Killing Her Softly (7 page)

Leslie frowned. “What happened to the land? The lawyer showed me the plot plan, but there's only the garden."

"The vines developed a disease, phylloxera, which destroyed them. The land was sold separately. Part of it is planted with olives, the rest is where Cecil's and Eugenia's houses now stand."

"When did Jason eventually buy the house?"

"About five years ago."

Leslie nodded. The scratch on her forehead burned. Her skin felt tight and cold, and her head was beginning to throb. She closed her eyes, the pain in her heart suddenly overriding her physical aches. “So it was during our marriage,” she whispered. “He came back here and never even told me."

"He was here when he bought the house, and again about two years ago, as well as before his accident."

"I didn't know.” Distressed, she twisted her hands together. She shouldn't let it bother her, she knew, but somehow it still rankled. Jason had lied and betrayed her. Not with other women, perhaps, although how would she have known if he had? But he'd betrayed her trust, and that was just as painful as sexual infidelity.

She lifted her head, her gray eyes transparent as rain. “What happened with the house?"

Simon hesitated, debating with himself. Was he ready to tell her the sordid facts? He could evade the question. An innocuous comment and she would be put off for now.

No, he couldn't do that. It would be better if she heard it from him, before one of the village busybodies decided to fill her in on the less savory aspects of her husband's character.

"My father wanted to buy the house. He planned to give it to my mother. She does work for several charities, and at the time one of them needed a country house to use as a convalescent home. Buying this house would have brought it back into the family and pleased my mother at the same time."

He cleared his throat. “But Jason blatantly cheated him out of it. If I'd been here, I might have been able to do something. But I was living in London at the time."

He stopped, guilt coursing through him. Maybe if he'd been here, he would have been able to prevent Jason's perfidy. “How?” Leslie asked.

"Jason got hold of inside information, through strategically placed friends. He heard that a hotel corporation was considering this land to build a resort."

Simon prowled around the room, his fists clenched at his sides. “My father knew nothing about the resort proposal though he had discussed his plans for the house with Jason many times as he considered him a trusted friend. Then Jason went behind his back and made a higher offer for the house. It was accepted. Within days, the hotel corporation announced that they would buy it for the planned resort. Jason stood to double or triple his money."

"And your father was left out in the cold,” Leslie said. Jason's manipulations might not have been illegal in the circumstances, but they were certainly immoral.

"Yes. He was devastated. He'd counted on being able to give the house to my mother. And he always did business with only his word and a handshake. He'd thought of Jason as a brother and now the brother had stabbed him in the back."

Simon gripped his hands on the edge of the sink and stared out the window into the dark night. Leslie's heart ached. She'd known him for only twenty-four hours but the secrets of the past, exhumed brutally by her arrival in Platania, had cut through social convention and forced them both to expose their inner souls.

Leslie could feel his pain as if it were her own. When he spoke again, she had to strain to hear him. “My father had a heart attack a month later. The doctor ordered him to take it easy, so I came home from London to help him run his business. My mother spent a lot of time in Athens, doing charity fund raising. Papa decided to sell his business and join her there. Before he could do it, he had another attack and died."

"I'm sorry.” Leslie knew the words were inadequate, but what else could she say?

"Thanks.” He turned toward her. “I sold the business and kept the orchards. I went back to London only long enough to finish a couple of projects. Then I came here and started my own company, to market fruit and olives throughout the European Union.” He shrugged. “It's a living."

"Wait a minute. The house is still in Jason's name. What happened with the resort?"

"An earthquake triggered a rock slide that blocked off the village's main water source. The hotel corporation decided to build elsewhere. The irony is that a better spring was discovered later, and it supplies the village with water to this day.

Leslie thoughts spun back to last evening. “One thing confuses me. If you had nothing to do with the house deal, why did you accuse me of character assassination?"

