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Chapter Twenty-two

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Her teeth clenched tightly as her mind spun. Maybe if she just pretended she didn’t understand the significance of the dagger, she could slip out. “I-I should really go, Mr. Hamilton. Sean is waiting for me. If I don’t hurry, he’ll come looking for me.”

A harsh smile twisted Mr. Hamilton’s lips. “Nice try, dear. I saw Sean headed down the street with Aiden, going toward your brother’s house.” He took another step closer. “It looks like you’re all by yourself.”

“Well, either way, I should...” She tried to walk around him to get to the door, but he sidestepped until he was right in front of her.

“You’re not leaving, Blake.”

She swallowed, and her lungs burned. Panic began to overtake her as he loomed over her. An image of him at the gym popped into her head, of how surprised she’d been when she’d seen how muscular he was. He lifted weights with ease, according to Orlando. Acid burned Blake’s throat as she spoke. “M-Mr. Hamilton, I don’t, uh, I don’t know what—”

“Let’s drop the games, shall we?” He took a step toward her, and she backed up on instinct. “It’s not very becoming of you to play dumb. We both know you’re too smart for your own good, don’t we?”

Her hands clenched at her sides. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He smirked. “Rachel told me exactly what you saw. In fact, she described Todd’s murder to me in detail, including the dagger.”

Oh crap. Her eyes closed as she thought about how many people she and Rachel had related the information to. He knew everything. Because of Rachel and her big mouth. And as the puzzle pieces fell into place in her head, Blake realized how completely dense she’d been the whole time.

“There’s probably no chance you’re trying to cover for Whit, is there?”

A laugh of disbelief escaped Mr. Hamilton. “Whitley? Are you kidding? He may enjoy the ladies, but you’d be surprised how much his morality gets in the way on a regular basis. I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me. He’s so much like his mother.”

“But his experience with real estate... He didn’t have anything to do with—”

“With what? Buying the downtown properties?” Mr. Hamilton pursed his lips together. “With his experience, I thought he would be helpful, but it turns out, his conscience is too great.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Did you know when he lived in Florida, he worked with people who were involved in a real-estate scam?”

Blake continued to take small steps backward as he was talking, just to make sure he stayed out of her personal space. “Yeah, I heard he was cleared of that.” If she could get back around the desk, she could grab the dagger to defend herself. Out of her peripheral vision, she tried to gauge how close she was to the door, the only exit in the room. Ten steps, maybe. The problem was that she would have had to shove past Mr. Hamilton to get there.

“Yes. Not only was he cleared of it, but he’s the person who turned the people in. He was working with the police.” Mr. Hamilton shook his head as if he were disappointed that his son had been responsible. “So you see why I couldn’t trust him with my plan.”

She needed to keep him talking. Surely, Sean would come looking for her. Mr. Hamilton is a killer. Acid burned her throat as the realization hit her. He wasn’t going to let her walk out of there. She needed more of a plan. She needed to think. If she could just keep him talking...

“And your plan is to buy out the buildings downtown? Why?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Blake. I’m thinking of the city. If we convert the seven buildings at the north end of Main Street into an upscale shopping plaza with a winery, tourism will explode. The money that would pour into the economy of Wilton would benefit every citizen. Don’t you understand?”

One of those seven buildings was Mystery Cup. The fear that had threatened to overcome Blake began to give away to anger. “What is wrong with you? You’re talking about erasing the town’s history! Getting rid of the museum. You can’t do that. Not to mention that one of those seven buildings you’re talking about is Mystery Cup. If you think I’m agreeing to this, you have seriously got a screw loose.”

He chuckled then continued to move closer as she backed up. “You act like I’m greedy, like I’m pocketing this money. Don’t you understand what adding millions of dollars to Wilton’s economy could do for this town?”

On her next step backward, she hit the desk, and Mr. Hamilton advanced closer. She had nowhere to go. Keep him talking.

“Then why did you hire the different holding companies? I’m guessing your name is the one on the final deed. You say it’s for the city, but if that’s true, then you wouldn’t be making a healthy profit. So, excuse me for saying so, but you’re full of crap, Mr. Hamilton. If what you say is true, you would have let everyone in on your grand plan. I think this was about the money that you wanted.”

His eyes flashed. “No!” He stepped next to her and slammed a hand down on the desk, making her jump. “I am not like that snake Todd Lang. Greed is not what drives me.”

Blake swallowed as Todd’s face, encased in plastic, flitted through her mind. “Is that why you killed him? How did you even get into the loft above Sliced?”

A cold smile slashed across his face. “That was pretty ingenious, I thought. I’m at Crossbones most days, having lunch. Did you know that some of the bartenders leave their keys on a hook behind the bar? Including Pepper? Once I knew she had picked up the key to the loft, it was easy to snatch it, make a copy, and have it back before she even missed it.”

“So this was way premeditated. You lured Todd to the loft, knowing no one could trace you back to the place. And you showed up in costume?”

He shrugged. “I was on the way to your party. So was Todd. It was easy to meet up beforehand. All I had to do was tell him I’d agreed to let him in on the action. Plus, there was the added benefit that if anyone saw me”—he wiggled a finger at her—“they wouldn’t know who I was.”

