Art of Deception by Brenda Donelan

Author:Brenda Donelan [Donelan, Brenda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brenda Donelan
Published: 2016-07-19T22:00:00+00:00

Does anyone even care about me? I don’t think so.

Chapter 15

How did Bridget get herself into this mess? Marlee thought as she looked at the foreclosure notice. Bridget was single, without children, and didn’t have any huge debts other than her home and car loans, plus student loans from her multiple years of higher education. How she could have gotten into this much financial trouble was beyond comprehension. Marlee reflected on her cousin’s standard of living and couldn’t think of any extravagant purchases or expensive hobbies. Bridget’s Elmwood apartment was modest and her car was several years old. Her house in Minnesota was nice but nothing fancy. Bridget’s lifestyle seemed to be well within her earnings as a college professor.

The cornerstone of Marlee’s argument as to why Bridget would be motivated to steal the urn had just collapsed before her eyes. Saving her house and keeping herself out of financial ruin was more than enough incentive for anyone to consider theft. But why didn’t Bridget come to me? I would have helped her as much as I could, Marlee thought. I wouldn’t be able to get her out of debt, but I could’ve kept her out of immediate foreclosure.

Marlee turned again to the handwritten letter with no return address. Since it wasn’t signed, there was no way to identify who authored it. It was addressed to Bridget, so she was the intended recipient. That ruled out the mail carrier placing the letter in Bridget’s mail box by mistake. Glancing at the legal-sized white envelope again, Marlee noticed something unusual. It wasn’t postmarked. There was no stamp on it either. This letter never went through the postal system. Bridget may or may not know who sent it to her. It could have been slid under her door at her apartment or at work. It could have been placed in her campus mail box in the department secretary’s office. Or the letter could have been handed to Bridget. There could be other scenarios too, but Marlee couldn’t think beyond the obvious methods at that point.

She jumped as the land line phone rang. “Marlee, it’s Hector. My department just called, and I have to leave for Chamberlain right now. There’s been a death, and I need to investigate. I won’t be able to go to Thayer’s house with you tonight, but I don’t want you going alone.”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. I was planning on talking to him on my own anyway before you got involved in this whole thing. Drive safe, and I’ll talk to you later,” Marlee said, disappointed that Hector had to leave so soon, but also a bit relieved since this would take the pressure off her making a decision between Hector and Vince.

“I found someone else willing to go with you,” Hector said and paused.

“Okay, who is it?” Marlee was prepared for the detective to launch into one of his jokes.

“I was over at Kathleen’s and just started talking to Bridget when your old boyfriend showed up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.