Falling in Love on Willow Creek by Debbie Mason
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sadie walked to the front of the store and inserted the key into the deadbolt, forcing a smile for the woman she suspected of being in cahoots with the man who wanted to get rid of her brother. She opened the door. “Sorry about that. Granny’s big on security these days.”
“Me too. I think everyone in town has been on edge since they heard about the deputy’s murder. I can’t imagine how you feel with it happening almost in your backyard. Then again, your fiancé is living with you, so you’re probably not as worried as some of us are.” She gave Sadie a sweet smile and tucked a strand of long blond hair behind her ear.
“I’m sure it’s very scary being alone and pregnant, not to mention the fact that my brother is the prime suspect.” Sadie added plenty of contempt to her voice when she mentioned her brother.
Payton wore a faded jean jacket over a pretty blue maxidress dotted with white flowers. She rubbed her stomach and then lifted her hand to wipe the corner of her eye with a finger. Sadie didn’t see any sign of tears but she did see signs of her brother’s baby.
“It’s been really hard with Elijah on the run. Your grandmother has been so sweet to me. Always calling to make sure I have everything I need.” She chewed on her bottom lip, glancing at Sadie from under her long eyelashes. “She mentioned that you wanted to start an education fund for the baby.” Payton rubbed her baby bump. Sadie blinked, positive the small mound had shifted to the side.
“I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I know Elijah would be as touched as I am.”
“You haven’t heard from him?” Sadie asked, forcing her gaze from Payton’s lopsided baby bump.
“Oh no, he’d never do anything to endanger me or our baby. I know you’ve had your differences, and he’s made plenty of mistakes, but he’s a good man at heart.”
“So you don’t think he had anything to do with the deputy’s murder?”
“I hope not, especially for your grandmother’s sake. She loves Elijah so much. She’d do anything for him. She hid him, you know. From the police. I hope they never find out. They won’t hear it from me.” She crossed her heart with her long, white-tipped fingernail and smiled.
Sadie knew a threat when she heard one. If she didn’t pay up, Payton was going to tell the Jackson County sheriff that Agnes had been helping Elijah.
“I probably should get home before it gets too dark, so if you have the money your grandmother mentioned…” Payton trailed off with a deceptively innocent smile.
“Of course.” Sadie turned. “Did you find my phone?” she asked Abby, who’d spent the entire time Sadie was talking to Payton pretending to search her bag.
“Hi.” Abby gave Payton a finger-wave. “Sorry, looks like you left it at home again, sweetie. If you think pre-baby brain is bad, wait until you have post-baby brain,” Abby confided to Payton. “Poor Sadie, she can’t remember anything.”
“Sadly, Abby’s right. Why don’t you go on up and wait for us while I go home and get my phone? Granny’s upstairs with the baby. She thought you’d be joining us for tea anyway. I don’t have my car so Abby has to drive me.”
Abby grabbed the diaper bag and joined Sadie. “I promise we won’t be long. Unless Sadie left her phone in the dishwasher again.”
As they watched Payton disappear down the hall, Abby whispered, “I so do not buy her sweet-and-innocent act.”
“Neither do I, and something tells me she’s not pregnant.”
“Why would she pretend to be pregnant?” Abby asked, holding the front door open for her.
“What better way to tug on my grandmother’s and brother’s heartstrings and get them to open their wallets than to pretend she was having Elijah’s baby?” Sadie locked the door.
Ten minutes later, they pulled up two houses from Payton’s. Sadie dug around in the diaper bag for her phone and set the alarm for fifteen minutes. “We have to make this fast,” she said as they quietly closed the doors on Hunter’s truck; Hunter and Chase had taken Chase’s car.
Sadie and Abby crouched low as they ran across the neighboring lawns to Payton’s backyard. “Careful,” said a whiskey-smooth male voice in the dark. “Stay a few feet from the house. She’s got outdoor security lights.”
Once they did as the man directed, he stepped out of the shadows. He was a tall, handsome Black man dressed in dark clothing. He had an earpiece in his right ear.
Sadie offered her hand. “Hi, Mr. Murphy. Thanks for meeting us. Is everything okay at my grandmother’s?”
