by Lexi Blake
“What would he get out of hurting Noah?”
“Revenge on me for getting away. He’s so angry because he thought it would work. He didn’t understand the contracts Ben had signed with the company. He thought all that stock would come to him.”
“I think I would love to hear what happened that night from your perspective.” This was the corner she could put Iris in.
Iris gripped her coffee cup like it was a lifeline. “It wasn’t what you think it was. Ben had gotten distant. I was involved with an old family friend. I didn’t realize what he was doing. You have to understand that Drew was never truly a child. He was born so brilliant that he never fit in with his peers. He preferred the company of adults. When he was a teen, he spent most of his time with his father or his father’s friends. He said he was learning the business, but Drew always thought he was smarter than anyone else.”
Well, that was still true most of the time. “Who were you having an affair with?”
Please don’t say Hatch. Please don’t say Hatch. Please don’t say Hatch.
“Bill Hatchard. We’d been friends for a long time. I thought our friendship had simply moved to something more. I was such a fool. I was lonely and I knew Ben was seeing someone at work, and Bill was so kind to me. I didn’t realize what he was doing.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you believe Bill and Drew worked together to kill your husband?”
“All I know is I was there that night,” Iris continued. “Bill asked me to meet him at my house. We were going to Ben to ask for a divorce. It was everything I’d hoped for, but when I got there, the house was dark and quiet. I heard Ben talking to someone. I came in from the garage. They were in the living room. I started to walk in and that’s when I saw Andrew. I guess from the back Francine looked a lot like me. We had the same build for the most part, the same general coloring. She had her back turned. Andrew shot Ben first. That was when I ran. I didn’t even get in my car. I was afraid he would hear me.”
She told the story well. There was a perfect tremor to her voice.
“You didn’t want to save your other children? You watched your son kill your husband, his own father. Why would you think he wouldn’t take out his siblings?”
Iris wiped away a tear. “I’m not proud that I ran. That single moment has haunted me every day since. I panicked and by the time I realized what had really happened, it was over.”
“It didn’t occur to you to show up at the police station and turn in your son?”
“I knew what Drew would do,” she insisted. “He would pin it all on me. I realized Bill was in on it and I ran away. I found out I was pregnant with Noah and realized I still had something to live for.”
“Why not kill his siblings? If he wanted the company all for himself, why would he leave anyone alive? He’d set it up for the fire. Why not follow through and claim to be the one and only survivor?”
Iris sat back, her shoulders squaring. “He realized I wasn’t the woman he’d killed. When he figured that out, he had to change his plans. He needed his siblings to keep me in check. He sent me a note stating that if I didn’t stay away, he would kill them off one by one.”
“How did he know where to send a note to you?”
She didn’t hesitate, her story obviously well thought out. “Bill. I reached out to him a week after it happened, but he was devastated by what Drew had done. He wouldn’t see me. He thought he would be implicated. He thought no one would believe that a teenager had managed the crime. By then the others had figured out what they could do and they told Hatch to keep his mouth shut. That’s when I knew he had never loved me. Not really. He wasn’t willing to risk himself. I’d sought refuge with Patty by that time. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. She was willing to take me in and give me some work to do. Why not? She had all of my important assets at her disposal. My son didn’t understand the contract. Andrew thought it would come to him, but because of the way he’d planned it, the others were able to use the morality clause to seize Ben’s stock. They sold it out from under us, and I was left with nothing but scraps and Noah. I knew if I ever came forward, Drew would stop at nothing to see me dead.”
The woman had a vivid imagination. “I would like to see your proof.”
“And I would like you to tell my story, but I don’t know that I trust you yet,” Iris stated quietly. “Come with me. I still have a place in Florida. I’ll charter a plane for us and we can be there tonight. I’ll tell you everything.”
It would be a hell of a story, but unfortunately her ambition was dimmed by the probability that she would get murdered. The woman in front of her was lying. There was so much wrong about her story.
If Drew had shot his father from the staircase, then why had Francine stood with her back to it, waited for Drew to step into Benedict’s place, and then allowed him to neatly shoot her through the head?
How did Iris sneak in and out of the garage, since both doors were already blocked at the time? A neighbor reported hearing a single shout, and then ten minutes later the entire house was in flames. Everything had been set up ahead of time.
And then there was the coincidence of the assassin being in town.
If she took Iris up on her offer, she would be walking into a trap, and then she would be used against Drew in whatever plan Iris had set in motion.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Shelby explained. “I need to see some proof before I’m willing to talk to you.”
Iris nodded, reaching into the Chanel bag at her side. “All right. I’ll give you something. I’ve watched my son over the years. I always knew he would come after me eventually. I knew he would go after my friends as well.”
“You mean the ones who took the company away from him?”
“Yes, and now they’re all dead. I feel bad about what happened with Patty, but she was going to sell me out to Andrew to save herself. I had to stop it. I wanted to live out my days in peace, watching over my children as best as I could.”
