The crumpled paper hit me between the eyes, and I drew back in my chair.
“Despicable! Utterly despicable!” Isabella spat the words out at me. “How I misjudged you! To think that you could resort to such a low trick.”
“My dear Isabella,” I said, getting to my feet, “please, calm yourself.” I extended a hand, but she brushed it away and took a step backward.
“I thought you were a gentleman, Simon,” Isabella said, her tone calmer, but the sudden pain in her eyes revealed her turmoil.
“My dear Isabella,” I said again, my voice gentle, “please, do sit down.” I gestured toward a chair, and, her shoulders slumping in exhaustion, Isabella sat down none too gracefully.
“I regret that you seem to have misunderstood the import of my note,” I said, watching her closely and feeling more than a bit like a heel.
She would have none of that. “Come off it, Simon,” she said. “You’re trying to horn in on Nina’s little blackmail game; that much is obvious.” Tears began to trickle slowly down her face.
“You mistake me, Isabella,” I said. “I have no intention of blackmailing you, I assure you.” Manipulate you, yes, I thought, but not blackmail you. My one dead grandmother, a southern lady to the core, was no doubt spinning in her grave at my less than gentlemanly behavior at the moment, but I had never liked this particular grandmother anyway. Let her spin.
“I suppose you thought you were being so very clever, the way you worded your threatening little missive,” Isabella said. She wiped away the tears with the back of one hand. “Nothing there that would appear out of the ordinary to anyone else.”
“Again, I assure you, I have no intention of blackmailing you,” I said, feeling like a parrot. “I want no part of whatever little game Nina is playing. I simply want to end it, once and for all, for the sake of all of us.”
Her eyes narrowed in disbelief, Isabella regarded me. “Perhaps you don’t know as much as I thought you might.”
Nothing ventured, and all that. “Would it really matter to your readers, Isabella, that many years ago you had an illegitimate child and gave it up for adoption?”
She shrank back as if I had struck her. As, perhaps, I had. A trembling hand came up to her mouth as all color drained from her face.
“You do know,” she whispered.
I felt no sense of triumph at my victory. I had reasoned correctly, but I had gambled.
Isabella drew a deep breath to steady herself. “What do you plan to do now with your knowledge, Simon?”
“I’m certainly not going to call up one of the tabloid papers and spill the story to them, if that’s what you fear.”
She relaxed a bit. “There must be something you want, however.”
“The only thing I want is to get to the truth of what’s going on here. Someone has killed twice and may kill again if we don’t stop him or her.”
“And you think my past has something to do with it?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps. Would you kill to keep the world from knowing that you had borne a child out of wedlock?”
“No!”
I waited.
“If I were to kill anyone,” Isabella said in a softer tone, “it would be that bitch Nina.”
“She found out about this somehow, didn’t she?” Isabella nodded.
“And she persuaded you, shall we say, to sign with her?”
Again Isabella nodded.
“Then what?” I asked.
“At first she was reasonable, once I got over the shock of such blatant blackmail. She wasn’t very successful as an agent at that point, but once she had someone like me, with a recognizable name, there was no stopping her. I suppose the fact that her tactics had worked with me only served to encourage her.”
“And so she found other candidates for her particular talents?”
“Unfortunately for them,” Isabella said.
“So where did Wanda Harper fit in with all this?”
“I’m not quite certain, Simon,” Isabella said. “I never met her until this weekend. But I think perhaps she might have worked for a private detective agency.”
“Which is how Nina dug up the evidence she used in her little blackmail campaigns?”
“I believe so,” Isabella said, shrugging. “But Nina has always been very careful not to reveal too much about how she came to know the things she does. By the time I discovered that someone had been digging into my past, it was too late to do anything about it.”
“Other than give in to Nina’s demands.”
“Yes. At first she was reasonable, but the more successful I became, the more she wanted of me. She forced me increasingly into a more public role, which I deplored. For years I had lived quite happily and quietly, but the more exposure Nina got for me and my work, the less private my life became.”
“Success demands a certain price,” I said.
Isabella emitted a most unladylike snort at that. “I’ve had two stalkers, Simon, since I’ve become a best-selling author. Should I have to pay that kind of price? Being afraid to live alone in my own home? Having my heart leap into my throat every time the doorbell rings?”
“I had no idea, Isabella,” I said, indignant for her sake. “I can see how intolerable that has been for you.”
“Yes. My life has been anything but pleasant the past four years.” She spoke the words without a trace of self-pity, and for that I had to admire her.
“Did you never think of simply publishing the truth and thereby cutting Nina’s feet from under her?”
“Publish and be damned, eh, Simon?” Her lips twisted in a grimace. “With the advantage of hindsight, I might have chosen to do so. But I might not.” Her hands gripped the arms of her chair, and her knuckles whitened. “It would be like posing naked, exposing oneself in the most vulgar way. Having the rest of the world peer at you, jabbing at you without mercy, till you had no privacy left. Sometimes I think I’d rather die.”
The horror in Isabella’s voice was all too real, and I could understand the shame she would feel to have such intimate details of her life known to the public. Some could say, “Publish and be damned,” and never think much about it, but for someone as intensely private as Isabella, such a course would be almost unthinkable.
She regarded me with eyes full of pain. “I simply don’t have the courage, Simon. I didn’t then, and I don’t think I do now.”
“I promise you, Isabella, that your secret is safe with me,” I said. “As long as you had nothing to do with the murders, that is.”
“I don’t know of any way to convince you, Simon, that I didn’t kill either of those wretched women. I found Norah tedious in the extreme, but I had no wish to see her die. Nor did I know the other woman well enough to wish her harm.”
“Wanda Harper didn’t attempt to blackmail you herself?”
“No, she didn’t, though she did accost me yesterday on Nina’s behalf. She may have done the research, but Nina usually reserved for herself the joy of watching us squirm, like butterflies impaled upon pins.”
I grinned. “Now it’s Nina’s turn to squirm.”
“If there is any justice to be had,” Isabella said, the ghost of a smile hovering around her lips. She paused a moment before continuing. “You’ve said not a word, Simon, about my child.”
What should I say now? I wondered. Since I had simply guessed that the child existed and knew nothing else whatsoever about him or her, I was caught by my own bluff.
Isabella read my indecision correctly. With a rueful smile she said, “You really didn’t know for sure, did you? And I walked right into your little trap.”
“Is the identity of your child important to what has happened here?”
She stood up. “No. Not in the least.” She walked to the door before turning to face me again. “I believe Nina has met her match in you, Simon. You’re every bit the manipulator she is. But perhaps your motives are less self-serving. At least, I’m hoping they are.”
I sat in silence as she left the room, closing the door softly behind her. I felt a moment’s regret that any friendship I might have had with Isabella Veryan had little chance of blossoming now. I had played a rather unpleasant trick on her, and she might never be able to forgive me for that. That pained me, for I admired both the woman and her work tremendously.
She had lied to me, however, and the consequences of that lie remained to be discerned.
When she denied that the identity of her child was of any relevance to the murders here at Kinsale House, she had lied. She didn’t know I could read her that easily, and probably thought that had put an end to the issue. I had felt the quickening of her pulse as she uttered the denial, and I knew she had lied to me.
Could Isabella’s son or daughter be among those present at Kinsale House?