Frank’s head hung in terrible pain and despair. “Oh God, forgive me, forgive me,” he could barely breathe.
“God will never forgive you,” Ronnelle looked at him as if she were about to crouch for a kill.
“I told you I loved Ann,” Frank burst in then uncontrollably. “I told you she and I were reconciling.”
“How can you marry me and love Ann?” Ronnelle suddenly looked confused. “You had no right to reconcile. You told me it was forever, that we were getting married soon.”
Cindy felt like throwing up. How much of this had Ann been aware of?
“I didn’t mean it, I never meant it,” Frank could barely speak as his entire body broke into dry heaves. “I always loved Ann, always. Cindy, you have to believe me,” he yelled.
Mattheus went over to Frank then and put his hand on his shoulder.
“So, you got rid of Frank’s wife,” Trage said to Ronnelle then, in a low, measured tone.
Ronnelle flipped around and stared at Trage with rage in her eyes. “I had a right to, didn’t I?” she said. “She was trying to get rid of me!”
Frank broke into terrible sobs then. “Oh God, oh God, this is all my fault,” he wept. “I did this to Ann by being with Ronnelle. I never thought it would mean much of anything, though. I never thought so, believe me.”
For a moment it seemed as if Frank would pass out.
“Take it easy, Frank,” Mattheus had both hands on his shoulders. “Guys make terrible mistakes – they say things they don’t mean, have no idea what they’re doing. This kind of thing happens all the time.”
Cindy looked over at Ronnelle then. Trage was pulling her arms behind her, handcuffing her. She stood there in a daze, just staring at Frank.
“I loved you, you bastard,” she hissed at him. “It was the first time I loved again since I was little and my father died on me.
Trage nodded to another cop in the room to open the door.
“We’re taking you in,” Trage said softly to Ronnelle.
“Take me anywhere you want,” Ronnelle shot back. “You’ll never be able to hold me, long. I’ll kill myself in jail. And when I die, I’ll find Ann and take her to hell with me. You think about that, lover boy.”
Frank gasped as Ronnelle and Trage walked slowly past him, and she spit at him on the way.
*
“You saved my life, Cindy, you saved my life,” Frank kept blubbering, as they left.
Too bad your life and not my sister’s life, thought Cindy, unable to take a step closer to him.
“Believe me, if I ever thought something like this would have happened, I would have killed myself first,” Frank pleaded with Cindy.
Cindy had to say something, but didn’t know what.
“There are many strands that go into a person’s life and death, Frank,” Mattheus filled in for her. “What you did was wrong, but you can’t blame yourself for Ann dying. Ronnelle was a psycho, you didn’t know that.”
“Blame yourself,” said Cindy swiftly, “not for Ann’s dying, but for the lies you told, the way you deceived her. How could you have betrayed such a beautiful person”?
“This was the first time it happened, it never happened before. I was a faithful husband,” Frank’s head fell into his hands. “I took good care of Ann, truly. I was getting old, I was tired, I met this girl and she bewitched me.”
“You met her in Wisconsin,” Cindy said slowly then, pulling the awful pieces together.
“Yes,” he whimpered.
“Ronnelle introduced you to Beggio and his funds. She probably worked with him for all we know. You invested with him to have enough money to give her whatever she wanted, right?”
“Right, right,” Frank mumbled.
“How else could you ever keep a young girl like that at your side?” Cindy said.
“Cindy, you have to forgive me, you just have to,” Frank started wailing again. “Will you ever, ever be able to forgive me?”
“Someday I hope to, Frank,” Cindy said very quietly, “but right now, I can’t.”
Chapter 21
The stir created by finding Ann’s killer reverberated all through the Island. One of the Hotel Murders Solved, the papers announced. C and M Investigations did it again! Cindy was almost killed in the process, too, the reporters went on and on.
“It was you, Cindy who solved this,” Mattheus insisted as people gathered around, “not C and M Investigations. I was on board with the police, I thought Frank did it. If you hadn’t taken that extra step with Ronnelle, the truth would never have come out.”
Cindy was both relieved and shaken to the core. She was deeply, deeply relieved that they’d found the killer, but also now had to face the fact that Ann was gone. Cindy also had to deal with Frank’s betrayal. How could she ever face or talk to him again?
As soon as her family heard the news, Cindy’s mother wanted to see her immediately.