Giving Up the Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page A

Cam said.
    "He's in jail where he belongs. I helped put him there."
    "Oh."
    Gabbie was pleased to hear a note of respect in his voice when he said, "You're one
formidable woman."
    "I certainly hope so," she said, with more confidence than she felt. Paul's arrest, trial,
and the subsequent divorce had knocked the stuffing out of her, and she was just beginning to feel
like herself again.
    "Jill Leverette's another formidable woman. She was furious with me the last time we
were together, but I don't think she'd actually kill me."
    "Was she your lover?"
    His nod blended chagrin and pride. "And married to that idiot Fred, whom she should
have divorced years ago. Anyway, I was leaving town, and Jill got it into her head she was going
with me. Foolish girl. She was so sure I'd take her with me, she told Fred all about her plans."
    "But you didn't want her along."
    He grimaced. "She nearly had a stroke when I told her I didn't think it was a good idea
for her to leave her daughter."
    Gabbie snorted. "Translated, you didn't want her cramping your style."
    Cam gave her a wounded look. "That's not it at all. I had a few business stops to make,
and then I was off to the Cote d'Azur, with no definite plans after that. I had no idea where I'd end
up. My intention was to get away from CH for while, until things settled down."
    "What things?"
    "Just some fallout from a few business ventures." He tried to look innocent, but didn't
succeed.
    "Specifically?"
    He cleared his throat. "There was one deal in particular that gave me grief. Over a year
ago, I bought up connecting plots of land from some local guys and sold them to a builder. He got
the official okay to put up a housing development. I saw the plans. Real beauties--five-bedroom
Victorians with front porches, basements, on acre plots."
    Gabbie tried to follow his logic. "You said you bought the land over a year ago. Why
would anyone wait to kill you several months later?"
    "Frankly, it's hard to imagine. But seeing the project get off the ground, with signs
advertising the new development all over the place, inflamed their resentment. Made their feeling
I'd cheated them fresh in their minds all over again. Reese Walters was pissed something awful. And
Don Terranova threatened to shoot me on sight." Cam snorted. "As if he could hit the side of a barn
these days."
    Gabbie heard what he was really saying. "So, you bought cheap and sold high. Did the
dirty on a bunch of your cronies."
    Cam shrugged. "Cronies, acquaintances, call them what you like. I found the builder. I
practically designed the development, for God's sake. And those four lugs know damn well they're
twenty-five thousand dollars richer than they would have been if they'd held on to their bits of
land."
    "But they didn't make out as well as you did on the deal."
    "Don't worry. I made it up to them. Or would have--" He stopped abruptly as a thought
occurred to him.
    She cocked her head. "Go on. What were you about to say?"
    "Nothing for you to be concerned about. I am--I was--a businessman. Believe me, I
honored my debts."
    "If that's the case, none of them would have been angry enough to kill you, would
they?"
    "I certainly hope not. Those guys were my friends."
    Interesting how quickly his acquaintances gained the status of friendship. Gabbie shut
her mind to Cam's discrepancies for the present and concentrated on the facts. "Getting back to that
afternoon, tell me what you remember."
    He furrowed his brow as he thought. "Let's see. I finished packing around four-thirty,
and was sitting there in my lounger drinking my favorite gin." He chuckled. "I was kind of fuzzy by
then. I went outside to--er 'use the facilities' as they say--then returned to my desk to do some
last-minute paperwork. I was trying to make sense of some document when a terrible pain struck the
back of my head. I blacked out, came to, and blacked out again. When I woke up, I was dead."
    "I am sorry." Gabbie tried to take in the enormity of what he'd just