Devil's Cut

by J. R. Ward

  --

  Lane could have gone back upstairs, but he didn't want to disturb Lizzie, and there was no rest for the weary. His brain was a shack in a tornado, his thoughts getting splintered and becoming flying debris thanks to all the emotions roiling inside of him--and as much as he loved being in bed with his woman, the idea of lying there in the dark, his body frozen in deference to her while this F5 raged within his skull, seemed like hell.

  He ended up in the kitchen.

  Walking into the dim open space, he didn't bother with any light switches. There was plenty of ambient illumination from the back courtyard, and the restaurant-worthy stretches of stainless-steel counters and professional-grade appliances rebounded the glow, making it seem as if twilight was taking a breather inside until it was called in for duty again the following evening.

  The bowling alley-sized space was split into two halves, one for banquet cooking when you had a dozen chefs grinding out hundreds of passed hors d'oeuvres, followed by identical plates of some fancy sprigged and sauced delicacy, and finally a small army's worth of miniature pots de creme in ramekins. The other side was for Miss Aurora's family cooking, when she was whipping up breakfast for the guests in the house, pulling together lunch, and making dinners for four or six or twelve.

  How many people had been fed out of here, he wondered. Conference hotels probably did less business, especially back when his parents had been up and functioning: While he'd been growing up, there had been cocktail parties every Thursday, a formal sit-down dinner every Friday for twenty-four, and then Saturdays had been reserved for three-or four-hundred-person gala events for charities and civic causes and political candidates. And then there had been the holidays. And Derby.

  Hell, Derby brunch here this year had served mint juleps and mimosas to more than seven hundred people before they went to the track.

  Now, though, crowds like that were part of Easterly's past. For one, there wasn't the money to afford them. For another, given the fact that only a handful of people had showed for his father's visitation, the bad news about "the Bradford Bankruptcy" had clearly driven away the hordes.

  Funny thing, how rich people were so insecure. Scandal was only good if it happened to someone else, and then only at a gossip-distance. Anything closer than chatter and it was like they were afraid they'd catch the insolvent virus.

  Lane went over to the center island and pulled out a stool. As he sat down, he looked across at the twelve-burner stove top and remembered the number of times he'd watched Miss Aurora do her thing with her pots and her pans there. To this day, his idea of comfort food was her collard greens and fried chicken, and he wondered how he was going to get through life never having either done her way again.

  He thought back to when he'd touched down in Charlemont just weeks ago. He'd come because one of Miss Aurora's relatives had called him and told him his momma was dying. It had been the only thing that could possibly have gotten him back here--and he'd had no idea what was in store for him.

  For example, he'd had no idea that he'd find the family's controller dead from suicide in her office.

  Hemlock, for godsakes. Like something out of the Roman court.

  Rosalinda Freeland's death had been the start of it all, the tipping domino of bad news that had sent all the others falling, from the money that was missing at the Bradford Bourbon Company to the debt that his father owed the Prospect Trust Company to the emptying of his mother's trust to the unacknowledged son Rosalinda had had with Lane's father. Lane had been in a scramble ever since, trying to find the bottom of the losses, restructure the company, save his family's house, and grow into the role that everybody, including himself, had assumed was his older brother Edward's mantle to bear.

  And then his father's body had been found floating in the Ohio River.

  Everyone, including law enforcement, had assumed that the cause of death had been suicide, particularly after the autopsy and medical records had showed William Baldwine had had metastatic lung cancer from his having smoked all his life. The man had been dying, and that reality, along with all the financial laws he'd broken and funds he'd squandered, had been the kind of thing anybody would kill themselves to get away from.

  Oh, and then there was also the little picky detail that the guy had gotten Lane's estranged wife pregnant.

  But really, on the list of William's sins, that was practically a footnote.

  Suicide had not been the cause, however. And a finger, literally, was what had pointed to the truth.

