by Abigail Roux
night,” he answered after a moment of searching through his notes. “Drinks were mixed and served from there.”
“That’s a pretty open area,” Sam grumbled as he placed
an X where the courtesy desk was marked on his floor plan.
“There are at least four exits from there.”
“Yep,” Morgan agreed unhelpfully.
“What’s this space here?” Sam asked as he pointed at
what appeared to be an empty spiral.
Morgan flipped through a few pages of notes that had
accompanied the plans of the club, and he leaned forward in his chair and glowered at them. “That is, uh… not here,” he murmured under his breath. “Hold on.” He grunted as he set
the notebook down and reached for another.
“How many of those damn things do you have for one
case?” Sam asked in exasperation.
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“I have a method,” Morgan told him with a sarcastic
calming gesture of his hand. “Here it is,” he sighed as he
stopped on a page of scribble.
Sam waited as Morgan scowled at his notes. “Well?” he
asked after losing his patience.
Morgan looked up at him as he reached for the
telephone on his right. “Phone number. I’ll have to make a
call.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Sam grunted as he pushed out
of his chair and headed off for the doughnut box. When he
got back, Morgan was just hanging up the phone. Sam
handed him a half-eaten doughnut and smirked at him.
“Asshole,” Morgan muttered as he tossed the stale
doughnut in the trash. “That space is, apparently, a hidden stairwell,” he told Sam with a frown. “Or at least that’s what Brayden Bainbridge claims. The fucking place is full of
passages and shit. That one leads to the office upstairs.”
“Bainbridge’s office?” Sam asked incredulously.
“That’s what the plans say too,” Morgan answered with
a nod. He pulled out a yellowed piece of paper that had been folded up amidst the plans. “Has all the hiddenmabobs
listed,” Morgan told him as he waved he paper around.
“Why the fuck didn’t we know that when we got the
warrant?” Sam growled.
“Just received the club plans from Bainbridge a few
days ago,” Morgan answered. “When I called, he told me the
paper should list it. But then he just told me what it was
too.”
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“He didn’t even try to lie? He just offered up the info?”
Sam asked with a scowl.
“Yep,” Morgan answered curtly.
“I’m really beginning to hate these fucking guys,” Sam
groused as he threw his pen down in disgust.
“Okay, if they were spiking his drink every night, they
would have had to have done it without him seeing them,
which means in his office while he wasn’t there. Which
means they’d be sneaking into his office, right? With a big jug of antifreeze?” Morgan asked dubiously. “Someone would
have either had to have seen them taking the fucking stuff to the guy’s office, or they stashed it some time when the club was empty and it’s still in there somewhere where they kept it hidden,” he surmised. “Probably in that fucking stairwell.”
“They’ve had plenty of time to move it by now,” Sam
argued.
“We tore that office apart just days after it happened,”
Morgan countered with a raise of his eyebrow. “If they had it hidden well enough that we missed it, why chance moving it
at all? Why not just leave it where it is and never have to deal with it turning up somewhere?”
“But what if we missed it because they had moved it?”
Sam pointed out. “Or they moved it before the funeral, before there was any suspicion?”
Morgan narrowed his eyes and stared at Sam
thoughtfully. “I’m right,” he finally decided stubbornly.
“You’re a jackass,” Sam muttered with a shake of his
head. “Circular arguments aside, it’s worth a second gander, 103
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anyway,” he added thoughtfully. “We have to check that
stairwell, regardless. Get a uniform out to Brayden
Bainbridge’s place, now, before he has a chance to go to the club and move it.”
“Let’s bring both the brothers in for questioning while
we’re at it,” Morgan suggested as he reached for his phone.
“See if we can get anything out of either of them. Rattle one of them loose. If the younger one is as smart as everyone
says he is, then the older one is our best chance to get to him.”
Sam nodded in agreement and frowned thoughtfully,
fighting the feeling that they were still missing something.
Something big.
“I DIDN’T kill my father!” Addison shouted in agitation.
“I want to believe you, Sonny, I really do,” Sam drawled
condescendingly. “So tell us where you were that night,” he urged.
“I was at the club, working the party like everyone else
in the fucking place,” Addison answered heatedly. He leaned forward and pointed at the table as he spoke. “You have at
least a hundred people who saw me there!”
Sam nodded as if to calm him. Either Addison had
taken something since that morning when Sam had seen
him, or he just really didn’t like interrogation rooms. He was twitchy and nervous, whereas this morning he’d been
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practically languid. Sam found himself wondering why
someone would do that to themselves. What was possibly
worth messing up your head that much?
