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“You’re Sonny,” Kat said, staring at Shaun.
Kylie frowned. “Sonny?” She looked at Shaun. “What’s she talking about?”
Shaun didn’t reply, but he did hold Kat’s gaze. There was no confusion in his expression, just a silent question as to how she knew.
“I saw that watch of yours in Lenora’s wedding picture,” Kat told him. “Lenora’s husband—your father—was wearing it.” When Shaun remained silent, she continued. “Ethel told me Lenora’s husband had a son, but she didn’t tell me it was you. She called you Sonny and said you live in Virginia.”
Shaun worked his jaw as he took in her words. When he finally spoke, his voice was tight. “Sonny is what my dad called me. And I haven’t talked to Ethel since I moved out here.”
Kat nodded. Ethel had seemed to think Sonny was a name, not a nickname, which Kat supposed was understandable. With Shaun away at college when his father married Lenora, and Lenora not being all that close to her sister anyway, most of Ethel’s knowledge of Shaun had probably come from secondhand stories told by his father.
Kylie gaped at him. “You’re related to Lenora?”
Shaun reared back as though offended. “No.”
“Then why did she say . . .”
“My dad married Lenora. That hardly means we’re related. She disliked me from the start, and the feeling was mutual.”
“But . . .” Kylie bit her lip, but after a moment she regrouped. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? All those times we ran into Lenora you never said a word.”
“Because she was a mean, spiteful woman and I refused to let her worm her way into my life. It was bad enough she would accost us when we were out walking Duke. I wasn’t about to go home and have her take over our private conversations too.” Shaun refocused on Kat. “When did you talk to Ethel anyway?”
“Just now,” Kat replied. “She’s at Lenora’s.”
Shaun spun toward Lenora’s house. “Ethel is here?”
“Who’s Ethel?” Kylie asked.
“Lenora’s sister,” Kat said. “I take it she’s expecting to inherit, but she said she doesn’t need the money and anything Lenora owned should really go to her stepson anyway. In fact, that’s what you’re counting on, isn’t it, Shaun? That Ethel will finally make things right by giving you everything your father left Lenora?”
Shaun folded his arms across his chest. “I could care less what Ethel does with Lenora’s money. That’s her business.”
“Exactly how wealthy was your father when he died?” Kat pressed.
“Wealthy enough.”
“Is that why you killed Lenora, because you were upset that she inherited everything?”
Kylie gasped. “Shaun didn’t kill Lenora. Tell her, honey.”
Shaun didn’t seem to hear her. “I killed her because she was a thorn in my side that refused to go away.”
Kylie stumbled backward, a strangled sound emerging from her throat. Duke barked and set his paws on her knee. This wasn’t his jubilant bark from earlier. This was a bark that mirrored his human’s distress.
“It wasn’t planned,” Shaun said, his eyes still on Kat. “When I first saw her skulking around Ronnie’s place I figured I’d call the cops and have her busted for trespassing. You know, sic the cops on her for once and give her a taste of her own medicine.”
“But you didn’t call the cops,” Kat said.
Shaun shook his head. “In the end, I thought she’d probably be gone by the time they showed up. So I decided to go see what she was up to myself.”
“What was she up to?”
“She told me she was watching that trap you guys had assembled back there. She said she intended to catch that cat herself and kill him.”
A bolt of anger almost knocked Kat off her feet. At that particular moment, she couldn’t say she felt bad about what had happened to Lenora. It was clear Lenora hadn’t felt any compunction about sentencing an innocent animal to death, so why should Kat concern herself with Lenora’s own fate?
Shaun must have registered her reaction. “I told you she was mean,” he said. “She didn’t care about anyone or anything except herself. You have no idea how much pleasure she took in tormenting me.”
“I don’t understand.” Kylie stared at Shaun as if this were the first time she were really seeing him. “How did she torment you? Wait, are you the reason she was always complaining about Duke and my music?”
“Nah, she had the same beef with everyone. But I am the reason she relocated to Cherry Hills. After Dad died I had no reason to stay in Virginia, so I came here. Somehow Lenora found out where I was and moved out here too.”
“Why would she do that if you two hated each other so much?” Kylie asked.
“She did it because we hated each other. She despised the thought of me living the rest of my life in peace, so she tracked me down with the goal of making my life miserable.”
Kat had been wondering what had brought Lenora to Cherry Hills, Washington. Now she knew.
“Why did she dislike you so much?” Kat asked.
“Because Dad loved me more than her. She couldn’t stand the thought of being second best to me when he was alive, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it unless she was willing to leave him. And there was no way she would do that.”
“Because of the money?”
“I doubt the money had anything to do with it. Believe it or not, she loved him, in her own weird way.”
“If your father loved you so much more than Lenora, why did he leave everything to her?”
“That wasn’t intentional. He just never got around to making a will, so she got everything by default.”
Kat supposed that made sense. She didn’t know anything about estate law, but it stood to reason the spouse might inherit before any children, especially ones that were fully grown.
