When All The Girls Have Gone(57)

"Nope," Max said. "I hear most memoirs are part fiction, anyway."

"Right," Charlotte said. "Lot of fiction in the memoir genre. Everyone knows that."

"I've heard that, too," Richard said. He smiled and looked across the room. "There's Mom now. If you'll excuse me?"

"Yes, of course," Charlotte said, aware that her voice was somewhat faint. "Enjoy the evening."

"We will," Richard assured her. "It's a birthday party for one of her grandkids. Mom loves parties."

He went forward to greet Ethel.

Charlotte narrowed her eyes at Max.

"Did you know Ethel's story was true?" she asked.

"I had a hunch it might be," he said. "Ethel Deeping is a very tough lady."

"I suppose this will all seem very amusing one of these days," Charlotte said.

"Probably. Ready to go home and look at paint chips?"

Charlotte took his hand. "I can't think of anything I'd rather do more."





  Keep reading for an excerpt from

THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

By Amanda Quick

Available May 2017 from Berkley





The abstract painting on the bedroom wall was new. It had been painted in fresh blood.

There was blood everywhere in the elegant, white-on-white boudoir. It soaked the dead woman's silver satin evening gown and the carpet beneath her body. There was blood on the white velvet seat of the dainty chair in front of the pretty little dressing table.

Anna Harris's first thought was that she had walked into the middle of a nightmare. The scene simply could not be real. She was asleep and dreaming.

But she had grown up on a farm. She had hunted deer with her grandfather. Caught and cleaned fish. Helped deliver calves. She knew the cycle of life and the smell of death.

Still, she could not leave the room until she made certain. Helen had collapsed on her side, facing the wall. Anna crouched next to the body and reached out to check for a pulse. There wasn't one, of course.

It was then that she saw the message. Helen had used her own blood to write it on the silver-flocked wallpaper just above the baseboard.

Run.

And in that moment Anna knew that the perfect new life she had been living for the past year had been an illusion. The reality was a dark fairy tale.

Run.

She rushed upstairs to her lovely yellow-and-white bedroom, pulled a suitcase out of the closet and started flinging clothes into it. Like the shoes and the frock she was wearing, almost all of her clothes were new, gifts from her generous employer. Can't have my private secretary looking like she shops at a secondhand store, Helen had said on several occasions.

Anna was shaking so badly she could barely get the battered suitcase closed and locked. With an effort she managed to haul it off the bed.

She went back to the closet and took the shoebox off the top shelf. She tossed the lid aside and started to reach into the box for the money she kept inside. The lessons of the great Crash a few years earlier had not been lost on her. Like so many others, she had no faith in banks. She kept her precious savings close at hand in the shoebox.

She froze at the sight of what was inside the box.

There was money, all right; too much money.

With all of her living expenses paid for by her employer, she had been able to save most of her salary for the past year, but she certainly had not saved anywhere near the amount that was in the box. Helen must have added the extra cash. It was the only explanation, but it made no sense.

In addition to the money there was a small, leather-bound notebook and a letter written on Helen's expensive stationery.

Dear Anna:

If you are reading this, it means that I have made the biggest mistake a woman can make-I have fallen in love with the wrong man. I'm afraid that I am not the person you believed me to be. I apologize for the deception. Take the notebook, the money, and the car. Run for your life. Get as far away as possible and disappear. Your only hope is to become someone else. You must not trust anyone-not the police, not the FBI. Above all, never trust a lover.

I wish I could give you the glowing reference you deserve. But for your own sake you must never let anyone know that you once worked for me.

As for the notebook, I can only tell you that it is dangerous. I do not pretend to understand the contents. I would advise you to destroy it but if the worst happens you may be able to use it as a bargaining chip.   





 

I have always considered us to be two of a kind-women alone in the world who are obliged to live by their wits.

I wish you all the best in your new life. Get as far away as possible from this house and never look back.

