by Rhys Ford
Cocking her head, Margaret remarked with a hint of mocking amusement, “But I certainly intend to. In fact, I’ve been wanting to kill you since the moment you first walked through that damned front door and into Archie’s life.”
ROOK STARED Margaret down, looking past the black steel piece she held in her hand and straight into her narrowed eyes. He took a step forward, bringing his feet off of the staircase when footsteps echoed from down the hall, short clipped ticks of hard heels on expensive marble. The man emerging from the shadows should have swaggered down the hall, especially since Margaret was the one holding the gun. Instead he partially slunk out, checking the various nooks along the way.
His dishwater blond-brown hair was neatly combed in a style Rook personally thought belonged in Mayberry, not Hollywood, and it did little to cover the growing bald spot at the back of Davis’s head. His soft hands trembled when he reached behind a few of the larger vase clusters Archie insisted on cluttering the main hall with. If the study and inner halls were a treasure trove of odds and ends, the front foyer boasted the grander pieces of Archie’s collecting obsession. Davis spared Rook a glance; then his pale blue eyes flicked over to Margaret, his enigmatic face shifting to something warmer for a brief moment, but Rook couldn’t tell if it was anger or lust.
“I’ll be damned. Davis,” Rook spat at the man. “What the hell are you doing? Shit, what are both of you doing?”
“Where’s the statue, Rook?” Margaret stepped in closer, her nostrils flaring, widening her pinched expression.
“There’s statues all over this damned house,” he snapped at her, inching a bit away from the gun.
The best mask for a lie was anger. Most people went with outrage or even incredulity, but Rook always preferred to use a bit of prissiness with a dash of snark. Subterfuge was a delicate thing and, much like a curry, required a gentle hand with an array of emotional spices. Too much rage and the lie was too hot to swallow. But from the look on Margaret’s face, she wasn’t buying anything Rook served up.
Or so he guessed, because she pulled the trigger and fired her gun, aiming straight at Rook.
Mostly.
The bullet went a little wide, shattering the lip of a stair behind him, sending bits of marble and rug flying. Ricocheted pieces hit Rook on the arm, and he was turning to protect his face when Margaret struck him in the ribs with the butt end of the gun. Either the sex he’d had with Dante tore Rook up, or his side hadn’t healed up as much as he thought, because the pain across his side struck him like hot copper being poured into his eyes. His teeth ached from the blow, and Rook went down on one knee, the spot enflamed with a throbbing agony.
Saliva flecked over his lips, and Rook tried to swallow, but his tongue got in the way. His throat was parched, withering around the sick threatening to come up from his empty stomach. Everything now hurt, from his knee where he landed to the spot on his hip he’d smacked against the stairs’ heavy end post when he fell.
“Jesus fucking Christ, woman! Are you out of your goddamned mind?” he gasped, bending over and panting to breathe through the pain. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” Margaret leaned over, and Rook pulled his head back, recoiling from the tequila-scented waves of her breath washing over his face. She smelled drunk, hammered beyond belief, but she held herself without wavering, the gun resting in her hand once again. Shoving the weapon into Rook’s neck, she dug the hot sight as far as she could, searing his skin. “My son’s dead. My Harold. And for what? No, the idiot had to go fuck some stranger he met at his party, and that stupid boyfriend of his caught them—”
“It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault.” Davis spoke up, pulling his head out of a tall packed-tight china cabinet. “He said it was an accident.”
“Wait, Jeremy killed Harold?” Rook rubbed at his side, not liking the damp beneath his fingertips. The area was tender, and the bandage he’d put on earlier wasn’t as tight as he’d have liked. “And they were… really? Jeremy and Harold? I mean sure, he was your kid, but you’ve got to admit, Harold was punching way above his weight with Jeremy.”
“What does that even mean? Punching above his weight?” Margaret stepped out of Rook’s reach, the sting of the recently fired gun fading on his skin.
“It means he thinks Jeremy could have done better than Harold.” Davis sneered at Rook, but his heart didn’t seem into it. “Jeremy could have done better, but Harold was… good for him. Motivated him. Cheating on him was… wrong. He shouldn’t have done that to Jeremy.”
