“You’re lucky I don’t kill you right now.” Eric wiped his brow. “Get back into that chair—now!” he shouted.
Without Misty at her side, Marisa looked lost. Nancy reluctantly sat back down and let Eric tie her hands with a rope from his backpack. Then he tied her legs. Next, he led Marisa to a chair and tied her arms and legs. “I hope I’m not hurting you,” he said.
“Of course you’re hurting me.” Marisa wiggled her bound wrists. “Why are you doing this?”
Eric looked pained. “I love you, Marisa. I thought you loved me, too.”
“I care for you, Eric,” Marisa said gently. “I always will.”
Eric’s eyes were bright. “I knew it. Devon’s not right for you, Marisa. I’m right for you. Deep down in your heart, you know that’s true. I’m not going to be an out-of-work actor like Devon. I’ll be a successful architect. I’ll provide for you. I’ll give you everything you ever wanted.”
“I already have everything I want. And I don’t need anyone to provide for me,” Marisa said.
Eric smiled. “I’ve always loved your determination. I love so many things about you. Spending these past few days with you—taking you to class, knowing where you’d be at every moment—I don’t want that to end. I want to be with you forever.”
Nancy shivered. Eric had been following Marisa’s daily schedule. He had probably been watching them all. No wonder he had been able to get in and out of Bess’s house in twenty minutes—if he was the person who had stolen the sewing machine. And if he was, why?
“I’m sorry we have to spend your birthday this way,” Eric told Marisa. “I had a nice surprise planned, but Nancy ruined it.”
Marisa gritted her teeth. “I don’t think Nancy ruined it.”
“You’re right.” Eric leaned back on his heels. “Your grandmother ruined it. Do you think I would have volunteered to help her if I’d known she was a criminal? No. And some gratitude she showed me—paying me off with counterfeit money.”
“Wait a minute,” Nancy said. “You just said you were volunteering. Why did you take Emmaline Whitby’s money at all?”
“I was volunteering as a reader,” Eric explained. “All the other stuff I did—paying her bills, sorting her mail—she paid me for that. Not very well, but she paid me.”
“Then you were my grandmother’s bookkeeper. I looked through her checkbook,” Marisa said accusingly. “It’s a mess, and you got A’s in accounting. Why is that?”
“So maybe I was a little sloppy.” Eric waved the gun in the air. “Okay, so maybe I even took a little bit of her money. What’s the big deal? She had so much, she never missed it.”
Eric knelt beside Marisa’s chair. “I only did it for you, Marisa. Your grandmother wasn’t going to give it to you. You were her only living relative. You deserved to inherit her fortune, and I wanted you to have it. She left the Guiding Eyes everything and you got nothing.”
“Not nothing,” Marisa corrected. “My grandmother gave me her furniture, she paid my law school tuition, and most important, I got the chance to know and love her. I would never ask anything more.”
Marisa cleared her throat. “Besides, I’ll need to use guide dogs for the rest of my life. My grandmother was thinking of me when she left her money to the Guiding Eyes.”
“Don’t be naive,” Eric said. “The Guiding Eyes is looking for any excuse to get out of this project in River Heights. The organization wants to use your grandmother’s money to line their own pockets. Emmaline should have pulled her little scam on them—not me.”
“Scam?” Marisa squirmed uncomfortably. “What are you talking about?”
“After your grandmother realized she didn’t have long to live, I was helping her put her affairs in order. She may have been sick, but she was still sharp—I’ll give her that. One day, out of the blue, she gave me a whole bunch of money, thanked me, and said she didn’t need my help anymore. She died a few days later—and that’s when this nightmare started.”
“Mrs. Whitby had found the discrepancies in her finances and realized you’d embezzled money from her,” Nancy said. “So she got rid of you and paid you off in counterfeit money.”
“Very good,” Eric said sarcastically. “You figured it out. I myself didn’t figure it out until you found the stash of counterfeit bills at the inn. That’s when I realized Emmaline must have given me the bad money to get back at me.”
“Grandmother knew you and I were friends,” Marisa said. “I can’t believe she didn’t warn me about you.”
“I couldn’t believe it, either,” Eric said. “But you clearly had no idea where I got the counterfeit money. You rushed to defend me. I was glad, of course. But after Nancy got me off the hook, I needed you to stop digging for information. The closer you came to learning who the counterfeiter was, the closer you came to my secret. I knew I couldn’t let you find out that I’d been stealing money from your grandmother’s bank account. Of course, I did it for you—but I didn’t think you’d understand.”
“No,” Marisa said, “I wouldn’t have understood.”
“That’s when I remembered the letter.” Eric stood up and began pacing.
Marisa frowned. “What letter?”
“Your grandmother wrote you a letter,” Eric said, “for you to read after her death.”
“I never got any letter,” Marisa said.
“I know. I watched her hide it,” Eric explained, “but she didn’t know I saw her. After the phony money was found at the inn, I realized your grandmother must have found out about my creative management of her bank account. I was afraid the letter might tell you what I had done.”
“So you broke into the inn and stole the letter,” Nancy said.
“Wrong!” A smile spread across Eric’s face. “I stumped the famous detective. Actually, I’d made myself a copy of Emmaline’s key to Marisa’s apartment. I let myself into Marisa’s apartment and stole the letter.”
“That’s when you left her the threatening computer message,” Nancy said. “And you also put the glass in our food at the restaurant.”
Eric nodded. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Marisa. I knew you’d feel the glass with your fork before you took one bite of your meal. I only wanted you to give up the counterfeiting case.” He sighed. “I had no idea it would be so difficult.”
“How did my grandmother’s letter end up in my apartment?” Marisa asked.
“Your grandmother gave Misty a can of dog treats just before she died,” Eric said.
Marisa nodded. “And?”
“She had taped the letter to the inside of the can. She knew when the can was empty, you would run your fingers along the bottom and find the letter. I suppose she figured the letter was safe there from any curious people at Candlelight Inn—like me.”