Shaun’s eyes darkened. “After Dad died Lenora figured the tables had turned. She may have been Dad’s second choice when he was alive, but once she got his money she figured she had moved up a level. And that meant it was payback time.”
“What did she do to you?” Kat asked.
“As if it wasn’t bad enough that she moved out here, when she found out I was dating Kylie she bought a house in her neighborhood so she could make sure we ran into each other all the time. Every time Kylie and I took Duke out for a walk, there was Lenora, waiting to gloat over how she had Dad’s money now instead of me.” He looked at Kylie. “Didn’t you ever find it strange that Lenora always happened to be coming out of her house whenever we were walking Duke?”
“I—I guess I never thought about it,” Kylie said.
“And all that jewelry she wore when she ran into us? I guarantee she put all that on for my benefit. She never wore stuff like that when Dad was alive, but I guess it was an easy way for her to rub it in my face that she now had control over Dad’s money.”
Kylie’s lower lip trembled. “I had no idea.”
“And I tried to keep it that way. I didn’t need her poison leaching into our relationship. I didn’t want her to have that kind of hold over my life.”
But of course she had had a hold over him, Kat thought, her chest tight. He never would have killed her otherwise.
“So what exactly happened after you confronted Lenora in Veronica’s yard?” Kat asked Shaun. “You decided that would be an ideal time to kill her, so you came back later with Audrey Duncan’s garden trowel in hand?”
Shaun shook his head. “That’s not how it played out at all. Lenora took that trowel herself. She already had it with her when I caught her trespassing. She planned to use it to kill that cat.”
Kat touched her stomach, sick at the thought.
“You should have heard her prattling on about how much she despised that cat,” he went on. “But listening to her, it occurred to me that she was describing my feelings toward her exactly. And just like that feral cat, I couldn’t get away from her. She would always be there, waiting. There was no escape. Even if I moved she would follow me. I was trapped.”
Kylie’s face twisted in anguish, and Kat’s heart went out to the girl. It must be devastating to realize the man she cared for had been suffering in silence this whole time.
Shaun stared at Veronica’s house as if he could see straight through it to the backyard. “At one point she said it was about time she took matters into her own hands and eliminated the bane of her existence once and for all. And her statement got me thinking. I could do the same thing.”
“Except the bane of your existence wasn’t a cat,” Kat filled in. “It was Lenora herself.”
“At that moment it felt like I’d be doing the world a favor by killing her. She was the type of person who wasn’t happy unless she was spreading her misery, and I wasn’t her only target.” Shaun looked down at his palms. “It wasn’t hard to wrestle that trowel out of her hand. I was stronger than she was.”
“Weren’t you worried she would yell for help?” Kat asked.
“And alert everyone to the fact that she had been sneaking around Ronnie’s backyard so she could harm a cat?” He scoffed. “No, if Ronnie knew why she was out there she would have pressed charges for sure.”
“But with her life in danger, wasn’t it worth the risk?”
“I don’t think she knew my intentions when I grabbed that trowel from her. She probably thought I was only protecting the cat.”
Duke whimpered. Kylie picked him up, clutching the terrier like a lifeline.
“Why did you want to frame Imogene?” Kat asked.
“I didn’t want to frame anyone. But your friend was convenient, and I knew I had to provide the cops with an obvious suspect before they dug too deeply into Lenora’s past and found out about our history together. I’d heard your friend had words with Lenora earlier that day. Then when I saw her again that night it seemed too perfect.”
Kat’s lungs burned, any sympathy she had felt for Shaun over Lenora’s abuse wiped out by the reminder that he had been all too willing to let an innocent woman go to jail for his crime.
“It only took a second to drop that trowel on the passenger floorboard,” Shaun said. “I did it while you all were inside Ronnie’s house and the police were busy in the backyard. I used one of Duke’s doggie bags to make sure I didn’t leave my prints anywhere. That had to be when I dropped Dad’s watch. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I pulled out the doggie bag.”
“Why don’t you wear the watch?” Kat asked.
“I couldn’t risk Lenora seeing it.” Shaun fished the watch from his jeans pocket and ran his thumb over the face. “I had to steal this from Dad’s stuff after he died, you know. Lenora never would have let me have it otherwise. And if she had ever spotted me with it she would have sued me to get it back. I’m sure of it. She would have won too. Not only did she have the money for a good lawyer, but legally it was hers.”
Kat could only surmise that Mustang must have found the watch and squirreled it away. What she wasn’t sure of was why. Had he simply been attracted to its shine? Or had he taken it to protect Shaun from falling under police scrutiny? Maybe he knew Shaun had saved him when he had murdered Lenora. Maybe the tom cat had even been trying to return the watch when he’d dropped it where Duke would find it. Maybe Mustang already knew what Kat had only figured out this evening, that Shaun wasn’t a bad person, he was simply a young man who had been pushed too far by a woman he despised.
Or maybe Kat was reading way too much into the animal’s motives.
But Shaun’s motives were crystal clear. And provoked or not, he had still deliberately and willfully ended a woman’s life.
Her heart heavy, Kat pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket and called Andrew.