“Tell me about this secret stairwell you boys forgot to
tell us about,” Sam prodded, hopping Addison might finally
slip up.
“It’s on the floor plans,” Addison spat.
“It’s also a good way to get a gallon of antifreeze into
your daddy’s office without anyone seeing you,” Sam pointed out.
“Look at me, man,” Addison huffed in disgust. “Do I look
like I even know what the fuck antifreeze is for?” he argued with a gesture to himself.
Sam shrugged. “Antifreeze is pretty potent stuff, though.
It’s about as dangerous as the shit you were sucking off your boyfriend the other night,” he told Addison with a knowing
smirk.
Addison sat back in the metal chair and stared at Sam
with wide brown eyes, his lips slightly parted in shock and outrage.
“I want my lawyer,” he whispered.
“I WANT my lawyer,” Brayden stated calmly.
Detective Walker sighed and waved his hand at the
mirror behind him.
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Brayden sat across the scarred tabletop and watched
him impassively. He knew enough about the way this worked
to know that the less he said the better off he was. Those
were the only words he had said over the past three hours as he’d been hauled into the station and sat waiting to be
interviewed.
“He’s on his way,” Walker assured him with a slight
smile.
Brayden blinked slowly at him, entirely uninterested in
what he had to say.
“You’re not being charged with anything. Yet. We’re just
talking, here. Man to man,” Walker assured him with an
infuriating smirk.
Brayden met his eyes and blinked slowly again. The
man had nice eyes, Brayden thought idly. They didn’t seem
to fit his personality. He wondered if the guy was really this much of a prick or if he had simply caught Bad Cop duty on
this particular case.
“Your brother’s a bit of an odd duck, ain’t he?” Walker
stated conversationally as Brayden pondered him. “You
know, I once heard that these old, wealthy families,” he went on as he leaned forward and placed his chin in his hand,
“they’ve all been interbred to the point they’ve all got a little bit of crazy in the blood.”
Brayden snorted and shook his head in wry
amusement, but he maintained eye contact.
“We hear his mama was a spitfire too, little off her
rocker,” Walker said confidentially.
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“Natalie Satterwight was a good woman,” Brayden
murmured softly.
“How ’bout your mama?” Walker asked with a raised
eyebrow. “Was she like Natalie?”
“My mother ran away and left me with a father who
didn’t want me,” Brayden answered coldly. “Natalie became
my mother as well, and she was a good one.”
“She was a pretty girl,” Walker observed as he pushed a
picture across the table.
It was an eight-by-ten black-and-white family portrait.
Brayden and Addison sat in front of Addison’s mother as she wrapped both arms around them. All of them were grinning
happily at the camera. Brayden and his half-brother were
both dressed in little bowties and white knee-high socks.
Brayden’s bare knee was scraped from a tumble he had
taken on his bike, and Addison’s unruly curls were sticking straight up, despite the hour Brayden remembered his
mother spending that morning trying to get the ringlets to
behave. Brayden’s throat tightened as he looked down at the picture. He remembered that day like it had been yesterday.
It had been a good day.
Walker must have read his face like a book, because the
next question he asked made Brayden look up at him with a
little jerk.
“You both loved her very much, didn’t you?” the
detective queried softly.
Brayden swallowed with difficulty and merely nodded as
he looked back down at the photograph. For those few years
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when Natalie had been around, Brayden could remember
being truly happy. She had stood up to their father when he would become overbearing or abrasive, and she had actually
enjoyed her time spent with the two small boys who had
adored her. Not like Brayden’s own mother, who had been
content to lie on a beach and drink while the nanny looked
after him.
“How old were you when she died?” Walker asked
neutrally.
“Sonny was four; I was seven,” Brayden answered
hoarsely.
“You know, it’s funny how you answer for him first,”
Walker observed thoughtfully, looking at Brayden as if trying to solve a puzzle. “What else do you do for your kid brother, Brayden?” he asked softly. “Protect him when he gets in
trouble?”
Brayden simply stared at the man.
“Pretty little kid like that?” the detective drawled when it became obvious Brayden wasn’t going to respond. “They’re
gonna love him in the clink.”
Brayden snorted suddenly, the tension draining out of
him again. “The clink,” he echoed with a snicker and a shake of his head as he finally looked away from the man. “Sonny
would wear them out,” he drawled in return, unable to stop
himself.
The detective barked a laugh and nodded.
