it with foil, Sully had walked up beside her. She turned toward him. The dark circles under his eyes were gone, replaced by the refreshed look that comes with a good night’s sleep.
“I want to thank you again for what you did, Emily. I will never in a million years be able to repay your kindness.”
Earlier that morning, Emily had gone to the bank and taken a hundred thousand dollars in cash from the safe deposit box. She had delivered it to Sully in secret, to replace what he had borrowed from the city’s retirement fund before the auditors showed up.
“I didn’t do it for you, Sully.” She leaned a hip against the table and crossed her arms, glancing around to make sure no one could overhear them. “You screwed up royally, but your family shouldn’t have to pay for your mistakes.”
“You’re right, I did.” He peered over his shoulder, then back at Emily. “My back was against the wall and I chose the easy way out. Or, at least, what I thought would be the easy way.”
“I guess you don’t have to take all the blame. That Lucas Wakefield was a pretty convincing character.”
“I could think of a few more colorful names to call him,” he chuckled nervously.
“In all fairness, I should thank you, Sully. If you hadn’t been honest with me, we wouldn’t have known there was a scam.”
Having knowledge about his illegal act and keeping his secret had put her in a difficult position, but she was willing to forgive him for that. “Fiona could have gotten away with millions in investors’ deposits.”
“So they recovered the money?”
“Yes, the deal Fiona cut included giving up the money. Apparently, when she saw Lucas on the floor of his office she thought he was dead, so she ran. But Josh had only knocked him unconscious. Fiona said she went directly to Lucas’s house and used his laptop to transfer all the money from the Paradise Valley Bank to an account they had in the Cayman Islands.”
She patted Sully on the shoulder and grinned. “So, you see, it won’t take you a million years to repay me,” she smiled. “Just until the funds are released. And, thanks to you, all the investors will be getting their money back too.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. So, I’m just curious, when did Gloria kill Lucas?”
“According to what she said in her statement, Lucas was crawling up into his chair when she walked in. She could see someone had left him bloody and beaten. They argued over the money and his running off with Fiona, and she said she was so furious that she grabbed the jagged paperweight and cracked him on the head. She believed whoever had beaten him would end up paying for her crime.”
“Go figure.” He grinned and shook his head.
“When Maggie and I walked in, she was sitting in a chair calling the police. She was sweaty and breathing hard, with blood on her clothes. She’d said she had tried to revive him and we bought it.”
“She had a heart attack too, right?”
“Apparently the sweat and hard breathing was from that old woman lifting Lucas out of the chair and dragging him back to the floor. Of course, that’s how she got his blood on her, too.”
“He had to be at least two hundred pounds.”
“She admitted she was calling the police when we walked in only because she’d heard a car door slam outside and someone opening the big wooden doors in front. She was ready in case someone walked in on her. She heard Maggie and I walking in and made it look convincing. It was pretty quick thinking on her part.”
“Do you think she faked the heart attack?” he asked.
“Not according to the doctor. A woman her age, having just killed a man and then lifting two hundred and some pounds—it was almost inevitable.”
“Well, I better let you get back to what you were doing, Emily. Looks like the food’s almost ready. I just wanted to thank you again for the money. It’s been deposited and hopefully not missed.”
“You’re welcome.” She watched as he walked back to his waiting wife, seated in a wheelchair at one of the tables, and she wondered if he had shared with her any of what he had done. Probably not. He may have wanted to, but knowing Sully, he’d take it to his grave before he’d burden his wife that way.
Emily glanced over at Colin again, as he continued to shoot the breeze