Page 78 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

I’m pretty sure I break the sound barrier driving to Richard Taybolt’s place.

D.I. Neeley wasn’t all that concerned about Taybolt, suggesting that he probably just stepped away from his phone, and couldn’t justify sending a deputy out there simply because the man wasn’t picking up.

I, on the other hand, have a bad feeling about it. I can’t pin it on one thing in particular, because it’s actually several things when taken together. Things that make this case look off .

The private investigator tailing me.

Fogerty insisting he wasn’t responsible for Kamden Avery’s murder.

Fogerty’s assassination.

John Parry’s missing message to the sheriff’s department, followed by him being run off the road.

If I were an outsider looking at this case, presented with the facts we have now and asked for my opinion…I’d have to say it seems like these aren’t random events. It feels an awful lot like there’s some kind of orchestration going on.

Orchestration means planning. It means resources and execution. It means someone or something bigger than Kurt Fogerty or any single individual is working behind the scenes. If that’s true, it changes the nature of the game and the players entirely .

It would also mean that D.I. Neeley might be very, very wrong about Richard Taybolt’s safety.

I roar into Taybolt’s driveway and fly to the front door, pummeling it with my fist. “Mr. Taybolt? Mr. Taybolt? Are you there? It’s Sophie Walsh, with the sheriff’s department. Mr. Taybolt?—”

The door rips away from my hand, and I find myself staring into the red, glaring face of a wispy-haired man in his eighties. “What in the world are you doing?! What is wrong with you?” he blasts at me.

I’m so relieved, I don’t even care that he’s angry. “I was…we were…worried about you, Mr. Taybolt. I’m an investigator with the sheriff’s department. We’ve been trying to reach you since you called this morning.”

“What? No—oh, good night,” he says, huffing exasperatedly and shaking his head. He turns away from me and stomps back into the house, leaving the door open. “Dang phone,” he grumbles.

I take his leaving the door open as an invitation to follow. I move deeper into the ranch-style home, into what I presume is his den, and he begins throwing things around, apparently searching for his phone. A newspaper flies into the air, along with a sweater.

“Granddaughter got it for me and convinced me to turn off the land line, but now I can’t ever find the blasted thing.

I had it in here, last I—Ugh, here it is.

” Richard Taybolt turns back toward me, cell phone in hand.

He squints at it disapprovingly before bringing it even closer and tapping on the screen.

“Yeah, I see where you called.” He looks at me over the top of his glasses. “Good night! Y’all called a lot. What’dya think, I died or something? I’m not that old.”

“No, sir, we?—”

“Think y’all overreacted a bit?”

“Uh, yes, sir. We may have.”

“Hmm,” he grumbles, then motions for me to take a seat on a maroon-and-teal striped chair that must have been super popular in 1993. Richard lowers himself into a matching chair on the other side of a heavy cherry side table.

“You’re not who I talked to last time,” he says.

“No, sir?— ”

“You can dispense with all the sirs. It’s Rick.”

I smile and nod. “Rick. You spoke with a colleague of mine, Deputy Investigator Mike Neeley, last time.”

For the first time, Rick doesn’t look like he wants to chase me off. “That’s right. That’s who I left the message for.”

“Investigator Neeley may have interviewed you after the body was found on your property, but the case has since been turned over to me. Your message said you remembered something you needed to tell us?”

“Yeah.” He pats his absent stomach, hidden beneath a short-sleeved plaid shirt two sizes too big.

“The day y’all found her, that Neeley detective asked me whether I remembered seeing anyone on the property, anyone driving back to the bluff, and so on.

I didn’t, so I said no. Wasn’t much I could tell him.

But then, yesterday I found a business card in my kitchen drawer—it was for this lawyer who came around last June sometime, least I think it was June, coulda been later.

Maybe July. I remember it was before the fireworks?—”

“Do you remember why he came around?”

He snorts. “’Course. He was asking if I wanted to sell the place.”

“You still have the card?”

“Hold on a second.” Rick pushes out of his chair and shuffles to the kitchen. He comes back, holding a card out and I take it.