His chocolate brown eyes turned black with rage. The overhead light intensified the harsh lines that formed over his nose and along his mouth. He lifted his hands and clenched them into fists so tight the tendons stood out. In an instant he'd changed from a man racked with pain to a man ready to kill.

Leslie drew back, almost falling from the chair. His eyes were hard and cold as an Arctic storm. Simon must have seen her fear. His teeth flashed in a grim smile that made her think of a snarl. “I won't hurt you, Leslie. I realize now you probably never knew."

"Knew what?” she said, eyeing him warily.

He gestured with his hands, extending them toward her as if he wanted to reassure her. But before he touched her, he drew back. “I guess you might as well hear the whole story. It happened later, after my father's death, when my marketing business became successful. A young woman came to my office to apply for a job. She called herself Melanie Clark."

He walked past her and stood at the open window, a dark silhouette. Beyond him, she could see the outline of the trees against the starlit sky, the trees that hid the village from her view. Out on the water, a Kerkira-bound ferry hooted, a forlorn wail carried on the light breeze.

"She had excellent credentials, spoke several languages, knew how to work a computer. I hired her, and the trouble started right away. I don't date people who work with me—I saw how awkward that got when I worked in London. But Melanie kept nagging me to take her out. I finally did, once or twice. After that it got worse. She wouldn't leave me alone.

"I had to fire her. I couldn't work. She was supposed to look after the office when I was out here. But she would lock it up and drive out when I was working in the orchards. Oh, she always had some paper for me to sign or some proposal I was supposed to approve. But they were only excuses. It was her job to take care of these things. And I paid her accordingly. So I gave her notice."

"And instead of trying to kill you, she tried to destroy you,” Leslie said. “Hell hath no fury, and all that."

"Yeah. She left quietly enough. Then, the next thing I knew, the police served me with a summons. She said I'd been stalking her and that I beat her when she refused my advances."

Leslie gasped, although she should have expected something like this.

"She even had bruises and a black eye. Don't ask me how she got them. I never laid a hand on her. By that time, I found her completely repulsive. And as if that wasn't enough, she spread a story around that we'd been secretly engaged."

The story he'd told yesterday fell into place with this one. “She was Jason's daughter, wasn't she?” Leslie was surprised to hear the steadiness in her own voice. Inwardly she seethed with a mixture of emotions. Outrage. Sympathy. And that little nagging doubt, because she had only his word as to the veracity of the story. A moment ago, he had looked more than capable of violence.

"Yes, Melanie was Jason's daughter.” His voice was harsh and angry. “Another fact she omitted from her resume."

"Would it have mattered? Maybe she needed the job and knew about the trouble between Jason and your father. She was afraid you wouldn't consider her."

"Not likely. You didn't know Melanie."

Leslie stifled a rueful smile. If this were true, she didn't want to know Melanie.

"No sooner was I served with a summons to answer charges of sexual harassment and breach of promise,” Simon went on, “than Jason charged into the fray. He raged about his innocent daughter and said he was going to sue me for every penny I had. I suddenly saw what was behind it. Money. The local gossip had it that Jason was in debt. Probably true, because he had the house for sale at the time."

Simon clenched his fists at his sides. “It was August, almost two years ago. I went to see Melanie, to try to talk sense into her. She was staying here, at the house. In fact, she might even have stayed here when she worked for me, whenever she came to Platania. I never suspected her connection to Jason."

"You hadn't seen her before? You told me Jason and his first wife lived here for a time."

"When they did, Melanie was away at boarding school in London, and she was a child. No, I didn't know her at all."

"What happened that night?"

He dragged in a long breath. “Jason wasn't around. Melanie met me at the door in a robe, a very sheer robe. Her eyes were wild, and she seemed edgy. She said she didn't like her father's involvement in the situation, and would I settle out of court? I don't know where she got the information, but she seemed to have a good idea of my financial situation and even where I have money invested from my previous job in London. Probably through the computer. It struck me that I'd been set up, likely from the day she walked into my office."

