“My name is Joss Jax,” I said. “And this is Finch.”
He raised a hand. She blinked, her face otherwise remaining steady. Unchanged. She didn’t seem the least bit interested in who we were, or that she’d just welcomed two strangers into her house without inquiring what we were after.
When she finally did speak, her voice was solid, but lacked fluctuation in tone. “What can I do for you two?”
“I’d like to talk to you about your son.”
“Which one, Everett or Ethan?”
“Elias.”
Her lips formed the slightest smile, her eyes shifting to a picture of a young Elias inside a silver frame over the fireplace mantle. “Oh. Him. What do you want to know?”
“When he was alive, did you visit him in prison?”
“A few times, yes.”
“Did he tell you anything about his visits with Alexandra Weston?”
She nodded. “He spoke of her often. Of the book she was writing. Besides me, his lawyer, and our pastor, she was his only other visitor.”
I moved to a harder question. “Were you aware of Elias’s relationship with Alexandra?”
“If you’re going to keep firing questions off like this, I need to sit down.” She sat on a chair, crossed one leg over the other, looked at us like it was up for us to decide whether we wanted to remain standing. “When you say relationship, which relationship are you referring to, the professional one or the personal one?”
“You knew about the personal relationship that existed between them?”
“I believe we should clarify what personal means. You do mean sex, don’t you?”
I looked at Finch. He looked like he wanted to disappear into the floor.
“Elias was on death row in prison,” I said. “I don’t see how they managed anything physical between them.”
“I don’t know. It’s not like he’d give those details to his mother. Of course, he always was different from the time he was a young boy. So different from the others. But he was my son, and I loved him anyway.”
Her attitude toward him made me wonder if she’d regarded him the same way she did his brothers. If she had not, I was sure it had affected him. “How would it have been possible for Elias and Alexandra to be intimate together? Didn’t they conduct their visits through a partition?”
“You didn’t know Alexandra Weston very well, did you? Elias always said she was the only woman he’d ever known who could bend any man to her will. Even though Alexandra and Elias had one-on-one visits with a guard present, there were times they were alone.”
“How did she manage that?”
“The men at that prison loved her, both inmates and guards alike.”
“Do you know if it only happened once, or multiple times?”
“I don’t have an exact number. Why does it matter now anyway?”
I wondered what the guard received for giving her what she wanted and looking the other way. I also wondered what made Alexandra want to have sex with Elias in the first place. Were real feelings there? Had she loved him?
“I suppose Alexandra found a way to convince the guard to look the other way, so to speak, give her a few minutes alone with him. Like I said before, she was a woman who always got her way.”
And he was the kind of man who slaughtered people.
“Who told you they were intimate with each other?” I asked.
“They both did, though Alexandra didn’t mention it to me until recently. I’ll never forget the shocked look on her face when she realized I’d known all these years and kept quiet.”
“When did you last see Alexandra?” I asked.
“A few months ago.”
“And when before that?”
“It had been years. Decades. She showed up at my door, said she was writing a book and wanted to talk to me before she published it. Her exact words were, ‘I need to tell you the truth about a few things before you read about it in my book.’ Imagine her surprise when she found out I already knew what she’d come to tell me.”
“Did Alexandra say why she’d decided to write a memoir?”
“She said after all these years she wanted to come clean about her life. If she didn’t, she feared someone else would, and if it was going to be told, she wanted to be the one to tell it.”
“Did she mention who she thought would betray her?”
Loretta shook her head. “She only said there would be a chapter in her upcoming memoir devoted to Elias. Decades ago when Alexandra wrote The Devil Died at Midnight, she left some details out. I never understood why. The last time I visited Elias, he said she was quite smitten with him. He joked about having manipulated her.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know.” She paused then added, “I hate to say this, but I’m going to. It’s been eating at me for days now, ever since Alexandra Weston died. There’s a chance that I’m to blame for her death.”
“How? Do you know who did it?”
“Maybe.”
I hoped the word “maybe” would be followed with an onslaught of other juicy details. But she’d stopped talking.
“Can you give me a name?” I prompted.
“I can give you two names. Right before Elias’s death, he sent me a letter. He said Alexandra promised to keep some of the things he’d told her a secret. He also said he didn’t trust her. He thought the day would come when she’d break her promise. Not at first, but one day. He asked me to do him a favor.”
“What favor?”
“Inside the letter he sent to me were two additional letters. One addressed to Sandra Hamilton, the other to Paula Page. He said that once he died, I was to deliver the letters to them personally without opening them.”
“Did you deliver them?” I asked.
“I didn’t. I kept them.”
It was like someone had just handed me the keys to a brand-new car.
“Where are the letters now? Can I see them?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Why not?”
