Free A Festival of Murder by Tricia Hendricks

money, Ben bought me dinner. I’ll never forget it—surf and turf with the
best lobster I’ve ever eaten. He disappeared the next day. For good. Which
wouldn’t have been such a big deal except it turned out he hadn’t been putting
all of our investors’ money toward the property. He’d been embezzling it.”
    Phoebe
gasped. “He lied to all of you?”
    “I
was twenty-eight years old. I woke up from the dream of being a millionaire to
the reality that I might spend the rest of my life in a federal prison. The
police searched the country for months, but never found Ben. For much of that
time, the police and probably everyone I’d ever known suspected me of having
taken all the money and buried him somewhere. Only Ben’s use of a credit card
at a rental car service in Vietnam and some grainy security photos saved me
from taking the rap for his death, but that didn’t clear me completely.
    “Ben
was labeled a fugitive. They’re probably still searching for him. Meanwhile, I
was left holding the bag. A very large, very empty bag.” He drummed his fingers
hard on the table, not trusting himself with any other movement lest he break
something. “I served time in a federal prison, Phoebe. Not as much as I could
have, since the judge determined that Ben had misled me in addition to the investors.
But I was guilty, nonetheless. My signature was on those papers, too.”
    A
self-flagellating part of himself had welcomed the incarceration, knew he
deserved it. He had vouched for Ben to his family and friends. Ben may have
committed the crime, but Nicholas had served up the victims for fleecing. His
parents. His older sister. Two cousins. So many good friends. He had paid back
as many as he could, but he hadn’t been rich at the time. That had been the
reason for the deception.
    “I
served my time and once freed, I hightailed it out of Tampa and never looked
back.” The mere thought of Tampa made the acid roil in his stomach. His
aversion was so powerful he was positive he would never step foot in the state
of Florida again. Not even for Disneyworld.
    “And
Ben?”
    This
was Nicholas’s favorite part of the story. “A year later I received an unsigned
postcard from Lautoka, Fiji. Apparently, it’s a beautiful place.” He smiled,
but let it disappear when Phoebe winced at the sight of it. “Needless to say, I
burned it on the stove.”
    “You
could’ve shown it to the police.”
    “Unfortunately,
I remembered that only after I woke up the next morning next to two empty
bottles of Tanqueray.”
    She
gazed at him with what he could only interpret as pity. “That explains why you
were so hostile toward Rocky. You were afraid he’d find out about Ben’s scam
and accuse you of trying to perpetrate another.” She thought for a moment. “I’m
surprised the other reporters who interviewed you didn’t learn about your past.”
    “The
publications that wanted my abduction story were interested in the spectacle,
not the truth. Verifying my reliability wasn’t on their agenda. Unfortunately,
it was on Rocky’s. He did learn about Ben and the scam, and he was ready
to write about it. Detective Canberry will see it as my motive for killing him.
He’ll say I wanted to keep Rocky quiet.” Nicholas’s tea was cold and tasteless.
“It’s why I’m anxious to find the guilty party as soon as possible.”
    “But
who could have done it? We don’t have psychopaths up here, Nicholas.”
    “Don’t
we? These people moved to an isolated mountain community in the hopes of
meeting aliens. Those who didn’t come here for a close encounter of the third
kind are running from something.” Just like I tried to do.
    He
waited for Phoebe to comment. Her reasons for being in Hightop were a mystery
to him. She’d said only that she’d left big city life in Denver to get away
from the crowds and to work on some art, yet there were plenty of less strange
towns where she could have done that. Estes Park was a beautiful little