  His Lizzie and her horticultural partner, Greta, had been in front of Easterly, replanting an ivy bed, when they had found a piece of William Baldwine. His ring finger, to be exact. That discovery had brought the Charlemont Metro homicide department to the house, and the subsequent investigation had led the police out of the county, but not out of the family.

  To Edward at the Red & Black Stables.

  Lane groaned and rubbed his aching eyes as he heard his brother's voice in his head: I acted alone. They're going to try to say I had help. I didn't.

  You know what Father did to me. You know that he had me kidnapped and tortured....

  For all intents and purposes, William had tried to murder his own son. And didn't that provide an intent and a purpose for Edward.

  Let this be, Lane. Don't fight this. You know what he was like. He got what he deserved, and I don't regret it in the slightest.

  Yes, the revenge motive had been clear.

  With a curse, Lane reached across and pulled a copy of the most recent Charlemont Courier Journal over. And what do you know, a picture of Edward emerging from the back of a squad car at the big jail downtown was right above the fold.

  The article underneath spelled out exactly what Edward had told the police: The night of the killing, he had waited outside of the business center until their father had left his office. Edward's intention had been to confront the man, but William had collapsed before any argument ensued. When it became clear that the man was suffering some kind of stroke, Edward had decided that instead of dialing 911, he would finish what the neurological storm was starting.

  A winch had helped him get the two-hundred-pound deadweight onto the back of a Red & Black Stables truck, and then Edward had driven out into the vacant woods at the shore of the river and awkwardly dragged the still-breathing man through the underbrush. Just as he'd been about to push their father into the water, he had paused, gone back for a knife...and returned to cut off the finger. After that, he had shoved William into the storm-swollen current and returned to Easterly to bury the gruesome souvenir out in the front ivy bed as a tribute to his long-suffering mother and family.

  And that was that.

  When the finger had been discovered and the police had gotten involved, Edward had tried to cover things up by erasing the security-camera footage recorded from the back courtyard. He'd been stupid about trying to hide his tracks, however. The detectives had traced the computer sign-in at the time of the deletion to him, and that was when he'd confessed.

  Lane shoved the newspaper away.

  So that was where they were now. The son everyone loved in jail for the murder of a man no one missed.

  As swaps went, it was a grossly unfair one, but sometimes, that was where life landed you. Bad fortune, as with good, was not always driven by virtue or free will, and it was best to remember these things were not personal.

  Otherwise, you were liable to lose your damn mind.

  "What in the hell are you talking about?" Edward demanded.

  The acoustics in the interrogation room were like that of a shower stall, the bald walls and general lack of furnishings providing an outstanding echo chamber for his voice to racquetball itself around.

  And okay, perhaps his tone was a bit strident.

  But this was the thing with Shelby. She was used to dealing with big, unpredictable animals as part of her day job--and that meant that she wasn't scared of much. Certainly not a crippled husk of a man whom she'd already had
to deal with drunk too many times for his liking.

  "I want to know why you lied to the police," she reiterated.

  Edward glared at her. "How did you come down here?"

  "I drove."

  "Not what I'm asking. How is it that you were able to get into this jail after midnight?"

  "Is that important?"

  Time to cut the shit. "What did you tell Ramsey?"

  She shrugged. "I said I needed to talk to you. That was all. When the police was at the cottage with you that day, he gave me his telephone number and told me if I needed help to find him. I knew you wasn't going to take my calls, and I also knew you wouldn't want anyone seein' me coming or going. The reporters is all over the place in the daytime."

  "I didn't lie to the police. Everything I said about how I murdered my father is the truth."

  "No, it isn't--"

  "Bullshit--"

  "Don't you dare swear in front of me. You know I hate it." She marched over and sat across from him, like his cuss word had meant she could take her gloves off. "You told them that you hurt your ankle when you was draggin' the body from the truck to the river. You said Dr. Qalbi had to come out to see you because of it."

  "Exactly. You were there when he examined me."

