He heard teeth grinding, looking forward to the next bit.
‘Good. At the same time, get Leon to drive out to Logan as if he’s picking us up from there. Tell him to take a circuitous route, but make it easy to follow. And you need to go with him. Make it look as if you’re giving someone a big welcome home. It’s dangerous but I’m sure the Bentley’s got bullet-proof windows and doors.’
LeClair had the sense not to object, his eye on his future employment status. He managed to squeeze out a question through those gritted teeth.
‘Anything else?’
‘Arrange for some private security. And if Mr Carlson has got half the clout you act like he has, get the Boston PD to put a cruiser outside the main drive up to the house.’
Bella was grinning at him when he finished the call, an accusation on her lips.
‘You enjoyed that.’
‘You bet. I could get used to having staff.’
‘You wouldn’t have them for long if you treated them like that.’
Despite the way he’d been talked to, LeClair came through for them. The taxi that picked them up had no problems getting through the private gate into the airport and from there to the FBO—the fixed base terminal separate from the main hub that private jets use. Then it was up into a sleek lounge for complimentary food and drinks followed by a hot shower—not together—and a couple hours shut-eye in one of the private snooze rooms. No lines, no TSA, no pre-flight security checks that do nothing more than remind you that the terrorists have already won as you shuffle through the scanner in your socks and without your belt, hoping you don’t get chosen, politely asked to touch your toes in the back room.
And he’d heard people say money doesn’t make you happy.
Trouble was, there were a couple things that took the edge off his enjoyment of it all, left him with a dry mouth and wide awake after only two hours’ sleep.
It was too easy.
And he’d called Guillory while Bella was in the shower, asked her to let him know if a woman answering Liz’s description turned up in the hospital or the morgue with her fingers broken and cigarette burns on the sensitive parts of her body. The likely outcome of that call weighed heavily on him, another scar on what remained of his conscience.
The private ambulance was waiting for them at Hanscom Field as requested. If Bella had been more his age, he’d have asked her if she wanted to play doctors and nurses in the back to pass the time on the half-hour journey to the house.
As it was, he could’ve done it anyway without asking and she wouldn’t have noticed. It was understandable. Coming home after thirty years makes a person a little distracted.
Through the tinted glass he caught a glimpse of a police cruiser backed into the trees at the bottom of the driveway. Climbing out of the ambulance he saw a number of men with impassive faces and dark glasses, suspicious bulges under their buttoned jackets and wires disappearing down the back of their collars, positioned strategically around the exterior of the house. Money had been spent, names dropped. It was a lot more secure than sitting up at the bar in the Jerusalem Tavern, a situation that felt like it was three years ago, not three days, and on a different planet. Planet real world, perhaps.
Blair was waiting for her sister at the bottom of the stairs up to the front door. There was lots of hugging and some tears—and that was just Evan watching. Then the two women disappeared into the house to reunite Bella with her father.
Evan stayed outside, the security guys watching him intently through their shades. Then it all went wrong. The Bentley came up the drive and Evan knew a price would soon be paid for the fun he’d had with LeClair. He was wrong. The back door swung open before the car had come to a halt and LeClair jumped out, as good as ran up the stairs without a second glance at Evan, his need to ingratiate himself greater than his desire for petty revenge. Evan was sure there’d be plenty of time for that later.
He joined Leon leaning against the front fender of the Bentley, almost accepted the cigarette offered to him. Leon sucked hard, angled his face towards the sky, let it out. Then voiced what was still on Evan’s mind.
‘That was easy.’
He shrugged modestly.
‘All part of the service.’
They both knew what he meant—you got that right.
It was time to go. He didn’t want to wait around for LeClair to come back out, pay him off with a look on his face like he was the man who’d just unblocked the toilets and hadn’t washed his hands afterwards. They could sort out the grubby business of money over the phone or by email. He’d have liked to say goodbye to Bella, but she was a little tied up at the moment. Likely to stay that way for a while. Besides, he had a feeling in his gut he’d be seeing her again.
It had been too easy.
‘You want to give me a ride back to the airport?’
‘My pleasure. You can sit in the back this time if you want.’
‘No. I’ve already gotten to like this lifestyle too much. I need to ease myself back into the real world.’
They drove down the driveway in a companionable silence. Leon raised his hand in a wave as they passed the police cruiser, got a quick flash of the lights back.
‘So what now?’ he said.
Evan wasn’t sure how to answer it truthfully, even if Leon was only the hired help.
Everybody sits around waiting for the old man to die.
‘Beats me. You know the family better than I do. You think Merritt will show his face, welcome Aunty Bella back from the dead?’
Leon shook his head, no idea. Then he volunteered some information.
‘I never liked that guy. It’s got nothing to do with him being a snooty rich kid or anything like that. I liked his old man, before he killed himself. But it was like the genes jumped a generation. Merritt’s more like his grandfather than his father.’
‘From what I’ve heard that’s not a good thing.’
Leon snorted, then glanced in the side mirror before pulling out to pass an old pickup.
‘It is if all you’re interested in is making money. Bloodwell and Merritt have got that in common. It’s why Bloodwell likes him so much. If you ask me, he likes him better than he ever did his son. I think he was secretly pleased when he killed himself. Meant he didn’t have to feel bad about treating him like shit any longer.’
