“I don’t want or need to get paid for my story,” Tara said with a smirk, “not only will seeing Angelica go to jail be its own reward, but I’ve made almost a million dollars over the past few years working for her, not even counting all the freebies, trips, and clothes; I’ll be fine.”
That was a lot of money, but it still didn’t seem worth it to me to put up with Angelica for three years.
“Did you sign a non-disclosure agreement?” I asked, “if you did, you could get in trouble if we use your name or Angelica finds out you said anything.”
“Can you keep my identity a secret?” Tara asked, clearly surprised.
“Maybe, but it depends on what you tell me.”
“I just want to see her go down,” Tara stated, looking at me with a gleam in her eye that was impossible to misunderstand, “she shouldn’t be able to get away with what she did.”
“What kind of proof do you have?” I asked Tara.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she replied with a big grin. Out of her bag, Tara produced a large, brown teddy bear.
47
Nathan
“Hey look, it’s Uranus,” my brother announced to my uncles Alexander Jr. and Richard, while pointing in my direction. They both rolled their eyes, looking more like twins than David and I ever had. This was officially the worst, most juvenile nickname he’d come up with yet. Secretly, it was also my absolute favorite, but I wouldn’t be telling him that.
I really needed to stop hanging around the Durant estate with my family. It was going to warp my brain. Coming into the house today, I’d sworn I heard my grandfather singing in French. He’d lost the majority of his mind some time ago, but it was clear his deterioration had accelerated in recent months. Even though there was a rational explanation for it, the sound of his old, thin, feeble voice echoing through the acres of dark marble hallways was freaking creepy:
Alouette, gentille alouette
Alouette, je te plumerai
Aloutette, gentille alouette
Alouette, je te plumerai
My French was godawful terrible, but I was fairly sure the song was about killing and plucking the feathers off a pretty skylark. French folk songs were brutal. The subject matter did not make the song any less eerie. I hoped it wasn’t foreshadowing for the conversation ahead.
“David,” I said coolly, inclining my head at him in a much more adult greeting than the one he’d given to me, “it’s so nice to have you back in town. How was your trip to Los Angeles?”
“Smoggy, full of big fake tits, fake tans, fake teeth, and overblown, mayonnaise and avocado coated cuisine,” he replied grumpily, pushing back in his recliner to put his feet up, “let’s get this stupid family meeting over with so I can get back there. I’ve got work to do. My makeup isn’t going to screen test itself.”
David did not seem to be doing well with the whole talk show thing. I was actually beginning to become a bit worried about him. He seemed increasingly stressed and on edge. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the time to delve into my brother’s murky psychological state.
“We have to figure out what to do about the whole Angelica Hunt situation,” Richard said, officially calling our little group to order.
I shook my head in annoyance and dropped down gracelessly into one of the cushy, leather recliners in my uncle’s study.
“What’s to figure out?” I snipped, “She trespassed. Let justice take its course. The worst she’ll possibly get is a slap on the wrist, which, by the way, she deserves.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Alexander grumbled, peering down his aquiline nose at me condescendingly, “we all know this isn’t that simple. Angelica Hunt isn’t just anyone.”
“The Senator is extremely worked up about the entire situation,” Richard offered in a more soothing tone, “he wants the charges against her dropped right away.”
“I’m not a lawyer or anything,” I said snidely, “but the last time I checked, it wasn’t up to the property owners as to whether or not to file trespassing charges. It’s up to the district attorney. Those charges are already in progress.”
I had, in fact, looked it up this morning after kissing my wonderful, absurdly sexy girlfriend good luck at her new job. She was there right now, probably killing it. I couldn’t wait to hear about her first day. Hopefully her speech went well.
