Page 46 of Secrets of the Forgotten Heir

Yanni shook her head. ‘The front door was open. So was the back.’

I hadn’t even noticed that, I’d been too busy sweeping outwards in search of feelings. ‘She went out the back when we came to the front door?’ I queried. If she had, thatsmackedof guilt.

Yanni didn’t respond; even when evidence was staring her in the face, she seemed reluctant to speculate. ‘Come on, let’s go back downstairs,’ she said finally.

As we passed the last room before the stairs, I hesitated. It was a small office with a dark wooden desk and a laptop. That was what had caught my eye. ‘The screen is still on,’ I said. Normally, if you left a laptop for a while it went to sleep but this screen was still active. Had someone been typing a few minutes ago then heard our car pull in and fled? Unless the owner had turned off the screensaver, but what kind of fool did that?

‘Yanni,’ I said, moving toward the computer. ‘Come and look at this.’

‘What is it?’ She came in to look over my shoulder.

‘She left her emails open,’ I said.

Yanni’s browfurrowed as she studied the screen. ‘No. That’s Warren’s email account. The address is W. Storcrest.’

I stared at the email address at the top of the page. She was right. ‘Why would hisex-wife have access to his emails?’ I asked slowly.

‘I’m not sure.’

Mrs D’s words echoed in my mind, how the emails cancelling Warren’s donations hadn’t sounded like him. ‘What if Warren didn’t write the email to Mrs D? What if Angelica cancelled his donations so that she could siphon off some extra money?’ I couldn’t contain the flutter of excitement in my chest. ‘That would give her a motive for murder, wouldn’t it?’

Yanni pursed her lips. ‘It’s pure speculation, Beatrix. That’s all it is.’

But I wasn’t so sure. I finally had something to go on that suggested Mrs D wasn’t to blame for Warren’s murder. And I was going to prove it.

One way or another, Angelica was about to realise that secrets don’t stay buried forever – and neither do guilty consciences.

Chapter Thirty-One

It was only when my stomach growled that I realised I hadn’t had any breakfast. We’d planned on grabbing a muffin or something at Sonny’s with our coffees, but that hadn’t happened. My belly was so loud that Yanni heard it, too.

‘I’ll drop you at the coffee shop.’ She shot me an amused glance. ‘You can pick me up a cappuccino while you’re there. Then perhaps this afternoon you’ll sit at the desk and answer telephone calls.’ She paused and we both laughed.

When we stopped snickering I felt the need to defend myself a smidge. ‘I did answer Mrs Brown’s call.’

‘Oh yes. Sorry, I forgot that one. It’s been rather chaotic having you back but ithasbeen lovely. You’ve been missed.’

‘By you and Maddie?’

‘Do you need anyone else to miss you?’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘Iguess not.’ I smiled faintly. ‘I’m sorry I stayed away for so long.’ I thought that there’d be a silence, one of those moments where no-one really knows what to say, but I should have known Yanni better than that. Somehow she always had the right words.

‘You did what you had to do, Bea. Enough apologies now. We understood that, even though it was hard to see you go. Maybe now you’ll consider staying a little longer? You’ve definitely got a flair for investigative work and there are plenty of mysteries in a place like this – tracking down lost relatives, finding lost heirlooms – that type of thing. We don’t have the manpower to deal with them all. You could be a PI here just as easily as in London,’ she suggested. ‘Just think about it, Bea. For me.’

‘I will,’ I promised before stepping out of the car towards the siren lure of coffee.

Thankfully the café was substantially quieter than it had been earlier, with only one person ahead of me in the queue. Another vampire was clearing the tables of the detritus from the earlier rush; the badge on her T-shirt told me her name was Kaz. She flashed me a friendly smile and I wished she was serving me instead of Sonny.

I turned to the grouchy vampire. ‘Two cappuccinos, please.’ I offered him my most winning smile.

To my surprise, he reciprocated – or at least something close. As his lips stretched, not only were his two pointy canines on show but his entire top row of pearly white teeth. The smile had a distinctly sinister edge to it, though, and I had a funny feeling he was about to spit in my coffee.

Almost immediately, he placed two cups in front of me. The service was way too fast, but on the upside he hadn’t had time to spit in them. I frowned as I picked them up. ‘Hey! These are stone cold!’ I objected.

‘Yes. Those are the ones you ordered this morning then left without paying for. I assume those are what you want.’ His smile crept closer to a snarl.

I balked. ‘That was a police emergency!’

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