She remembered the controversy of whether or not there had been a murder at all. And how difficult it had been to figure out how the clown had gotten in and out of the apartment. “So after you killed him, you wrapped him in a shower curtain and dragged him up the pull-down stairs to the attic?”

Never would she have suspected sweet Mr. Hamilton of being able to drag a body up to the attic. The man was in his sixties, and even though that wasn’t old, it would have taken a lot of strength to move Todd Hamilton. When she thought about the biceps she’d seen on him at Buttkick, she could have smacked herself for not at least considering him as a suspect.

“It wasn’t easy, but I figured it was my best bet. I knew there were going to be way too many people coming and going for the party. I couldn’t really risk someone seeing me moving a body. As it turns out, that was the right call. I barely got him up there before the police arrived.”

“So you were still there! I knew it!”

He nodded. “I was. How do you think I knew you’d seen me? I could hear everything the police were saying.”

“So then you came across the street and made an appearance to scare me?”

The corner of his mouth tugged up in an eerie little smile that made her think of Norman Bates from Psycho. “I wanted to see your reaction. And you about fainted when you saw me. Plus, I wanted the alibi. You saw me in the clown costume, and then I rushed downstairs to take that off and put on the fireman’s helmet that I had in my car—or should I say Whit’s car. I made the right call driving his truck with the tinted windows and parking it behind Buttkick. I was able to run over and change, and no one was the wiser. You saw me moments later dressed as a fireman. I’m guessing you didn’t make the connection that it was me, did you?”

She hadn’t. Never had it crossed her mind that the clown might have changed and come back to the party. She had been so focused on Whit Hamilton and Pepper and Bree that she didn’t pick up on any of the clues that might have pointed her in Mr. Hamilton’s direction.

But at the mention of the truck, every muscle in her body tensed. “It was Whit’s truck that tried to run me down. It was you.”

“Whit’s trying to sell it to help get money for his own place. Since it’s been in my garage, I occasionally drive it. The day I saw you crossing the street was pure luck, really.” He chuckled—actually chuckled—at the thought that he’d almost killed her and Adam. “You started across the street from Sliced right as I turned the corner. I wasn’t planning to kill you, but it was such a perfect opportunity. It’s like it was meant to be.”

It was becoming harder to keep calm the more she realized just how crazy the man in front of her really was. “So what were you doing that night at my house? Did you come there to kill me? It was you who broke Kyle’s arm, wasn’t it?”

“Blame your sister for that one, not me.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Blame my sister? How on earth do you figure that?”

“I wasn’t planning to hurt anyone. I simply came to your house that night to listen. I wanted to get in and hide somewhere. I figured if I was able to hear a few of your phone calls, I could find out what you knew then sneak back out when you went to bed. When you showed up with your sister, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. Maybe she would talk about the police investigation, and I could really stay ahead of the game. But then she spotted me.” He frowned. “I’m still pissed about that, by the way.”

Her breath shook, and she bumped into the desk again as she tried to move farther away from him. “But I still don’t understand why you had to kill Todd Lang. You said he was greedy, but how was he involved in this whole business? He’s a photojournalist.”

Mr. Hamilton turned and traced a finger along his desk as he walked behind it and moved his chair aside. He shook his head as he slowly opened the top right drawer. Blake shivered as he removed the dagger, turning it over and over in his hand as he thought.

Now is my chance. She bolted for the door, but Mr. Hamilton was fast. He reached the door a split second after she did. Blake only managed to open the door an inch before Mr. Hamilton’s hand slammed it shut. When she noticed he still held the dagger, she backed away from him so quickly, she stumbled.

“Come now, Blake. Do you really think you’re going anywhere? Besides, you asked a question. Don’t you want to hear the answers?” Without waiting for her response, he continued. “Todd was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was looking for a house after Sabrina came to her senses and got rid of him, and he had an appointment with a real estate agent the same day I was meeting with her to discuss the holding company’s next purchase. You see, I didn’t realize there was anyone in the office, so I thought I could speak freely. Unfortunately, Todd was early to his appointment and heard more than he should.”

“You killed him because he knew you were involved with a holding company?”

“If that was all he knew, I could have dealt with it. But he wouldn’t stop probing. He started to research why I was behind a holding company, and he looked into public records. That’s when he saw the holding companies trying to purchase the downtown buildings.” The look on his face was almost regretful. “He threatened to expose my plan. He was going to ruin everything if I didn’t pay him off. I couldn’t let him do that, could I?”

As he spoke, he studied the blade of the dagger, closely examining the sharp point. “I wish I could say it was difficult to kill him, but the truth is that Todd Lang got exactly what he deserved.” His eyes had a hard glint as he looked at her, walking around the desk.

Blake backstepped toward the pocket door of the office.

“You, on the other hand, I’m going to miss. I sure hope someone has the recipe for those espresso brownies. Although, this could make acquiring the Mystery Cup much easier. Once you’re gone, I can’t imagine your family would want to continue running the café.”

He started toward her, the dagger raised.