He shook her hand warmly. “It’s Colin. And everything’s fine. I wouldn’t have agreed to your grandmother’s plan if I didn’t think she and your daughter would be safe. I left the outdoor security lights on. The next-door neighbor will take his dog for a walk in ten minutes. You can set your watch by him, and the dog uses the shrubs near the house to do his business. If the lights don’t go on, he might trouble himself to investigate. I’ve taken care of the alarms inside. I’ll stay out here and keep watch. I’ll text you if you need to get out of there.” At Sadie’s questioning glance, he smiled. “I have your number.”
“Mr. Murphy—Colin,” Abby corrected at his raised eyebrow. “What exactly did you do for a living?”
He winked. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you. Now get going. Split up, and take these.” He handed them each a pair of gloves. “If you find anything of interest, take a picture with your phones.”
“You’ve already searched the house, haven’t you?” Sadie said.
“I have, but you’d recognize if the male clothing is your brother’s better than I would. I took some fingerprints as well.” He lifted his chin at the back door. “Time’s a-wasting, ladies.”
As they headed to the door, Abby whispered, “Way to go, Agnes. That man is hot. He’s an older version of Shemar Moore.” At Sadie’s blank look, Abby whispered, “Criminal Minds? S.W.A.T.?”
Sadie shook her head as she closed the door behind them and stepped into Payton’s kitchen.
“You need to watch more TV, and I should seriously think of doing a seniors’ bachelorette event.”
Sadie pulled on her gloves. “For now, let’s focus on figuring out what Payton is up to. If there were drugs, Colin would have found them already. I’ll take the bedrooms and check out the male clothing.”
“What else are we looking for?”
“Anything that proves Payton is expecting, any notes lying around, the life insurance policy, and money.” Thinking about what her grandmother said about her emergency cash going missing, Sadie walked to the refrigerator freezer and opened it. There were three orange juice containers on the side shelf.
“You don’t think—” Abby’s eyes went wide when Sadie twisted off the lid of the first container. “How much money is in there?”
“A lot more than Granny’s emergency fund.”
One of the containers still had the tab intact so she left it alone, opening the other one. Fifties and hundreds were rolled inside. “You count the money, photograph it, then return it to the containers while I check out the back rooms.”
There were two bedrooms. One had been converted to a workout room. It looked like it had been recently used—a towel was hanging on the end of a weight bar—and it smelled like a gym. There was also a pink balance ball, light weights, and a stationary bike. Nothing screamed evidence of another man in Payton’s life. Her brother liked to work out, and Payton looked like she was in great shape.
Sadie opened the closet door and went up on her toes to pull one of three blue plastic containers off the shelf. Payton was neat, but Sadie couldn’t hold that against her. It made her job a whole lot easier, enabling her to quickly rifle through each of the containers, which were filled with receipts and tax returns from previous years. Again, nothing stood out. After she’d returned the containers to the shelf and closed the closet door, Sadie stopped to check the bathroom before heading to the second bedroom.
She crossed to the bathtub, pulling back the shower curtain. The tub sparkled. Containers of shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel were neatly lined up in the back corner. The garbage can was empty. She opened the medicine cabinet beside the sink to find empty shelves except for a bottle of aspirin, a tube of toothpaste, and a toothbrush still in its packaging.
The cupboard below the sink revealed neatly stacked towels and washcloths, extra packages of soap and cleaning supplies, and a blow dryer and curling iron. She pulled open the drawer in the cabinet and found it filled with a large assortment of makeup. The second drawer contained more of the same. Disheartened, Sadie went to head out of the bathroom when she spotted something hanging on the back of the door: a large white T-shirt and sweatpants that looked familiar but they were generic so it was hard to tell.
She glanced at the time on her phone and hurried to the bedroom. She could hear Abby opening and closing cupboards. She must have finished counting and photographing the cash. Sadie walked into Payton’s bedroom. No surprise, the room was tidy with nothing out of place. The stark black-and-white color scheme didn’t hold any appeal, at least not to Sadie. It wasn’t her taste or her brother’s. Then again, she didn’t think her brother had spent a lot of time here.