Something in the way Davis muttered those last words tickled Rook’s suspicions. There was something missing in the narrative, a disconnect of personalities and motivations. The Jeremy he knew would have drifted off, possibly screamed at Harold, but picking up something to stab a man didn’t seem like the scatterbrained young man’s style.
“You think Jeremy was too good for Harold? He was lucky Harold even looked at him. That boy’s like talking to a rock. He’s the reason we’re in this mess, Davis.” She turned, gesturing wildly with the gun. “If he’d only sent the right damned statue, we wouldn’t be scrambling to fix his crappy mistakes and I wouldn’t be trying to get this damned asshole to tell me where the resin bird is. Someone took the statue Jeremy brought over, and if it wasn’t Rook, then Jeremy had to have taken it when he left.”
“Let’s get back to the statue thing later. First, there’s no way in hell Jeremy killed Harold,” Rook muttered, unfolding himself so he could lean against the post. It dug into his back, and he needed to shift to take the pressure off of his side, but Margaret seemed less interested in shooting him and more into complaining about Jeremy. “He was stabbed what? A gajillion times? That’s someone with a fuck ton of rage and focus. Jeremy can barely decide on what kind of tea to have every day, and he’s going to lose his shit and reverse-porcupine Harold?”
“Shut up, Rook,” Davis growled. “You weren’t there—”
“Oh, I can believe it was Jeremy I saw at the house that day. He’d want to make up for whatever crap happened by delivering the resin statue, but actually stabbing Harold?” Rook shook his head. “Doesn’t have the balls. Or the strength. The only reason he took me down is because he got in a lucky punch.”
He had Margaret’s attention, and oddly enough, Davis seemed to stiffen to the point of breaking. Rook nodded toward the man and began to lay down the first foundation of doubts for Margaret to build on. She was on the edge, riding it hard until she bled on its sharpness. It wouldn’t take much to tip her over, and Rook knew he’d only have one chance to persuade her.
Especially since she was the one holding the gun.
“Here’s what I think happened,” he started. When beginning a grift, it was important to be soft and gentle, a soothing, conciliatory voice in the chaos of the mark’s life. She pivoted, her shoulders angled between him and Davis, a telling sign of her indecision. He only had to get her to turn the rest of the way. “Did Harold cheat? Yeah, probably, because he made bad life choices. He married Sadonna, hooked up with Jeremy, and stole my bird. He had a hard time holding on to the good things in his life. Jeremy showed up at the party with the statue—the one he thought was real because he didn’t know any better—and he found Harold with… well, it doesn’t matter who. They fought and Jeremy left.
“He didn’t kill Harold. They probably fought, but Harold was alive when Jeremy left.” Rook paused, gently laying the hook out for Margaret to snag herself on. “If he’d stabbed Harold to death in a fit of jealousy, he also would have killed whoever Harold was with and taken the bird back. But if that was Jeremy who hit me, he didn’t have anything with him. Only reason he’d take it back would be because he knew what was inside. That’s not something you’d have told Jeremy.”
“He didn’t know because I didn’t want him to go to jail if we got caught. Jeremy’s not stupid. It was just better if he was kept out of it,” Davis snapped. “Why are we standing around listening to this? Have him tell
us where the damned statue is! You’re the one with the gun!”
“Margaret, sure you hate my guts, but let’s face it, I’ve never lied to any of you. I’ve been flat-out since the beginning. If I knew where that statue was, I’d tell you. What do I care about it?” Rook leaned forward, hoping to create a sense of intimacy with his aunt but also to ease away the growing knotting pain across his ribs. “The bird had to be shown as delivered to the estate. Natterly’s needed to show it getting to the auction winner, and Davis couldn’t risk either the fake or the real bird getting to me, so you guys had it go to Harold instead.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Davis spat.
“Oh, give me some time. Here’s what happened, or at least what I think happened, so see if this makes sense,” he reasoned. “Jeremy sent the wrong statue, the one you guys were going to give me—hopefully after you added some weight to it. The plaster bird went to Harold’s house, and after either Davis or Jeremy realized they’d fucked up, Jeremy decided he’d drop the real bird at Harold’s. Because that was what he was supposed to do. Small steps. Focused task. Jeremy needs that.”