Yours with affection,

Helen

Helen Spencer had been bold, adventurous, and daring-a woman of the modern age. She had lived life with passion and enthusiasm, and for the past year Anna had been caught up in her glittering, fast-paced world. If Helen said that it was necessary to run, then it was, indeed, vital that she run.

She dropped the notebook back into the shoebox and replaced the lid. Clutching the box under one arm, she hoisted the suitcase off the bed and hurried out into the hall.

When she went past Helen's bedroom she tried not to look at the body but she could not help herself.

Helen Spencer had been ravishingly beautiful, an angelic blonde with sparkling blue eyes. Wealthy, charming, and gracious, she had paid her small household staff, including her secretary, very well. In return, she had demanded loyalty and absolute discretion concerning her seemingly small eccentricities, such as her occasional demands for privacy and her odd travel schedule.

Like the others on the mansion's very small staff-the middle-aged housekeeper and the butler-Anna had been happy to accommodate Helen. It had been an enchanted life, but tonight it had ended.

Anna went down the stairs. She had always known that her good fortune could not last. Orphans developed a realistic view of life early on.

When she reached the ground floor she went past Helen's study. She glanced inside and saw that the door to the safe was open. The desk lamp was on. There was a blue velvet bag inside the safe.

She hesitated, but something told her that she had to know what was inside the velvet bag. Perhaps the contents would explain what had happened that night.

She set the suitcase on the floor, crossed the study, and reached into the safe. Scooping up the velvet bag, she loosened the cord that cinched it closed and dumped the contents onto the desk.

Emeralds and diamonds glittered in the lamplight. The necklace was heavy and old-fashioned in design. It looked extremely valuable. Helen had some very good jewelry but Anna was sure she had never seen the necklace. It wasn't Helen's style. Perhaps it was a family heirloom.

But the more pressing question was, why would the killer open the safe and then leave such an expensive item behind?

Because he was after something else, she thought. The notebook.

She slipped the necklace back into the velvet sack and put the sack into the safe.

She went back into the hall, picked up the suitcase, and rushed outside. The sporty Packard convertible coupe that Helen had insisted upon giving her was waiting in the drive. She tossed the suitcase and the shoebox into the trunk and got behind the wheel-and nearly went limp with gratitude and relief when the well-tuned engine started up on the first try.

She turned on the lights, put the car in gear, and drove down the long, winding drive, through the open gates, and away from the big house.

She gripped the wheel very tightly and forced herself to concentrate. She had not learned all of Helen Spencer's secrets tonight, but she had stumbled upon enough of them to make one thing blazingly clear: She had to get as far away from New York as possible.

The narrow mountain road twisted and turned on itself as it snaked down into the valley, a harrowing trip for those unaccustomed to it, especially at night. But her grandfather had taught her to drive when she was thirteen and she had learned on bad mountain roads. She knew how to handle tight curves and she knew this particular mountain road very well. She had driven her employer back and forth between the Manhattan apartment and the secluded mansion many times during the past year.

Helen's faithful butler, Mr. Bartlett, had doubled as her chauffeur before Anna had arrived at the mansion. But Bartlett's eyesight had begun to fail. Helen had been thinking of looking for a new driver when she hired Anna. She had been delighted to discover that, in addition, to her stenography skills, her private secretary was also a skilled driver. Saves me from having to hire a chauffeur, she had said.

Helen had always been very keen on keeping staff to a bare minimum. She was not a stingy employer-just the opposite, in fact-but she had made it clear that she had not wanted a lot of people around the big house. Tonight it occurred to Anna that the reason Helen had limited the number of people on her staff was because she had secrets to hide.

I've been incredibly naïve, Anna thought.

She had always prided herself on taking a cold-eyed, realistic view of the world. A woman in her position could not afford the luxuries of optimism, hope and sentiment. For the most part she considered herself to be quite intuitive when it came to forming impressions of others. But when she did make mistakes, the results tended to be nothing short of catastrophic.   





 

When she reached the small, sleepy village at the foot of the mountain, she turned onto the main road and kept driving. Unable to think clearly enough to come up with a destination, she pursued a random route, passing through a string of tiny towns.