Free Lucy and the Valentine Verdict by Rae Davies Page B

she owed
it to me.
    “I have to admit, I was confused at first
too. Not so much by who took your watch. I wasn’t even sure it had
been stolen, but with why I suddenly seemed to be getting so much
attention as a potential suspect in the murder game. Now I realize
that was part of the cover up. The true thief must have realized
that you had confused me with her, and she wanted to keep the focus
on me as much as she could. So she rigged Mandrake’s cards to cast
doubt on me. The poem was a double dig, putting more doubt on me
and calling you out for what she thought of you marrying her
father.”
    The ladies in the room, with the exception
of Lady York and the thief herself, gasped. The men responded too,
but with more variety, ranging from open mouths to uneasy
frowns.
    Feeling just like a star sleuth, I pulled in
a breath. “And now, I will name the thief!”
    “No need.” Miss Claythorne pushed Mandrake
out of her path and moved within a few feet of her father’s new
wife. “I took the watch, but I didn’t steal it. It’s mine. It
wasn’t ever my father’s, not really. It was my mother’s. She would
have wanted me to have it.” She looked at Lady York,
challenging.
    Our hostess lifted one brow and looked at
her husband.
    He dropped his gaze.
    Frowning, Lady York looked back at Miss
Claythorne. “You can’t expect me to take your word on who you
are.”
    “You don’t need to take my word. Just read
the papers my attorney sent my father, the ones you
intercepted.”
    “I would never–”
    “We know you did. You signed for them.”
    Lady York glanced at the door. If she was
hoping for a rescue, none came.
    “After my private investigator found my
father, I tried calling, but after her meeting with him, you must
have found out and intercepted all of my efforts. I realized if I
wanted to meet him myself, I’d have to give up on being invited and
just show up. I researched some more.
    “That’s how I found out about you and your
past; it’s also how I found out about your mystery weekends.”
    “So the poem?” I asked.
    Miss Claythorne shrugged. “Cheap shot, but I
was mad. I knew she’d intercepted the papers and my calls. Knowing
that she was doing whatever she could to keep him from meeting with
me...when I saw her wearing my mother’s watch, I snapped.”
    “How’d you know it was your mother’s?” I
asked.
    She pulled out an old photo. Sir Arthur was
in it with a dark-haired woman. The woman was wearing the
watch.
    “My private investigator got this. It was
the first time I’d seen either of my parents.”
    Miss Brent, or Michelle, as Mandrake had
called her, looked just like her mother. Sir Arthur had to have
known who she was as soon as she walked into the house.
    She looked at her father, her eyes sad. He
cast his gaze to the ground.
    An awkward silence fell over the group after
that. I felt a bit like a character in
Ten
Little Indians
, trapped in a house with people I didn’t
particularly like or trust. Except Peter, of course, and Kiska, and
Mrs. Peabody.
    She was the one who saved the day, herding
everyone out of the living room and into the dining room where she
and her husband took over, setting up the TV and a marathon of
movies. They also raided the kitchen, bringing in popcorn and soda
and expensive-looking hand-dipped chocolates that I’m sure weren’t
meant for us.
    I grabbed three of the gourmet bonbons and
popped them one by one into my mouth. Peter made do with popcorn,
eating it at a frustratingly slow speed of one piece at a time.
    “What do you think is going to happen?” I
asked him.
    “With the watch?”
    I nodded.
    “Not much, I’d guess, unless the daughter
refuses to give it back and Arthur and Lady York want to press
charges.”
    “He won’t.” The guilt I’d seen on Sir
Arthur’s face assured me of that.
    “Then she’ll probably get to keep it.” He
ate some more popcorn, completely uninterested in anything past the
possible legal