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Archie repeated in disbelief, “The spirits demanded his death?”

“According to the letter. I know. It’s crazy. I can’t believe somebody like Baker bought into that garbage.”

“I can’t believe any of it.” Archie felt stunned. Of all the possible scenarios, this one had never occurred to him.

“It’s a detailed confession.” Beau reached out and brushed his thumb beneath Archie’s eye, wiping away the wet. “You had it right. He was stealing from John’s investments. For years. To the tune of three million dollars.”

Three million dollars. How was that even possible?

“John either didn’t notice or wasn’t sure what was going on until he flew back from Wyoming with you. I guess at that point he decided to go through his statements, realized the discrepancies were real, and confronted Leo, and Leo somehow decided he didn’t have any choice but to get rid of John.”

Archie drew in a shuddering breath. He was past tears, though. The anger was almost worse. There was no outlet for it. He burst out, “Why the hell didn’t he shoot himself then? Why kill John if he was just going to…”

Beau, had no answer of course. What answer could there be? He shook his head, said finally, “He couldn’t do it himself, because they were friends, so he enlisted Jon Monig, who, in addition to being on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, had his own issues with John. And you.”

“Me?”

“Leo was going to pay Monig one hundred thousand dollars. But two things happened. Monig got the bright idea of trying to frame you, which Leo correctly believed was going to backfire. Leo figured you’d be blamed anyway, because you had the most compelling motive. In his view. He thought that would solve all his problems because of Oregon’s slayer law. If you were found guilty of murdering John, you couldn’t inherit. But apparently Monig blamed you for John not marrying his mother—”

“Are you— What?”

“He wanted to make sure you came under suspicion.”

Archie absorbed that. “You said two things happened. What was the other thing?”

“The other thing was Monig got greedy and decided he could blackmail Leo.”

Oh. Yes. That would have been a fatal mistake.

Archie’s thoughts cycled back to the most shocking information. “I can’t believe he killed himself. I thought for sure he’d come after me.”

“Oh, he was,” Beau assured him. “That’s in the letter too. He said he could tell you weren’t buying his story about John paying off Monig. He knew you were going to have to go too, if only to gain himself more time. But then, I guess something happened last night?”

Beau was eyeing Archie curiously.

Archie thought back to the séance, to those strangely comforting moments when he’d felt surrounded, engulfed by a sense of…something he still couldn’t define.

He said, “At the séance. I felt something. I don’t think I felt what Leo felt.”

“What Leo felt was his guilty, gutless conscience. He claimed to feel terrible about having to lose John, and that he got physically sick after killing Monig, but I think he’d have gotten over it. He’d have come after you.”

“Yes.” In some cold, implacable corner of his brain, Archie had been counting on it.

But in the end Leo had robbed him of that, too.

Or maybe saved him from it.

He wasn’t sure. He knew what John would have thought, though.

Beau said, “The difference is, you’d be a hell of a lot harder to take down than Monig. I think Leo knew it was over for him and he took the coward’s way out.”

“Did he say anything? At John’s grave?”

Beau said harshly, “He said, ‘Sorry, Pris.’ And then blew his brains out in front of her and everyone else.”

Archie closed his eyes to that image, closed his mind to all of it. There was only so much anger, grief, loss you could take before you had to call for a time out.

Beau said, “It’s a long letter. Full of rambling, self-exculpatory bullshit. You can read it yourself. When you’re ready.”