“He does,” Margaret agreed, a bit of a slur on the end of her words. “Harold liked that about him. He liked explaining things to Jeremy, leading him.”
“Unfortunately, Jeremy found… a situation there, tossed the box with the bird into the room, and left,” Rook continued. “And then he went straight to the one person who fixes everything for him, his brother, Davis.”
“Shut the fuck up, Stevens, or I’m going to bash your head in,” Davis growled, then snatched up a hefty silver candlestick from the cabinet. He took a few steps toward Rook, but Margaret brought her gun up, finally turning her shoulders to face her partner in crime. “Come on, Margaret. You can’t believe this crap.”
“Gets kind of tetchy, doesn’t he? Especially about Jeremy. Hell, look how he is right now.” Rook edged back from Margaret, taking himself out of her line of sight. “Nah, it wasn’t Jeremy who stabbed Harold. It was Davis, because Harold fucked up things with his baby brother. But he probably didn’t know about Jeremy bringing the resin statue until it was too late and Jeremy told him he’d gone back to get it. And then of course, that he’d seen me there.
“What I don’t get is what does Sadonna have to do with this?” He caught himself before a cough rattled through his chest, staving off a painful retch.
Pressing his hand down on his side, Rook panicked at the wetness under his fingers and how far it’d spread through his shirt. He didn’t know how much Margaret heard of his conversation with Dante, but he was gambling she’d missed the part where they’d found the statue, especially since she insisted he knew where it was in Archie’s house.
“She knew the bird had diamonds in it,” Margaret said softly, but her attention never wavered from Davis. “Bluthenthal was her agent in the beginning, and the old man used to get drunk all the time, talking about what he’d done in the past and how he’d set himself up a few nest eggs here and there. One of them was the falcon. It’s how we knew about the diamonds, because she’d convinced Harold to bid on the statue. They—Davis, Sadonna, and Harold—were going to split the money from the diamonds, but she double-crossed us by sending you to get it.”
A part of him should have been hurt about Sadonna’s backstab, but he didn’t have proof of anything other than her keeping the diamonds a secret. For all he knew, she’d have split it with him fifty-fifty once he brought it out. Margaret and Davis were the immediate problem, especially since talking about Sadonna was leading his aunt away from the problem at hand. He needed to push her back, a subtle, gentle shove toward the truth.
“It’s too bad I have no fucking clue where it is. I wouldn’t be here if I had that much of a stash. I wouldn’t need to be hanging around Archie, licking up his scraps,” he lied. “But if Sadonna brought it here, someone would have seen it. You can’t miss that ugly thing. In fact, the only person who had their hands on the real one was Davis. He probably told Jeremy to get a delivery notice for Harold’s place, and Harold was going to take the hit by saying he’d arranged the statue to go to him. It would take fucking forever for the courts to hear about it, and by then, you all would have been long gone.
“So where the hell is the statue? Davis has it. Davis, who went to Harold’s house that night after Jeremy told him about what he’d seen there and stabbed Harold to death for cheating on his brother. Then he plays dumb, but he’s stashed the bird someplace safe, and now he’s just waiting for you to get caught so he can walk away with the diamonds and with Harold’s blood on his hands,” Rook finished, hoping his lies were strong enough to persuade Margaret to take a second look at her partner. “Vicks died because he walked in on Davis killing Jennifer Martinez, who had to die because she might have seen him at the house. Davis needs to get rid of everyone who knew he was connected to Harold. Including you, Margaret.”
If anger rode Margaret hard before, it’d unleashed a Wild Hunt on her now. Furious, she brought her arms up, falling into a stance, and aimed her gun at Davis. Alarmed, he flung the candlestick he’d been holding at Margaret’s head, but it went wide, going end over end until it smashed into a wall behind her. The crash was horrendous, the impact rattling a set of frames hanging above the wainscoting, and they tumbled from their perches, their glass shattering when they hit the marble. Rook lurched to the side, huddled around his leaking wound, but he reached out, hoping to grab at Margaret’s arm, but she was too quick for him, stepping aside with a reptilian grin plastered on her face once again.