A chill went through Shelby as she realized what she was dealing with. It was one thing to put a label on this woman and another to sit in front of her and watch her cry with absolutely no emotion behind her eyes at all. The tears were perfunctory, the well-learned habit of a woman whose whole life had been about gaming the system. She knew what to say and how to say it. There were so many people who would look at her and believe her. They would put her against Drew, who had the reputation of being a ruthless ass, and gravitate to her soft voice without ever seeing the calculation behind it.
This was a sociopath. She didn’t love her children. They’d been tools for her to use to get what she did love.
Iris passed a folder Shelby’s way. “Read this. It’s about your brother. Did you know that Andrew was in town the same day your brother was? Did you know he was seen close to your brother’s rental car?”
Shelby’s whole body tightened. “Why on earth would Drew kill my brother?”
“Because he was going to break the story wide open. Because Patty told him that day. Because he met with me and I gave him the story of a lifetime. Look inside. Andrew might have been able to get rid of the records of your brother’s notes of our conversation, but I took pictures.”
She opened the folder, and her heart seemed to twist in her body. There was a picture of Drew walking into a gas station, walking right past Johnny’s rental car.
And then there was her brother, his smiling face looking out from between the two women he was sitting with. Patricia Cain looked regal on one side, and Iris Lawless was sitting on the other. He had his ever-present notebook in his hands. The one that had burned up in the car accident.
How long had Iris been setting Drew up?
She had some serious questions for him, but she knew one thing. Drew wouldn’t have hurt her brother. He didn’t have a reason to.
“I know he says he’ll let you tell
the story, but he won’t,” Iris said quietly, as though she pitied Shelby. “He’s an attractive man, but he’s rotten to the core.”
“If I don’t get to the plane, they’re going to wonder what happened to me.” She held Iris’s eyes for a moment. “They’ll look for me, and this place has security cameras. They’ll see that I was with you.”
“If you tell Andrew about this, he’ll find a way to twist it. If he thinks for a second that you’ll side with me . . . well, I’m afraid of what he’ll do to you. He’s taken much from your family.”
For the first time, real fear spiked through her system. Fear and rage. This was the woman who’d ordered her brother’s death. Not Patricia Cain. She’d ordered it because she’d likely figured out that Johnny was smarter than she’d given him credit for.
Had he asked too many questions? Or simply the wrong ones, the ones that would put a killer in a corner and expose her? Had she tried to run this story by him only to have Johnny point out all the fallacies?
Somehow she’d figured out Johnny wasn’t going to play her game, and she’d ensured he couldn’t play at all.
The urge to leap across the table and wrap her hands around the woman’s throat was nearly overwhelming. She could squeeze until Iris turned blue and got what she deserved. She could put an end to all this pain.
The door jingled. “Hey, you! I thought I saw you when we went through the drive-through. Mia needed French fries. Are you ready? I’ll ride back with you and you can tell me all about your mystery stop. Who’s your friend?”
Carly was standing in the doorway, a cup in her hand. Carly, who would recognize Iris if she turned around. Carly, who was so close to Iris’s gun-toting escort. He’d stood up behind her, threat plain in his stance.
Shelby stood as fast as she could, nearly spilling her now cold drink. She had to get Carly out of here and away from the threat.
She moved quickly, grabbing Carly’s arms and hauling her out. “She’s a witness for a story I’m writing. A confidential one. It’s better you don’t meet her.”
“That’s exciting,” Carly replied with a smile. “All I did today was buy a bunch of shoes. Wait. That was exciting, too. You will not believe the wedges I found. They’re perfect.”
She let Carly chatter on about the shopping they’d done. Shelby unlocked the car doors and slipped behind the wheel, her eyes going to the café again.
They were gone like they’d never been there at all.
Shelby tried to stop her hands from shaking as she pointed the car toward the airport.
Chapter Thirteen
Drew stared down at his phone, his blood pressure ticking slowly up. There it was. Proof that Shelby was . . . he wasn’t even sure what to believe at this point. What was she doing? He only knew that Shelby had been going shopping with his sisters and she’d completely violated his trust.
She’d met with his mother. The photo proved it beyond all doubt. She’d fucking taken his plane, snuck away from his family, and met with his greatest enemy.
If he hadn’t put a guard on her, he wouldn’t even know. She would walk back in smiling, her arms laden with packages, and she would lie to him.
Or she wouldn’t come back at all. She would walk away because the story was more important than anything to her.
He shifted his focus, putting his phone down and moving to his laptop. The report would be easier to read there.
The McKay-Taggart agent accounted for Shelby’s time from the moment she’d gotten off the plane to the moment she’d gotten back on. Drew had almost let it go, almost told the guard he didn’t need to shadow Shelby today because she was going to be with Case and Riley. He’d made the decision at the last minute because he’d looked over at Noah and thought what the hell. A little more muscle couldn’t hurt since someone was after his family.
Now he realized she’d planned this all along.
He read over the report, trying to stay calm. She would be walking through those doors any minute, and he couldn’t have it out with her until they were alone.
Where she would probably try to distract him with sex. After all, he’d proven to be so easy to manipulate. He shouldn’t blame her. They’d both gone into this relationship wanting something from the other.
