No guy was worth a murder charge.

"We were going to get married! I warned her to stay away from him, but she didn't listen." Her tears messed up some of her words, but she yelled loudly enough for us all to hear. "Toby and I were meant for each other. Melissa only wanted him because he turned her down last year, and she couldn't handle it."

"The gardener? That Toby?" I asked. "I thought he was having an affair with Henrietta."

"That's not true!" Brenna flipped and tried crawling for the front door again, but Broadrick had a black zip tie in his hands and crouched down to her level.

"By island authority as private security personnel, I am going to take you into custody. There's no need for restraints if you come to our office willingly," he said.

I scoffed. What? Because she was rich and blonde, she got special treatment. We were fighting about this later. He should have put the zip tie cuffs on her the minute she made a break for it.

"I just wanted us to be together," Brenna cried as Broadrick helped her to stand.

When he had her under control, I moved closer. "I'm pretty sure he's sleeping with Henrietta. I saw them kissing."

"Shut up!" she screamed and lunged for me.

Broadrick moved in front of Brenna right in time and stopped her with such little force he had enough time to flash me an annoyed expression. "Not now, Vonnie."

I shrugged. The girl deserved to know the truth. Apparently, Toby was his own little soap star with a harem of women on the island. Barbie would love it.

Broadrick, Tony, and Dalton removed Hadria and Brenna from the condo to a safe room at the security offices. While they got in contact with the local police, who were readying their helicopter, I filled in Cary on all the good details. Then we watched the video together.

"This is crazy," she said, watching a replay of Brenna charging me. "Is it always like this?"

"Pretty much when I'm around." Being the new island private investigator didn't seem like such a terrible job now. Not if these were my cases. I'd have to get new business cards.

Cary laughed. "I guess I can handle their behavior on the phone if I get to watch a few of them be carted off to jail every once in a while."

"Too true, but I feel like I'm forgetting something." I tapped my finger against my top lip. "Oh shit, I've got to go."

The door to the building opened, and seven men in police uniforms pushed their way through as I worked to avoid them and get out. They watched me go, the last one in line looking like he planned to stop me, but I had somewhere else to be.

I'd left Barbie in charge of NB and completely missed our soap date. My bank account wouldn't survive if she got him addicted to fancy water in my neglectful parenting.

With the way these rich people lived on the island, we'd be lucky to survive living here at all.

**

Three weeks later

I held the door open for Barbie in her cute light blue linen pants to walk into the new condo I shared with Broadrick with NB in my arms. Behind her came Tony, carrying a box labeled shoes. "Be easy with that one," I said to him and pointed toward the bedroom.

He gave me an annoyed eye roll. "There are four more just like this in the pod."

That man had something against shoes.

"Hold up," Dalton yelled as I tried to shut the door on him. I opened it again and read the label on his box as he carried it to the kitchen a few feet from me.

NB wiggled, and I set him down but kept him on his leash so he couldn't run outside and make a break for it. Broadrick smiled at me as he came in with a bathroom box and placed it right in the middle of the living room by the white couch. Annoying, but it was too nice of a day to yell at him for it. We'd be a mess unpacking for a while, anyway. However, I vowed to do it faster than I had at the old place.

"I can't believe Hadria still agreed to sell you this place," Barbie said, glancing around the open area that she'd been in multiple times. The way she looked at it, you'd think she was here for the first time and disapproved of my decorating choices. That or she was already planning my expensive renovations.

"It took longer than it should have with the investigation." The police reopened the crime scene and closed off the condo for an additional week. And Hadria refused to let us rent the place before we signed the official paperwork. But we were finally here.

Broadrick laughed and came to stand in our makeshift group, watching his two friends head back to the moving area. The island required everything be brought over on the ferry in pods, but they didn't want the ugly moving containers on the island, so we had to cart all our boxes from the dock to the condo on golf carts. "We were already under contract. Hadria would have been liable if she backed out, and now she needed the money to pay for Brenna's defense lawyer."

"I heard she got the most expensive big shot from the mainland," Tony said and then gave a low whistle as he walked back into the condo carrying another shoe box. This one he left in the living room.

Okay, so we were all just going off script now. I stared at it with a frown but also didn't move to fix it. That was future Vonnie's problem. Actually, more than likely future Broadrick.

