“What?” Peter shouted. “You were being blackmailed, too? But why?”
Margot gave him a patient look. “For the same reason anyone is blackmailed. Because I have a secret in my past that I want to stay there. Baxter knew all about it and threatened to see that secret splashed across the morning newspapers. So I paid him.”
Savannah reached over and squeezed Margot’s hand. “But you’re a wonderful person, Margot. What could you have ever done that was so bad?”
She laughed harshly and shook her head. “You’re cute, Savannah, but do you really think I’m going to tell you what it is? It was a secret, for God’s sake. And I had to pay to keep it that way because somehow Baxter found out.”
Peter scowled. “I’d like to know how.”
“You and me both, pal,” Margot muttered and reached for her wine.
“He had a gift,” Monty said dryly.
“But when you don’t talk about it, the blackmailer gets away with it,” Kevin insisted. She looked around the table. “Anyone else? Might as well jump into the confession booth while you can.”
There was a long moment of silence, then Peter cleared his throat.
“Oh, no, Peter!” Kevin cried. “Not you, too?”
He shrugged, obviously embarrassed. “He had me right where he wanted me. You all knew Baxter. Remember how he was always in need of quick cash?”
“This is the truth,” Raoul said calmly. “I can’t tell you how many times he forgot his wallet and I had to pay for his dinner.”
“That was one of his favorite tricks,” Colette agreed.
Savannah’s lips twisted. “He pulled that one on me a few times, too.”
“Right-o.” Peter nodded. “The story he gave me was that because of the economy, he was having trouble rounding up investors for this place. When I told him I couldn’t help him, he suggested that I might not want a certain bit of information to become public. So I was forced to become a silent partner, as he put it. I gave him the start-up money for BAX.”
“Ah, so it wasn’t blackmail,” Kevin said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “It was an investment.”
“Exactly,” Peter said, unable to meet her blunt gaze. “Pretty stupid to let him do that to me, I know. But at the time, I couldn’t think of another way out.”
“Join the club,” Margot said, then added bitterly, “That was our Baxter. Manipulator extraordinaire.”
“I prefer the term royal ass hat,” Peter grumbled.
So much for all that love they’d been spewing forth all evening. What did it say about me that I was more comfortable with them now that they’d dropped the pretense? I’d known all along that Baxter didn’t have friends—just people he hadn’t used yet. But I’d been willing to go along with the respectful, if less than honest, tone of the group. Guess that was over.
“Well, I’m shocked,” Colette said righteously. “I can’t believe so many of you could allow yourselves to be used and abused like that.”
Monty snorted. “Oh, shut up.”
“Come on, Colette,” Peter said. “You know how Baxter was. When I told him I didn’t appreciate being blackmailed, he laughed. Laughed! He’d justified in his mind that it was simply a case of friends supporting friends.”
“It’s a wonder no one’s killed him before this,” Dalton muttered darkly.
“True enough,” Derek finished, giving a brief nod to his brother. “So, Peter, you, Margot, and Montgomery were being blackmailed. Is that it?”
No one else spoke up. I looked around the table, studying the faces of people I’d thought I knew. Any of them could still be guarding their secrets. Protecting themselves. Or that could be the end of it. Peter, Margot, and Monty, and no one else. Who knew with this crowd?
In the silence, Margot stood, took in a deep, cleansing breath, and spread her arms in earth mother style, her filmy butterfly shawl flowing around her. “I’ve accepted my fate and I refuse to be negative anymore. The money’s gone and Baxter is, too. I choose to believe that my money allowed him to see his dream become a reality. He opened this beautiful space and invited us all to be a part of it.”
“That’s lovely,” Savannah said, and I almost shook my head at my sister’s genuine goodness and na?veté. If Savannah had been on the Titanic and someone had tossed her a deck chair as she floundered in the icy sea, my sister would have been charmed by the lovely grain of the wood.
Always looking on the upside, that was Savannah.
“That’s bullshit,” Colette said.
I leaned toward Colette’s opinion. I took one look at Derek’s expression and knew we were both thinking the same thing. There was nothing lovely about blackmail.
But we did have a lovely new motive for murder.
*