When Shu turned, Ethan took off through the kitchen and ran after Clinton.
“Dammit!” Agent Shu went after Ethan.
Ethan burst through the back kitchen door and heard a gun fire. It came from the front yard. He ran around the side of the estate as fast as he could.
Brooke went to the front window and looked out. She saw Ethan standing in the front garden with a sorrowful gaze. Agent Shu approached from behind, seemingly resolved.
Brooke knew immediately what had happened, and wept.
Clinton Godeaux was dead on the front lawn, a bullet through his head, shot at close range.
Agent Shu moved closer to confirm that Clinton was killed with Detective Ramsey’s gun. It looked as though Detective Ramsey still had a little life left in him, saw Clinton run out of the house, and shot him, dead. Then died himself.
But Brooke knew what had really happened.
When Clinton ran out and saw Detective Ramsey sprawled out on the grass, already dead, he lifted Ramsey’s gun to his own head and pulled the trigger.
It was suicide.
Clinton knew there was no way out of this mess. At the very best he would get a life sentence in prison. At the very least, his sister would have won, and he couldn’t accept that.
He didn’t get that gene.
CHAPTER 41
A representative from Britain’s MI6, Agent Ray Arnold, joined the FBI to interview Ethan, Brooke, Jack, and Sean—separately and together. Their stories corroborated and both detectives Ramsey and Johnson were credited for the capture of Clinton Godeaux and his return to the motherland in a body bag.
The two convicted felons lain dead on the front lawn of Highpoint manor, Andrew Lipshitz (aka “Ace”) and Dale Norton, were originally assumed responsible for the murder of Bailey Duff since the bullet that had killed Bailey had come from the gun in Ace’s hand. But when Brooke showed the FBI agents how to use her Black Box feature on Bailey’s phone, they played back the audio of the murder under the Santa Monica Pier, and the record was set straight. Clinton Godeaux was determined the killer.
As if it mattered. They were all dead.
But the Godeaux case was far from being wrapped up. There was still the matter of the Arthur Godeaux’s death-by-cyanide conundrum and the indisputable, incriminating evidence that revealed Stella Godeaux as the murderess.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” the MI6 agent said after he and the FBI completed debriefing Brooke. “I will escort you back to London tomorrow. You will have an arraignment right away, and then plenty of time to prepare for trial.”
“You can finally go home,” Ethan said, with a heavy pit in his stomach. “You can go back to being Stella Godeaux. ”
“I don’t want to go back,” she said, clearly grief-stricken, and even more discomfited. She turned to Arnold and pleaded, “I didn’t kill my father, I promise you. I loved him very much.”
“I’m sure you did,” Arnold said. “You will have a fair trial, but frankly, the evidence against you is insurmountable. The hospital security tape shows you injecting cyanide into your father’s IV.”
“It has to be faked somehow,” Brooke professed, even though she had never seen the footage. It had only been shared with the British Secret Service, FBI, Interpol, and investigating police.
And Ethan.
“The security tape was authentic,” Arnold told her. “Our experts confirmed that it had not been tampered with. And you still have no alibi.”
“You just heard my brother’s confession, which I recorded on my rabbit statue, my custom-made apps, and you just heard everything from four surviving witnesses, you have to believe me—”
“Still,” the MI6 agent concluded, “our evidence shows otherwise.”
Just then it hit Ethan like a ton of bricks and he was sure he knew how Clinton framed Brooke. He jumped up and told agent Shu, “Play the tape again.”
“We’ve already showed it to you,” Shu complained. “And James Bond here just told you that the tape had not been tampered with.”
“Clinton killed their father,” Ethan said assuredly.
“Innocent people don’t run—”
“Shut up, Shu,” Matz snapped. “Just play the video.”
“If you insist,” Agent Shu said. “It never gets old for me.” Shu held up his iPad so everyone could see and played the hospital security footage.
Ethan said, “Go back to where she looks at the camera and pause it.”
Shu hit rewind and stopped on her face.
Ethan smiled. “She’s innocent,” he said, glaring at Shu. “She ran because she’s a twin. Giving up on her brother would be giving up on herself. She never gave up hope for Clinton. She believed he would eventually do the right thing.”
Brooke smiled at Ethan with a look of gratitude, not only because he was about to save her a lifetime in prison for a crime she did not commit, but also because he understood her and her twin dilemma. She repeated what Father Oliver had told her when she had promised to confess her reasons, “‘Body and spirit are twins; God only knows which is which.’” She got up, kissed Ethan on the head, and whispered in his ear, “I love you.”
“Back on planet earth,” Shu said.
Everyone in the room waited for an explanation.
“That’s not her in that video,” Ethan told them.
“That’s not me,” she agreed.
“Prove it,” Shu said.
“We had this problem with our face recognition feature,” Ethan explained. “Face Match Mode would light up whenever it had a ninety-nine-percent match. But the details in that tiny one percent can make all the difference in the world. Expand the image.”
Agent Shu pinched the picture and it expanded. It was still hard to make out because the video was so grainy.
And because the twins’ faces looked so much alike.
