by Lexi Blake
He frowned as he started looking through his backpack. “It’s all I have. I don’t know who I would be without it. I know that sounds stupid, but my whole life is on that machine. I gave up my cell phone. I can’t give my computer up, too. Here it is.”
He handed over the card. The address had been typed on the very plain-looking envelope; the note inside was typed as well.
Noah, if you want to know who your father was, look up your bastard brother. He’s legitimate all right, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a criminal. Just like dear old Dad.
“So you had no idea there was any connection between you and the Lawless family before you received this?” She glanced at the date. “One week ago. You must have immediately started planning on how to get to Austin.”
“You think it’s about the money, right?” Noah’s voice had gone a bit cold.
“I don’t know, Noah. That’s why I’m asking the questions. You have to understand that this is going to be hard on the family. They have the right to ask questions. If you’re going to run every time someone asks you an uncomfortable question, then I’m going to drive to an ATM and give you some cash because you don’t belong here.”
He sat down, his jaw tightening in the same way Drew’s did when he was frustrated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would be this hard. Like I said, I wasn’t thinking at all. I got the card, looked him up, and he really does look like me. Also some things my mom used to say made me believe that she lived in Texas when she was younger. When I was a kid she would talk about a man she left behind in Texas. Wouldn’t you want to find out about your past?”
She understood that in a way none of the Lawless clan could. It was hard to be alone in the world. Her father might still be alive, but her mom and brother were gone. The people who’d known her as a child, who’d loved her and cherished her, were gone, and she was alone until she made enough history with a new family. “Just because they have your blood doesn’t mean you’ll fit in. I’m not saying that to discourage you. It’s the way of the world. I should know. I have a father out there who hasn’t seen me in years.”
“Yeah, well, I had a mom who saw me as nothing but an inconvenience. The only thing she was ever interested in was my friends. She always told me which kids I should hang out with and she would come up and spend time with me if I had the right friends. I got more attention if I could fit in with the right crowd.”
“Would she come up for parents’ weekend?” That was a pretty good bet. The pieces were sliding together. Creighton Academy was exactly what Drew claimed it was. The prep school for the rich and famous. The rich and famous were often divorced and looking as well. It would be a ripe field for someone like Iris, who preferred to make her money the old-fashioned way. Marrying and then murdering for it.
“When she wasn’t married she would come up.”
New information. “So you had a stepfather?”
He took a long swallow of the juice she’d brought him. “Two I remember. One I don’t. She had bad luck. Well, she tended to like old guys. Except the one I don’t remember. He was fairly young, but he had a heart attack from what I understand.”
“Do you remember their names?” It was an odd question to ask, but he hadn’t spent a lot of time with his mother. She had to assume he didn’t spend much time with his stepfathers, either.
“Sure. The first was a dude named Wes Kirkman. He was the one who had a heart attack. Um, then there was this ancient guy. Luther Holman. He was some kind of a banker. He sent me a money clip for my eighth birthday. Who does that?”
A really out-of-touch person. “And the third?”
He shuddered a bit. “Alan Traynor. He was the grandfather of this kid I was friends with in school. I liked him a lot. Chris, that is. I didn’t know his granddad. Chris had lost his parents in a plane crash years before. He was so nice. He was my best friend for a couple of years. I thought it was cool when my mom married his granddad. It kind of made us like brothers, you know?”
She got a bad feeling. People tended to die around Iris. “What happened?”
“His granddad got sick and I guess he couldn’t handle it. I found him with a needle in his arm. He never did drugs, Shelby. I still don’t understand why he would do that. He still had me. He still had my mom. I know she sucked at it most of the time, but she would have made sure he had what he needed.”
God, she got why Drew was doing what he was doing. She did not want to be the one who blew up Noah’s world. It was already decimated. Figuring out that his mother was a psychopath might be the last blow. “Sometimes people can’t help themselves. The depression is too overwhelming. It wasn’t about you. It was a moment of weakness, and you should remember him as the boy he was.”
Not the boy your mother probably murdered.
“Do you think you could figure out why my aunt left me alone?” Noah asked. “I understand what happened with the money. Mom was always lazy about seeing lawyers. And she didn’t expect to die the way she did. She wasn’t exactly old. She never updated her will, but I don’t understand why my aunt wouldn’t even call me, wouldn’t try to help me.”
“Did you ever try to contact her?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t find a damn thing on her. It’s how I got involved with Jase. He’s the hacker I was working for. I wrote some code for him and he was supposed to try to find my aunt. He claims she moved to France. He gave me an e-mail address, but when I tracked it down, it was registered to some man in Paris who claims he has no idea who Anna Walker is. It’s like she’s a ghost. Everyone leaves traces these days. Everyone’s on social media. But I can’t find her anywhere. Why would she cover everything up? I think she might have killed my mom for her money. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Drew. I want to convince him to help me. Everyone else thinks I’m paranoid.”
She knew he wasn’t, but she couldn’t tell him. She owed Drew her loyalty. Despite the fact that she’d felt the need to take in the kid, she knew Drew was right and they needed to vet him.
