CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Carmen

Did Asher kill Carolina?” I ask, bursting into Detective Pierce’s office, my heart pounding, feeling more than a little out of breath. “Mrs. Morrison told me that you arrested him. Did you find the weapon? Is there new evidence?”

Detective Pierce rises from his desk, a frown on his face. “Hello Miss Acosta, please do see yourself in,” he replies, his voice dry. “I see word travels fast at Marbrisa. I was told you weren’t at home when we stopped by to collect Mr. Wyatt.”

“I was out for a walk. I saw Mrs. Morrison when I returned, and she told me that you had taken Asher away.”

“Believe it or not, Miss Acosta, I’m not typically in the habit of including young ladies in my police investigations. I’m doing you a courtesy by keeping you informed because I realize that you lost your sister, but there are some things in the investigation that I cannot and will not share with you.” His gaze turns speculative. “Although your concern for your brother-in-law’s well-being is certainly noted.”

“In a manner of speaking, he’s the only family I have left,” I snap. “Not to mention, if I’ve been living in a house with a killer these past several days, I have a vested interest in knowing about it.”

“The best I can tell you is that nine times out of ten, when a murder happens, the killer is the person who has the most to gain from the victim’s death. In that case, it is unmistakably true that Asher benefitted from his wife’s demise. He had the means, the motive, and the opportunity. Moreover, he was there with her in the maze. You found him with the body.”

“So that’s it, then. You’ve decided Asher is guilty.”

“I think the facts speak for themselves.”

“Do you still believe that I colluded with him?”

“You’ll be relieved to know that Asher has made it quite clear that you are innocent. On that matter, he was happy to talk.”

“So, he hasn’t confessed yet?”

“It’s only a matter of time.”

I suppose I should feel relieved that the police have momentarily shifted their focus off me, but I can’t fight the sneaking suspicion that there’s something wrong about this.

“I think Nathaniel Hayes was Carolina’s lover,” I blurt out. “I saw her meeting a man in the greenhouse. I’m almost certain it was him. The head gardener at Marbrisa saw her meeting someone as well. He thinks it was Nathaniel.”

“The investigator?”

I nod.

Detective Pierce frowns. “Even if he was involved with your sister, that doesn’t give him a motive for murder. If anything, it only strengthens your brother-in-law’s motive. After all, he hired a man to work for him, paid him to investigate, only for the man to carry on with his wife?” Detective Pierce whistles. “That’s a strong motive right there. Your sister was stabbed. I’d say that’s a crime of passion. The sort of thing you see from a husband.”

“And the weapon? How would Asher have been able to dispose of it in such a hasty manner? I’m telling you, there was hardly any time at all between Carolina’s scream and when I reached them.”

“And yet, you didn’t come in here advocating for Asher’s innocence. So, there must be some doubt in your mind.”

“He’s planning on turning over my inheritance to me.”

“Sure he is. Or is that just what he wants you to think? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Why do you hate him so much?”

I want to say “us,” since I hardly think I’m exempt from his disdain, but I don’t because at the moment, trying to make him see me as an ally is the best plan I have.

“I don’t hate Asher Wyatt. But I know men of his ilk. They come down here flush with cash and think they can do as they please, that the rules don’t apply to them. They don’t care that there are people already living in Miami, good people working hard just to make it while men like Asher Wyatt and Robert Barnes flaunt everything they have.”

“Do you think this could all be tied to what happened at Marbrisa before? It feels personal, doesn’t it?”

It certainly seems personal to you.

“All of the key players who were alive back then are dead. Except for the architect Michael Harrison. He disappeared after all the nasty business.”

“And Mrs. Morrison.”

He nods, acknowledging my point.

“And that didn’t seem suspicious to you? That Michael Harrison disappeared?”

“No. We questioned him, of course, but he was never a suspect. Not with Lenora and not with Anna.”

“What happened to Lenora Watson? You said that she drowned, that you didn’t believe that it was an accident, that you didn’t believe the story the Barneses told you. You must have had a theory.”

“I had more than a theory. I just couldn’t prove it.”

While he’ll hardly share anything about Carolina’s death with me, at least with Lenora Watson’s death he’s marginally more cooperative.

“You can’t go up against a man like Robert Barnes without proof. Even with the rumors that he was in a bad way financially, he still had plenty of connections and influence to cause me problems.”