But with the blown-up image, there was one clear difference. “The person in this video has a cleft chin.” Ethan pointed at the lower jaw of the face on the screen, and then turned to Brooke, and touched her smooth, round chin. “She doesn’t… See, no indent. Her brother is the murderer.”
Shu played the video clip once more.
“That’s her brother wearing a dress and a black wig,” Ethan explained. “The long raincoat makes it impossible to see his size—”
“Good enough for me,” Arnold said, completely convinced.
Brooke couldn’t help herself and gave her countryman a big hug. “Thank you!”
Shu turned to Matz and said, “Told you, bait and switch!” as if it were her fault.
“You sure did.” Matz slapped Shu on the back. “Well done. Now let’s get out of here.”
Agent Shu played the security footage one more time, unable to relent so easily. “Unless…she altered this to make it look like a bait and switch—”
“Shut up, Shu,” Matz said. “Agent Arnold just told us that it hadn’t been tampered with.”
“Maybe that’s true, but she still has to go back to England.” Shu’s face brightened with a gotcha grin. “She’s been living here without a visa. And there’s the matter of using a false identity.”
The room went quiet. Shu had a point.
Agent Arnold was the first to speak, “Maybe that can be overlooked—”
“No way,” Shu inserted, like a dagger, or a prick.
Ethan beamed. “Unless—”
“She can’t stay here,” Shu pressed. “Visitor visas only permit her to be here for six months. She’s been here more than two years. The law’s the law.”
“What were you going to say?” Matz asked Ethan.
Ethan blushed and turned to look in Brooke’s eyes. “Could she stay if she married an American?”
Brooke’s face lit up.
“Is that a proposal?” Agent Arnold asked the room.
“You bet it is.”
Arnold stepped forward and said, “She’d need to confirm.”
Brooke wrapped her arms around Ethan and shrieked, “I do!”
Arnold grabbed Ethan’s shoulder. “If we’re going to let her stay, she’ll need a diamond ring.”
“Don’t you worry,” Ethan assured the agent with a conspiratorial wink. “I’ve already been shopping for a rather large one.”
Agent Matz and Agent Arnold applauded. “Congratulations!”
“What about false identity charges?” Shu whined, aggrieved by the injustice.
“Shut up, Shu,” Matz said, grabbing her protégé and dragging him out.
Agent Arnold followed.
Ethan and Brooke stayed behind and kissed for a long time, deeply, like their very first time. Ethan felt it throughout his body and knew his life would never be the same, and apparently so did she.
“Now I know why my father warned me about falling for the most charming guy in the room,” she said. “L’amour nous fait faire des choses folles. Love makes us do crazy things.”
He kissed her again, longer and harder, this time rendering her speechless.
—
In the days that followed, they prepared to start their future together, but not the way they had originally intended. Not exactly. Not yet.
First they had to share their pasts.
They discussed everything, the sacred and the profane. Once all the missing pieces were filled in and the hazy layers peeled away, they both agreed that knowing the truth made them love each other more.
And it set them free.
EPILOGUE
One Year Later
VALLEY REGISTER
House Of Stone
Much of the mystery behind the stewardship of Napa Valley’s largest private house has been solved after years of speculation. As reported last November when a deadly shootout took the lives of two Big Sur Police detectives and one of the property’s potential beneficiaries, the estate has finally been settled. Stella Godeaux-Stone—daughter of the original owner, Arthur Godeaux—has been named the sole beneficiary of the forty-five-acre estate that features the Godeaux manor, an equestrian stable, the Highpoint vineyard, St. Francis Church, St. Francis Community Center, and St. Francis K-6 elementary school.
Stella Godeaux-Stone, who has recently married Ethan Stone, an American technology entrepreneur, was unavailable for questioning. When The Register first reported on the renowned Highpoint estate, the City of Napa had been unable to determine who was the rightful owner. Arthur Godeaux had recently died of heart failure and was survived by his daughter, Stella, and son, Clinton, but the will and testament had been contested and the property was in a state of flux.
British courts further complicated matters by putting a freeze on the Godeaux trusts while they were investigating foul play in Arthur Godeaux’s death.
According to Oliver Godeaux—the twin brother of Arthur Godeaux and head priest at St. Francis Church in north Napa Valley—Stella Godeaux-Stone and her new husband, Ethan, do not plan on living in the Highpoint manor at this time. Father Oliver told The Register that the recent tragedies that took place on the property hold too many bad memories and the young couple has sought a fresh start for their new family.
The priest has overseen all aspects of St. Francis Church since his brother purchased the property in 1993, including the elementary school and community center. The priest now supervises the maintenance of the Highpoint manor for the new owner as well.
“It has been a challenging time for my niece,” Father Oliver explained, “and I pray that she can live in peace, wherever she chooses to settle. The Highpoint estate will continue on as a respected pillar of the Napa Valley community.”
There are still many unknown details about why Mrs. Godeaux-Stone was originally suspected of foul play in her father’s death, why she fled England, and why the murder charges were placed onto her brother Clinton.
