Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

details that could help me get my hands on them.” Flynn averted his gaze. “Like how Violetta dressed in hunting gear and waited for Hicks to climb to the top of a cliff so she could push him off.”
    Now it was Olivia’s turn to be astounded. “
Violetta?
But why?”
    “Hicks’s research wasn’t just about folktales. He was a big fan of true crime, and when he deduced that Quentin Devereaux had been involved in one of the biggest jewelry heists in American history, he decided to make a name for himself writing about it. The storytelling angle was a foil, a way for him to get close to members of the Devereaux family. But he made a huge mistake. After interviewing Vi, he accidentally left his notebook behind. Vi read his outline. She read how he was going to expose the family medical condition and describe how all the Devereauxes stood by and let Elijah die. He brought back the past she’d buried. And he planned to bring her oldest and worst nightmares to life and invite thousands of strangers to read about them. Violetta wouldn’t stand for that. Never.”
    “And Amabel knew all of this?”
    Flynn nodded. “Yes, but not until after Hicks’s death. She wanted the diamonds too and had never realized that Violetta knew where they were. So she paid her younger sister a visit at another storytelling event in Charlotte. The two of them hit the whiskey, and Vi started boasting about how she’d woven landmarks into the stories she performed when Hicks was listening. Vi even had the gullible fool believing there were rocks in the riverbed that would only sparkle under a full moon, pointing a sharp-eyed observer to the tree trunk where the treasure was stashed. Hicks bought every word. And why wouldn’t he? She could make-believe anything. It was her gift.”
    Olivia recalled Violetta’s performance in Oyster Bay’s library. “She was truly remarkable.”
    “And Hicks thought he was
so
clever for unraveling her riddle,” Flynn said scornfully. “He went so far as to hire Lowell to accompany him that winter evening because he wanted someone to bear witness to what was certain to become a famous discovery. He promised Lowell that if he found the diamonds, he’d return the entire stash to Violetta right away. He didn’t find the treasure. And Amabel was smart enough to know that the diamonds weren’t out in the woods. She figured out that Violetta left a false trail for Hicks because she knew the real location of the gems—that she’d taken them with her when she left home all those years ago.”
    “So Lowell wasn’t in on Violetta’s scheme?”
    “No,” Flynn said.
    Olivia studied him. “How can you be so sure?”
    An expression of bleak remorse crossed Flynn’s face. “I overheard Vi and Amabel talking after the performance at the Oyster Bay library. Greg was there too. In that room behind the stage Vi was using as a dressing room.” He put the gun down and laced his fingers together. “I wanted to see Violetta alone. She’d refused all my earlier attempts and I knew she’d be back there, so I left the party in the lobby. Apparently, Amabel and Greg did too. They wanted the diamonds. But I wanted even more than that. I wanted Vi to say she was sorry. And I wanted her to repay the loan from all those years ago. The bookstore’s in trouble, you see.” His glance pleaded for Olivia to understand.
    “You should have come to me, Flynn. I would have helped. Gladly.”
    He waved off the notion. “No. Don’t you see? She owed me.”
    Thoughts whirled in Olivia’s mind like confetti in a shaken snow globe. “But Leona saw you going into the restroom looking distraught. She said your tie was loose and askew.”
    Flynn gazed out at the sea, which had turned as gray as the sky. “That tie was too tight. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.” His voice was barely a whisper. “Like I was the one who’d had a bag put over my head. But it wasn’t my tie that went around her throat. It was Greg’s.”
    The beam of light spun around and around, and Olivia closed her eyes against it, returning to the evening of Violetta’s death. She saw the storyteller onstage, her face and eyes awash in that ethereal blue glow, her finger pointing accusingly at someone in the audience. Had she known that she had more than one enemy in the crowd? She must have looked at Greg, Amabel, and Flynn and seen something dark and lethal in all of their eyes.
    She said that this place was her Gethsemane
, Olivia thought.