Klein smiled at him. “I think you’ll be joining us rather than serving us. Is the gang all here?”
“Gang, sir?”
“Both Mrs. Berangers, Gus, the girls?”
Tanner eyed him. “They are.”
“Good. I’m sure they’ll all be excited about our news.”
Despite his training at the finest butlering schools in Europe, Tanner’s face fell in obvious dismay. “You located the tiara.”
“Two so far,” Klein said. “You want me to get the door for you?”
Tanner’s back stiffened. Expression left his face. He marched to the door and out to the pool deck. “Mr. Klein,” he announced. “…And associate.”
Gus lay on a lounge chair beneath a white fabric umbrella, a towel over his face. “This better be good, Klein. I’m having breakfast with my girls. They’re only here a couple days.”
“Trust me, Gus. This is good.”
He whipped the towel off his square head. “You found it?” Gus’ eyes bulged.
Ivy looked around the pool deck. Bronwyn lay on a lounger next to Gus, dressed in a teeny bikini and enormous sunglasses. She seemed to be asleep. A few chairs away, Lola Beranger sat with her daughters. The girls were drying off from a swim. Lola looked anything but asleep.
“Who took it?” Gus asked.
“Well, there’s the rub.” Everett sat down in a wicker chair and stretched out his legs. “Technically, the tiara from the museum was stolen by John Starling.”
“Who?”
“An Eagle Security guard.”
“That asshole Frankie is supposed to vet all those guys!”
“He might have, except Susan pulled some strings.”
Gus started, his eyes nearly crossing. “Susan?”
“They were in cahoots, and, frankly, it’s a complicated story. You can read all about it in my report. The thing is, Susan didn’t steal the real tiara. She stole a fake.”
Beranger shook his head, unable to speak.
“It’s in a box on her desk. The gold is flaky and the thing is kinda rusty.” Everett shrugged.
“Lord help me, you found a counterfeit tiara that Susan stole. Where’s the real one?”
“Safe,” Ivy said. “Right, Tanner?”
“Perfectly safe,” Tanner said. “As per your orders, sir.”
Gus’ face crinkled, his skin redder than the sun had made it. “My orders?”
Tanner took covered plates to the girls. “Yes, sir. You asked me, as a gentleman’s gentleman, to keep the tiara safe for the sakes of Tiffany and Briana.”
“I did?” Gus angled his head and squinted.
“I can produce the letter, sir.” He set the plates at a mosaic tiled table near the girls and removed the cloches. “Vegetarian for Tiff, all meat for Bri.”
“Thanks, Tanner,” one of the girls said.
The butler smiled at the girls and returned to the tray. He set a cup of coffee in the cup holder on the arm of Bronwyn’s lounger. He uncovered a plate covered in eggs and meat and handed it to Gus.
Gus took it. “When did I do this? Why did I do this?”
“I remember the day perfectly, sir. It was September 11, 2001.” Tanner uncovered the last plate and walked it over to Lola Beranger, poached eggs and toast. “There was no explicit explanation, but reading between the lines, I believe you feared for your business, given the fact that the United States was under a terrorist threat.”
“That makes no damn sense. That’s the time when business booms!” Gus fumed.
“Or fails,” Lola spoke.
He shot her a look. “Okay, sure, there were a few months there with the no-fly-zones and all when times were tough.”
“Bleak,” she said.
“What did you do, woman?” he said through his teeth.
Lola tucked into her eggs. “Why, not a thing, Augustus.”
Ivy eyed the coffee carafe on the tray and pointed to a cup, looking a question at Tanner. He frowned, but poured her a cup. She sipped it. Ick. It was some kind of weak grocery store coffee. Still, it was caffeine. “What she did was secure her daughters’ futures, or so she thought.”
Lola gave Ivy a dirty look, but continued eating her breakfast.
“Apparently, no one noticed the tiara had been swapped for a replica for all these years. It didn’t really become a huge concern until the twelve million dollar offer came along.” Ivy waited for a response. No one spoke.
“Twelve million dollars?” One of the girls, Ivy didn’t know if it was Tiffany or Briana, gasped.
“That’s right,” Ivy said. “But you girls weren’t going to see any of that. Not like it mattered. You’d inherit this house, your daddy’s business, all of it.”
“Inherit?” Gus’ face lost enough color to show the ruddy patches of sunburn like stains.
Ivy sipped more coffee, and tried not to make a face. “Well, yeah. I looked at your divorce papers, and, sorry about all that. But given that Bronwyn was featured prominently as a homewrecker, I couldn’t figure out why you two were buddy-buddy. Especially not when you and Gus shared custody of the girls.”
“What are you getting at?” Lola said. “People can change.”
“Sure they can. But you’ve got a nice place, a pool, all that. You got it with the divorce settlement. Why are you at a breakfast pool party with your ex and his homewrecker wife?”
Bronwyn spoke without moving. “I’m sure you have some fascinating answer. Can we have the guards take them away now, sugar plum?”
“Hell no,” Gus said. “I wanna hear this.”
“The reason is simple. Bronwyn found a buyer for the tiara, and talked Gus into selling. The tiara was nowhere to be found. But Lola, as Tanner said, was the only one who ever showed any interest in it before the theft was discovered.” Ivy set the half-empty cup down. Yuck. “You needed each other.”
“For what, exactly?” Lola said.
Ivy gave her a hard look. “To murder Gus.”
“Murder?” Bronwyn finally stirred. She sat up and whipped off her sunglasses. Of course, the woman didn’t even have a reverse raccoon suntan. “You are out of your ever loving mind, sweetheart.”
“The perfect murder, really.” Ivy saw Everett give her a doubtful look. She kept going. “Here’s how it was supposed to work. With the tiara apparently stolen, it gave you two the opportunity. Lola was sure that it could never be found, because of Tanner’s help. Bronwyn wanted to hire a detective to close the case as soon as possible.”
“And what a spectacular choice we made.” Bronwyn narrowed her lids at Everett.
“Given that nobody actually knew when the tiara was stolen, we shouldn’t have been able to solve it. And since you knew where the real tiara was, it was even that more difficult. After we failed, the cops weren’t going to look at it any harder. The insurance would pay off. Gus’s business would have suffered a huge blow, given security concerns. Most importantly, with no tiara, the trust that holds it would have been dissolved. That would make Gus the owner of the Queen’s Dowry Tiara.”
“And subject to the curse,” Gus whispered. His eyes shifted between his current and former wives. He shoveled some food in his mouth for comfort. After chewing, his face screwed up. “Ya’ll were out to get me!”