Franklin Donner, Attorney-at-Law. The office address is in Huntsville.

“What did he say, exactly?” I ask.

“That he represented a buyer who wasn’t from here, but was interested in my property.

I asked him why-in-the-world was he interested, ’cause I can’t think of one reason somebody’d want to snap up this place.

He told me his buyer wanted to build some kind of retreat hotel or spa or some such. Can’t see it myself.”

It did sound odd. This place is pretty far off the beaten path. But maybe that made it a good option for a retreat. The bluff did have a nice view of the river, but still…

“Did he say who his buyer was?”

Rick shakes his head. “I asked a couple times, then gave up. I told him I wasn’t selling.

Lived here most of my life with my wife, Anne, until she passed two years ago.

Every memory worth keepin’ was made on this piece of land.

Ain’t no amount of money worth that. Only way I’m leaving is the same way she did. ”

“How’d he take it?”

“Seemed disappointed. He started at three hundred grand, which is the top end of what this property’s worth, and a good price if I was inclined to sell, which I’m not.

I told him no thanks, and he bumped it up to four hundred without blinkin’.

I told him the answer was still no, and he left.

Thought that was the end of it, but he called two more times in the following weeks, telling me his buyer really wanted the property and was willing to negotiate.

That he’d make it worth my while. I told him my ‘while’ was worth quite a bit,” Rick says, and laughs.

I laugh too, because Rick looks pretty proud of himself for that one.

“No intention of sellin’, mind,” he adds. “Just wanted to see how high he’d go.”

“Did he make you an offer?”

“Sure did. Seven-hundred thousand. And the last one, the one he made after that, was a million-five.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“Crazy money. I started to get the sense things weren’t on the up and up.

” He leaned in, his eyes narrowing conspiratorially.

“Like maybe they knew something I didn’t.

Like maybe there’s oil buried here and I might could be the next Jed Clampett.

If I wanted to sell, which I don’t. Could offer ten million and I ain’t leavin’.

What do I need that kinda money for? Rather have my memories. ”

Rick keeps talking, but my brain is whirring.

I’ll bet they knew something was buried here.

It just wasn’t oil.

As the office of Franklin Donner, Attorney-at-Law, is in Huntsville, I figure I’ll kill two birds and head to my office first to knock out some unrelated casework before paying the counselor a surprise visit.

When I arrive, I say a quick hello to Goat—sometimes I wonder if he sleeps here—then start reading emails.

I’ve got fifteen work-related emails and 3,292 personal ones.

I swear these things multiply faster than TikTok trends.

For a year I’ve told myself—delete a hundred a day and your inbox will be cleared out in a month.

I haven’t done it once.

I scan the new personal emails, see nothing I need to handle right away, and move to my professional inbox.

I return a few calls, forward the Arizona address I received for my client’s business partner who skipped town—he’ll be thrilled we can finally serve him with papers—and reach out regarding a potential new case from my long-standing client, U.S.

Mutual Insurance, involving a potentially fraudulent hundred-thousand-dollar jewelry claim.

That finished, I switch over to what I really want to be doing at the moment. Learning everything I can about Franklin Donner.

Donner is one of four senior partners in the Lakin, Lancaster, Donner and Pyle law firm in Huntsville.

Donner’s a trial lawyer who handles big-money, high-end civil trials, repping corporate clients in lawsuits.

Which means brokering a real estate deal with Richard Taybolt—especially one in the backwoods of Mitchell County—is outside his typical practice area.

So why was he involved?

I want to see him in person to put the question to him—not that I’ll get an answer, but you can learn a lot from how people react. Problem is, lawyers aren’t usually available for last-minute meetings with people they don’t know.

So, I’ll just have to make sure he does want to see me.

I don’t bother changing into my surveillance costume for this meeting, but I do call ahead with a fake name, as the fake CEO of a fake company, looking to hire independent counsel to monitor an ongoing lawsuit.

I’ll be found out as soon as I meet Donner, but that should at least get me in the door.

I’m lucky—he’s in today, which isn’t always the case with lawyers.

