“You say Jasper’s a good friend, but it looks to me like you used him to get to Flynn and now Bebe.”
“That’s not true. I didn’t do that.” Ned’s long fingers clawed at his knees.
I was wired and my senses hummed—my questions were getting to him, at last. “You put Abby’s boyfriend’s life at risk when you went out to that shed.”
“Don’t you talk about her,” he said in a fierce voice. “Don’t you say her name.”
“How do you think she felt when she saw you fucking Jasper’s sister? Because she did see, Ned. It was Abby out there, not him.”
In a flurry of movement Ned got to his feet—and I reached for my gun. The burn, the gauze, the pain, none of it mattered when my fingers made contact with the pistol grip. In a fraction of a second I was looking down the barrel at Ned.
“Fuck! Don’t shoot!” cried Ned. “I was just gonna leave, that’s all!”
What the hell? I’d drawn my weapon. Why had I drawn my weapon? My heart was in my throat and Ned’s hands were in the air, his face scrunched up in fear. The man towered over me, but he was unarmed and obviously scared, and there I was ready to splatter his brains all over the library wall.
“Sit,” I said, my head hot with shame and my 9mm bouncing all over the place. I holstered the gun. Pull yourself together, Shay, my God. It was the pressure of the day, I told myself. I was off my game. But what if it was something else, too?
“I’m all out of patience,” I said.
Ned sat down hard. He was shaking, and he couldn’t get control of his hands. “Okay! Okay. Last year, Bebe and Flynn met with Camilla in the city. They wanted to borrow some money.”
“How much money?”
“Five million.”
My mouth dropped open. “Did she give it to them?”
“Yeah. It was supposed to be part of their inheritance. She doled it out early, even sold the boat to pad the check. But they spent it all on the business.”
“Five million,” I repeated. “Just . . . gone.”
Ned’s Adam’s apple wriggled down his throat. “And they still needed more. On July fourth weekend they asked to see her again. Here, on the island. Jas and I came, too, and Miles brought Jade. We all knew how sick she was by then. I honestly thought they wanted to say good-bye. But instead Flynn and Bebe asked for more money. This time, Camilla turned them down.”
I drew in a breath. “So they asked Jasper.” I was on the edge of my chair again, my eyes unblinking and dry. “But Jasper refused.”
“It’s not that he doesn’t care about the company,” Ned said. “He’s working damn hard to turn things around. But now Flynn and Bebe are practically broke, and Jas doesn’t want the same thing to happen to him. He was planning on quitting. He was done with them.”
Past tense. There it was.
“All the money Camilla has left goes to Jasper now.”
Unless Jasper’s not around to take it. “You should have told me this hours ago,” I said through gritted teeth. Ned Yeboah had been sitting on the motive that explained almost everything, and he’d done it because he didn’t want to upset his lover. But it wasn’t Ned who was causing anger to thrum in my veins. This was the missing piece I’d been hunting for. I’d interrogated everyone else on Tern Island. I should have managed to expose this critical data point long ago.
“If Bebe’s involved in Jasper’s disappearance, you can’t protect her,” I said. “She—”
“Protect her?” Ned’s laugh was chilling. “I’m not protecting that bitch. She used me to make herself feel young. Begged me to tell her how sexy she is.” He said it with revulsion. “Don’t you see? Bebe’s my way out. I made the worst mistake of my life getting together with Flynn, and he refuses to accept it’s over. He texts me in the middle of the night freaking about some picture of me and a friend he saw on Instagram. Two weeks ago he followed me to my parents’ place and yelled up at my window like a fucking psychopath. Those two can go to hell together, for all I care—and I swear, if they did something to Jasper? I’ll send them there myself.”
NINETEEN
The case came down to money: Jasper had it, and his siblings needed it. At least, that’s what Ned wanted me to believe. He’d taken his time with the big reveal, and I was uncomfortable with that, but numerous aspects of his story rang true. Between the delicate state of Camilla’s health and Jasper’s forthcoming engagement, what remained of the Sinclair family fortune was about to be redistributed, and Flynn and Bebe didn’t stand to profit. If they hoped to save the business, they needed another influx of funds. It was now or never. Their last chance to make a change.
It was a believable motive, but did Jasper’s siblings really have it in them to kill their kid brother? I didn’t subscribe to Tim’s utopian ideals—there are bad people everywhere, an island paradise included—but this was an especially heinous crime, one that took grit and a heart cold as a river stone. To pull it off, Flynn and Bebe had to work together. But Bebe was sleeping with Ned, and I had a hunch she didn’t know she was being used. The idea of her partnering up with her brother boggled my mind, as did the notion that Flynn could control his anger long enough to tiptoe while butchering the man he loathed in a full house in the dead of night.
Alone in the library, I took a minute to text Tim the latest news: another witness statement, another motive, this time supported by physical assault. I recapped everything Ned had said. Tim was my investigator, but it was my idea to drag him out here, and I owed it to him to keep him informed. Still, I made a point of leaving out the incident with the gun.
If Tim had been with me when Ned gave his statement, he would have found a way to argue that Jasper survived. There was an element of willful ignorance to Tim’s attitude. I knew he’d draw a different, much less dramatic conclusion, like that Jas knew what was coming and took off while he still could. If he did, I’d tell Tim he was wrong. Why leave Abella behind? Jasper was about to propose to the girl, yet he’d abandoned her in a house with two greedy, angry, unscrupulous people who were out of options. And if Ned was such good friends with Jasper, why did he wait all day to reveal critical information that could help us solve this case?
The text I’d been waiting for from McIntyre finally came while I was finishing my message to Tim. I didn’t waste any time calling her back.
“What’d you find?”
“No ‘hi, Maureen’? No ‘how’s tricks?’”
I laughed. “Sorry. Eager beaver, I guess.”
“As you should be. I’ve got news.”