Starfish Island (29 page)

He retrieved his clothes off the chair, throwing on his shirt and zipping his shorts. She admired his long tan legs, remembering how easily they wrapped around her. She liked the shorts he’d chosen; she’d love to shop for him, as their casual styles were very much in sync.

Michael went into the closet and came out with several hangers and a pair of shoes. “I had people stationed all over your house last night. Jake had guard duty at the front door, and Zander was in the bedroom next to yours.”

He scooped her off the bed to stand in front of him.

“I can dress myself.” She jerked a pair of lacey black briefs from his hands.

“Haven’t you noticed that I’m used to getting my way?” He bent over. “Hands on my shoulders.” He took the panties back and tapped one leg, had her step into them, then the other, and pulled them up, kissing the tops of her inner thighs and her most intimate place. She dug her nails into his shoulders as the pleasurable jolt ran through her. He tapped her legs again, pulling a tropical-print skirt over her legs and lightly running his nails from her ankles up under her skirt, all the way to her waist. He gently guided Nicole to sit back on the bed and bit each nipple before pulling a chemise over her head.

She threw her head back. He was close enough for her to wrap her legs around him and slide off the mattress, and before he could catch her, they both fell to the floor.

“Behave yourself,” he growled, the corners of his mouth turning up.

They sat on the floor, Nicole straddling his lap. Michael reached for a sleeveless linen top, which he pulled over her head. When he finished dressing her, he seared her lips with a kiss and lifted her to her feet. She went to look in the mirror. Her hair had dried into a mass of curls, her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was tousled—everyone would know what they’d been doing.

Nicole smoothed out the few wrinkles in her clothing. True, Michael had not been guilty of all the things she’d thought in the last twenty-four hours, but how would he survive the scandal of being involved with her and the disreputable people she surrounded herself with? He was separated from her as much as before.

He came up behind her and put his arms around her. “Are you okay?”

She turned in his arms, standing on tiptoe to kiss him hard. “I’m fine.” It was a sober Nicole who went with Michael down the spiral staircase into the living room.
 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

WHEN THEY WALKED into the room, Cecilia ran to greet Nicole.  “Happy you came down.”

Nicole hugged her. “Thank you for everything.”

Jake, standing close by, enveloped her in a bear hug next.

Then Michael sat her on the couch, telling her to stretch out. He seemed to be watching her carefully, and they exchanged heated smiles that made her skin burn.

“Michael, we’re all waiting for the details,” Cecilia said. “After all, it was you who put all the pieces together.”

Sebastian leaned back in a chair next to Cecilia, his long legs stretched out.

Michael shook his head. “The real credit goes to Zander,” he said. “After he turned up in my car, he had to do some quick talking to convince me that he was FBI. He was gambling on the fact that I wouldn’t do anything to blow his cover before I had his story checked out. At first, I didn’t believe him. When I made it clear I was going to turn him over to the cops, he knocked me out, which made me even more suspicious. You can imagine my surprise when I found out it was true. Sebastian has a friend who was able to confirm that Zander was working undercover for the FBI. Asked us not to blow his cover. Zander told me he had a job to do, but that it didn’t include selling out the woman he loved.”

Nicole heard about every third word. She was fighting to keep from moaning. Michael had put her feet in his lap and pulled off her shoes, dumping them on the floor, and his magic fingers had gone to work on her feet. She tried, with no success, to get her feet out of his grasp and tuck them beneath her, but he must have read her mind because he tightened his hold.

Michael paused for a moment. “This part of the story is what Zander told me last night. Ellis bribed a justice of the peace in upstate Maine to obtain a forged marriage certificate, then paid a court clerk to backdate Lucia and Kirkland’s marriage into the county records. Next, he drew up a phony will, leaving Caroline’s estate to Kirkland and any wife or children. He needed to be patient and wait for Caroline to die, which any sudden shock might accomplish.”

Cecilia stood, all eyes on her. “Would anyone like a refill?”

There were several takers. Taking advantage of everyone’s distraction, Nicole nudged Michael in the ribs with her toes. “Stop it!” she mouthed. He tickled the bottom of her foot, and she almost jumped off the couch, smothering a giggle.

