Victor pulled back out of her personal space, as if he had never been there. “You may want to ask Se?ora Whitacre where she was that Friday. And where she was thirty years ago, when her precious duke fell asleep.”
Lana stared at him, hoping he might elaborate. He watched her steadily, his mouth shut, his dark eyes giving away nothing. Then he tipped his hat and strolled away, disappearing into the leafy, outstretched arms of an apple tree.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Lana woke up the next morning to her phone buzzing. She rolled over and looked at the clock. Nine fifteen. Too early, especially on a Sunday. But at least somebody wanted to talk to her.
Her phone showed two text messages: one from Diana Whitacre, one from Jack.
The one from Diana was simple: Need your help. Please call me.
The message from Jack was not. It was a series of blurry black-and-white images, surrounded by grainy text.
Lana put on her reading glasses and dialed. “Jack?”
“Prima.” The girl was whispering. “I’m at the library.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I only have a minute. I’m doing a research project, going through newspaper databases for primary sources, and I had an idea about that thing you told me last night. About Lady Di. I pulled up the archives for the Daily Mail.”
“In England?” Lana was either still half-asleep or just not following.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “I looked her up. Under her old name, Diana Rhoads. And I found it. When she was young, she had a fiancé in England, a duke of somewhere. He died in his sleep, and she was there.”
“Are you serious?”
“I just sent you screenshots. Gotta go.”
Lana pulled herself to a seated position and zoomed in on the photograph on her phone. Jack was right. It was a lurid story about a young duke who died mysteriously in the night on his family’s estate. There, in the caption of the picture, was Diana Rhoads, age twenty-four, grieving fiancée of the deceased. She was wearing a black veil and everything. The other images were from tabloids that picked up the story, casting it in increasingly scandalous terms.
Adrenaline flooded Lana’s body, better than any drug. They’d figured it out. It was Diana. She’d killed a man before. She had access to the victims, the creek, and a life jacket from her daddy’s barn. She’d killed Ricardo. Set up Paul. And then she’d used her old playbook to smother her father into silence and secure control of the ranch.
It sounded good. But it was still circumstantial. Lana had to get concrete evidence of the affair, something more than initials on a day planner that had probably burned up in the fire.
Which was why she picked up the phone and dialed Diana.
The call was brief. Diana thanked her for the notes on her financial models, and then issued another request for help, which was something between a demand and an invitation. One Lana was more than happy to accept.
“I’d be delighted to assist you with your presentation to Martin tonight,” Lana said. “Anything to help a woman entrepreneur.”
She had eight hours to get ready. Lana forced herself to eat a full breakfast, choking down an entire container of cottage cheese with a sorry imposter of a bagel. She planned her outfit carefully, pulling out her best Chanel suit, her Gianvito Rossi black pumps, and the wig that itched, the bob she’d worn to lunch with Diana earlier in the week. She didn’t want any reason for the woman to suspect she was sick, to see her as anything less than formidable.
As she lined up her pills for the day, Lana pondered Diana’s invitation to dinner. Was it sincere, or was it a trap?
Diana claimed she wanted help negotiating a phased buyout with Martin, and that she hoped Lana could help her play hardball on the numbers. Which could be true. Even if Diana had killed Ricardo and Hal, she might still need Lana’s help to get what she wanted.
But the more Lana thought about that, the more it bugged her.
If Diana had willingly killed two men—including her own father—to gain control of the ranch, why hadn’t she killed Martin when he stood in her way? What would happen if she couldn’t convince him to accept the buyout now?
Lana’s mind splintered into possibilities. Maybe Diana didn’t want to kill Martin. Maybe he was important to her in some way that other men in her life were not. If Diana could get Martin to see things her way, she wouldn’t have to hurt him.
Or maybe she already had her younger brother’s support. Maybe Martin had helped her cover up her crimes, and now he and Diana were lying about it, trying to distract Lana from finding out the truth with a fake disagreement about the future of the ranch. Maybe the dinner was a ruse designed to get Lana up to the ranch and put an end to her investigation. In which case, she’d need some backup of her own.
Lana dialed the number, praying this time the woman would pick up.
“Ramirez.” The voice popped out at her halfway through the first ring.
“Detective Ramirez, hello. It’s Lana. Lana Rubicon.”
“Have you found Mr. Hanley?”
“No, but I . . .” She steeled herself. “I think I’ve found the murderer.” Lana quickly explained what she’d figured out about the secret land project, and DR, and Diana’s past fiancé, and the timing of it all.
“I see.” There was a long pause.
“I’ll text you the picture of the old news story right now,” Lana said.
“But you don’t know where Paul Hanley is?”
“Look at the photograph,” Lana urged. “You’ll see how it fits together.”
“And Mrs. Whitacre is where currently?”
“I’m not sure. Probably at her home in Carmel. But she asked me to have dinner with her tonight at the Rhoads ranch. Six o’clock. I was thinking you could maybe come with me. As my date.”
There was silence on the line.
“We’re modern women,” Lana said. “It’s not impossible.”
“Ms. Rubicon, I can’t go with you to a dinner party.”
“Don’t you want to talk with these people about their connection with Ricardo Cruz?”
“Maybe at some point. But right now I’ve got my partner and the chief breathing down my neck to get a certain shaggy-haired kayak shop owner into the station stat.”
“But—”
“Look, Ms. Rubicon, I’m not saying your information isn’t interesting. But right now the only thing we’re focused on is the whereabouts of Paul Hanley. Are you sure you don’t know where he is?”
Lana had learned enough to guess what Paul was up to with his Fruitful enterprise. She thought again about his precious cooler, the one he’d asked Scotty to pick up from the docks. She knew what she had to do.
“If I find him, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”
*
Beth was wrapping up her shift when Martin’s number came up on her phone. She kept scribbling on the last of the day’s charts, letting the call go to voicemail. She’d already gotten two all-caps texts from her mother about Lady Di, and she didn’t need any more distractions. Jack had agreed to join her on a sunset treasure hike, and Beth wasn’t going to screw it up by being late.
On the drive home, he called again.
“Beth, hi.” Martin sounded nervous. “Listen, I’m heading back to the city late tonight. Duty calls. Or rather, my investors do. Seems they’ve run out of patience for my bereavement leave.”
“Did you and your sister work things out?”
“That’s what I’m calling about,” Martin said. “I thought she was finally on board with the sale, but this morning, she told me she wants to do a formal presentation tonight after dinner about her plan for the future and my role in it. And guess who she’s bringing to the house to present alongside her?”
“An architect?”
“Your mother.”
Beth shook her head at the road in front of her. Of course Lana was involved. Was this her mother’s way of getting closer to Lady Di to collect evidence? Or maybe she just couldn’t resist the opportunity to nose her way in on a real estate deal.