Then she pulled the trigger and fired.
THE SOUND of a gunshot coming from the house terrified Dante. Pulling his weapon, he went in hot, ready to kick open the front door, but the latch turned and he was in with a shove of his shoulder, slamming the heavy wood against the wall.
There was blood, a tiny trail of red smeared across the marble floor, and Rook lay on his side, tucked in against the heavily carved newel post. Dante’s heart stopped beating, frozen in a clench of icy fear, but his emotions were wild, scorching hot and liquid. He had to shut them down, but they roiled, spilling over his reason. Dante couldn’t look at Rook. Not if he wanted to keep his head and neutralize the situation, but his gaze couldn’t seem to stop drifting from the other two people in the foyer.
The foyer looked like a small bomb had gone off in it. There was an ugly blocky candlestick lying on the floor near the library’s open doors, and a small grouping of pictures were now on the floor, a sea of broken glass spread over the marble tiles. One of the stairs was missing a good portion of its lip, a thick crack running its breadth. Then Dante saw Rook’s face break out into a smile, one warm enough to chase away the chill in Dante’s tightened guts.
“Cuervo?” Rook was moving, shuffling along the wall in a muted, painful half crawl, but Dante needed to hear his lover’s husky, golden voice. “You alright?”
“Yep. Probably popped some stitches,” Rook grunted, and his laugh was rough. “Good to see you, babe.”
“Good to see you too.” He stepped farther into the foyer, trying to make sense of what he saw. “Margaret, it’s good to see you too. We were worried about you.”
Dante locked in on the gun the woman held, sparing a momentary glance at the man trembling against a shot-up cabinet. His arm was bleeding and seemed to be missing a fairly large chunk of meat near his shoulder joint, but the hutch and its knickknacks took the brunt of whatever Margaret was packing. The cabinet’s side was blown through, and its broken contents were lightly splattered with blood. He knew Harold’s brittle mother immediately, but it took a few seconds for him to recognize the injured man as Davis Natterly.
“Ma’am?” Dante kept his gun trained on Margaret. Where there was one Natterly brother, he had to assume the second was lurking about, but he had to make sure. “You doing okay, Mrs. Martin? Is there anyone else in the house besides you and Davis? Can—”
“He killed my son,” Margaret accused, motioning with
the gun at the cabinet and Davis. “Archie’s blasted pet grandson figured it out. God, I am so damned blind. He killed Harold and tried to blame it on… his own brother. His stupid brick of a brother.”
“Rook is lying, Margaret. You know you can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. For fuck’s sake, the only reason he’s sleeping with the damned cop is so he wouldn’t go to jail.” Davis snarled at Dante, his chin tilted up, defiant despite the pain etched onto his face. His shoulder bled, darkening his clothes, and he turned to protect it, then lashed out again. “You don’t actually think Archibald Martin’s grandson would sleep with some border-trash cop? Don’t you remember what you told me about Beatrice? How she’d whore her way through her teachers just to get a good grade? What makes you think Rook’s any different? He’s only saying these things—”
“You can shut the fuck up, Davis,” Rook snarled from behind Margaret. He straightened, then took a hesitant step toward the other man. There was a fury in his mismatched eyes, and the curl of his lip was pure Archie, disdainful and withering. He was wobbling, and his T-shirt was scarily soaked through and dark where his hand clutched at it, but Rook was nearly to Margaret’s shoulder before he stopped. “You can say anything you want about me, but Dante? I’ll fucking punch your face in.”
“Not helping, babe. Rook, step back. I need you to not be in front of me,” Dante muttered, then shifted his focus to the angry woman. Rook moved, cradling his side, with an uneven limp. He was slow, achingly painful to watch, but once Rook got out of the way, Dante moved in closer, keeping his aim firm. “Margaret, let me take care of this. I’m going to need you to put the gun down, but I’ll deal with Davis. But you have to drop your weapon or things will go very wrong very fast.”