He leaned forward and whispered, “What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing. Now stop.” She frowned at him.

“You’re lying. I have methods for getting at the truth. I’ll squeak it out of you.” He glared at her, but his eyes betrayed him; they were filled with amusement.

She couldn’t help but wonder if his “methods” had anything to do with her stretched out naked on that big bed with his body looming over her. “Behave,” she whispered back.

Michael picked up his water bottle, taking a drink.  “Where were we…ah, yes, now for the Greys’ part. Chester exploded when he found out that Ellis had bribed Lucia with jewels. He wanted cash, and lots of it. He had plans to leave Florida for the retirement mecca of Costa Rica. So he made his own plan to bypass Ellis by forcing Lucia to come here and tell Caroline that she and Kirkland had married. She produced the phony marriage certificate for Caroline, cementing her claim to Kirkland’s insurance money. As we already know, Caroline had prepared a withdrawal slip and planned to get Lucia a cashier’s check the following day. But Zander, made suspicious by the expensive jewelry Lucia had started wearing, followed her to the house and overheard her conversation with Caroline by secreting himself outside the windows of the library. He saw through the whole plot in a flash because he knew Lucia had never married Kirkland.”

“I’m happy to hear Zander wasn’t part of the scheme,” Jake commented, adding that he’d always liked the guy.

“Zander knew that if Lucia took the money from Caroline and was ever found out, she could be charged with a felony. He snuck in through the window to avoid a confrontation with Chester and told Caroline the truth—that Ellis and Chester had conspired to get their hands on her money with a forged will and a fake marriage.”

Nicole felt overwhelmingly sad for her grandmother, made aware in her last days of the level of deceit practiced on her by people she loved and trusted. 

Michael continued. “Caroline didn’t believe him. She thought Zander’s rant was prompted by jealousy. Her mistake was that she asked Ellis to hire a detective to check into Kirkland’s marriage. She never once doubted Ellis’s honesty; she only suspected Chester. You can imagine Ellis’s shock when she spoke with him and he realized she knew all about his plans. The worst part came when she saw the truth written on his face.”

“Poor Caroline,” Cecilia said, tears in her eyes. “I’m certain that his betrayal killed her.”

Michael nodded. “She trusted Ellis and was confident in his honesty; after all, they’d been friends and business colleagues for years. Last night at police headquarters, Ellis admitted that, when she realized what he’d done, she fell back dead. He knew she’d made a note to herself to have a detective check on Kirkland’s marriage because she’d told him so during their conversation, but he had no time to look for it. He became frantic.” He looked at Nicole. “That was why Rena stationed herself at the front door, waiting for the key to the closet. She needed to go through the clothes first because they figured the note had to be there, as it hadn’t been found anywhere else. It was the only place Caroline might have left something that they hadn't been able to check, since I had the key. What had them second-guessing themselves and arguing was that they didn’t know exactly what Caroline had written. It might have blown their whole scheme wide open.”

Michael downed his water, tossing the bottle into the trashcan. “Ellis was all ready to produce the will he’d forged, but before he could do it, the safe deposit box was opened and there was Caroline’s new will—one he’d known nothing about—leaving everything to a woman he’d never heard of. It must have been the biggest shock of his miserable life.”

“It certainly came as a shock to me,” Nicole admitted. Something clicked in her mind as she finally realized that the story Ellis had told her about Michael refusing to marry her had been a lie, invented on the spur of the moment to make Nicole dislike Michael. How close he’d come to succeeding. Ellis had recognized their chemistry the first day Nicole arrived on Starfish Island and known that a real relationship between them would kill his plans.

“Everything surrounding the death of Caroline made headlines. The spotlight centered on the Alexander estate and the story of the unexpected heiress. Ellis didn’t dare produce his own phony will,” Jake mused.

“Ellis had two big reasons to be careful,” Michael said. “One was the publicity, and the other was Zander. He confronted Ellis and told him that he knew all about the forged documents and that if he produced them in court, Zander would expose the fraud. Ellis didn’t know that Zander worked for the FBI. Nor did he know that Zander had already linked him to the land-fraud scheme. The forgery didn’t interest the Bureau, but bringing down a scam that had raked in millions would be a career boaster.”

