All She Ever Wanted - Barbara Freethy [99]
"Really? Why would he do that?"
"He must be protecting something. I don't know." Natalie started as her doorbell rang. She hoped it wasn't the press. "Can you hold on a minute?" She looked through the peephole and saw Madison. Opening the door, she motioned to the phone and waved her hand to Madison to enter. "Sorry about that. There is one thing I did want to ask you, Diane. Did Emily confide in you about a guy she was seeing? I know she used to hold your opinion in high regard. She always said you gave great advice."
"I don't know about that, but I tried," Diane said with a laugh. "As for a guy, I don't recall anyone in particular. We talked more about sorority relationships, girlfriends, that sort of thing."
Which meant they'd probably spoken about her and Cole. "Did she say anything about wishing I wasn't involved with her brother?" Natalie asked.
There was a slight pause, then Diane said, "She mentioned things weren't going well between the three of you. I'm sure it wasn't as bad as that book made it out to be, was it?"
"No, of course not."
"Well, I have to go. Please feel free to call me or Connie if there's anything we can do. Emily's death was a tragic accident, but it was an accident."
"Yes, it was, and thank you. That's very generous. I appreciate the support." Natalie set down the phone and responded to Madison's raised eyebrow with, "That was Diane Thomas."
"Really? Another voice from the past."
"She doesn't believe the book, and she offered to help. She said she and Mrs. Richmond were talking about it the other day, and they both think I'm innocent."
"Good. I'm surprised Mrs. Richmond's still the housemother. Wasn't she like eighty when we were there?"
"More like fifty, Madison."
"She sure looked old."
"That's because we were young." Natalie perched on the arm of the couch. "What's up with you?"
"I saw Dylan last night." Madison sat down in a chair and crossed her legs. "He has a shrine to Emily in his apartment, hundreds of photos of her on every available piece of wall space in a locked closet."
Natalie was shocked. "Really? How do you know that?"
"I kind of let myself in. It's a long story. The gist of it is that Dylan was madly in love with Emily. He heard you arguing with Emily in her room the night of the party."
"So he was at the house that night. I thought so."
"He said he left because he didn't want to get into the middle of what was going on with you and Em. He wishes he'd stayed because if he had ..."
"Emily might still be alive," Natalie finished. "He thinks I did it then, doesn't he?"
"Yes, mostly. We did discuss another possibility, but I'll get into that in a minute." Madison paused. "I think Dylan might be Malone."
Natalie nodded. "I'm thinking that, too."
Madison frowned. "Well, I thought I was going to be delivering a bombshell, but obviously not. Why do you think Dylan is Malone?"
"Because Cole and I tracked Malone to L.A. and found a disguise in his room—wig, makeup, the whole bit."
"Dylan was in L.A.," Madison said excitedly. "Josh told me that."
"And who better to have a disguise than a magician?" Natalie thought for a moment. "You said there was a lot of Emily memorabilia in Dylan's closet? I wonder if he has her journal in there. Cole and I think that a lot of the information from the book may have come from Emily's journal."
"Damn, I should have thought of that."
Natalie stood up. "We've got to get over there."
"I'll drive. What about Cole?"
She hesitated. "He's at work, and frankly, I don't want to call him right now. We had a bit of a scene this morning." Natalie was sorry she'd volunteered that much information when she saw the inquisitive gleam in Madison's eyes. "Don't ask."
"Oh, no, you don't get to say that. What happened?"
Natalie hesitated. Did she really want to confide in Madison? Madison was probably the only person who wouldn't judge her for what she'd done. She took a deep breath and said, "Cole and I slept together last night, and his parents walked in this morning and caught us practically naked."
"Holy