“I don’t even remember the night you’re talking about, but I’d been doing it for about six months before you got on board the party train. Then you hopped the fuck off before it got interesting.”
Reid felt sick to his stomach. All this time he’d been carrying around guilt for something that hadn’t even been his fault. Anger started to rise, acid creeping its way up his gut. He needed to leave, but he’d come to ask one question, and he needed to push aside everything else he was feeling to do it.
“Nathan, I don’t know if our friendship counted for anything, but your dad, he’s harassing us. Please, for everyone’s sake, can you make it stop?”
“Why would I? It’s not like you’re going to do anything for me.”
It was true, he wouldn’t. More than that, he couldn’t. There was absolutely nothing he could do, but at least he’d tried.
“Never mind. You were right. We’ve got shit to say to each other. I have to go. Good-bye, Nathan.”
“Wait, it was just getting interesting. If you begged I might consider it.”
Reid shook his head and walked toward the door.
“What, no polite chitchat, you pussy?”
He kept walking.
“Okay, bye,” Nathan called as he reached the exit.
“Cool it, Bell,” he heard somebody shout. Likely one of the wardens dotted around the room.
“Tell your sister that I’m thinking about her, especially at night when I . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence, and Reid resisted the temptation to turn back and kill the fucker.
Filled with rage, he made his way out of the prison as quickly as he could. When he finally reached fresh air, he rested his butt against the wall and leaned forward, dry heaves consuming him. He felt dirty and needed a shower. There was no deal to be made with the devil.
A couple of armed guards stood over to his right. “Are you okay?” one of them called out.
“Just need a minute,” he said without looking up.
“These days he has the same effect on me,” Winston Bell said, walking up the pathway toward him. “I assumed I was his only visitor.”
“Yeah. Well, it was a onetime thing. He’s a fucking sociopath.” Reid wiped the side of his mouth and came eye to eye with Winston. He looked toward the guards briefly. While the anger coursing through him told him to beat the ever-loving shit out of Winston, he kept his cool. “How can you support him? All this time. After everything he’s done?”
“Unfortunately, he’s still my son, Reid. Believe me, my life would be so much easier if that weren’t true.”
Reid stood tall, embarrassed to have been found close to puking on his own shoes. “I wish I’d never met your son. He ruined my sister’s life, and now you continue to punish us by attempting to ruin mine.”
“You sound as delusional as my son. What on earth makes you think I’m doing anything to you now?”
“You may think you’re smarter than everybody else, but somehow I’m going to find a way to prove that you had the car run us down and that you had somebody burn down my garage.”
“I assure you, I have no interest in you or your family. Nor am I stupid. I am fully aware of what my son has done, and while in public I will fight with my last breath to defend him, in private I cannot condone his actions.”
“But at the party you said—”
“I said what? A couple of offhand sentences that were meant to piss you off. You overinflate your importance to me, Reid.”
Reid shook his head, suddenly exhausted. “You’re a fucking asshole, Bell.”
“Maybe. I’ve been called worse. Usually by my son. I can assure you, I’m not responsible for whatever pathetic drama you have in your life.”
“Why should I believe you?” Reid asked. “You’re a sociopath just like your son.”
Winston sighed. “Quite frankly, I don’t care whether you believe me. But if it prevents you hounding me indefinitely, I’ll share this with you. Once your girlfriend’s father realized the nature of our former relationship, he started digging . . . asking questions about you. I may be willing to back the guy’s candidacy, but I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”
* * *
Lia and her mother sat anxiously in the car as they made their way over to Star Island, each lost in their own thoughts about returning to the family home. Her mother was struggling to deal with the amount of time she was spending outside. While she’d never been diagnosed as agoraphobic, her anxiety and nerve issues were significant.
“You are certain he’s out, right?” Lia asked for the hundredth time.