And he has time for a thirty-minute meeting if I can get there by two .

Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.

The law office consumes most of the eleventh floor of a downtown bank building in Huntsville.

At two o’clock I step out of the elevator into a white-marble-tiled lobby furnished with black leather furniture and original art on the walls.

A reserved receptionist locks eyes with me as I approach her ebony-lacquered counter.

“May I help you?”

“Mollie Sanders to see Frank Donner.” Mollie Sanders was my best friend in the sixth grade. Hopefully she doesn’t mind me hijacking her name.

She asks me to have a seat in one of the chairs and offers me a Fiji water, which I take her up on.

I’ve only had two sips when she announces Donner’s ready for me and escorts me to a conference room a short way down the first hallway we enter.

Broad windows offer a view of downtown and a constant stream of vehicles soldiering ant-like along the thoroughfares.

“Ms. Sanders?”

Frank Donner walks toward me, extending his hand.

I shake it, knowing that’s probably the last time he’s going to feel like being cordial to me.

When he gestures at a seat, I take it. He sits down across from me, sucking in a breath like he’s about to launch into whatever his first-time meeting speech is, when I cut him off.

“Mr. Donner, I have to apologize. I misled you to get this meeting on short notice.”

His chest freezes mid-inhale, his eyebrows drawing to a point so sharp that he’d slit his hand open if he dragged it across his forehead. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m Sophie Walsh, an investigator with the Mitchell County Sheriff’s Department. I need to speak with you concerning contact you had with Richard Taybolt. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to see you without the subterfuge and there’s an urgency to my investigation.”

“You’re here about the dead woman found on Saturday.” It isn’t a question. He leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest, his features stony.

“Exactly.”

“I don’t see how I can help you. ”

So, it’s gonna be like that, is it?

“Mr. Taybolt told me that you approached him on a number of occasions regarding the purchase of his property, which includes the area where the body of Kamden Avery was discovered on Saturday.”

He doesn’t flinch. “Okay.”

“I was hoping you would share the name of your buyer with me.”

Donner snorts, eyeing me with disbelief. “I’m assuming this isn’t your first time out of the gate, Ms. Walsh. You know I can’t share confidential information like that with you, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.”

“How about sharing the reasons behind wanting the property? Mr. Taybolt said you told him your client intended to build a spa resort there?”

Donner stares me down, his fingers digging deeper into his starched, white sleeves where his hands grasp his arms. I’m not surprised he won’t tell me anything.

He’s right about that. Still, it was worth asking, because, well, you never know.

But getting answers to my questions wasn’t the only reason I came.

I’m also here to lay eyes on him, get the measure of the situation, and take his temperature.

Based on what I’m seeing, it’s red hot.

Most lawyers would be ticked off by my little deception—I know this from experience—but they typically won’t react to my request with such animosity, even when they aren’t inclined to help.

In fact, when I’ve tried similar stunts before, a surprising few have offered to ask their client for permission to divulge whatever information I was seeking, just to get me off their backs.

That is definitely not happening here.

However, if Donner thinks his antagonistic approach will discourage me, he has seriously miscalculated. If anything, it makes me think I’m onto something.

I push my chair out and stand. “Mr. Donner, I understand your reticence, but making unusual offers on land later discovered to have a body buried on it, is rather suspicious. I’d love another spa fifteen minutes from my house—you’re aware there’s one at the Riverview Hotel, right?

But no one in Mitchell County is going to believe anyone with half a brain would buy Taybolt’s property to build another one— much less for five times its market value.

Which begs the question, what is the real reason your client wanted that property? ”

When he doesn’t answer, I move to the door, turning as I reach it for one last shot over the bow. “You can tell me now, and save yourself and your client a lot of trouble, or you can put both of you in the bullseye of my investigation.”

Crickets.

“Alrighty, then,” I say, and head for the lobby, leaving him speechless—a rare thing for a paid mouthpiece.

I wonder how long he’ll wait before calling his client.

And how long it’ll take the hornets from the nest I’ve just kicked over to find their way to me.