“After Mrs. Weston left my house, I thought about what Elias had said all those years ago, about what he’d asked me to do. It occurred to me the purpose of her visit may not have been as it seemed. I felt she’d manipulated me, pressed me for details only I would know. Details she planned to include in her memoir to make it as scandalous as possible. I dug the letters out of an old file box the next day and hand-delivered them to Sandra and Paula.”
“Did they wonder why you waited so long to deliver them?”
“I told them I’d happened upon the box he’d sent me from prison, and there they were.”
“Did they accept the letters?”
“I thought they wouldn’t, but both of them did.”
“Is there any chance you read them first?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t. Thought about it more than once. It would have been so easy to break the seal on the envelopes, read the letters, then deliver the letters and just say that was how they were sent to me. But those letters weren’t meant for me. So I didn’t read them.”
“Did you say anything about Alexandra when you delivered the letters to Sandra and Paula?”
“I told them about her upcoming memoir.”
“How did they react?”
“In a word—scared.”
As the first unexpected shock settled in, Loretta unleashed a second, equally shocking bit of information.
“Personally I didn’t care what Alexandra wrote in her tell-all book. There’s nothing she can do now to hurt my family that she hasn’t already done. I only asked her to leave the child out of it.”
Was it possible? Had Loretta known the truth about Chelsea all this time?
“What child?”
“Elias’s daughter. My granddaughter.”
“Wait—you know about Chelsea?”
Loretta nodded.
It seemed everyone knew about Chelsea except Chelsea.
“How long have
you known?” I asked.
“How do you think I learned of his sexual relations with Alexandra Weston? He had to tell me if he was going to tell me about the baby. There was no other way.”
“What did you do after you found out?”
“Nothing.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Weren’t you interested in being part of her life?”
“Part of her life? If Alexandra had wanted me to be part of Chelsea’s life, I would have been. She had her reasons, or her fears, I should say. I respected her need for discretion. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t imagined what it would be like to have a life with my granddaughter. But I thought it was for Chelsea’s own good if I stayed away. I put her needs above my own. I suppose Alexandra did the same.”
I didn’t agree. “Alexandra should have told you about her. You’re her family. You had every right to know.”
“Why? Think about it. If the truth of who Chelsea really was got out, how do you think Chelsea would have been treated? Think about how much different her life would have been. I didn’t want it to be ruined because of Elias. He’d already ruined the rest of my family.”
I still didn’t agree, but I saw her point. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, for your loss.”
For the first time since I’d arrived, Loretta looked at me. Really looked at me. “What do you know about significant loss, Miss Jax? Has your heart been torn from you and yet you still continue to exist when you have little left to live for? Keep your sorry. I don’t need it.”
Finch glanced in my direction. I thought he might speak up. He didn’t.
“I don’t know what your loss feels like to you,” I said. “I can’t imagine. But you shouldn’t assume you’re the only one who has suffered.”
“Did your son die cruelly in an electric chair? Did your friends shun you? Your family? Your neighbors? Your church? Was your husband forced to sell his company, the one he built from nothing? Did you walk into this very room and find your husband hanging from the beam you’re sitting beneath at this very moment?”
Like a motorist passing the scene of an accident on the highway, I knew it was wrong to stare, but I did anyway. I couldn’t help it. A minute earlier, I wouldn’t have noticed the beam. Now it was etched into my mind forever. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about your husband.”
“My husband Jeremiah could handle a lot things, but the one thing he couldn’t was the loss of respect from everyone around him after Elias’s crimes were revealed. People didn’t look at us the same. We were judged, labeled bad parents, like we were to blame for Elias turning out the way he did. It was too much for him.”
Too much?
Jeremiah still had a family who needed him. Family who didn’t deserve to lose him too. A wife. Other children. How selfish he was to hang himself in his own home for his wife and his children to find. Some people might justify his actions. Not me.
“It must have been hard.”
“What would you know about that?”
Plenty.
In that moment, the words I never seemed to find, the ones that stuck to my throat, always resisting the opportunity to find their way out, surged from me. “I lost my daughter.”
“What do you mean you lost her?”
“I mean she’s dead.”
Loretta pressed a hand to her chest. “Why? What happened to her?”
“I happened. I made a mistake, and she lost her life because of it.”
Even after I’d said it, I couldn’t believe I had. I’d never discussed it before, and here I was revealing my deepest regret to a complete stranger. In an odd way, it was easier. I didn’t know her. She didn’t know me. I didn’t care what she thought. And then I remembered Finch. I’d become so caught up in the conversation, I forgot he was still there next to me, quietly taking it all in.
I braved my nerves to tilt my head just enough to look at him.
Now you see me.
The real me.
Raw.
Stripped down.
Broken.