Her mom bit the skin at the side of her thumb. Unable to convince the psychiatrist that she hadn’t tried to kill herself, her mom was now on new medication. And Lia had been issued specific instructions on how to secure and count medication. She was still torn over what had happened and whether her father was involved, but she believed her mom when she said that she hadn’t intended to take the overdose.
“I’m certain. The last Monday of every month, he goes to the law firm for a big meeting about performance and big cases. That kind of thing. He’s never back before six,” Grace said.
Lia looked at the clock. Four thirty. The backseat was filled with suitcases and bags to put things into. Her mother didn’t even know where her own luggage was stored, and Lia didn’t want to get stuck carrying clothes out in dribs and drabs.
“You know the drill, Mom. Let’s not get hung up on stuff. I’ll start with clothes. You get your jewelry, especially the items in the safe, as well as your passport and any other identification.”
“What about Ben’s room?”
“Mom, I’m sure Ben would be fine with what we are doing. He’d probably be disgusted at the way Dad uses his name. In fact, if he was here, he’d kick Dad’s ass. Let’s just focus on you.”
Lia pulled into the driveway and parked her car right by the front door. “Ready?” she asked her mom.
Her mother paused. “Lia, I . . . this feels wrong, like I’m stealing things from my own home.”
Lia was losing patience. Every moment on the driveway was a moment wasted inside. She suddenly wished she’d waited for Reid to return before heading over to the house.
“Mom, we talked about this. The lawyer you spoke to today already told you that you are entitled to a significant piece of this. You can’t steal what you legally own.”
Lia’s phone rang and she looked down at it. It was Reid, the first time he’d called all day.
“I need to take this, Mom, but please take a suitcase and get started.” Lia waited for her mom to get out of the car and grab two suitcases from the backseat before she answered the phone. “Hey. How did it go?” she asked.
“Where are you, babe?” Reid asked.
“I’m at my dad’s with my mom getting some of her stuff. Why?”
“I’m on my way over. Can you and your mom just get back in the car and leave?”
“I’m still in the driveway. My mom has already gone inside. Why, what’s wrong?”
There was a pause that seemed to last forever. “It’s too hard to explain over the phone, but I saw Nathan. More importantly, I saw Winston. I’m starting to think that it wasn’t Winston who did all this.”
Lia stepped out of the car, grabbed the largest suitcase, and started to walk toward the house. She didn’t like where this conversation was going. It mirrored the unease she had felt since she had come back to the house to get her mom’s drugs, when her father had cornered her in her mom’s bedroom.
“Do I want to know who you think it is?” she asked, hurrying up the stairs to her mom’s closet.
“Winston said your father had been doing some digging around into my past. I have a bad feeling. I just pulled up outside your condo and called inside. Now that I know where you are, I’m heading over.”
“We’re fine,” Lia said. “He has this thing he attends the last Monday of every month. Mom said he’ll be out for at least a couple mo
re hours.”
“Babe, you have enough money to replace everything she could leave behind. Just grab the absolute minimum and get the fuck out of there, for my sake if not for your own.”
“Okay, I’m on it,” she said. “I feel better now that I know you’re on your way.”
“I’ll feel better when I see you in one piece. Don’t take any chances, babe. This could be nothing, and we’ll feel completely ridiculous in the morning, all humming the Mission: Impossible theme song and shit. But I’d rather err on the side of caution.”
She stepped into the bedroom, and went to the walk-in closet, where she found her mom doing exactly what she had asked. The door to the safe that was hidden behind a clothing rack in her closet was wide open, and she was currently pulling out documents and jewels and tossing them into the suitcase. She could see the blue cover of her passport and other important articles.
“Good job, Mom,” she said, throwing the suitcase down on the floor. In one quick movement, she unzipped it and started to toss the more practical items in. Some shoes, underwear, blouses, and skirts and pants. By the time she was done, her mother had emptied the safe of everything that belonged to her.
“The bathroom,” her mother exclaimed, rushing into the adjoining room.