"She'll have to list Brenna's condo to pay for it, too," Barbie said with a tipped head and a smile.

How would Larken handle that? So far, she'd been able to keep her actual relationship with Melissa a secret, but if anyone dug too deep, they'd put the pieces together now that Larken owned both companies.

"I still don't get it," Barbie said. "If Brenna killed Melissa over a man, how did Melissa have Hadria's scarf in her hand when you two found the body?"

Broadrick lowered his eyebrows at me, making his eyes appear narrowed. Or maybe he had narrowed them. "That was privileged information the police aren't sharing with the public at this time."

"Oops." I shrugged and found a piece of the ceiling on the far side of the room to be really interested in.

Broadrick left to grab a box, and I leaned into Barbie to whisper. "Hadria doesn't want to catch an accessory to murder charge, so she's cooperating the least amount as possible. She admitted Brenna borrowed her scarf two days before the confession."

Was she trying to set her mother up for Melissa's murder? We'll probably never know for sure, but I'd always think yes.

"Now that you're here, you'll see that money does weird shit to some folks," Barbie said, sounding like a war veteran coming off a twenty-year stint.

I didn't want to get into that, so I ignored it. "The police are still putting the pieces together, but they're going with a crime of passion. Brenna couldn't handle the thought of Toby not being with her, but she didn't set out to kill Melissa, just make her stop dating her man."

So far, I'd been too busy with condo stuff to investigate Toby and see how he felt about this entire thing. I'd probably just go to the courthouse on the days he had to testify. Naw, I'd never make it that long. I wanted to know everything about this love triangle... er... love rectangle.

"When Melissa refused to stop seeing Toby, Brenna lost control and thought to threaten her away. We all know how that ended."

Brenna saw her mother's knitting project bag on the dresser and tried to use the knitting needle as a weapon to scare Melissa. The two of them got into a struggle in the closet, and one heavy side swipe with the needle at the right angle ended everything for both women. She grabbed the knitting bag with the yarn when she ran from the room.

Brenna plead not guilty by reason of insanity, which meant we'd all get to sit through the evidence in a trial by jury.

"How did you put all this together?" Barbie asked as she watched Tony and Dalton carry in two more boxes. Her eyebrows rose, and she leaned further into the room as their muscles flexed, lowering the boxes in the living room.

I chucked at her more than my answer. "I have no idea. This was my hardest case to date, but somehow, they always come together."

There was no need to tell her I'd originally accused Hadria of the murder before her horrible confession outed Brenna as the actual murderer. And before her Larken.

Dalton and Tony walked out of the apartment, and I turned to see the growing collection of boxes in the middle of the living room. That was going to be a mess.

"It's weird to live here with someone else's furniture, though." The mother to a murderer's furniture. Or did that make it a little cooler? It definitely gave a good story to tell the girls in Pelican Bay.

Broadrick wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me tight. "We have the rest of our lives to find other stuff and make it our own."

My phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket, saw my mother's name on the screen, and walked away from our crew to answer.

"Vonnie," she said right away. "You haven't called like you said you would."

Did I say that?

"Sorry, Mom. I've been a little busy." My mother and father didn't know about the murder case on the island, but I'd have to tell them, eventually. Discussing putting someone in jail seemed a little too soon.

"You're too busy to call your mother?" she asked.

I gave a deep sigh of frustration and hoped she didn't hear it. Were we just going to go back to normal now? After everything that happened and everything she'd said to me? I wasn't ready. My feelings were still too hurt. I couldn't wipe the board clean and pretend like everything was fine. My emotions didn't work that way. And I didn't understand how hers did. I couldn't pretend like everything was normal between us, so I had to get off the phone.

"Listen, Mom, we're right in the middle of something and have company. Can we talk later?"

"Fine, but I just need to tell you the good news. I wanted to help you get on your feet, so I paid for an advertisement for you in the local paper."

"What?" She did what now? What paper? What business? There wasn't anything on the island. "I don't have my private investigator license for Florida, Mom."

She laughed. "Not for that silly job. For your pet sitting business. The salesman talked me into a half-page ad, which runs in the Sunday edition this week. I'm sure your phone will be ringing off the hook come Monday morning."

"You did what?"

END OF BOOK SIX: Sixth House