by L. C. Warman
Becks was silent.
“Becks? Becks, you know I don’t think you had anything to do with this, right?”
“Yeah. Look. I’m a bit tired. I’m going to go.”
“Sure. See you Wednesday? To sign the papers? Or sooner, honestly, if you have time for it.”
Becks had entirely forgotten about that part. He hadn’t signed them Saturday? The night was still a blur in his head. Becks’ stomach clenched. “Yeah, Wednesday,” he said. “Sure. Right.”
He hung up and walked back over to the couch. His phone was buzzing with new text messages and phone calls—probably reporters and other bloodsuckers whom he had blocked on different lines. He picked up the phone and scrolled through a few, looking for the familiar greeting that would send ice down his spine. Danny darling, his mother would always begin. Danny darling, how are you? Danny darling, it’s been too long.
Only Whitney knew the full extent of that betrayal there; he had hidden the details even from Evan, had been too ashamed to explain to his accountant why nearly a million dollars had gone missing from his bank account. “I moved it to another account—a spending account,” he had told the accountant lamely. “It didn’t last long.” He had suffered through the man’s disapproval and gentle chastisement, had sold an investment property (back when he was still trying to do such things) off in Florida to ensure he had enough cash that month to pay all of his bills.
“It’s kind of their money too,” he had even told Whitney, because he had been so desperate not to see the theft for what it really was, for what it meant for his relationship with his family. “My mom drove me to football practice every day when I was a kid. She had two jobs—”
“That’s what every parent is supposed to do,” Whitney fired back. “Not forge their kid’s signature on a bunch of checks.”
Becks had wanted to talk about the missing money with his mother; Whitney had told him not to bother, that they would simply heighten their security and discreetly warn the bank of potential fraud. “It will make it at least so you can go home for Christmas,” Whitney said, in a disgusted tone that made it clear she did not plan to go with him. To her credit, though, she never said a word against Becks’ family, only bottled her hatred for them up, so much so that Becks could feel it steaming out of her ears whenever he mentioned them.
In the end, of course, he had called his brother, thinking he could broach the topic carefully with his sole sibling. For a while, Joseph Becker had been a head taller and a good deal stronger than Becks, his younger brother, but high school had done away with the advantage, and as Becks became bigger, he also became richer and more successful. Joseph had dealt with the change good-naturedly; he had always had a quick tongue and an easier manner, and for some time came to all of Becks’ football games, mother in tow. Only later, once Becks married Whitney and bought his own house in St. Clair, a “bougie neighborhood,” as Joseph said, did the relationship between them become tense. Their mother grew sick, some sort of undiagnosed blood disease, and though Becks footed all the medical bills he never visited often enough to satisfy either one of them. They felt his excuses about football practice to be selfish and narrow-minded; sometimes, he believed them.
“Fame has changed you,” Joseph had said. They fought, they made up. Things had been going well, up until Whitney had audited their bank statements.
“Little Danny,” Joseph had said, when he had answered the phone that day. “What can I do you for?”
“I’m missing money in my accounts,” Becks blurted. He was so desperate to have Joseph contradict him, to laugh at him and tell him he had it all wrong, to explain it all away.
But instead his brother grew silent. “That’s a hello for you,” he finally said. “I suppose you’re going to say next that you think I took it.”
“No,” Becks lied. “I was wondering—maybe Mom talked to you about it?”
“About stealing from you?”
“No, I—”
“How do we know where your money went?” Joseph said sourly. “You don’t think you moved something around? Bought a new property? Maybe your financial advisor invested it. You know better than I do why rich people’s money gets shuffled places.”
“I don’t—”
“I offered to help you out before, Danny. Not my fault if you’re being irresponsible with it.”
“I’m not,” Becks said hotly. “I’m missing a million dollars. The bank said I wrote checks and wired money to a new account at your and Mom’s bank. The money was moved offshore, and the account is closed now. You want to tell me what that is about?”