“So your mom died four years ago?”
He nodded. “It was a car wreck. A bad one. There wasn’t much left to bury.”
Iris was good at those. “But she’d paid your tuition in full through the end of high school.”
“Yes,” he replied. “It’s not completely uncommon. There was a trust fund set up to ensure I got through the academy. Actually, Mr. Traynor was the one who set it up. He’d planned to set up a college fund for me, too, but he passed away before he could do it.”
Or he’d given the money to his wife, who hadn’t set it up at all. “So after you graduated, you were left with nothing?”
“I’d saved a couple hundred dollars from the allowance the trust gave me. The sad thing is I had lived my whole life at Creighton. Everything was taken care of. Even after my mom died, someone was willing to take me for the summer. Sometimes it was friends. Once a professor let me stay with him and his wife and kids. I never worked. And then after my friend’s mom died I had just enough money to get into the city. I stayed in a hellhole in the Bronx while I tried to find some work. I finally met Jase online and he offered me a thousand dollars under the table if I could figure out what was wrong with his code. He was working on an online sales system.”
Jesus. And Drew thought she needed a keeper. People who were selling normal things on the web did not hire people off the street. “When did you figure out that what he was selling wasn’t legal?”
Noah set his fork down, the omelet only half finished. “I guess I always knew. I mean, why come to some kid he found on Craigslist if it was legit? I didn’t know what he was selling exactly until later. He used codes for the products, obviously.”
“What was it?” She wasn’t looking forward to having this conversation with Drew.
“Everything. Anything. Apparently when the feds took down Silk Road, there was a massive hole in the black
market, and Jase was determined to fill it. I found out he was selling everything from illegal guns to heroin. But by then I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
She could understand the idea of being caught someplace she didn’t want to be. “Did he threaten you?”
“A couple times. Let’s just say I knew way better than to call the cops.” He stared at his computer. “And then I got that card and I realized I might have a way out. He’d stopped paying me by then. I was working for room and board. Not that there was a ton of board. He went out a lot. I was lucky to eat once a day. He offered me a lot of drugs, though. I was almost ready to take them when that note came in.”
Because he’d been naive and desperate. He’d been a child of privilege unable to cope with the world around him because no one had prepared him. He’d been trained to go to college, to depend on his family’s wealth until such time as he’d acquired his own.
He was so much like Drew.
“Do you think it’s true or do you think someone’s fucking with me?” Noah asked quietly.
“I think you are absolutely Benedict Lawless’s son.” Shelby reached out to put a hand over his. “And I think if you hang in there, you’ll end up getting a real family out of this. Now you look me in the eyes and tell me something.”
He stared straight at her, emotion plain in his face. He was either one of the most sincere people she’d ever met or the best actor walking the planet. “What?”
The trouble was, he was also Iris’s son, one she’d raised, and she was deadly and damn good at acting.
“Are you here to cause trouble for Drew?”
He never wavered. “Absolutely not. I want to know about where I come from. That’s the only reason I’m here. Well, maybe there’s one more. I don’t want to be homeless and alone. I want to have someone in this fucking world who gives a shit if I live or die.”
She wanted to believe him. She squeezed his hand. “All right, then. You have to ignore Hatch. He’s harmless, but he’s protective of Drew. Once he realizes you are who you say you are, he’ll calm down.”
“You think I should stay?”
Since she hadn’t figured out why he was here yet, absolutely. “I do. Now, how about you finish your breakfast and then you and I will go buy some decent clothes. And is there any way I can talk you out of the Bieber hair?”
His lips curled in a smile that reminded her of Drew’s. “Sure.”
She closed the laptop because she wouldn’t touch his again until she was absolutely certain it was clean. They needed to make sure no one was watching Noah through his system.
She could start looking. She could piece together some of Iris’s history through the men who had been in her life, the men she might have killed.
And when she found Iris Lawless, she would know the truth about Noah.
Chapter Seven
Explain what the hell is going on.” Bran stared at him across the table.
“I thought I just did that.” Drew had hoped the family meeting was over for now. He’d explained that he and Shelby had been circling each other for a while and were trying to give a relationship a real shot. As for Noah, he’d explained what had happened the night before.
“No, you gave me some bullshit crap about how you’ve been sexting with Shelby. You do realize we know you. You don’t sext with anyone.”
He would need to keep up appearances. Perhaps it was time to have Shelby send him some racy pictures of herself. Just for cover, of course.
“What is that smile about?” Bran was staring at him like he had two horns.
Was it so surprising when he smiled? “Sorry, I was thinking about Shelby. Now, you need to get your nose out of my private life. I don’t meddle in yours.”
Bran’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking, right? That was sarcasm, I hope, because otherwise you’ve gone seriously delusional. You’re the single nosiest big brother in the history of time.”
He didn’t consider it being nosy. “I’m looking out for you.”