Maybe now he’d understand why I lived my life the way I did. Always looking for the next rush, the next fix, the next thing to make the numb feeling inside me go away, to feel alive again, even if it was only for a fleeting moment.
As we sat there in silence, staring at each other, Loretta cut in. “What mistake did you make with your daughter? How is what happened to her on you?”
Before I could reply, Loretta’s front door opened and shut, and a male voice said, “Mother?”
“In here,” Loretta replied.
A man appearing to be in his mid-forties came around the corner, stopping abruptly when he realized Loretta wasn’t alone. He seemed surprised. I doubted she received many visitors. He removed the outer jacket over his tailored gray suit, folding it in half before placing it over the edge of the sofa. His overall presence was polished and pristine, except for one oddity: a long, trimmed beard.
“This is my son Ethan,” Loretta said.
Ethan sat next to his mother. “You didn’t tell me anyone was stopping by today.”
Loretta gestured at us with a hand. “I’ve only just met them. This is, umm, what did you say your names were again?”
“Joss and Finch,” I said.
“Right. Joss and Finch.”
Ethan snorted. “Finch? Is that a nickname or something? I mean, what kind of name is—”
“The kind you don’t question,” Finch replied.
Ethan stopped laughing. “Why are you here?”
“They were asking questions about Elias,” Loretta said.
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.”
Ethan’s forehead wrinkled. “You let complete strangers in the house without even asking what they wanted? You can’t do things like that.”
“We’re trying to find out about what happened to Alexandra Weston,” I said.
“What does she have to do with my mother?” Ethan asked.
“I just had a few questions I thought she could answer, and she did. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, so you think you can say a few words, smooth things over, and I’m supposed to feel better now? I want you to leave. Now.”
Finch stood. I remained seated.
“What do you do for a living, Ethan?” I asked.
“What business is it of yours?” he replied.
“My son has a wonderful job,” Loretta beamed. “He owns a veterinary pharmaceutical company in Texas. Keeps him busy. Too busy, if you ask me. He only gets out here to see me a few times each year.”
I faced Ethan. “Did you know Alexandra Weston was murdered this past week?”
He shook his head, like there was no need for me to state the obvious. “Uhh, everyone knows.”
“The police are still working on finding her killer, but they’re getting close.”
He shrugged. “Good for them.”
“Apparently there was a man following Chelsea the other day. He ran her off the road.”
“A man following who?”
“You know,” Loretta chimed in. “Chelsea.”
He looked at his mother like he’d do just about anything to keep her from talking. “Right. Chelsea.”
“So you know she’s your niece then?”
He laughed. “She’s not my niece. I don’t even know her.”
“You may not, but it’s still true.”
“Yeah, well, as far as I’m concerned, she’s not my blood.”
With the environment turning hostile, I stood, walked with Finch to the door, the entire time thinking about the fact that Ethan had a job that granted him access to poison. We reached the car, and I turned to see Loretta arguing with her son on the porch. Ethan went back inside the house, slamming the door behind him. Loretta approached me. “A moment, Miss Jax, if you don’t mind?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did earlier. You’re right. I don’t know you. And you don’t know me.”
“Pain is pain no matter how we choose to look at it. It’s easy to think of our own loss and assume no one else’s suffering is quite the same.”
“We all face our own personal demons, don’t we?” I said.
She nodded.
I gave her the name of my hotel in case she remembered anything else. She turned and walked back to the house, saying, “You take care of yourself. Don’t spend your life wallowing in misery like I have. It’s no way to live.”
CHAPTER 43
“I have a confession to make,” Finch said.
We were in the car headed back to the hotel. He’d been silent for almost ten minutes. Well, not completely silent, but humming. Humming while tapping his thumb on the steering wheel and staring out the window. Several miles back, we’d passed a billboard with a picture of Louis Armstrong playing a trumpet, and that was when the humming began.
“What’s your confession?” I asked.
“At Elias’s mother’s house, you mentioned what happened to your daughter, and I ...”
Suddenly he couldn’t finish his sentence. I knew he was stalling, having second thoughts about telling me.
“What’s your confession, Finch?”
He pulled the car over, looked at me.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Why are we stopping?”
“This isn’t the kind of thing I just want to blurt out. It wouldn’t feel right.”
“Oh ... kay.”
He gripped the steering wheel like he was revving a throttle on a sports car. “I knew about your daughter already, about what happened to her, I mean.”
“How long have you known?”
“Last year when you got hammered in that bar in Los Angeles ... I can’t remember what that place was called ...”
“Tito’s.”
He nodded. “That’s right. Tito’s Bar. I’d been working for you for a while, and I’d never seen you drink more than a glass of wine or two, even when you were at a party. Then December rolls around and you’re sitting alone at a table one night shooting vodka like it’s water.”
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