’ll never happen,” she said and then shook her head. “He woke me up, pounding on the front door, just about twenty-five minutes ago.”
“Why’d he come?”
“He wanted to return the USB key.” She held it up in her hand. “When I started making coffee, he invited himself to stay for a cup, but he didn’t like it much.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I made it as black as sin,” she said, with an evil grin, “and even his two overly heaping spoons of sugar didn’t help him get it down.”
Mack started to chuckle. “Ah, so you like dark coffee now, huh?”
“Always have,” she said, “and it is a bit strong, but I would never let him know that I didn’t like it.”
He reached out, took the cup, from her hands, and took a sip. “Wow, that’s good,” he muttered, staring at it, and then looked at her. “You just get better and better at this stuff.”
“Well, he didn’t finish his, and there’s still some in the pot.”
Mack nodded. “I’ll go grab a cup.”
She smiled. “You do that, and here, in the meantime, I will pick up that thing that I can see over there in the grass.”
He froze immediately, came back, and said, “What are you talking about?”
She pointed at whatever was shining down in the garden, caught between the marigold blooms and the bark mulch behind it. He immediately retraced his steps to the bottom riser and over to the marigolds. Digging into the back, he pulled it up. “Aha!”
“Well, look at that, another USB stick. Or is it? It’s odd-looking, isn’t it?” she said, frowning, because it was mostly just a smooth slim piece of metal.
“It’s more expensive,” he said, “but these things hold a lot.”
“Well, I don’t know where it came from but—”
“But,” he said, with a big smile, “let’s hope it’s all about the right person.”
“I hope so. I was waiting for Mathew to leave, before I investigated it. Then I heard your truck coming, so I thought, if I waited for you, then it wouldn’t look like I planted evidence.”
“Well, it could be that you planted it and then asked me to go pick it up.” She glared at him, and he just laughed.
“Come on. Let’s go grab some coffee and see what’s on this. Besides, you already have the other USB keys,” she said.
He nodded. “Absolutely. But they’ve been turned over to forensics. And now we’ll see what’s on this.” He pushed her gently through the door, with all the animals crowding in as well. “Let’s take this to the kitchen.”
Sitting down on the table, he pulled her laptop to him, looked at her, and she smiled and nodded. That was the thing about Mack; he was always respectful. Well, he was always respectful, except for when he wasn’t, like when he was hanging up on her. But then she probably deserved as much of that as he did. He popped in the USB and quickly opened it up and found a single file. That was it. He popped it open and immediately it came up. It was a one-page letter, yet Doreen could see that the document was several pages long.
“What’s behind the letter?” she asked, because the letter was just one page.
He flicked through it. “Wow, look at this,” he said. “It’s her Last Will and Testament.”
“Aah,” she said, staring at it. “Why is it on that key?”
“Well, she is a lawyer, so maybe she felt she needed it. If anything happened to her, it would be on her person.”
“Which means,” she said, staring at him, “that she thought her life was in danger?”
He nodded slowly. “I’m afraid so. And, if you read the letter, you’ll see who she thinks it is.”
Chapter 19
Tuesday Midmorning …
Doreen read out loud from the beginning.
“To whom this may concern. If I am dead, you need to look at Mathew. He was my latest relationship and a meganarcissist, the craziest I’ve ever met. He is dangerous. He is dark, and he is involved in many criminal activities of which blackmail is only a part. I thought I was treading into the shadows, before I met him. But something dark and ugly attracted the two of us together. And, like anything, it was combustible to the point that we couldn’t put it out. Now I’m running for my life, and I’m sure he is hunting for me—and maybe for good reason.
Part of being in the dark criminal shadows is that I can look for information I can sell. Then I sell it to somebody else, who takes care of it, and they pay me a cut. I’m not telling you who that is. It doesn’t matter because obviously I won’t be giving them any more information if I’m dead.
But you need to look at Mathew. He will be the one who kills me, and his ex-wife is likely to be his next target. And that’s possibly my fault too. If I am heading to God to be accountable for my sins, then I need to be honest. It will be because of me that Mathew goes after Doreen. When he accused me several times of looking for information and stealing from him, I said that probably Doreen had taken the information.
I was also instrumental in their divorce and in Doreen getting nothing for a settlement. And I do feel bad about that. The trouble is, she is one of those sweet-as-sunshine bright songbirds of the world, and I am one of the ravens in the dark. I could have eaten her for breakfast, and honestly I more or less did. I didn’t have any remorse, until I realized what it was like to be hunted myself. And now I know just how wrong what I did to her was. If I manage to survive, and nobody reads this, then I’ll try to turn a page and to become a better person. But, if you are reading this, it’s already too late. Remember. Go after Mathew.
Doreen slowly sat down and stared at Mack. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.
He nodded. “That’s quite a confession letter. She doesn’t really state what she did to you, except that she cheated you out of your proper settlement and marital rights in the divorce.”
“Right,” she said, staring at the letter. “No wonder he wanted that. It directly points to Mathew as being her killer.” And she stopped, shook her head, and said, “But that’s not right. It wasn’t him.”