“The district attorney is an old friend of mine,” Richard continued in his most reasonable voice, distracting me from thoughts of Zoey, “and if Durant Astronautics agrees to forgive and forget, she’ll drop the trespassing charges against both Angelica and her assistant what’s-her-name.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. Zoey and I had been over this about a thousand times ourselves. She believed fervently that Angelica should have her day in court. Zoey argued that if the whole story about Oleg abusing her was true, she’d get off. If it wasn’t, she’d get a misdemeanor for trespassing and an embarrassing blemish on her record. Zoey had a lot more trust in the justice system than I did, because I knew that people like my jerk of an uncle Richard bribed them on the regular. ‘Old friend’ my ass. The DA was in his pocket, just like half the police officers in Philly.
“Zoey’s gonna be so pissed off if I drop the changes,” I admitted to my obviously uncaring family members, “she really hates Angelica.”
“We all do,” David said genuinely. He spread his hands earnestly, displaying the wealth of tiny cuts and burns he’d accumulated in the kitchen over the past decade. “She’s the unholy spawn of Satan. Unfortunately, she’s also the spawn of Senator Tom Ellis. We need him to be a good boy and keep things all nice and unregulated in Congress.”
“This is about Durant Industries, not your feelings, and definitely not your girlfriend. Who cares if you have to sleep on the couch for a few nights?” Alexander said petulantly. He took a drink and stared into space, apparently bored that we were even having this conversation. I wondered distantly if this meeting was interrupting his busy day of napping, drinking whiskey, and watching basketball. He thought we didn’t know what he did all day in his study, but we did.
“I do!” I retorted, “I care quite a bit! Plus, Zoey’s right. Angelica tried to murder me. She ought to at least provide some proof that what she’s claiming is true. I don’t know about you three, but I would like to know the truth about what happened.”
“About that,” Richard said, smiling slyly and looking vaguely guilty, “as it happens, Angelica’s phone and computer have mysteriously disappeared. Evidence mishandling you know. It may be difficult to get to the truth. Especially considering that the Russian is dead.”
“Dammit Richard!” I cried in frustration. The man had more connections than a set of tinker toys, and not all of them were entirely kosher. He’d missed his calling as a mob boss and had to settle for being the CEO of Durant Industries. Really, there wasn’t a ton of difference, at least for him. Richard was useful when he was useful, and awful the rest of the time.
“Plus,” he continued as if I hadn’t interrupted, “when your lovely new girlfriend Zoey reset all the servers at Durant Industries, it destroyed all the physical evidence of Angelica’s tampering. I loved her little piece on Angelica, by the way, it was great.”
“There’s still plenty of evidence against Angelica and you know it,” I argued, “we all know what she did. Lots of people saw it, including Zoey, my director of security, and my IT manager. She quite obviously almost murdered me.”
“Yes,” Richard agreed, “and if that mattered, I would care. But it really doesn’t. The truth is that we need to drop the charges against Angelica for the good of the entire family and our influence in Congress. It sucks that she tried to murder you, and I sympathize, but she probably didn’t want to do it. We all know that she was being manipulated into it somehow or another.”
“Wow,” I said, stunned, “it’s really good to know where your priorities are. I won’t mistake your support for, you know, caring about me in the future.”
“No wonder your own son disowned you,” David exclaimed, earning him a murderous look from Richard and a shocked, warning look and tiny head shake from Alexander. “I changed my mind. I was going to agree with you, but now I think we should continue pressing charges against Angelica. Durant Industries doesn’t mean shit if we’re all dead.”
“Well, guess what David?” Richard said, casting off the last vestige of good humor to reveal his real, much less pleasant personality, “It honestly doesn’t matter what you or your brother think. I’ve already told the DA to drop the charges. Your cooperation was only ever a bonus, not a necessity. You’re both on the Board of Directors, but we all know that these family meetings are where the real decisions are made, and those meetings are just for show. The real decisions aren’t remotely up to you. It’s Alexander and I that make them.”
I wanted to be angry, but I’d learned over the years that displaying my ire and frustration was only going to make things worse when it came to Alexander and Richard. They were a violent, chemical reaction, like a fire. The more oxygen and fuel you gave them, the more they burned. The only solution was to starve them of the potential energy that kept them thriving. David and I exchanged a glance. Through the power of being twins who grew up together around our asshole uncles and had learned how to deal with them over many painful years, I knew he was thinking the same exact thing.
