“Smart kid. And that’s where we come in,” I said. “We need to pay for his school and his new place, and make sure he’s got around-the-clock security for a while, even if he’s clear on the other side of the country.”
“Absolutely,” Ryan quickly agreed.
“No question about it.” Colin nodded.
I pointed at Colin. “You see him the most. You let him know we’ve got his back on this, all right? He’s our brother, and we’ll take care of him. Without him, we might not have a chance at taking down the other men who killed our father. I want them all behind bars. Every last one of them.”
With the revelation that our half-brother Marcus’s father, Luke, was the leader of the notorious street gang the Royal Sinners, the cops were working to devise the best way to dismantle the gang and connect Luke to our father’s murder. I reasoned that any sort of sting operation to take down the group’s head, who’d successfully operated as the clandestine leader for more than two decades, would put Marcus square in the face of danger.
One man—the gunman, Jerry Stefano—was already in prison and had been for eighteen years. So was our mother, who’d plotted the murder. Now, Kenny Nelson, the getaway driver who had been arrested a few weeks ago, was likely on his way to the big house, but I wouldn’t rest until TJ Nelson, the alleged mastermind of the gunman’s hits, joined him there, along with the head of the gang. Apparently, Luke had been pulling the strings all along, hiding behind his harmless piano-teacher persona as he operated a gang of thieves, thugs, and murderers. I had hired the private detective, with Mindy’s help, to conduct my own recon, do my part to push things along.
“I’ve got to hit the road. Lots to do in the office,” I said, then turned to Ryan. “I’m taking the afternoon off.”
Ryan stopped in his tracks. “Whoa. You never take off. You prepping for your New York trip?”
I was slated to meet with some clients in Manhattan at the end of the week. “Nope. Just a meeting locally.”
“With who?” Ryan asked, and the question was perfectly reasonable because Ryan and I ran Sloan Protection Resources together.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t like lying, but I didn’t want to get into the details. I reached for the door handle of my car, trying to ignore the question.
“Wait.” Ryan’s hand came down on my shoulder. “You’re seeing her.”
I spun around. “What?”
Ryan wagged his finger and grinned like he’d caught me red-handed. “Yep. I knew it. You told me she wrote to you, and I fucking knew you were going to see her.”
I shrugged, trying to make light of it. “Big deal. So I saw her.”
“And now you’re playing hooky to see her again,” Ryan teased, wiggling his eyebrows.
I waved him off. “Not playing hooky. I’ll be working late tonight.”
“Or working late on Annalise,” Ryan called out as I shut the door.
I flipped him the bird, and my brothers laughed. There wasn’t much that got past them. They knew how over the moon I’d been for Annalise back in high school. Hell, they knew her. Everyone knew her—my grandparents, my sister, even my father.
My father had thought she was perfect for me.
I flashed back to the note in my wallet. The one I kept with me at all times. My father’s last written words to me were about Annalise. As I peeled away from the hills and drove back to my home on the Strip, I replayed the thirty-six hours before my father had been killed. The breakfast with him the day before was a blur; the next morning with Annalise at the airport as I said goodbye was a smudge in my memory too.
The one starkly clear event had happened after midnight.
A snapshot blazed before my eyes. I swallowed hard, jammed the brakes, and pulled over to the side of the road.
The image was too powerful to drive through.
I’d been in my bed, trying to sleep. I’d bolted upright, remembering I’d left something in the car that day. I’d barely been sleeping anyway. I got out of bed, padded to the front door, and unlocked it. My father’s car was in the driveway. He’d been driving the limo that night, taking some teens to the prom, and after returning the limo to work, he drove his own car home.
I headed for the car door then nearly tripped.
On my father.
My veins ran cold with fear, then denial, then a soul-ripping agony as I fell to my knees, grabbing, clutching, holding the lifeless body in the driveway. Soaked in blood. Heart no longer beating. Wallet open, ID and photos spilled everywhere along with, I’d learn later, a note my father had likely written to me earlier that day.
The black of night cloaked me as I held my father, and I began to know the true meaning of the word horror.
Pressing two fingers against the bridge of my nose, I let the memory recede, like a wave rolling out to sea. It would crash into me again, but for now, that image sent me back to the investigation. To the role my mother’s lover had played in the murder.
The question remained—did Luke want Thomas Paige dead because he was in love with Thomas’s wife? Or was there some other motive at stake?
10
Becky
“Coffee or tea? Tea, right?”
The words seemed to float past me, indistinct, indecipherable. I hunched over the menu, studying it intently. Eggs, chia seed pudding—whatever that was—oats. My focus was singular—avoid the topic of my husband.
That wouldn’t be easy. For so many reasons.
But surely, perusing all of the food options here—so many avocado toast customizations at this hip breakfast café—would keep me busy for some time.
“Tea with sugar, right?” Annalise said it louder, jarring me.
I startled, then looked up. The waitress was here. I hadn’t even noticed her arrival.
“Sorry, dear. Tea is fine,” I said to the waitress, fiddling with the edge of the menu.
Annalise added, “Some sugar for the tea, please. And a coffee for me. Black.”
The waitress nodded and swiveled on her heels.
“Do you know what you want to eat?” Annalise asked when the woman was gone, and I shook my head. Now, if I could just stare at this menu the whole time.
Except I wanted to catch up with the young woman who was the closest I’d ever come to having a daughter. I hadn’t seen her since she lived with my husband and me all those years ago, but we’d kept in touch from afar over the years.
But I hardly knew how I would maintain a blank face once she surely started asking me about Sanders. How he was. What he was up to.
There was a reason I never played cards—terrible bluffer.
“Can’t decide.” Absently I ran my finger across the fork on the table. Perhaps I could delay ordering until the last minute, then I could simply focus on Annalise. Ask her about her job, keep her focused on that, and then deflect any and all questions about Sanders and Thomas and the past that had been dredged into the present.
“Maybe the special, then? I saw it on the chalkboard. Eggs and chives with homemade sourdough bread,” she offered.
“Sure, fine,” I said, since I had to choose something.
After the waitress swung by again, Annalise ordered, then, straight shooter that she was, began with the obvious. “So, Sanders couldn’t make it today?”