Simon Says Die

sympathies, Mrs. McKinley. I hope you have some other means of income besides that alleged investment.”
    She shoved the papers into her purse. “I didn’t have any plans to liquidate his holdings in this restaurant in any case. But I can’t understand why he’d go to such lengths to pretend that he’d invested in your restaurant, why he’d create a fake contract.”
    â€œTwo hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. Perhaps he needed a way to explain away some kind of loss. A gambling debt, something like that.”
    â€œHe never showed me this contract. I found it on my own. So it’s not like he tried to use it to explain any losses to me .” She didn’t tell him she’d found it by snooping through her husband’s things. Instead, she let her statement hang in the air so that Mr. MacGuffin would assume she’d found it after her husband died.
    â€œForgive me, but did your husband engage in . . . illegal activities?”
    She clutched her purse in her lap. “Not that I can prove. Although, I do admit that I suspected as much.”
    He nodded. “Then it’s entirely possible he planned to use that fake contract to try to take my restaurant from me. Perhaps he was going to approach my heirs someday, to place a lien against my estate. There are all kinds of schemes con artists use. Unfortunately, I’ve seen quite a few of them. This one, however, is new to me.”
    He stared at her curiously. “You said you didn’t plan to liquidate. If that’s the case, may I ask why you’re here?”
    She considered lying, but she’d done far too much of that lately, and it was leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. “I have reason to believe my husband may have faked his death, and that he’s in Savannah. I’m trying to track him down.”
    â€œOh dear.”
    â€œI forgot to bring a picture of him with me.” She’d been in too much of a hurry to leave the house before Pierce caught up to her. “But if you’ve seen him, or if you see him in the future, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.” She described him as she scribbled her name and cell phone number on a piece of scrap paper from her purse. She slid the paper across the desk. “He has distinctive, extremely light blue eyes, hard to forget.”
    MacGuffin took the paper and slid it into his top drawer. “I don’t interact with the customers much these days. I spend most of my time in the office doing the ridiculous amount of paperwork the government requires from small businesses.” He smiled ruefully. “I can’t say that I’ve seen him, but I’ll have Todd put the word out with the staff.”
    â€œThank you. I appreciate it.”
    â€œOf course. I hope I can help, as long as you don’t plan to try to take half my business with those fake documents of course.”
    The hint of steel underlying his tone surprised her. He was obviously more suspicious of her motives than she’d realized. She pulled the contract back out of her purse. She held the pages in the air and tore them in half before setting them on the desk.
    â€œDoes that satisfy you, Mr. MacGuffin?”
    â€œAlmost.” He picked up the torn pages, swiveled in his seat, and Madison heard the unmistakable sound of a paper shredder in action. Mr. MacGuffin turned back around. “Now I’m satisfied.”

 
    Chapter Six
    T HREE HOURS LATER Madison was suffering from a chronic case of déjà vu. She hopped off the trolley, giving the driver the bribe she’d promised him so that he’d let her on board without a ticket and drop her off in front of a bed-and-breakfast that wasn’t on his tour route.
    Damon had supposedly sunk fifty thousand into this particular investment, but Madison expected that was as much a lie as the five other places she’d visited today. Everyone she’d spoken to told her the same story. They didn’t know who Damon was and the papers she had were fake.
    Some of them, like Mr. MacGuffin, had been polite, even concerned about her. Others had been outright hostile. She had business cards from two lawyers in her purse, and the verbal threats to go along with them.
    She went inside the bed-and-breakfast. Twenty minutes later, with the bed-and-breakfast just as much a bust as she’d expected, she stepped outside and marked it off her list. She shoved the