There was a knock on the door and it promptly opened.
John Stevenson, Brayden and Addison’s very pissed off
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lawyer, stepped into the interrogation room looking as if he had dressed on the drive to the station. His expensive silk tie was askew and his normally neatly trimmed hair was
mussed. He also had the air of righteous indignation to him.
He was a glorious sight to Brayden’s tired eyes.
“Please tell me I’m here in the middle of the goddamned
night because you have an actual challenge for me,” John
growled at Walker as he came over to stand beside Brayden.
Brayden glanced up at him and allowed himself to admire
his lawyer in all his very early morning, unshaven, pissed off glory, and then he looked back at Walker, trying not to look smug.
Walker sat back and looked up at John, pursing his
lips. “Your client is very reticent for an innocent man,” he observed neutrally.
“He is a grieving son who is tired of being hassled,” John
shot back. “Where is my other client?”
“He is in the process of being charged with possession of
an illegal substance,” Walker answered with a smile, using
the same precise, clipped tone John had used with him.
“And he is currently in the holding cell with a very large man named Bubba.”
“What?” Brayden shouted.
“Brayden,” John barked warningly, putting a restraining
hand on his shoulder.
“It takes a long time to process those charges, though.
Maybe you could help your brother out before they get done, Mr. Bainbridge,” Walker suggested.
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“Look, I don’t know what to tell you,” Brayden insisted
over the hissed protests of his lawyer. “Sonny hasn’t done
anything wrong, okay? The night of the funeral he was even
telling me that he thought Father had killed himself. Why
would he say that if he’d had anything to do with it?”
Walker sat forward and narrowed his eyes. “What else
has your brother said?” he inquired softly.
“Brayden, don’t answer that,” John ordered.
“No! We didn’t do anything, John,” Brayden protested as
he looked up at his lawyer. “Look, they don’t even have
motive,” he went on irritably as he looked back at Walker. “I had to beg Addison not to sign over his inheritance when he turned twenty-one. Why would he kill for it now? I had to
beg him to stick around.”
“So he was unhappy here,” Walker concluded with
infuriating calm. “Why would your brother not want to stick around? Did he and your father have issues?”
Brayden’s jaw clenched and he glared at the detective as
John finally dug his fingers into his shoulder to silence him.
“What we hear, your father didn’t like his youngest son
taking it up the tailpipe,” Walker informed them drolly.
Brayden looked away before the urge to hit the man
could manifest into something stronger.
“What we hear,” Walker continued, “your father had a
habit of threatening your brother’s lovers and running them off. Bet that gets old for a wild kid like Sonny real quick, no matter what he says about it.”
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Brayden clenched his jaw and remained silent.
“What we hear, your brother is
pretty serious about this
Parrish fella. Maybe serious enough not to want him driven
off like all the others? Did your daddy threaten Addison too?
Smack him around a little?”
“I would never have stood for that,” Brayden answered
softly.
“Maybe you decided to do something about it, hmm?”
Brayden pursed his lips and looked up at John.
“Either charge my clients, Detective, or we walk right
now,” John demanded quietly.
“WE have a witness who actually corroborates part of
Bainbridge’s statement,” Morgan told Sam as soon as he had
finished with the man and his lawyer. He handed him a
doughnut that had one bite taken out of it and smirked
when Sam glared at him.
“Tell me,” Sam sighed before biting into the doughnut
anyway and heading for the coffee machine.
“The night of the funeral, one of the janitorial staff heard the brothers out near the beach talking about whether or not their dad killed himself. The guy says Satterwight seemed
certain that he did, and Bainbridge argued that it was
natural causes.”
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“Could one or both of the brothers have known that he
was listening?” Sam asked as he grabbed a cup and poured
himself some sludge with a grimace.
“He said he cleans in the same route every night,”
Morgan said with a shrug in answer. He leaned against the
table and rested his hand on his knee as he looked at Sam.
“Said Satterwight sits out there a lot. Sometimes he’d even stop and smoke a joint with him,” he said wryly.
“Fuck. So what’s this mean, do you think?” Sam asked
softly as he stirred his coffee. “You think the kid knew he’d be overheard and planted witness statements? You think
he’s that calculating?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him, not now,” Morgan
murmured as they watched Bainbridge and his lawyer leave
the interrogation room. “Like you said,” Sam’s partner
whispered as Bainbridge turned to glare at them over his
shoulder, “the kid is smarter than we gave him credit for.
And his brother doesn’t even seem to realize it.”