"Did you agree?” Leslie sat on the edge of her chair, her headache forgotten.

"Hell, no. I turned her down flat, said I'd take my chances in court. I walked out, but she followed me. I figured to take a shortcut through Cecil's garden. The next thing I knew, she was running down the stairs toward the beach. It was a hot night, and she was a strong swimmer. I never gave it a thought, and went home. The next morning they found her robe on the beach. They assumed she'd drowned. By noon, the story had been embellished to the point that she'd died of unrequited love, or I'd killed her. Either way, I got the full blame."

He stared off into space, his eyes hard and angry. “I never believed she drowned. I think she faked it, and left—her final revenge. She came out the tragic victim and I was left to face the gossip and the accusations."

"What was Jason's reaction to all this?” Leslie asked.

"Jason? He tried one more time to get money from me, but without Melanie's testimony he knew he didn't have a chance in court. He went away for about six or eight months."

"That must have been when we divorced,” Leslie said slowly, feeling numb.

Simon paced back toward the table. “He still had the nerve to come back. After your divorce, I guess it must have been. You'd think even a man as thick-skinned as Jason would realize how the villagers resented him. They were angry not only over his cheating my father, but even more because he would have sold the house to build a resort and they didn't know about it. They had a right to know.” He spread his hands. “So, Leslie, now you know."

"Yes, now I know,” she said bitterly. She didn't doubt for one moment that Jason had been capable of everything that Simon had related. It all fit. His frequent trips away from home. His secretiveness about his business that purportedly traded in antiques. Now she wondered what else he'd traded in on the side. Would she ever know? On the other hand, would it matter if she didn't? She'd already learned more than she wanted to.

"And that's why everyone was looking at me. They were wondering how much like Jason I was."

"It wasn't because of that.” Simon stared at her with all the intensity of an artist about to paint a portrait. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, as if he were talking to himself. “You're really not like her at all. They should have seen it right away."

"Like who?” she said impatiently. “What should they have seen?"

"When you got off the bus, I heard what people said. They thought Melanie had come back."

"Why?"

"She had long blonde hair, just like yours."

Leslie clasped her suddenly cold hands together in her lap. “Did she? And I suppose you thought she'd come back to haunt you?"

"Only for a moment. But the villagers watched with great relish. I think they were wondering if I would kill you, too."

"What? Surely they don't think you killed her. Didn't anyone see you walk home that night?"

"According to the police, no. The streets were strangely deserted that night. They hadn't enough evidence to bring charges, but they thought about it. If they'd found a body, and there was any mark on it, I would be living at the convenience and goodwill of the state."

"Oh.” She swallowed, tasting the grittiness of dust in her mouth from when the rocks had plunged past her. “So I look like Melanie. Does that mean you thought I might be like her, too, and that's why you spoke the way you did?"

He gave a humorless laugh. “No. Believe me, no. I never mixed you up with Melanie. I knew her better than the villagers did, especially since she thought herself too high and mighty to associate with them. You're taller, thinner, and her eyes were hazel, not misty gray like yours. And she was cute."

"Thanks,” Leslie said dryly. Not that she'd ever worried that she wasn't beautiful, but it wasn't very chivalrous of him to point it out so bluntly.

To her surprise, a flush ran up his cheeks. “Leslie, I didn't mean it that way. She was cute in a childish sort of way. You're unique, lovely. With those bones, you'll be gorgeous when you're eighty, after the cute ones like Melanie have fallen apart."

She stemmed the sudden warmth that flooded her heart. Sweet words were all very well, but she had to be practical. “Do you think anyone will ever know for sure what happened to Jason? And to Melanie?"

"No. Because nobody cares. That may sound harsh, but it's the truth. A lot of people here and, I imagine, in other places where Jason did business aren't a bit sorry he's gone.” He scowled blackly.

"Before I forget, you haven't seen a strange man around, have you? About my age, a little soft around the middle, brown hair, thinning on top. He's been asking questions about Jason."