Lana was glad her granddaughter had not yet been so thoroughly let down by a man that she wanted to kill him.
“Maybe Ricardo made some kind of demand of her,” Lana said. “Or a threat. Maybe the night before he died, he told her about Verdadera Libertad, and he pressed her to support it, to give up her claim to the ranch or else he’d tell her husband. I could see how she could feel trapped, like her best alternative might be to kill him.”
Lana looked back at the corkboard. “The same could be true for Victor Morales,” she said. “He had to have the Rhoads ranch for his vision of the land trust stretching from the marina to the hills. There wasn’t some other property that would accomplish that. If Ricardo and Mr. Rhoads had a project in the works that would stop the land trust from getting it . . .”
“Victor’s best alternative would be to kill them both.” Jack looked at Lana. “But how could he get the property donated if Mr. Rhoads was dead?”
“He’d need to convince Diana and Martin. Keep waving around that letter of intent and try to pressure them into following through.”
“Do you think Victor could do that?”
Lana considered it. Even if Diana and Martin couldn’t agree, they at least seemed aligned in their determination to keep the ranch out of the land trust’s control. Maybe if Victor knew about Diana and Ricardo’s affair, he could lean on her . . . but if he held that trump card, he hadn’t pulled it yet. Lana decided she finally had a reason to return one of his many calls.
“I’ll find out,” Lana said. “Maybe Victor was less driven by his desire for the land than by his anger that Ricardo and Mr. Rhoads betrayed him.”
“But that’s not about BATNA. That’s motive. We’re back to where we started.”
“We’ve come a long way from there, Jack. We just have to piece it together, and it will all make sense.”
It had to.
*
At 7 p.m., Beth was on her way out the back door of Bayshore Oaks for a protein bar break when she was accosted by Miss Gigi.
“Beth! Your mother. She is enchanting. And so young-looking!” Miss Gigi was still in the turquoise evening gown, which she had now accessorized with a flimsy kimono adorned with Disney characters.
“Thank you?” Beth looked uncomfortably at Miss Gigi’s press-on nails, which were carving tiny moons into the sleeve of Beth’s bomber jacket.
“Beth, there is something I must tell you. I was listening to your conversation with your mother.”
“About the sandwiches?”
“About the visitors.”
“I see.”
The two women stared at each other. Beth squeezed the protein bar, feeling it deform under her sweaty hand. Even under a pound of silver eye shadow, Beth knew Miss Gigi was a force to be reckoned with.
“I can explain—”
The smaller woman waved away Beth’s excuses. “You are helping your mother. It is the right thing to do. But what I have done, I am not so sure.”
Now it was Miss Gigi who looked nervous.
“What is it?” Beth asked.
“The team in the mail room, we take our jobs very seriously. We are the connection with people on the outside,” Miss Gigi said.
“Uh-huh . . .”
“And sometimes, on Mondays, there is someone who needs to connect with someone.”
“Like a letter that has to go out?”
Miss Gigi shook her head. “More like someone who wants to come in.”
Beth blinked. “Miss Gigi, did someone come into Bayshore Oaks the day Hal Rhoads died? It would have been”—she counted backward in her head—“three Mondays ago.”
She had never seen Miss Gigi look so contrite. “I am not sure. I can ask my associates. I was not on duty that Monday, but—”
“On duty? You have shifts for this?”
“At the side door. Just from lunch until dinner.” Miss Gigi pulled the kimono tight around her and looked up at Beth anxiously. “Do you think someone came in here to connect with Mr. Rhoads? And murdered him?”
“I . . . don’t know.” After Lana had left earlier, Beth had looked up Mr. Rhoads’s cause of death. All it said was SCD—sudden cardiac death. Without an autopsy or detailed bloodwork, there was no way to get more specific.
“Will we be charged as accessory? Sued for negligée?”
Beth’s mind was still reeling, but she found a smile for the tiny woman. “If anyone is going to get sued around here for their nightwear, it would be you.”