next day . . . he died. His heart couldn’t handle the pressure. I... I...” Her face pinched with pain. “A month later, the authorities found the compacted car, persuaded the dump’s owner to confess to the bribe, and ultimately determined I was at fault. My mother held me responsible for my father’s death and hated me for it, but she hired the best lawyer. My mother swore me to secrecy. If the truth got out about what I’d done, it would crush my sister’s and brother’s futures.”
“And your own,” Emily whispered.
“How did Mick play into this, Petra?” I asked gently.
“I divulged the truth to him one night in a moment of intimacy. A month later, Mick let slip that he was writing a thriller about a man with a secret. Soon after that, I started receiving threatening letters saying someone would expose my secret if I didn’t leave town. I didn’t want to believe it was Mick, but it had to be. I mean, I’d asked Isabella and Emily, and they both swore they hadn’t uttered a word.” She turned all her fury on Emily. “You lied.”
“You stole my husband.” Emily sank into a chair and tucked her hands between her knees.
Petra said, “When the third letter came, I lost it. Whether or not Mick ever finished his thriller, my secret was in his diary. If someone read it...” She shook her head. “I couldn’t let that happen. I went to his house. He was climbing into his car. He didn’t spot me, so I followed him. Here. I saw him enter through the secret door. I didn’t know what he was up to, but I had to talk to him. I crawled in behind him.”
“With your dogs,” I repeated.
Fiona said, “That explains the dog hair at the crime scene.”
“I couldn’t leave them in my car,” Petra said. “They’d yap. I caught Mick talking out loud, asking for a fairy to reveal itself. There were no fairies. He was nuts.”
Fiona uttered, “Pfft.”
“I confronted him about the letters,” Petra continued. “He denied sending them. I called him a liar and shoved him. Hard. He fell back and...” She trembled.
“Hit his head on the fountain,” I finished.
She nodded. “He collapsed to the ground. My dogs raced to him and mewled. He didn’t rouse. He was dead.”
“Why did you strangle him?”
“I... I needed it to look like someone else had killed him. Someone stronger.”
“Like Gregory Darvell?” I asked. “Is that why you used one of your dog’s leashes?”
“I’d seen Gregory earlier in the day. It seemed... reasonable. Mick and he . . . didn’t get along.”
“And then you lied and said Oriana Gray had seen Gregory in Mick’s neighborhood, to make it seem that he was the one who had followed Mick here.”
Petra didn’t deny it.
“You opened the front door to confuse the police about how you got in,” I went on, “and then fled through the secret door with the dogs. Nobody saw you.”
Emily licked her lips. “Petra, I’m sorry I sent the letters. I never would have told anyone your secret. Ever. Mick, either. He did love you. He told me earlier that night that he was going to leave me. I went to the Equestrian Inn to ponder my options, but I couldn’t stand it. I returned to have it out with him. Except he was gone. I think he hoped that a fairy might give him the blessing to leave me. He loved you.”
Petra keened like a wounded animal. Isabella wept softly. Emily wrapped her arms around her body and rocked.
I regarded all three women, broken to the core. One mistake had led to another. Sadly, there was no way to turn back time.
Chapter 25
Every time a child says, “I don’t believe in fairies,” there is a fairy
somewhere that falls down dead.
—J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
While Isabella and Emily consoled Petra—yes, Emily comforted her, even knowing Petra had killed her husband—I called Detective Summers. He arrived within minutes. Officer Rodriguez didn’t accompany him. Summers had received my email with attachments, so he was on board with Petra’s history. I explained what had happened after we returned to the shop. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even remove his notepad and take notes.
When I finished, he said, “Where is she?”
“On the patio.”
He passed through the doorway. I didn’t follow, although I listened in. He read Petra her rights. She nodded numbly. When Summers escorted her out of the shop, Isabella and Emily went with them.
Joss hurried up to