“It’s all about money to you, isn’t it?” Joseph had snarled, not missing a beat. “Jeez. I should have known when you called. Anything else you want to accuse me of? Sleeping with your wife? Sabotaging your career? Sorry Danny, but it’s about time to tell you: I’m not responsible for everything going wrong in your life.” He slammed down the phone.
Becks called his mother next, who didn’t pick up. In the next few days, she would call him, a dozen, two dozen times, leaving voicemails that ranged from angry to pleading, telling him that he had gotten it all wrong, that Joseph had told her about “Danny’s nasty accusations,” reminding him that she had never asked him for a dime, never, even when he got that ten-million dollar contract the other year, as if somehow that had any bearing on whether she could steal from him. In the end, Becks had almost called her back—until he played the last message, a reckless, desperate one, where his mother had told him that she knew Whitney would never let him “help out the family,” so she had taken matters into her own hands, and she knew he wouldn’t begrudge her that, would he? Not her darling boy.
Disgusted and rent, Becks had deleted all of the messages.
When he had suffered the biggest disgrace of his career, Joseph and his mother had been silent. When he had officially retired from football, they said nothing. Only when news got out that he was planning to start something new did their feelers begin, probing him from new numbers, telling him that they were willing to forgive his accusations, that they wanted to reconcile. Sometimes, on dark days, he wanted to. What was a little money when it came to blood? But then he would think to himself that they saw him only as vulnerable and weak, a mark to get a little more money out of before the crazy Daniel Becker ran dry, and died exiled and ruined.
Becks shut off his phone and lay down on the couch. He was tired now; depression closed in upon him again, dark and smothering. All that he wanted to do was sleep, sleep and have the last year of his life be lifted away.
Chapter 22
Rick pulled up to the security gate at the St. Clair Yacht Club, where a middle-aged, stout woman in a polo and white slacks peered dubiously out at his rusted sedan.
“Yes?” she said, voice tight with suspicion. Rick blushed. He didn’t want to care that this wealthy suburbanite thought poorly of him.
“I have a meeting here. With Mr. Lyle Tiller.”
The woman only stared at him. Rick smiled, which seemed ridiculous; the woman’s eyes only narrowed further, and without taking her eyes off of him, she picked up the gray phone and dialed a three-digit number. Rick was only sure it was not 9-1-1 when she said, “Yes, a man here to see Mr. Tiller. No, he didn’t identify himself.”
“You didn’t ask!” Rick called.
“Sorry, repeat that. Yes. Okay. Well…all right, then.” Reluctantly, the woman hung up the phone. “What’s your name?” she barked at Rick.
“Rick Fales.”
“I’ll need some I.D.”
“Sorry, forgot it.”
“Then I apologize, I can’t let you in.”
“I’m not sure Mr. Tiller will be pleased about that.”
The woman scowled. Rick considered making a show of finding his I.D. and handing it to her—he had it snugly in his back pocket, as he always did—but he wanted to wield whatever petty power he had to annoy her, in recompense for her snobbery. It’s the little things in life, he thought.
F-u-c…Rick thought. But he spelled it, and the woman spent a few moments tapping into her phone and then looking from its screen to Rick’s face dubiously.
“You’ve lost some weight,” she said accusingly.
“Cardio.” In fact, Rick had just been happier when the most searchable photo of him was taken—newly engaged, young and eager, not yet beaten down by the world. That blasted picture was always the one that showed up when he searched himself, as if to mock him with the memory of all of his false hopes.
The woman buzzed him in without another word, eyes sliding away from him as if he was no longer worth her time.
“Thank you!” Rick shouted, loud and overly cheery, and drove through noisily, gunning his car just to get past the gate and before the self-proclaimed elites of society could change their minds. He parked in the long, thin lot to the right, ignoring looks from housewives and househusbands and retirees and everyone else who’d be at the club midday on a Monday, stalking up the long walk to the yacht club’s front doors.
