Lainey paced anxiously front of the boarding house, her head snapping up when she saw Tate’s truck pull in.
As he climbed out, she raced over to him and threw her arms around him. She could tell from the look on his face that Megan and Schuyler were okay, and she let her breath whoosh out in a huge sigh of relief. She’d spent the morning practically tearing her hair out at the sheriff’s office, feeling sick and furious and desperate, until they’d finally gotten the news that Megan and Schuyler had been located in the woods and were on the way to the hospital.
He hugged her hard, burying his face in her hair before releasing her and stepping back. “Yes, everyone is fine. Minor injuries.”
“Oh thank God. Thank the Cypress Woods Witch. Thank everything in the world. What a nightmare,” Lainey said.
“Well, it’s not quite over yet,” he grimaced. “We found out what happened to Portia. Ginger got the family’s permission to go to her house, handle her belongings, and communicate with her spirit. It’s pretty sad. Portia had heard that Ginger had brought her tiara to Hoopers. You know how everybody knows everything immediately around here?”
“Shut the front door, I didn’t know that,” Lainey said. “And I hear that you won’t let Megan marry her fated mate, Frank, until he graduates from college? Good call.”
“My God,” Tate said admiringly. Lainey was proud of herself; he’d only left the hospital twenty minutes earlier. “You are one of us now.”
“That explains my newfound mint julep addiction. Carry on.”
“Portia broke into the jewelry store, broke into the safe, and put on the tiara. She’d gone around the bend at that point, totally obsessed with Loch. She didn’t know that Bernard was in the store, too. He’d been going there at night when the other employees were gone, stealing all the jewelry in the store and replacing it with fakes. When Portia saw him, he killed her, and dumped her body and the tiara in the swamp. He had to dump the tiara because he knew about Ginger’s ability, knew if she wore the tiara on her wedding day, she’d have visions of what happened to Portia. We also suspect that he killed Meyer Schofield and dumped his body by a riverbed, and then moved it when he realized police had found it.”
“Who was this psycho?” Lainey shuddered. The man had almost hurt Megan and Schuyler. The thought made her want to claw the man’s face off. Her sharp claws shot from her fingertips, and she stifled a low growl of anger.
“Apparently he was a serial killer and a drifter. He’d move in with someone, male or female, become their lover, and then after a few months, kill them, drain their bank account, and move to another state. Change his name, change his looks.” Tate’s blue eyes turned dark with anger as he talked.
“He moved in with Hamilton in his house in L.A. When Mrs. Hooper contacted Hamilton and asked him to come back to Blue Moon Junction to take over the jewelry store, Bernard saw his chance to come here and rob the store blind. He apparently killed Hamilton, used Hamilton’s credit cards to pay for plastic surgery to look more like him, and then came out here using all the knowledge he’d gleaned from Hamilton.”
“When he killed Portia, why didn’t he just leave town?”
“I think because it would have looked too suspicious. He figured he’d stick around, let things cool off, steal more jewelry, and then leave town when the time was right.” He shook his head sadly. “His mother’s mind pretty much went when we tried to talk to her about it. She’s got no living family. She refuses to accept that this man isn’t her son.”
“Ugh. He flirted with me. It makes me want to puke” Lainey shuddered. She had no doubt in her mind that if she’d said yes, Hamilton would have – ugh, no. She couldn’t bear to think about it.
“It makes me want to dig up his remains and kill him again,” Tate growled.
“Oooh,” Lainey cooed at him. “You are such a jealous cavewolf. It’s the sexiest thing in the world. Do it some more.”
Epilogue
The day of Loch and Ginger’s wedding
Lainey kept glancing nervously at the sky.
“What are you doing?” Tate asked.
“Checking for dark clouds,” she said.
He squeezed her hand. “The dark cloud is gone. Everything is going to be perfect. Didn’t we wake up to good news?”
“We did,” she admitted. Donny’s lawyer had contacted the district attorney’s office and worked out a quick deal. House arrest, no jail time for her brother, and he could go to his job during the day. Then five years of probation.
It was a warm, glorious day. Mother Nature had blessed them with perfect weather; it was warm but not too hot, and the sun bathed the assembled group in glorious, golden light.