She went through the chest of drawers first, carefully lifting up lingerie to check underneath. She spied a twenty-one-day birth-control pill pack and picked it up. It looked like Payton had taken today’s pill. Then again, it could have been from months ago. So not exactly a smoking gun. She took a photo anyway and then went through the rest of the drawers, which were neatly filled with women’s clothing.
The cupboard held more of the same, including lots of shoes. The fact that there was no maternity wear was interesting, but a lot of women wore what they already owned if it was made of stretchy fabric, so, like the birth control pills, it didn’t really shout faker.
But the lack of baby books, prenatal vitamins, and baby supplies did. Sadie had begun buying diapers when she hit the three-month mark, and she’d had enough baby books to start her own library. She also took her prenatal vitamins religiously. There were no baby ultrasound photos here either; Sadie’d had hers framed.
She went down on her knees, not expecting to find even a dust bunny under the bed given how tidy Payton was. She was surprised to discover a black duffel bag. It wasn’t her brother’s. She took a photo of the bag before undoing the zipper. Inside, she found more men’s clothing and toiletries. None of it belonged to Elijah. She was sure of it. She took a photo before carefully examining the contents to check for anything that identified the owner. Nothing did. She patted everything into place, zipped up the bag, and put it back where she’d found it under the bed.
She moved to the nightstand and spotted a file folder between the bedside table and the bed. It was receipts for this year, neatly filed, and right there under L was a life insurance policy.
Brooklyn had been right. The policy was for a quarter million dollars, to be paid to Payton Howard in the event of Elijah’s death. There wasn’t a policy for Payton. Sadie narrowed her eyes at the signature. Positive it wasn’t her brother’s, she took a picture.
After a quick search of both nightstand drawers yielded nothing else of interest, Sadie headed back to the front of the house, where she found Abby on the floor searching under the couch. “Anything interesting?” Sadie asked, scanning the room for the missing baby books and baby supplies. Nothing there either.
“Other than the two thousand dollars residing in each of the orange juice cans, no.” Abby sat up and pushed her long, curly red hair from her face. “What about you?”
Sadie told her about the birth control and life insurance policy. “Did you find any prenatal vitamins?”
“Nada. Did you find any vibrators?”
“No.” Sadie laughed. “Why?”
“Because unless—”
Colin walked into the house. “Time to leave, ladies. Payton is on her way home. She got a phone call and hightailed it out of there. No idea who from.”
They told him what they’d found and promised to send him pictures as they ran for the back door. “Thanks for this, Colin. And thanks for taking care of Granny.”
“Trust me, your granny can take care of herself. Now you two get going and be careful.”
“You too.” Although she didn’t think they had to worry about Colin. She ran after Abby. “I wonder who Payton got the call from,” Sadie said as she hoisted herself into the truck.
Abby went to start the engine. “I know how you could find—”
Sadie caught a glimpse of an approaching vehicle and pulled Abby down just as lights filled the interior of the truck. She peeked over the dashboard. “It’s Payton. She must have broken every speed limit to get here.”
“Do you think Colin got out in time?”
Sadie glanced at the backyard. “I think so. He seems really good at what he does or whatever he used to do. She’s inside now.” Sadie watched as the lights came on in the living room.
“Do you think she saw us?”
“She didn’t slow down when she passed. But I think she knows someone has been there.”
“Why?” Abby inched up to look at the house.
“Because she’s turned on every light. Let’s get out of here.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Abby started the truck and turned off the headlights. “Just until we’re off her street.”
They both released sighs of relief when they turned onto Main Street. “I’m not cut out for this spy gig,” Abby said.
“Me neither. From now on, I’m leaving it up to Chase and Nate. And Colin.”
“Maybe if you tell that to Chase, he won’t want to throttle you. It’s what I’m going to tell Hunter.”
“Thankfully, we won’t have to say anything. We can credit Colin with finding out about the money, the forged life insurance, and the possibility Payton is faking her pregnancy. What’s wrong—” She followed Abby’s gaze to where Chase and Hunter stood outside I Believe in Unicorns with their arms crossed.