He was greeted by a young woman in a pencil skirt and pink blouse who ushered him up to a meeting room, a private place with a lakefront view that was empty of all except a few bookcases and an oversized oak desk. Rick wandered to the window and watched the icy, churning lake for a few minutes, wondering if this had all been some elaborate plan to trap him, if prestigious yacht clubs could also be the scenes of movie-like assassinations and body disposals for their rich patrons. He even went to the door and tried the lock, and was not a little disappointed to find that it opened easily, and that he was not, in fact, a prisoner.
A few minutes later, the door opened and the young woman reappeared, preceding Lyle Tiller into the room.
The Gryphons’ owner was shorter than Rick had anticipated, since Rick had fallen victim to that persistent fallacy that people seen on TV must be larger than life. Lyle Tiller was wide enough, though, with an oversized head and a mane of gray-white curls, with a barrel-sized chest ready to burst out of the thin button-down shirt that he had wrestled on. Rick had only time to notice the plethora of rings on the football team owner’s thick, square fingers before Lyle Tiller barked, “That’s all, Chelsea! Leave us,” startling Rick to attention.
“Here,” Lyle said, pointing to the two small chairs facing the lake. Rick thought it surprisingly egalitarian for the old man, whom he had assumed would want to sit behind some oversized desk where he could look down on the lower-class reporter. “I’m glad we could meet in person finally. Easier to talk about more…sensitive matters,” Lyle continued gruffly.
“Yes.” Rick almost added a “sir” and decided against it. Best not to come off as too much of a sycophant.
“Did you see who murdered my baby?”
Lyle did not look at Rick as the question was posed; he kept his gaze steadfastly fixed on the water, and Rick took the opportunity to assess the man’s expression. Distant, reserved. No naked raw pain or grief. But then, a man of his status would know how to maintain a poker face.
“I didn’t see it,” Rick said. “I’m sorry.”
Lyle grunted in what could have been acknowledgment or dismissal. “Tell me what you did see.”
Smart, thought Rick. First, Lyle Tiller had gotten his attention by waving information about Eliza Vorne in his face. Then, he had invited Rick over to talk in person, to discuss “more sensitive” topics. And he was going to use this time to try to squeeze all the details from Rick that he could, to find out from someone at the party what had gone down. Rick guessed that no other attendees would be chomping at the bit to meet with Lyle Tiller, under the circumstances.
“It’s not much,” Rick warned. But he dutifully launched into an account of arriving that night, of Gina interrupting Evan’s speech, of hearing the wail of sirens not long after. He left out many details—including finding Becks in the staircase—and finished when the police had pulled him aside to ask a few questions.
Lyle Tiller was staring at him now, gray, fish-like eyes intent upon him. “And?” he said finally.
“And that’s it.”
“Where was Evan Miller? When Gina was murdered.”
Rick swallowed. Was it definitely murder, then? Couldn’t it have been what some people had speculated that night—a drunk woman falling off a balcony after too much to drink? Rick wouldn’t try posing the possibility to Lyle, though.
“I don’t know where Evan was,” Rick said carefully. “Mingling with everyone, I think. Trolling for donors and such.”
Lyle’s lip curled. “He wanted me at that damn party,” he said. “Thought I would come and open my checkbook for him. You know what his friend cost me? The bad publicity? All because he dropped his blasted shoulder in that tackle.” The rage seemed to enliven him, and he straightened in his chair. “I told him to get lost and never contact me again. I told Gina not to go. Gina’s heart is too soft. She always wants to see the good in people.”
Sure, Rick thought. The image did not jive with his memory of Gina Tiller that night.
“That Miller kid did this,” Lyle continued. “I know he did. He killed my baby girl.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. That boy has secrets. Good for nothing. Probably was in love with Gina and she rejected him or something.”
