“Not really,” Stefanie told her.Should I mention anything about the allegations leveled at her father, that he was having an affair with Lynda Boxleitner, only to poison her to death?she wondered before deciding it wasn’t her place to do so.
Stefanie suspected that Bella, being as devoted as she was to her family, would deny any unproven insinuations against her father. The fact that he was now deceased made it highly unlikely that the truth would ever come out, one way or the other, in spite of his former gardener’s accusations regarding the affair and Stuart’s use of the toxic thallium sulfate to silence Lynda forever.
Stefanie tasted the tea. “Have you heard anything?” she asked nonchalantly.
“Nothing comes to mind,” Bella said, putting the cup of tea to her glossed lips.
“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see how things turn out,” Stefanie suggested, knowing that whatever came out about Stuart Reston, Bella would just have to deal with it and, hopefully, get past it.
“Right.” Bella sat her teacup down and watched as Stefanie sipped more. “Is the tea as good as I think it is?”
“Yes, excellent,” Stefanie replied with a smile, tasting the blend of elderflower, chamomile and lemon.
Bella grinned. “Glad you like it.” She waited a beat before taking a breath and saying evenly, “There’s something I have to tell you, Stefanie… I’ve been wanting to talk about this with someone for the longest time, but it never quite seemed like the right time. Till now…”
“Okay.” Stefanie regarded her, curious as to what was weighing on her friend’s mind. “You’ve got my full attention.”
“Thanks.” Bella lifted her cup, took a sip and put it back on the tray. “Where do I begin?”
“Anywhere you’re comfortable with,” Stefanie prodded, and sipped the tea again before setting it down.
“All right. Here goes…” Bella sat back, thoughtful. “My father had an affair with Lynda Boxleitner—”
Stefanie raised an eyebrow. “Really?” she asked innocently.
“It was apparently during a time that he and my mother were going through a rough patch,” Bella suggested. “Lynda threw herself at him, and my father, being vulnerable at he was, took the bait.” Bella’s eyes narrowed. “She threatened to reveal their dirty little secret to the world—starting with my mother… Panicking over what that might do to her—and everything else my father stood for—he killed Lynda…”
“What?” Stefanie’s eyes shot wide at this blunt admission. Had Bella known about this all along?
“I know, I was floored when first learning about it,” Bella told her, a catch to her tone of voice. “More tea?” she asked, as if evading the difficult subject matter.
“I’m good,” Stefanie said, then picked up the cup to sip a bit more of it for effect. “Go on…” she urged her.
“Okay.” Bella nodded. “Anyway, my dad made the confession in a journal that he kept. I’d known about the journal for years, but never gave much thought as to what was in it. Not till after he passed away. He confessed to poisoning Lynda with the thallium sulfate that Sidney Sedwick hooked him up with—then made an effort to blame her death on Wendell Braison, knowing that Lynda was a follower of the Braison Family at the time and their controversial lifestyle.”
“Wow,” was all Stefanie could say at the moment. “So, you found the journal?”
“If only that were true.” Bella’s face contorted. “Then everything might have turned out differently.” She sighed, meditative. “As it is, this all only came to light when I discovered that Mia O’Dell, my father’s former housekeeper, had stolen the journal. She intended to blackmail me for a considerable amount to get the journal back. Or else, she planned to hand it over to the police as a two decades old confession to murder. Neither were particularly good choices for me to chew on and swallow—or spit out…”
Stefanie batted her lashes. “So what did you do, Bella?”
“The only thing I could do,” she answered boldly, flashing her eyes at Stefanie. “I killed her!” She sighed. “Or participated in killing her with some able-bodied help—”
“What?” Stefanie tried to digest what she had just heard while absentmindedly taking another sip of the tea. Who helped her? “Please tell me you didn’t go that far?”
“I had no choice,” Bella insisted. “Okay, my dad was abastard. But he wasstillmy father. I wasn’t about to allow a money grabber to put the squeeze on me—or else!”
“There’s always a choice.” Stefanie’s mouth hung open with disbelief. “How could you?”
“It wasn’t that difficult, truly.” Bella’s voice grew dark. “I had my family’s legacy to think about. And since most people bought into the notion that Lynda Boxleitner’s death was directly attributable to her involvement with the Braison Family, I wanted to keep it that way. As Mia also happened to be a member of the cult, it made sense to connect her death to them as well—make it appear that both women were poisoned by someone within the cult—albeit twenty years apart. Fentanyl was much easier to come by these days, especially if you knew where to get it.”
Stefanie batted her lashes. “Did you know where to get fentanyl?”
“Not exactly.” Bella wrinkled her nose. “Fortunately, the person I aligned myself with did.”
“Who?” She locked eyes with her, while pondering who would help her kill someone. “Is it Kenneth Braison?” Stefanie found that hard to fathom, considering everything else she had just heard. But Bella seemed to have no trouble getting what—or whom—she wanted, so anything was possible.
“Actually, it’s Juan Barrientos,” Bella told her proudly.
