Everyone’s gaze waved over to the man at the head of the table.
Darius didn’t flinch at the dramatic, yet valid, questions.
Instead, he seemed more than ready for them.
“You and Mitchell built your investigation on timing, right? Scott meeting with key individuals in one town before and after something inherently goes wrong, only to be able to fix that exact thing that went wrong.” Eve nodded, not that he needed the confirmation. Her notes had looked like a madwoman’s rantings and ravings as she had tracked Scott over the past ten years as best she could through financial transactions, planners, press releases and gossip.
“There was a lot of overlap of him being at the scene of the crime before the crime happened and then directly after,” she confirmed.
“Like what’s been happening with Clare Biometrics,” Winnie added.
Eve had been the one to personally tell Winnie and Theo everything she knew, while Darius had been in the hospital. However, she was starting to realize that Winnie had a knack for making sure everyone was on the same page. It seemed to be a trait that Theo appreciated too.
Eve nodded.
“The last pharmaceutical company that had used the research annex, Camden Pharmaceuticals, was ruined by corruption, and after the investigations and the company being shut down and having to leave, the whole thing was a big hit against Seven Roads and the county’s future growth. Until Horace took an interest in it and decided to go on contract with Clare Biometrics for the next ten years,” Eve said. “Horace Clare coming to town created excitement and created a positive outlook for Seven Roads, which is what Scott claims hadhimbecome interested in the town.”
“Which seems harmless until you realize that Scott had met with one of the higher-ups of Camden Pharmaceuticals twice before they moved to Seven Roads,” Mitchell added.
“Which, again, might not seem like anything if you look at it as an isolated event, but of the three small towns that Scott has been praised for supposedly saving, there have been similar situations like this,” Eve added.
It was Darius’s turn to nod. He domed his fingers on top of the table.
“The breakthrough you and Mitchell say you made right before Scott insisted on the two of you getting married was finding the flight plans for Scott’s best friend, Toby Sanderson,” he underlined.
Mitchell and Eve confirmed that.
“We realized from the big uproars that happened in the second small town he was praised with saving that Scott hadn’t met with anyone but his best friend and fellow rich socialite Toby Sanderson had,” she said. “And he’d gone there on his private jet. We had finally gotten our hands on a copy of those flight records when Scott told Mitchell to propose.”
“Then Mitchell reached out to Gary Whittaker about the legal side of being married, since he was the family lawyer,” Darius said. He looked to Winnie and Theo. While he had agreed, begrudgingly, to let them in on what was happening, he hadn’t been able to talk to them at the hospital for any real length of time.
Theo let him know that this information was something that they already knew.
“Which seemed to freak Mr. Whittaker out,” Theo finished.
“A feeling he still had when Mitchell went to meet with Gary the day of the wedding,” Winnie said. “Right before he was killedsomewherewithin an hour-and-a-half radius of the diner here in town where he and Mitchell met.”
Despite their harrowing time spent at the steel mill, the site of Gary’s murder was still a mystery, as was his killer.
Darius moved his hand to tap the top of the table, bringing their attention back to him.
“So let’s assume that finding the flight plans and linking Toby Sanderson to Scott’s plans alerted Scott in some way, leading him to force Mitchell to marry Eve—though, I’d like to point out we aren’t sure that’s what happened because the motive there is unclear,” Darius started. “Meeting with the family lawyer only for him to be killed right after seems like too much of a coincidence given our original assumption. I think that either Gary knew something about Scott that he shouldn’t have known, or Scott believed that Mitchell told Gary something he shouldn’t have known. And then suddenly two guns-for-hire come for me and Eve the next day?”
Darius shook his head.
“I think there’s a disconnect between the two sides of what we all assume is connected to the White Knight of Small-town Living,” he continued. “Scott doesn’t know what Mitchell has found out and, like us, is probably only making guesses and reacting to opportunities as fast as he can.”
He paused long enough to jab the tabletop once, but that was enough to make what he said next the star of the show.
“So I want us to make an opportunity of our own that will make him so nervous he’ll be forced to react,” he said. “Then he’s ours.”
THE PLAN TOentrap a millionaire savior by using his best friend to admit to a conspiracy that had been at least ten years in the making wasn’t all that complicated.
The sleeping arrangements that night, however, were.
At least they felt that way to Darius, who’d spent more minutes than he should have staring at his closet before his shower. He chose a full outfit for his sleepwear, a black T-shirtand some sweatpants, and took care to make sure each piece was perfectly in place after slipping into bed once his bandages had been changed and his medicine had been taken.
Theo helped with the latter part of the routine, hanging around in Darius’s bedroom until he was satisfied that he had helped enough. Then he went to the living room and, Darius had no doubt, instantly went to sleep on the couch. Apparently, he hadn’t been getting that much sleep while Darius was in the hospital. Darius made note that, once everything was said and done, he would have to do something for the boy. Winnie too. They might have been young, but they could give most of the adults he’d met in his life a run for their money when it came to being considerate.