“Mom,” Lia called out. “We don’t have time for this. Reid just called,” she said, following her into the bathroom. “He went to see Harper’s attacker in prison, and somebody he met made him think that the person who has been trying to kill us is Daddy. We need to leave. Now,” Lia shouted, taking the moisturizer out of her hands and slamming it back onto the marble. She gripped her mom’s hand and led her back to the walk-in closet.
“Kill us? That can’t be true. He’s a cruel man, but . . .”
“You want to hang around and test out that theory?” Lia grabbed her mom’s hand and tugged her back into the bedroom.
She picked up the tote that her mom had filled with the contents of the safe, and passed it to her mom who had already picked up the smaller of the two suitcases. “My glasses,” her mom cried, and rushed to her side of the bed, grabbing the spectacles from the table.
Lia picked up the large suitcase clumsily and dragged it along the hallway with her good arm, her mom following behind.
“I know that some people within the party have told him that you and I don’t live up to the roles of a politician’s wife and daughter. But do you honestly think he’s capable of this? Of having us killed?” Her mother huffed, running to keep up with her.
“Or killing us himself? Think about it, Mom . . . Perhaps Daddy gave you those drugs. What happened that day, before you went to sleep? Step by step.”
“I’d been in the greenhouse in the morning,” her mother said as they reached the top of the stairs. “I’d been looking after the small grafts I had been able to make from the orchids your father had ruined. It was lunchtime, and I’d been on a smoothie roll. Your father had commented that perhaps now would be the time to watch my weight, so I’d asked Leo to make me a blueberry spinach one. He . . .”
“He what, Mom?”
“He made it for me, and then your father brought it to me . . . Oh my God, Lia. That’s when he could have done it. He could’ve put the drugs in it.”
“In that case we really need to run. Let’s go.”
Lia ran down the stairs, but the suitcase was too heavy, and she was too clumsy with her weak arm. Accidentally, she let go of the case and it tumbled down the stairs, popping open on the tiles in the wide hallway. Her mother hurried behind her as they raced to the bottom. Frantically, they dropped to their knees and began to collect the items, stuffing them back inside the case before fastening it.
“One of the best things I installed in this house were cameras connected to a phone alert for when intruders were in the house,” her father said, stepping over a pair of shoes. “The audio function is most illuminating.”
“What are you doing home?” Lia asked as she looked around to see where her mother was. If Lia was quick, she could make it out the front door, but there was no way her mother was going to make it. However, if she could distract her father, maybe her mother could escape through her greenhouse. Panic crowded her thoughts, making it impossible to make a decision. She could see a way to get one of them out, but not both. Perhaps they would be better off if they stayed together because in this instance there was most definitely safety in numbers. Plus, Reid was on his way. She thought quickly about possible ways to let him know what awaited him inside.
Her mouth was dry, and she licked her lips.
Her father had become the bogeyman. They had no hard and fast proof that he had done anything wrong, except be too ambitious at the cost of his family. But all the circumstantial evidence was starting to add up. If her mother had died, even Lia would have assumed that, given her mother’s fragile state, she had committed suicide. And her father was a smart man who had spoken at length with Winston Bell. The events that had happened to her always happened in Reid’s company, which had deflected responsibility away from her father onto Winston.
Lia felt like she was in one of those psychological movies, only it wasn’t Alan Rickman or Anthony Hopkins standing in front of her. It was her own father, and life wasn’t like in the movies.
“I was just grabbing coffee when I got the alert that you two were finally home,” he said calmly. “Fascinating viewing, watching the two of you creep in here like the thieves you are. Grace, come here. Why are you cowering at me like that?”
Her mom grabbed hold of the bag over her shoulder, and eased off her knees to sit on the bottom step of the staircase but didn’t go to him. Lia swallowed hard.
“We’re leaving, Daddy. We can’t help you anymore, and it’s easier if Mom leaves with me. Just let us—”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Lia. You never did know when to keep your big mouth shut. Grace,” he commanded, but her mother didn’t move.