She’d broken off from the group immediately and went straight to meet with someone at Williams Investigations. Naturally she hadn’t mentioned that to him. She’d spent several hours there and then rushed to meet his mother in a café outside the private airport. The agent hadn’t gotten close enough to hear anything, but Shelby had sat with his mother for nearly half an hour and left only when Carly had interrupted the meeting.
What had Carly interrupted?
There was a knock on the door.
How was he supposed to hold it together? He didn’t want to see anyone or deal with anyone. Maybe never again. After the way Shelby had ripped his heart out of his body, he might become a hermit.
“I’ll be out in a minute, Noah.” Perhaps Shelby could take Noah right back to his mama. They could all live happily with Iris.
“Is he still here? I should have known you wouldn’t be able to turn him away,” a familiar voice said.
Drew breathed a long sigh of relief. “Hatch. Thank God. Where the hell have you been? Do you know what I’ve gone through looking for you?”
His mentor walked in, his eyes rimmed with red. Hatch was wearing the same thing he’d been wearing the last time Drew had seen him. He was wrinkled and looked beyond tired. “I’m sorry, Drew.”
“Where the hell have you been?”
Hatch’s shoulders slumped. “After what happened with Noah, I went on a bender. I didn’t want you to find me, so I got a bunch of cash and found a couple of friends who wouldn’t talk.”
“You mean hookers.”
Hatch shrugged. “A man’s got needs. You know I still prefer to pay.”
Hatch refused to date. As long as Drew had known him, he’d never seen Hatch spend time with a woman who wasn’t a friend or a professional. He’d taught Drew that sexual needs could be met without the burden of an emotional connection.
Until Shelby. Until he’d figured out how good sex could be when he was emotionally engaged.
He shoved that thought aside. “So you hung out with a hooker until your cash ran out? I’ve been worried sick.”
“I know you have been, and you can’t know what that means to me. You have no idea what having this family has meant to me.” Hatch took a deep breath before continuing. “When I ran out of cash, I hitched a ride and ended up in Houston. I didn’t fare well there. I might have gotten into a fight over a bar bill I couldn’t pay and ended up in jail. So everything’s fairly normal. I got out this morning and decided to come home and apologize.”
At least one thing had gone right. Hatch hadn’t gotten himself killed, as Drew had feared. He’d been worried about it for days. “You want to explain why this hit you so hard?”
Hatch’s hands were shaking as he found his way to the chair in front of Drew’s desk. He clutched the back and shook his head. “I don’t know. Seeing Noah got to me. It was like seeing Ben walk in and look at me. It was a real kick in the gut. I thought I’d left it behind me. I felt like we were almost done, like we could finally put it behind us. I think coming on the heels of finding out Iris had fooled us all made me go a little crazy. Tell me something, Drew. Did the test come in?”
“Yes, Noah’s definitely my brother. No question about it.” He needed Hatch to understand that Noah was staying. Noah was a Lawless and, until he proved that Noah was playing him, he couldn’t dump the kid on the street. “You had to know he was somehow related to me. I don’t like to admit it, but we look similar.”
Hatch slumped down into the seat. “I knew it the minute I saw him. I suppose that’s why I had the bad reaction. I didn’t realize your mother and father were still intimat
e when he died. I was fairly certain they weren’t.”
Drew didn’t want to deal with this. It made him nauseous. The past needed to stay in the past. He had too much future crap to deal with. “I get why you were surprised, but we need to think beyond the past. We’ve got bigger problems. Shelby met with Iris earlier today.”
Hatch’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me? She’s here in Austin?”
“Shelby went to Dallas for the day. They met in a café outside the airport. I’ve got pictures of them getting cozy.” It made him sick.
Hatch was silent for a moment. “Maybe you should give Shelby the benefit of the doubt. You care about this woman. Give her a chance to explain what happened.”
“Explain? What the hell could she possibly say? Give me another explanation, Hatch. I would love to hear a reason I can live with.” It was something Hatch was good at. He could poke holes in any theory Drew came up with. It was how their relationship worked. Hatch was the person he bounced ideas off of.
Except lately that person had been Shelby. She might not know code, but she actually had quite a head for business, and she’d definitely become his conscience.
She’d lied to him. It was right there, a sick, roiling feeling. He couldn’t take a deep breath and figure out how to best use this to his advantage. He needed to sit down and plan the battle to come. Maybe it would be best to keep Shelby close. He could continue to watch her, figure out where his mother was staying, what her end game was. He could turn all of this around on her.
Anger flared through him. White-hot rage. It felt so much better than the horrible, nasty emptiness that had threatened to overwhelm him.
“You’re sure she set this meeting up?” Hatch asked.
“How else would Iris have found her?”
“You have no idea what she’s capable of. Iris is excellent at getting the proper pieces into place without those pieces even knowing they’re being moved. This is exactly the kind of game she would play.”
“I know she’s evil and I know Shelby should know better.” Why hadn’t she called him? Why hadn’t she told him what she was doing that day?