Rick tried to hide his disappointment. The idea that the murderer—if indeed there was one—was someone other than Becks filled him with hope. He wasn’t proud of it, but there it was: Rick didn’t want Daniel Becker to be the bad guy. Probably some warped process of projecting his own insecurities on the fallen football star, of sympathizing with the golden boy now shunned by society. Except, Rick Fales had never been a golden boy, not even for a little.
“I don’t think Evan was in love with her,” Rick said, gently as he could. He couldn’t be certain, of course, but he didn’t see any of that sort of tension at the party.
“Nonsense. Everyone is.”
“Do you have any other reasons for thinking Evan had something to do with this?”
Lyle sneered again. “You going to put this in your paper? ‘Victim’s father accuses Evan Miller of murder’?”
“No. It wouldn’t be worth the headache. Now if you have a piece of evidence implicating him…I could run with that. More than just an accusation from a mourning father.”
Lyle didn’t take offense to this. He looked back out at the lake, his eyes cold and calculating.
“Gina is friendly with a lawyer out in the city,” Lyle said, still struggling to speak about his daughter in the past tense. “Business lawyer. He told her something privileged—Evan is one of his clients.”
Rick’s stomach fluttered. For a moment he wished that he too could be a rich, young socialite, for whom secrets would be easy to collect and cajole out of people. “Okay,” Rick said, when Lyle paused.
“You can’t run this. He could be disbarred. You’ll have to confirm this another way.”
“Okay.”
Lyle nodded, still not meeting Rick’s eyes. “Becker & Miller, the business? The one that the party was for? Well, Evan Miller planned to move the whole thing to Florida in the next six months. That’s what he wanted the lawyer’s help for. He hooked him up with an attorney in Florida, and they were already working on the papers to move it down there.”
“Did the Beckers know?”
Lyle looked at Rick scathingly. “What do you think? He had it in the contract that he had full legal right to move the business. Fine print. I don’t think Becks’ head is good enough to really see that, do you? Evan Miller probably figured he’d pull one over on the guy.”
A chill ran through Rick. Lyle looked almost proud.
“That was my Gina,” he said, shaking his head. “Too smart for her own good. Knew all sorts of things about all sorts of people. She always got it out of them.”
“It’s dangerous, keeping that many secrets.”
&nbs
p; Lyle’s face hardened. “You send me the article when it’s done,” he said brusquely, rising. “I want to see that boy burn.”
Chapter 23
Eliza scrolled through her phone at the neighborhood wine bar, rubbing the back of her calf with her toe.
She should never have gotten involved; that much was obvious. But she couldn’t leave Aaron in the lurch, not after everything they’d been through. And she knew how close he was to those sponsorships, how he just needed to make it through a few more weeks. It wasn’t fair that one idiotic weekend could ruin someone’s career.
Oh, she had berated him enough about it, to be sure. Skiing? she had cried. What girl convinced you that that was a good idea?
It wasn’t a girl, it turned out—it was some of Aaron’s high school friends, who thought a trip up to Whistler for a pro-football player was a fantastic plan. And Aaron, who always seemed insecure to Eliza about how much his high school friends still liked him (as if they wouldn’t, as if they’d give up the opportunity to brush shoulders with their most successful friend), had agreed to go, and what’s more, had agreed to ski.
It could have been worse, of course—a strained wrist, Aaron had said, though she had some inkling that it might be worse, that Aaron could be covering up some sort of hairline fracture. He had to make it through two more weeks of practice before his sponsorship deals closed. Then he could take time off—and only then. If he needed to.
“Eliza!”
Eliza jumped before recovering herself. “Whitney,” she said, embracing her friend. They squeezed hands and Whitney eased herself onto the stool next to her. “How are you? How is everything?”
Whitney smiled faintly at her. Whitney the soldier, the stalwart, the supporter. Eliza could only imagine what she had been going through this past year.
“I’m fine,” Whitney said. “How are you holding up?”
Eliza dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. “Good, as always. How’s Becks?”