Bran leaned back against the countertop. They’d all had breakfast while they’d talked, and now Mia and Carly had gone to get ready. They were going to work on the reception plans while they were here. Case had gone to take a nap because apparently he’d been up all night and it was making him grumpy. So Drew had been left with Bran and a deep appreciation for the fact that Riley and Ellie were living in New York or he would be facing two brothers down.
“Can’t I look out for you, too?”
Drew was skeptical about that. “I think you’re trying to look out for Shelby more than me.”
“I like Shelby. She’s Carly’s friend and I’ve gotten to know her, but I definitely know you well. I’m surprised because she doesn’t seem like your type.”
“I have a type?”
“Yes. You do. Convenient. Hyperintellectual. A bit cold. Shelby’s none of those things. She’s messy and emotional.”
“And warm,” Drew replied quietly. “Can’t I want a little warmth in my world? Carly wasn’t your type, and then you met her and she was the only woman in the world for you. God knows Riley didn’t date anyone like Ellie before, and Mia exclusively dated metro douche bags until she met Case. I think we’re damaged, Bran. I think every single one of us dated people we could keep at a distance until we found the one person who wouldn’t allow us to. I don’t know that this is going to work out with Shelby, but I want to try, and I can’t do that if my siblings are constantly questioning me.”
They were smart words, meant to deflect his brother, but he was surprised at how easily they’d come.
He did want her warmth. Maybe in the beginning this had been about control and curiosity, but he was rapidly coming to enjoy her company.
Bran held his hands up. “All right. I’ll back off. I just want you to be happy. You have to know that, Drew. You deserve to be happy.”
He wondered sometimes.
“What do you think of Noah?” He needed to change the subject.
“I guess he’s proof that Dad wasn’t a saint,” Bran said quietly.
“I know that’s hard to accept, but he was only human.”
“That’s no reason to stop trying to clear his name, Drew.”
“What does that mean?” He was afraid he knew what it meant.
“It means I would like to know why you’ve stopped trying to find Francine Wells.”
“I haven’t stopped. I just thought it would be nice to take a breather.” He knew exactly what he wanted to do now. He knew it made him a bastard, but he wasn’t above manipulating his brother in order to spare Bran pain. “I’ll get back on it.”
Bran blanched as Drew had known he would. “No, I get that you need a break. I do. I think we could all use one. I just had it in my head that you and Hatch were hiding something from us.”
“Why would we do that?” To protect you. To spare you.
“I don’t know. And I don’t understand why Hatch would react to Noah that way. He seemed a little unhinged,” Bran said.
Yeah, Hatch had nearly lost his shit. Drew wanted to find Shelby, but he needed to find Hatch and talk to him first. “I think he’s being overprotective. It wasn’t so long ago that we had to go through you getting shot. It affected us all, and now we’ve got Noah to deal with.”
“I have to wonder how Hatch really feels about them all being dead.” Bran crossed his arms over his chest. “I know he hated Castalano and Cain and Stratton, but at one point they were his friends, along with Mom and Dad. It has to be weird that everyone’s gone.”
“I’m sure it is, but he has us. We’re his family now, and that could very well be the reason he reacted the way he did to Noah.”
“Do you think Wells sent this kid?”
His brother wasn’t a dummy. “I don’t know, but Shelby is going to find out. You can have Case look into it as well. From what
I can tell, she’s gone again. All trace of her former self has been erased.”
A low growl of frustration left his brother’s throat. “So now that she has all the information, and she’s gotten rid of her fellow murderers, she’ll disappear completely. I don’t know what to do, Drew. Part of me can’t forget what she told Carly.”
None of Drew could forget it. “That if we left her alone, she would leave us be. And if we don’t . . .”
“She’ll come after us. I’m not worried about me, but if anything ever happened to Carly . . .”
He didn’t need Bran to finish that sentence. “So we take a break. Shelby’s going to look into Noah, and you need to concentrate on Carly and what you want to do next. We’ve only got a few weeks until the reception. Afterward, we’ll get together as a family and figure out what we need to do after that. Have you talked to Riley about Noah?”
Bran nodded. “He wants a DNA test. I don’t know that he wants to believe it. Hell, I don’t know I want to believe it, but I’ve seen him. It’s hard to deny that he’s one of us.”
“Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. And he’s agreed to a DNA test. They took a swab at the police station and they’re sending it off.”
“Will they do that even if you don’t press charges?”
“I’m paying for it. It’s going to a private lab so we’ll know sooner than we would if we used the police lab. I’m certain I can pay extra to ensure both our privacy and that the lab is quick.”
“What are they going to test it against?”
“Me,” Drew replied. He’d done a swab as well the night before.
Bran pulled his phone out of his pocket, glancing down at it. “He might be exactly what he says he is. Damn. This is going to take some getting used to.”
“Having another brother? Yes, I suspect it will.”
Bran grinned, looking younger than he did before. “No, I was talking about you having a girlfriend and that girlfriend being Shelby.” He turned the phone toward Drew. “She’s already got the women on board. Apparently Carly and Mia are going with her on the Noah makeover. Carly says they won’t be back until dinner.”