“Good lord Richard,” David began, yawning and rolling his eyes, “you’re so dramatic. Why does it always have to be so emotional every time we disagree with you? If I wanted to have a hysterical group therapy session, I’d have tea with mom and Wobbles.”
“Seriously,” I chimed in, “is it really so much to ask to have a calm, rational conversation with you before you run off and do irrational shit? You know illegal actions are risky to Durant Industries too, right? At least old Wobbles never bribes police officers and loses evidence. The worst he does is take an occasional shit on the floor.”
Alexander smirked in amusement at our abrupt change in tactic, hiding it quickly under the guise of taking another deep drink of his whisky. Richard, however, fell straight into our trap. He looked positively apoplectic. His face was flushed purple, and his eyes bugged out of his face.
“Listen up you two little shits,” he snapped furiously in between gasping breaths, “I do what I have to do to protect us. All of us. It’s not like Angelica Hunt managed to actually hurt anyone. She’s harmless—she’s much too stupid to be dangerous. Yes, I know she’s obnoxious. Yes, I know she’s a borderline sociopath. I watched her grow up from a little spoiled monster into a bigger one. But she’s the senator’s favorite daughter. It’s not like I’m asking either of you to marry her. I just want us all to move on from this whole Russia thing.”
“Ok, Richard, ok,” I said with an overly conciliatory, calming tone, “don’t get your Depends all twisted up. At your age it’s really not at all healthy to get so worked up. You’ll give yourself a heart attack. Just take a few deep breaths and think about the ocean.”
He glowered at me, a little muscle at the corner of his eye ticking in involuntary fury. David made a goofy, whooshing “ocean” sound. Alexander chuckled and then turned it into a cough when Richard whipped around to aim his anger at him. While Richard’s attention was momentarily diverted from us, David and I exchanged a defeated look. Richard had outsmarted us again. He almost always did. I stifled an irritated sigh.
It was pointless to try and argue with Richard now. We’d thoroughly lost this battle. It was patently obvious, since I had no doubt that Richard was telling the truth and had already put events in motion to drop the charges. This was so like him I should have expected it. High-handed didn’t begin to describe Richard. He was a man who was so used to getting what he wanted that he probably didn’t even know what losing felt like anymore. It really was no surprise that our cousin Nicholas had disowned him, although why he’d disowned the rest of us was a mystery.
My mother was cutthroat, smart as a whip, and very snobby, but she had a more developed sense of empathy, kindness, and caring underneath her tough shell that none of the male Durants seem to have inherited. If I ever had children, I hoped they would be daughters (and I hoped they had Zoey’s big brown eyes). The Durant genes were an absolute pain in the ass. Having to deal with sons like me or David, or worse, Richard or Alexander Jr., would put me in an early grave for certain.
The only thing I could comfort myself with was that Richard had gotten much more worked up and emotional over this than I had, which was a form of victory, even if it wasn’t the victory that I wanted. Zoey was going to be another battle entirely. Angelica should have just finished the job and blown me up, because Zoey was probably going to kill me.
48
Zoey
I stared at the big brown teddy bear. It smiled vacuously back at me with black, beady eyes. Dolls of any type have always made me feel somewhat uncomfortable, even back when I was a kid. I was more of a blocks and books kind of child.
“Is that thing one of those hidden nanny cams?” I asked, thinking there could be no other reason for Tara to have brought the toy into my office.
“Yep,” she replied happily, patting its head affectionately with her freshly manicured hand, “it sure is. This was given to Mr. Hunt two weeks before he died. It was a gift from his daughter, Evelyn. She was the only one that Angelica still allowed to visit. She’d basically run off all the other kids. They still called, but they never came by. Evelyn though, she’s the youngest. She was just seventeen when her Dad died, so Tara didn’t consider her a threat. Anyway, Evelyn gave her dad this nanny cam but didn’t tell him what it was. She wanted to see if their dad was being abused by Angelica. She suspected something was going on and wanted to figure out what it was, so she enlisted my help for a couple grand. After Mr. Hunt died, the camera went missing. Evelyn and I thought that it probably just got thrown away by accident with the rest of Mr. Hunt’s stuff. She never got to retrieve the footage. Anyway, I didn’t see it again until Marcus showed up.”