“You think Robert killed Lenora?”

“I’d bet my life on the fact that he did it. There were rumors about him cheating on his wife with other women. She denied it when I questioned her after the accident, seemed angry that I would even suggest such a thing. But the rumors didn’t lie. And some of Lenora’s friends knew that she was seeing some rich man. He bought her fancy things. But no one had ever met him or knew his name, just that he was married, and unfortunately, there’s more than a few married men in Miami keeping something on the side.”

Mrs. Morrison intimated that Robert cheated on Anna with other women, recalled his mistress was someone named Julie. Why didn’t she mention that he’d had an affair with Lenora?

I glance down at Detective Pierce’s hand, a thick gold band on his ring finger. I’d stake everything I have on the belief that Detective Pierce has never strayed outside of the bounds of his marriage, likely never even considered it. In a town where nearly everyone seems to be on the make, I doubt he’s as much as stolen a pencil.

“It just seems like an unlikely coincidence that there would be this many unrelated tragedies at one house,” I say. “Why Marbrisa?”

“Next you’re going to suggest it’s a ghost that’s been haunting the house these twentysomething years.”

I flush. “No, not a ghost. I don’t subscribe to the theory that Marbrisa is cursed. But I will say having spent some time there that something is going on.”

I hesitate, knowing he’s likely going to mock me and dismiss what I say, but still feeling like it needs to be said just the same. He doesn’t understand what it’s like in that house, the energy that it gives off.

“There’s something weird about it. Strange noises at night.”

He looks like he’s about to roll his eyes.

“Laugh all you want, but I’ve heard them. I’m not saying that it’s a ghost, but there’s something going on. One day, I went up to my room and found a necklace lying on my bed. Then it disappeared like it was never there at all.”

“A ghost that brings jewelry. How convenient.” His gaze turns skeptical. “Are you sure you didn’t just imagine it? That it wasn’t something you dreamed of, and thought was real? Perhaps you misplaced some diamonds.”

“If I was going to dream of a necklace, Detective, I assure you, it wouldn’t be of two coiled snakes,” I reply, ignoring the thinly veiled insult.

“Wait, what did you say?”

“That if I was going to—”

“You said the necklace was designed to look like snakes.”

“Yes. There were jewels on it. Made to look like snakeskin. They had rubies for eyes. I’m no jewelry connoisseur, but it appeared expensive. Unique.”

“Would you recognize it if you saw it again?”

“I suppose I would. It was distinct. I picked it up, held it for a bit. It was the strangest thing—it felt damp. It smelled like the sea.”

Detective Pierce jumps up from his desk, walking over to the file cabinet nearest to him, his back to me as he flips through the items there, before turning to face me, a piece of paper in hand.

He slides it across the desk to me.

“Was this the necklace you found in your room at Marbrisa?”

I glance down at the paper he’s placed in front of me. There’s a drawing of a necklace on the page, done in black ink. It’s a crude rendering, one clearly sketched by an amateur, but the image is unmistakable.

“Yes, this is the necklace. Where did you get this? How did you get this?”

“That’s the necklace Lenora Watson was wearing when she drowned. It disappeared. Someone took it off her body after she died—likely her killer. Anna Barnes saw the necklace on Lenora the night of the party, and during one of our meetings, I asked her to draw a sketch of what it looked like. She remembered it vividly because it was so unusual. I took this sketch to just about every jeweler in Miami trying to discover who made the necklace, but I could never find them. I always thought that Lenora’s lover bought the necklace for her and then stole it off her body because he didn’t want to risk it being traced back to him.”

“You think Robert Barnes gave this to Lenora?”

“Yes, I do.”

“How did a dead woman’s necklace end up in my bedroom at Marbrisa?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe I should believe in ghosts.”

“Believe me, the living are capable of plenty of terrible things without having to scapegoat ghosts. If this is tied to the murders that happened at Marbrisa, then it will be a flesh-and-blood man at the other end.”

“But you just said that everyone who was involved back then is dead now, besides Mrs. Morrison. I assume you’ve questioned her?”

“We have. I don’t think she’s involved in this. To what end? She has no motive, nothing to gain from these deaths.” Detective Pierce grimaces. “Michael Harrison is still alive, though. It sounds like it’s time for me to see what the architect has been up to all these years.”