  "That wasn't how you hurt yourself. You tripped and fell in the stable. I saw when it happened, and well you know it. I helped you back to the cottage."

  "I am very confident you are mis-remembering how the injury occurred--"

  "I am not."

  Edward tried the whole sitting-back thing again and got no further than he did with his first recline attempt. "My dear girl, you've seen me naked. You know exactly how...shall we say...compromised I am. I have fallen many, many times--and may I remind you that just because you were not out in those woods with me and that body does not mean I didn't hurt myself there. What is it that people wonder about trees falling and no one being around to hear the sound? I can assure you, when they crash, they make plenty of noise without the benefit of your monitoring."

  "You lied."

  He rolled his eyes. "If I did, and I most certainly did not, what does it matter? I turned myself in for murdering my father. I confessed. I told them I did it and how--and guess what? The evidence backs me up. So I can assure you there is not going to be a lot of conversation about my ankle."

  "I don't think you did it. And I think you're lying to cover for someone else."

  Edward laughed with an edge. "Who died and made you Columbo? FYI, you're going to need a new wardrobe that includes a raincoat and the nub of a cigar."

  "I saw how drunk you was the night he were killed. You was passed out. You most certainly wasn't driving yourself anywhere, much less movin' a dead body around."

  "I beg to differ. We alcoholics rebound very quickly--"

  "None of the trucks was gone. I sleep over Barn B and they was all parked right under my window in a row. I would have heard the engine start--and what's more, that winch you was talking about? It was broken."

  "No, it wasn't."

  "Yes, it was."

  "Then how did I use it to get my father's body on the goddamn trunk bed--"

  She banged the table. "Do not take the Lord's name in vain--"

  "Annnnd we're still on that, are we? Look, I'm a murderer. I have very low standards for conduct and I'll vain all the hell I want."

  Shelby leaned in, and as those eyes of hers clashed with his own, he wished he had never hired her. "You are not a killer."

  He was the one who broke the game of ocular chicken. "It appears as if we are at an impasse. I will deny everything that you are saying and stick with my original story because that is what happened--as your precious God only knows. The question then appears to be, what are you going to do about this?"

  When she didn't reply, he nonchalantly glanced back over at her. "Well?"

  As she dropped her eyes and twisted her work-rough hands, he took it as a skirmish won. "Don't do this, Edward. Please...whoever killed 'im, let them do the time. It ain't right, this whole thing ain't right."

  Oh, for godsakes, she was starting to cry. And not in the manner of a hysteric he could write off, but as someone who was in deep pain and feeling helpless to right an injustice.

  Christ, it made him wish she would hop around the room and rant and rave. Maybe jump up on the table and scream.

  "Shelby."

  When she refused to look at him, and instead rubbed her nose with all the elegance of a hunting dog, he felt worse. She was, he had come to believe, a real person. Not one of those fake cutouts he had spent so much time having to socialize with back in his old life. Shelby Landis had no more time for airs and emotions than he did.

  So this was legitimate.

  And also highly inconvenient.

  Edward glanced up at the security camera that was mounted in the far corner. When he had been questioned in this room by that detective, Merrimack, there had been a little red light blinking on its undercarriage. Now there was not.

  Good thing, he thought as he sat forward and put his hand on Shelby's forearm.

  "It ain't right." She sniffled. "And I spent a lotta time around 'ain't right' with my dad. Kinda done with it, t' be honest."

  "Look at me." He squeezed her arm. "Come on, now. If you don't, I'm going to start taking it personally."

  When she just mumbled something, he gave her another squeeze. "Shelby? Let me see those eyes."

  Finally, she lifted her head, and damn it, he wished he hadn't made her. That sheen of tears punched him in the chest.

  "What are you really worried about here?" he asked. "Hmm? Why are you causing this trouble? Moe's going to run the stables just as well as I could have, probably better, and you will always have a job at the Red and Black. You've got that nice young man in your life. Listen to me." He shifted his hold to her hand. "You're safe. You're not going back to having nothing, okay? You're not an orphan anymore."