“You tried to kill me,” her mother said bravely. “I didn’t overdose, no matter how you had everybody at the hospital convinced. For years I have supported you and everything you wanted to do, only for you to grind me down like the river wears down the rock, consistently and slowly over time.”
Lia knew that if they just bought time, Reid would be able to get to them. Her phone was in her pocket, but she didn’t want to draw attention to it by removing it just yet.
Franklin began to laugh. “Oh, Grace. Don’t you remember how dramatic Julianna used to be when she was younger? She has you sucked into some strange story that I attempted to kill her.”
Lia went back through the conversation she’d had with her mom about Franklin. Damn. They’d been in the walk-in closet. And it would make sense to put cameras in there, directed at the safe.
Where the hell was Reid? Lia listened carefully for any noise outside but heard nothing. He was probably still battling traffic on the bridge. But she needed to keep her father talking.
“Daddy, we’re going to go now. There’s no need to make this more difficult than it already is,” she said calmly, reaching out for her mother’s hand, but her mother didn’t take it. Grace kept one hand on the strap of her bag, but the other she’d slipped inside.
“Like hell you are,” her father snapped. He began to pace, his custom-made Berluti shoes beating like a metronome on the marble floor. “I am done with this stupidity. I am done with ungrateful bitches. I am done with looking like I can’t control my own fucking family,” he yelled. “I wish neither of you existed.” His slicked-back hair fell forward across his face, and he furiously brushed it back into place.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Lia said, taking a sideways step toward the front door. Every part of her shook, and her feet felt like lead. “When Mom said life would have been easier for you had she died in the hospital, she was right. This is all some messed-up attempt to clear the decks. To get rid of us once and for all.”
“So what if it is?” Franklin shouted as he reached for the Lalique vase and
hurled it against the wall above their heads, showering them with flying shards of crystal. “You two have been nothing but dead weight for me for the last fifteen years. At least your brother has merits.”
“You won’t get away with this,” her mother yelled, stepping closer to Lia.
“I will if there are no witnesses.” He dove for Lia, grabbing hold of her by her hair, dragging her toward his office.
Lia screamed, unable to find her feet as he pulled her off balance. “Let. Me. Go,” she yelled, trying to kick at him with her legs. Her scalp burned like it was on fire, and she grabbed for his wrists, scratching them with her nails. Her father let go quickly with a howl.
Fight. Evade. That was all she could do. She half-crawled, half-ran back toward her mother, but her father grabbed her ankle.
Her mom was fumbling around in her damn purse. “Find your phone, Mom. Call the police,” she cried, hoping they would get there before her father did any serious damage.
“Come back here, you bitch,” her father snarled, pulling her back toward him, and Lia kicked as hard as she could.
“Let her go, Franklin,” her mother shouted, aiming a gun in their direction. Relief surged through her. Her mom had collected the gun from the safe and shoved it in her bag.
“You aren’t going to use that, Grace,” he mocked. “Not on me. Not after all this time together.”
Her mom’s hand shook, but she kept the gun directed at Franklin. “I’m warning you. Step away from her.”
“No.”
Lia screamed as he pulled on her hair again, and a gunshot ricocheted around the hallway. Her father let go of her hair and she dropped to the ground, hitting the hard marble. Franklin fell backward, crying out in pain.
“Stay away from my daughter.”
* * *
Reid heard the gunshot and Grace’s threats and ran up the porch steps two at a time. Please don’t let her be hurt. Please don’t let her be dead.
Ready to kill someone if he had to, he burst through the door and into the hallway. FUCK! What to take care of first? Lia crawled along the floor toward her mother, blood dripping down the side of her face. He banked the need to swoop in and pick her up, get her the fuck out of there, so he could evaluate. THINK!
The Darkest Link (Second Circle Tattoos) Page 28