As Tara had been speaking, I’d been scribbling notes as fast as I could. My journalist shorthand was a bit out of practice, but it wasn’t bad. Nathan had very nice, elegant handwriting, I’d noticed, but he wrote extremely slowly. I could write a mile a minute, but it was all butt-ugly scrawled loops. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who can even read my handwriting.
“Hold on,” I interjected, looking back down at my chicken scratch, “hold on a second. So, this was bought by Albert Hunt’s youngest daughter from his marriage right before Angelica? Does the daughter know anything beyond that it was lost a few years back?”
Tara shook her head. “No,” she replied, “I’m still getting to that part. Anyway, the teddy bear disappeared until Marcus showed up in January. Who knows where he got it. Maybe he went through the trash? I don’t know. But he showed up with it and had a video that showed Angelica killing Albert.”
“Do you have that video of Angelica?” I asked, feeling vaguely out of my body. The world briefly twisted in front of me like water going down a drain. I fought back the dizziness with a few deep breaths. The stupid teddy bear on my desk was a witness to murder? Nathan had said that Angelica was evil, but I had no idea how evil. The fact that I spent several days in Angelica’s almost exclusive company, always thinking she was mostly harmless, made me feel cold and unsettled.
“No,” Tara replied, “I don’t. Angelica’s the only one who had it. But I knew about it because I eventually figured out what was going on. That comes later in the story. Their relationship was so weird, but I didn’t really understand why until the unmanned launch a few weeks ago. Remember? When Marcus went missing?”
“I remember,” I confirmed with a nod. It was the day I seduced
Nathan in his office. I’d never forget a second of that crazy, tumultuous, life-changing day.
“Well later that night, when Angelica and Marcus were just sitting there like weirdos at the house, I left my phone on the counter when I went out for a smoke, recording. I was suspicious you know? And I recorded this,” she said, pushing a button and holding up her phone. The recorded voices were somewhat muffled but still reasonably clear.
“Nothing has changed. You’re still going to take me to the launch on Friday,” a voice, likely Oleg’s, was saying menacingly, “then you never have to see me again.”
“Listen up Euro-trash,” snipped the unmistakably sharp soprano belonging to Angelica Hunt, “I can’t guarantee I’ll even be invited to the next one. Now that you hacked them, and they know it, Nate might not allow anyone to observe the next launch. They might cancel it for all I know!”
“He won’t cancel it,” replied Oleg scathingly. Now that I knew he was Russian, the accent was patently obvious. No wonder he didn’t speak much, because he didn’t sound remotely Portuguese. Or maybe he just didn’t mind letting it show to Angelica, “He’s got too much pride. Men like him think they can do whatever they want. They think they take anything from anyone. But there are other people like me who won’t stand for it. There have to be consequences. Eventually your mistakes will catch up to you too, Angelica. Remember that.”
“Ooooh so scary,” Angelica quipped, her voice dripping in sarcasm, “scary Russian with his scary threats. I’m so very intimidated. You’re awfully high and mighty for someone whose wife got herself locked up for being a slut—”
There was a pop on the recording that sounded very much like flesh hitting flesh. It was a slap. I winced, but Angelica just laughed. Oleg said something in Russian, probably an obscenity.
“And hitting me is your only reply,” she crowed. “You’re fucking pathetic! What a big man you are to slap a woman. Don’t act like you’re so much better than me. We’re the same you and me,” Angelica sounded like she found the entire conversation irritating but still amusing. “Just the same,” she repeated in quieter voice, just above a whisper. Oleg’s response was equally soft but much less amused:
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