  "Why are you doing this? Why you lyin'?"

  Edward released his grip and shifted his mangled legs out from under the table. It took him two tries to stand up before his thigh muscles were willing to do their job and he fucking hated the delay.

  "Shelby, I need you to let this lie. I want you to leave this jail, go back to the stables, and forget about me and all this nonsense. This is not your problem. Do not worry about me."

  "You already suffered so much--"

  He knocked on the metal door and prayed Ramsey was right outside.

  Just as the lock was being released, Edward glanced over his shoulder. "If you want to help me, you will walk away. Do you hear me? Just walk away, Shelby--and as long as you do that, you and I are even. When you needed it, I gave you a job and a place to stay, and you owe me for that. So let's be even and both move along."

  --

  As the dawn's rays surmounted the roof peaks of the garages behind the mansion, Lane was still sitting on his stool at Miss Aurora's counter. He couldn't feel his butt, and one calf muscle was hurting like he might have thrown a clot. Yet, he stayed where he was and watched the golden glow penetrate the windows and creep across the spotless tile floor.

  Thank God day had finally arrived. Some obstacle courses had nothing tangible about them, and yet they were crucibles nonetheless, and grinding his way through those dark hours with nothing but regrets he could do nothing about had been torture.

  A quick glance at the clock by the bread box and he shook his head. On any other day, Miss Aurora would already be up and putting homemade cinnamon buns and pecan rolls in the oven and getting out her omelet pans to do eggs for everyone. There would be coffee brewing, right over there, and in the sink, there would be a strainer full of blueberries or strawberries. Cantaloupe would be ready for slicing, and oranges set for juicing, and by the time the household was down in the family dining room, the first meal of the day would be all set in warmers and on the table.

  If there were no overnight guests, Miss Aurora served things herself. If there were, she
called in reinforcements.

  Lane's eyes traveled around, going from the pantry to the cupboards to the stove to the sink...then once more around the catering section.

  It was pacing. For someone who was too tired to move--

  With a frown, he slid off the stool and went around the island. By the burners, there was a stand of knives in a butcher-block holder, their various-sized black handles sticking out, ready to be grabbed by an expert hand. One of them was missing.

  "Okay, who was the idiot who put a blade in the dishwasher?"

  The idea that somebody had used one of his momma's Wusthofs and then tossed it into Cascade-land with the mixing bowls and the wire whisks? It was downright sacrilegious. She always washed her knives by hand. Always.

  Sharpened them herself, too.

  Opening up the machine, he pulled the top rack out and riffled through the utensils, measuring cups...spatula...small bowl...small bowl. Sliding all that back into place, he checked the lower level and didn't find anything knife-ish, either.

  Well, at least it hadn't gone through with the rest of the stuff.

  Lane closed everything up and leaned over the sink. Nothing in the basin. Nothing in the drying rack.

  "Damn it."

  With a sense of urgency, he went across to the catering section in the unlikely event the other two dishwashing units had been run. Both were empty. Nothing in any of the sinks over there, either.

  Somewhere in his brain, finding that missing knife equated to saving Miss Aurora's life. It made absolutely no logical sense, but try making that argument to his growing sense of panic. With his heart pumping hard, he began yanking at drawers, going through all kinds of pot holders, mixing spoons and ladles, peelers--

  "Lose something?"

  With a curse, he spun around and grabbed his heart. "Hey. Hi...good morning."

  Lizzie was standing just inside the kitchen, her sleepy eyes and mussed-up blond hair, her strong body and clean smell, like a sunrise inside of him, bringing him light and warmth.

  "What are you looking for?" she said with a smile as she came forward to meet him halfway.

  As they embraced, he closed his lids. "Nothing. It's nothing."

  Yeah, he thought, just the fact that he was convinced if the phone rang and Miss Aurora had died just now, it was because he couldn't find her knife.