Sebastian shook his head. “It’s hard to run a scam with so many people involved; the first time someone gets greedy, the con begins to crumble. Once that happens, it’s damn difficult to resurrect.”

“Before Ellis could produce his phony will, he had to eliminate Zander and deal with Nicole. The whole time, Zander was working on Lucia, telling her the consequences of getting in too deep and that she didn’t have a chance of escaping a jail sentence unless she quit the scheme and told the authorities everything she knew. He told Lucia he loved her and wasn’t going anywhere, that he’d always be there for her,” Michael said.

“I hope she chose love over greed,” Nicole said.

Michael smiled at her. “Ellis turned the problem of controlling Zander over to Chester, which turned out to be the first of many big mistakes. Lucia stopped siding with her father when it came to confronting Zander. It didn’t help that Chester used force to control her, which only made her more resolutely in favor of Zander. Ellis, thinking Chester had that problem under control, went to work on Nicole. He was responsible for Greg Templeton coming to the island.”

“How did Ellis and Greg know each other?” Nicole asked. “Such an extraordinary coincidence.”

“The next part of this story is yours,” Michael said, pointing at Sebastian.

Sebastian moved over next to Cecilia, putting his arm around her. “Templeton folded when they arrested him. He was just a small-time criminal with no previous record who got in over his head. His only claim to fame was swindling women out of their fortunes. He couldn’t hold his own with interrogators, and they chewed on him until he caved. Against his attorney’s advice, he came clean, blaming everything on Ellis. It seems that Ellis and Kat have been friends for a long time. When her husband died, she turned to him to help maintain her lifestyle and brought Greg into the picture. Between the three of them, they decided that, considering Greg’s track record with the ladies, he should marry Nicole to gain control of the Alexander estate.”

“Nicole spiked that plan when she saw Greg for the rat he was and dumped him,” Michael pointed out.

“I’m beginning to hate that money!” Nicole exclaimed.

“When his funds ran low, Ellis got desperate and decided to sell off Nicole’s property. You frustrated the hell out of him when you refused to sign; he never considered the possibility that you wouldn’t hand over all decision-making to him,” Sebastian told Nicole. “He had to go back to the drawing board and try to come up with another way to sell off those properties. At the same time, Greg and Katrina honed their plans to snag the richest spouses they could find,” he said, his voice full of sarcasm.

Michael looked at Nicole and smiled faintly. “Once Ellis had surrounded himself with all those vipers, they started to put the squeeze on him. When Nicole arrived in town, Chester decided he wanted a larger share than he’d originally agreed to. Kat and Greg had contrived marriage plans with other people and intended to leave Ellis out in the cold. Zander continuously threatened to expose him and worked on Lucia in the meantime, convincing her to give up her part in the plan.”

“And you forced their hands when you fired Chester,” Jake said. He laughed.

“That was the last straw. Ellis was forced to produce the will, and it was just the break we were waiting for,” Michael said. “Up to that point, he’d kept his tracks well covered. But when Nicole refused to take her disinheritance lying down, he got desperate. He knew the phony will wouldn’t stand up in court. Everything that could go wrong for Ellis had, and we figured that, if he was going to make a move on you, it would be last night. So Jake and I snuck into your house, and I told Zander to get Lucia out even if he had to tie her up.”

Nicole cleared her throat. “Who stalked me through the house?” It was hard to get the words out past her relief.
She could trust Michael.
“At the time, I thought it was Michael.”

“Katrina.”

“Why?” she gasped.

“To kill you,” Michael said matter-of-factly. “She figured, with you out of the way, that not only would she get her part of the Alexander estate through Lucia, but also that I’d come around.”

“And Ellis? Why did he show up?” Nicole asked.

“Knowing that Zander would always be a threat, Ellis was determined to get rid of him. By agreement, he met up with Katrina outside your house and they waited for Zander to sneak in to visit Lucia, as he’d recently made a habit of doing. She planned to shoot you, thinking it the least messy of her choices, and Ellis agreed to do the same to Zander.”