As reported last year, Big Sur detectives tracked Clinton Godeaux down at the Highpoint manor and were killed in a shootout on the property, as was Clinton Godeaux.
Since there was no trial, neither British nor American authorities ever released evidence used to settle the case, and Father Oliver refused to answer any questions regarding his nephew’s assumed betrayal. “‘Let us forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead,’” the priest responded, quoting the Bible. “‘The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.’”
So it seems that the entire truth about the estate will forever remain shrouded in mystery.
—
At long last, generations of primogeniture dramas ended, like many family traditions; well-intended security became onerous and thorny; jealousies spawning a web of secrets and lies; vengeance ultimately destroying it all.
Arthur Godeaux would often spout the Parisian idiom: “Le sort du verre est de briser.”
The fate of glass is to break.
But the patriarch of the family had also prepared for such a fate. Well aware of Clinton’s acrimonious inclinations, he bestowed the Godeaux legacy to his daughter, and entrusted his own twin brother, Oliver, to be the trustee. When Arthur bought the Napa Valley property years ago, he had asked his brother not only to build the church and community, but to oversee all operations of the entire Highpoint estate should he survive him. The good priest never let Arthur down. Even now, Father Oliver turns the other cheek when it comes to Rabbit activity at the estate.
Highpoint is still used as one of the many temporary holding cells for Rabbits awaiting their escape strategies, where they stay off-line until sent to their final destination offshore. Like Saint Peter’s Pearly Gates to heaven, such Rabbits wait for their haven, where they will eventually be sent.
Permanently.
—
Sergeant Cruz was overwhelmed by the loss of two of his finest detectives, Ramsey and Johnson, but he once again felt proud of the police department he had promised his father and grandfather he would carry on. Elvis recently hosted a Native American ceremony at Dancing Rabbit to officially change Sergeant Cruz’s Ohlone family name back to Costeños and bring honor back to the region.
Dancing Rabbit continued to be the flora and fauna getaway for refocusing and refreshing stressed tech execs. The retreats that Brooke had set up remained their main source of income. The property was once again in the black, and the owners were thrilled. However, none of the Dancing Rabbit owners or staff ever heard from Brooke, or any of the missing Rabbits, again.
—
As soon as Brooke was cleared of all charges, her marriage to Benjamin Carver was annulled so that she could marry Ethan and become Stella Godeaux-Stone. Once she received her green card and was granted authorization to live and work in the United States on a permanent basis, she and Ethan quietly slipped away to an exquisite, remote island hamlet in the eastern Caribbean known as Pelican Cove.
You won’t find it on a map and you can’t Google it. It’s only for people in the know, and on the go.
Literally.
Pelican Cove harbored the largest network of expatriates in the world, sheltering their money, changing their identities, and placing them in the most impenetrable safe havens in the world, from the Caribbean throughout the Pacific, off the South American and European coasts, all around Asia, and Australia, too.
Think there aren’t others with dreams of starting over completely on their own terms, committing suicide without killing themselves, and becoming an anonymous person in the netherworld of being on the run?
The International Monetary Fund estimated expatriate cash in foreign banking institutions to be in excess of seven trillion dollars.
Seven trillion!
Ethan had always contended that solving a simple human desire is how great businesses
begin. When he learned about how Brooke made Rabbits, how she helped people cut all ties and be truly free, come what may, he pitched her the idea of merging the Stalker and Rabbit concepts, to help people who deserved a second chance by using intricate planning and state-of-the-art technology.
He wanted to make Rabbits with her.
They couldn’t do it on the Dancing Rabbit property, though. The Big Sur police were already incensed by the number of missing persons in the region, and it would only be a matter of time before they closed in. Rabbits needed a safe base to operate from that couldn’t be regulated or investigated.
Brooke knew just the place. She had already masterminded an eloquent, impenetrable design so they too could enjoy life in seclusion, without being secluded. And she had sent Benjamin Carver there to get things started.
—
Ethan and Benjamin now run the transformation division at Pelican Cove. They help Pelicans run, and teach Rabbits to fly. On the wall above Ethan’s desk is a sign with a quote from Albert Einstein: “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
Ethan and Stella Godeaux-Stone live near Pelican Cove offices in a Spanish-style home on top of an exquisite, unspoiled archipelago, with breathtaking views of the azure sea and pristine beaches from the front, and lush landscape and mountains from the back. They have a loving marriage with unparalleled appreciation for each other. Ethan often tells her that the worst days of his life were when he thought he had lost her. Stella promises that they will never again be apart, now that they are family.
Now that they’re making little bunnies of their own.
She got pregnant the first week they arrived at Pelican Cove.
Jack and Sean visit them often. Jack found faith in himself and in their relationship. On the good days, he even shows signs of optimism.
Hounddog is thriving. Sean, the Wizard of Silicon, bought Stalker from Ethan when he got married, and Jack now oversees it as a separate division within the Hounddog offices.
Ethan is happy that it’s staying in the family. Never in his wildest dreams would Ethan have believed that he would never be going back to Stalker or Santa Monica or Silicon Beach. But sometimes dreams change.
The Second Son Page 23