Page 80 of Heartbeat

He pushed Romo’s photo back in front of her. “Twenty-five thousand dollars had been deposited into Romo’s account, and a matching twenty-five thousand dollars had been withdrawn from yet another account in Mary Ingalls’s name that matches the money and time of Romo’s deposit. We have just extradited Romo from Mexico, where he’s been in hiding. He has already given a statement that he accepted twenty-five thousand dollars to kill Ellis Townley and recover his cell phone. The woman who solicited the hit was Mary Ingalls. But he was interrupted and did not recover the phone. The Miami police found it instead. Can you explain that?” he asked.

Fiona’s jaw was set, her eyes narrowed as she turned to her lawyer. “Say something!” And before he could answer her, she looked back at Colin. “I don’t know anyone named Romo, and I don’t know anyone named Mary Ingalls!”

Colin gave Brokaw the nod.

Brokaw opened his file. “Ellis Townley’s phone was recovered at the scene of his murder. Calls to and from a phone registered to Mary Ingalls are on it.”

Fiona was drowning and she knew it.

“I told you, I don’t know anything about a Mary Ingalls. Somebody made a mistake.”

“I think that’s unlikely,” Brokaw said. “You’ve been sleeping with the person who identified you in the photos for over four years now.”

“Hank Kilmer is lying!” she said, and then realized that she’d just revealed she’d been cheating on Wolf.

“I wasn’t talking about your lover. I’m talking about your husband, who is unlikely to make that mistake.”

“My husband is dead!” Fiona cried, and turned on the tears.

“No, ma’am. As it turns out, he’s not. Wolfgang Outen wasn’t on the chopper after all. It was his personal assistant, Stuart Bien, who’d gone to the board meeting in his place. Mr. Outen was in his private jet, on his way to Sao Paulo, Brazil, when that chopper went down.”

Fiona gasped. The tears dried up within seconds. “But…but…this is wonderful!” she cried. “I mean…I’m sorry about Stu, but it wasn’t Wolf. It wasn’t Wolf. When can I see him?”

“I don’t think he’s prone to a reunion at the moment. He’s still reeling from the knowledge that the bomb that blew up the chopper was in his bag…the one you packed. And that he and Stuart not only traded places, but traded luggage as well. He gave Stu his clothes for the two-day trip, and Stu gave Wolf luggage they kept packed at the office for your husband’s emergency trips.”

“I don’t know how… I didn’t… I wouldn’t,” she muttered.

Brokaw was pushing harder now. “You’ve had a run of bad luck with your choice of husbands, haven’t you, Fiona? Widowed three times. Wolf would have been number four. You’re a careful shopper. You make sure they have no living heirs and are up in years before you commit. And when the time is right, they suddenly die. What do you think a good medical examiner might find if we exhumed those bodies?”

She was in shock. Mute in disbelief.

“I don’t believe you,” she finally whispered. “You’re lying to me.”

“About what? All of your dead husbands, or the fact that Wolf Outen is alive?” Colin asked. “You’re something of a black widow, aren’t you? I can assure you that your husband is very much alive, and I held a press conference this very morning and announced his resurrection to the world. Wolf knows you had to be the one to plant the bomb in his bag because you packed his clothes on top of it, and you are fully capable of building one, due to your degree in engineering. He already knows you’ve been deleting things from his email. He knows you tried to conceal notices from an Ancestry match regarding his daughter. They’ve already met and spoken. So, if anything untoward suddenly happens to his daughter, you’re screwed.”

She thought of Stinger and knew she’d just nailed herself to the wall and there was no way to call off the hit.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

Brokaw saw the shock on her face and got a sickfeeling they may already be too late to stop another tragedy. He leaned forward, his voice just above a whisper.

“What have you done, Fiona? What have you done?”

Fiona’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she slid out of the chair onto the floor.

“Son of a bitch,” Colin muttered. “Get a doctor, revive her, then read her her rights and arrest her for the murders of Stuart Bien and Zander Sutton and ordering a hit on Ellis Townley. I need to make a call.”

Wolf watched the press conference with a measure of relief. That should waylay any plans Fiona might have regarding Amalie, he thought, and then started packing. It was going to be a long drive from Savannah to Jubilee, but he needed to see his daughter face-to-face. He couldn’t make up for what had happened to her, but they could start from now, building a new relationship. He wanted that. He needed it.

He was gathering up odds and ends throughout the house, making sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind, getting chargers for his laptop and phone, making sure his passport was in the luggage, and dumping the extra food from the fridge into the garbage. Lord only knew if he’d ever come back here.

He was gathering up a stack of notes he’d been making when his cell phone rang. It was Ramsey.

“Hello, Colin. I caught the press conference. Many thanks.”

“We have a problem,” Colin said, and then began to explain. “I don’t know what she’s done, or who she’s sent, but we have reason to believe Fiona has already sent someone after your daughter.”

Wolf’s heart sank. “I have six men already there keeping tabs on her and Sean. But I need to give them a heads-up, and I think we should let the local authorities know, as well. That should come from you.”

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