“Or she could walk away and let us find him,” Kendall continued. “Like who would know? I mean you would have because you had to talk to him.”
“She had to talk to him about what?” Slate asked.
Kendall shrugged. “No idea. I was trying to get the red wine out of my jumpsuit that she spilled on me. And then she suddenly needed to talk to Brock when she hates Brock.”
“Kendall,” Sonya hissed.
“Well, we all do,” Kendall insisted. “Which is why I don’t understand why Chet went crazy. Chet hated Brock more than the rest of us.”
“We’re leaving now.” Sonya started for the elevator.
Slate stood. “I think I’d like to talk to you, Ms. Foster. Both of you, actually. I’d like to interview you separately.”
Michael bet he did. Kendall obviously had no freaking idea what she should or shouldn’t say. She was an investigator’s dream.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Sonya settled her bag over her shoulder. “I’m going to call my father. I don’t think you’re the right investigators for this case.”
“Sheriff,” a feminine voice called out.
All heads turned as Nell strode into the room. There was an unmistakable air of excitement about her. Henry followed behind her, though at a more sedate pace.
“I thought you were going to call,” Nate said. “And how did you get here? I turned the code back on after Lucy and her men came up.”
Henry lingered near the hallway. “I don’t need a code, Sheriff. One of the fun things about having my past out in the open is I don’t have to pretend anymore. I can use all my skills out in the open. As to why we didn’t call, Nell wanted to tell you in person.”
“We’ll leave you to it then.” Sonya gestured to her sister. “Let’s go. We need to call Dad.”
Nell gasped. “Are you Sonya Foster?”
The blonde’s head came up, a superior expression on her face. “Yes, I am. And I’ve been through too much to have to deal with a second more of this town’s nonsense.”
Nell pointed at Sonya. “J’accuse, mademoiselle. J’accuse.”
Michael stood. Nell knew something, and he trusted her. This was the moment when things could get dangerous. He moved in front of Lucy and Ty, placing his body in the line of fire just in case. Ty stood beside him. His first instinct was to tell Ty to sit back down, but Ty would want to be with him, both of them protecting Lucy.
“What is this about?” Sonya asked. “And who the hell is this woman?”
“My name is Nell Flanders, and I protest you and all your earth-killing businesses,” Nell announced.
Behind him he felt Lucy stand. She went on her toes, her hands against his back for balance. She was trying to watch the shitshow that was absolutely about to go down.
Michael glanced over at Henry, who was relaxed and watching his wife with a lazy indulgence.
He trusted Henry’s instincts and relaxed a bit.
“I am not about to stand here and listen to the ravings of a lunatic,” Sonya began.
“I will,” Slate said.
“I will, too,” Agent Wallace agreed. “What have you discovered, Mrs. Flanders?”
Nell paced like she was the detective in an Agatha Christie novel. “The question is how did the killer get the poison in the first place. Lucy rarely leaves Bliss, and she doesn’t have a lot of contact with anyone who would know about poison. The Foster Corporation is known primarily for sporting goods, but that’s not really true, is it?”
“We have lots of companies.” Kendall looked around like she’d finally figured out something was happening. “I’m going to be a buyer for our new fashion line. We’re calling it Kendall 4Eva. Get it? Because that’s my name. My first name is Kendall and my middle name is Eva.”
Nell ignored her entirely. “But when you look deeper at the corporate infrastructure, you find out a lot of the money is made in minerals and gas and oil.”
“I don’t see what our corporate infrastructure has to do with the fact that a waitress killed my brother,” Sonya insisted. “Has anybody even checked her room? She has to have kept the poison somewhere. We’ve all been stuck in this building. She couldn’t have taken it too far to dump it.”
Oh, she’d planned this carefully. How long had she had that poison? She traveled in private jets. It would have been fairly easy to transport. Security was different on private airlines, and if she’d stored it as a powder, she wouldn’t even have been questioned if she’d hidden it properly. She could have disguised it as a beauty product, and no one would call her out on it.
“Lucy turned over a bag of a white substance she found in the bathroom of the room she’s staying in,” Nate admitted. “It’s waiting to be tested.”
Lucy’s arm wrapped around Michael’s waist, and he could feel her tension.