If I Should Die_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [152]
Beth said, “I have the perfect hangover remedy.” She started gathering supplies, then turned to Lucy.
“Oh, let’s take care of Patrick first.”
“I can do it. You talk to Trevor. I’ll bring juice to my brother. Maybe some chicken broth?”
“In the pantry. I can prepare something for you.”
“No, really, it’s okay. I need something to do anyway; I’m going stir-crazy.”
Less than two minutes later, Angie and Beth left with a tray for Trevor. As soon as Lucy heard them on the stairs, she slipped into Beth’s bedroom.
It was a suite, with two rooms and its own bath. Beth was tidy—her bed was made, her dirty clothes in a hamper, her furniture arranged just so. Careful to leave everything exactly as she’d found it, Lucy quickly searched Beth’s room for anything that would connect her to embezzlement or drugging Steve. Beth didn’t have a computer in her bedroom, which meant that the books were kept either on the office computer or in the cottage.
She did find a box of letters to Beth from a man named Andrew Simon, Corporal, U.S. Army. They were all sent from an APO address in Afghanistan. Ten letters, written in the months she’d been living here. She had a P.O. box in Kit Carson, which Lucy recognized was the same address that the lodge used. Would she use the same address if she was hiding something? Or would she have opened her own post office box?
Lucy opened the most recent letter, dated three weeks ago.
Dearest Beth,
Our last letters must have crossed in the air, now I understand better why you need to help your sister. Of course family is the most important thing, and I’m so happy that you’ve become so close to your sister after everything that happened when you were kids. I love you more for your devotion. It was my selfishness to want you closer during my rare leaves, so we can be together.
The Delarosa sounds like exactly what I need when I get out in August. I had planned on reenlisting, but knowing you are waiting for me, three years for my country is enough. I can’t tell you how I feel when I get a letter from you. I am counting the days, and will write when I have my final discharge papers. I wish we could email like we did before you moved to your sister’s, but I reread your letters every night. Keep them coming, love.
I’m so sorry the lodge finances are in such dire straits. If anyone can turn it around, it’s you. Steve sounds like a smart, determined young man. I look forward to meeting him.
I hope you can convince your sister not to sell, at least before I can spend a week or ten making love to you in paradise.
The picture is me and my squad before we went out on recon two weeks ago. Buddy didn’t make it back. He’s the one in the Jeep. He was a damn good man.
Love you, Beth, with everything I am.
Andy
Lucy looked at the picture, and her eyes immediately went to Buddy in the Jeep. Her dad was working on base by the time she was born, and her oldest brother, Jack, had enlisted when she was still a toddler. She knew what these men went through.
Was the fact that Beth was dating a soldier clouding her judgment? Lucy hoped not, but she hadn’t found anything in Beth’s room to indicate that she was embezzling money.
Lucy carefully put the letter back exactly as she’d found it and the box on its shelf, next to a framed photo of a man in uniform that had to be Andy. She went through the bottom drawer of Beth’s desk and found bank statements. Up until last April, she’d had deposits of a little over five thousand dollars a month. Since April, she’d made small monthly deposits of fifteen hundred dollars. Unemployment? Rent checks? Did her sister pay her a salary?
Beth hadn’t withdrawn much money, either—she had a balance of just over nine thousand in her checking account, about the same in her savings, and two CDs of ten thousand dollars each, maturing at different times, both purchased before she’d moved here.
Suddenly, Lucy felt guilty for poring over Beth’s finances. There