style="font-size:15px;"> Now there was an irritating thought.
Jackson Mayweather’s svelte blonde wife, Laura, signaled to the attendant waiting by the breakfast buffet to circle the table with the coffeepot again. “You keep talking about Charlotte. What are you doing about protecting my Bailey? She’s a rich girl, too.”
Jackson reached across the corner of the table and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ve stepped up security here. I’m paying Quinn Gallagher’s security company for a round-the-clock physical presence on the estate.”
“That protects Charlotte—she’s a homebody.”
Trip shook off the attendant’s offer to heat up his full cup of coffee. “She goes to work at the museum, doesn’t she?”
“When it’s closed.” Laura Austin-Mayweather dismissed Trip’s question as easily as she dismissed the servant. Her focus was on whatever her husband had to say. “What about when Bailey has a party to attend? Or is out on a date?”
Jackson patted her hand as he pulled away. “I’ll assign one of the guards to follow her 24/7.”
Trip crossed to the table and set his cup and saucer down. “Are you making the same arrangements for Charlotte?”
With a gesture to an empty chair, Jackson asked him to sit. “That’s why I invited you to this meeting, son. You and I need to have a discussion.”
“I’m listening.” Trip rested one hand on the back of a chair and the other near his badge on his utility belt, opting to stand. He didn’t fault Mrs. Mayweather for worrying about her daughter’s safety, but he had a feeling the psychological and physical attacks on Charlotte were specifically for Charlotte, and that no one else in this family was in any real danger. He had a feeling Jackson Mayweather sensed that as well, but was humoring his wife.
But Spencer Montgomery wasn’t in the mood to humor anybody. He reached inside the pocket of his suit coat. “My job isn’t security. It’s solving these murders. I would think getting a serial killer off the streets would make everyone feel safer. Now if you and your lawyer will allow me to resume my interview? Even secondhand observations might be helpful.” He set a clear plastic evidence bag holding the cell phone Trip had taken off Bud Preston on the table. “Can anyone here tell me how this phone got into Miss Mayweather’s hands? From what I understand, she doesn’t go shopping for such things.”
Trip scanned the men and woman at the table right along with Detective Montgomery. Mrs. Mayweather looked to her husband, who looked to his stepson, Kyle, whose gaze fixed on the man with the glasses sitting across the table from him.
Jackson seemed displeased with the silence. “As soon as Charlotte told me she wanted to attend Richard’s funeral service, I realized she’d need a new phone to keep in contact with me.”
The brown-haired man with the wire-framed glasses dabbed his napkin against his lips and cleared his throat. Jeffrey Beecher was here representing the event staff that had worked on the estate and at the cemetery. “You hired our company to make sure everything ran smoothly yesterday. Maintaining communication between your family and our staff at Mt. Washington and here was key to a successful day. So I took the liberty of providing phones for each family member.”
Detective Montgomery made the notation in his notebook. “Who had access to the numbers besides you?”
“The clerk at the phone company. Anyone with access to their database.”
“I’m talking about anyone here at the house—before the funeral.”
Jeffrey returned Kyle’s pointed glare, apparently willing to share information, but not to take blame. “Mr. Austin told me to get five phones that he could hand out before everyone left for the cemetery. I set them on the credenza in the foyer, like you asked.”
Jackson tossed his napkin on the table and faced his stepson. “Kyle, I asked you to get that new number for Charlotte—to help your sister. She trusts the family.”
“I had things to do yesterday, Jackson. Meetings. The hired help was right there, willing to do whatever we needed. I delegated.”
Trip cared less about the family dynamics and more about the obvious lapse in security. “So the phones were sitting there all morning. Anyone in this house could have gotten the number and called her with the threat—family, regular staff, event staff, guests.”
Jackson drummed his fist on the table. “You will not accuse my family of any wrongdoing. We’re the victims here.”
No, Charlotte and Richard Eames were the only victims in this house. “Sir, with all due respect, you asked me here this morning to report everything that happened while I was with your daughter. You wanted someone from the outside with no connection to your family to share his observations. You must have some suspicions.”
“I asked you here because you’re a SWAT cop, as finely trained as any elite military officer.”
Kyle snickered into his coffee cup. “He called you because you’re the only man with a gun and a badge that she’s let close enough to do her any good these past ten years.”
“Kyle,” Laura chided her son.
He swallowed the last drop and set down his cup. “The last man she trusted enough to protect her outside this house was murdered. I can see why he’d rather have this Robocop than an old man around to look after her.”
Trip’s hand fisted around the top rung of the chair. Thank goodness Charlotte wasn’t here to hear that cold bit of compassion. “Well, then—speaking as a representative of Charlotte’s best interests—her stalker is someone who’s been in this house, right under your nose. Now I don’t know if it’s the same guy as the Rich Girl Killer, but I do know she’s not safe here. It’s an illusion you can’t keep letting her live with.”
“My daughter is very fragile.”
“Thank you.” Kyle threw up his hands as if he’d just scored a point. “I’ve been trying to tell you that Char’s eccentricities border on mental instability.”
“You’re not helping, Kyle.”
“I’m the one watching your money, Jackson. She’s the one who’s giving it away like candy.”
“Her charities give her a connection to the outside world. Writing a check isn’t the same as being strong enough to face that world.”
The woman Trip had seen wrestling with the dog, the woman who’d come at him with a sword and a rebel yell, wasn’t fragile. And the woman he’d kissed certainly wasn’t mentally unstable. “Give your daughter some credit, Mayweather. It’s not the way I would have done it, but she was resourceful enough to save herself yesterday, and that night your chauffeur was killed.”
Spencer Montgomery smoothed his tie and stood. “The Rich Girl Killer doesn’t shoot his victims in the middle of traffic jams.”
“Somebody was shooting yesterday.” Trip reminded him, “He worked with gang members last year when he was going after Audrey Kline. Maybe he has another ally this time.”
“The RGK is hands-on.” The detective continued to quote his by-the-book profile