‘That’s a harsh thing to say about a man.’
Leon took his eyes off the road, gave Evan an uncompromising stare.
‘Doesn’t mean it’s any less true.’
Leon stopped talking as they got nearer to the airport and he had to concentrate on the traffic more. That suited Evan just fine. The longer he talked to anyone in or connected to the family, the more he got overloaded with information. And the more the suspicions multiplied. Was Leon telling him in a roundabout way that he thought Gerald Bloodwell had been involved in his own son’s death and not Bella like the fake cop had insinuated.
Getting on the plane he felt like asking the stewardess if they had any opening windows. Nothing short of an icy five-hundred-miles-per-hour wind at thirty thousand feet was going to blow his mind clear.
It took another three days before he got the call from Leon that marked the end of the saga.
‘I thought you’d want to know that Mr Carlson died in his sleep in the early hours of this morning.’
Evan wasn’t surprised. It happens all the time. You’ve got somebody on death’s door and they hang on and hang on somehow until one of their children, or whoever it is they want to see before they die, comes home. And then when they do, they let go, accept the inevitable. It doesn’t take long after that. It’s as if they’re happy to go.
‘Sorry to hear that. I know you’d been with him a long time.’
‘Thank you.’
Evan said a few more sympathetic words, then cut to the chase.
‘Did Merritt turn up at all?’
‘Yeah, he was there.’ His voice was very different than the last time they’d di
scussed Merritt in the car on the way to the airport. ‘Maybe I was wrong about the guy. He was more cut up about it than anyone. I got the impression he didn’t ever want the old man to die. Forget about trying to get rid of his aunt in order to inherit his money.’
He didn’t know what to think. Suddenly Merritt was one of the good guys. Leon was still talking.
‘Arabella says sorry she didn’t say goodbye. She’ll call you in a couple days to say thank you properly when she’s gotten herself together.’
He would’ve liked to ask Leon to tell her he’d look forward to it. But that would be a lie. The prospect filled him with dread. Guillory had gotten back to him the previous day. Bella’s friend Liz had no further use for the car that had contributed to her death. He hoped Bella didn’t ask him for the details of what they’d done to her to make her give up her friend, hoped he had the strength to tell her no if she did. He didn’t suppose she’d be thanking him properly by the end of that conversation, not unless it was to thank him for the guilt she’d be carrying with her for the rest of her life.
He ended the call more confused and dejected than ever. None of it mattered anyway. It wasn’t his problem any more.
Fate had a good long laugh at that.
10
Evan didn’t recognize the number when he got the call two days later. He felt sick as he answered it. He’d run through the conversation in his mind a thousand times over the past days. He’d heard Bella’s voice in his head, all the different emotions running riot inside her. Full of excitement at the life ahead of her, tinged with sadness over her father’s death but tempered by the relief that she’d made it home before he died—and the gushing gratitude that he’d made it happen. And then he heard the silence, heavy and accusing, as he told her about Liz. Then the sound of a dial tone in his ear or, worse, a polite request that he never bother her again, the cold loathing in her voice chilling his bones.
Except it wasn’t Bella, it was a man’s voice. And not Leon this time.
‘Mr Buckley? My name is Merritt Bloodwell. You might have heard of me . . .’
The name stole the words out of Evan’s mouth. He felt like saying, yes, he’d heard of him, never expected to hear from him. Then Merritt did it to him again.
‘I’d like to hire you.’
He pulled himself together, managed a coherent response.
‘Okay.’
That was all the encouragement Merritt needed.
‘As you know, my grandfather, Thomas Carlson, died recently. We used to be very close although not quite so much in the last few years.’
Probably because you went and worked for his nemesis, Gerald Bloodwell, Evan thought and didn’t say.
‘Despite that, I wanted something personal of his to remember him by, something with sentimental value. So I’ve been going through his possessions. And I found my parents’ wedding album.’
He paused as if he expected Evan to let out a gasp of surprise or even horror. Evan felt neither emotion, but he was intrigued as to where the conversation was going.
‘You sound as if that’s unusual. Why wouldn’t he have pictures of his daughter’s wedding?’
‘You’re right, no reason. What’s unusual is that it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it. And that’s not all—’
‘Hang on. What do you mean it’s the first time you’ve seen it?’
Some of the excitement in Merritt’s voice slipped away as he was forced to explain something that ought to be obvious to a man who was clearly an idiot.
‘My parents never had a copy themselves. All my mother has is one photograph of her and my father. I always assumed it was because of what happened to him. I’m sure you know he committed suicide when I was very young. I thought it was all too upsetting and painful for her. And of course, I never asked her. It’s not the sort of thing a boy asks his mother.’
Evan agreed, probably not. But it still didn’t sound so strange.
‘What was the other thing?’
He felt the satisfied smile on the other end of the line warming his ear as Merritt got to the crux of the matter.
‘My other grandfather, Gerald Bloodwell, isn’t in any of the photographs. He was the groom’s father and there isn’t a single photograph of him. Not one. His wife is in them, everybody is in them, like you’d expect. But not him.’
‘Did you ask him about it?’
There was a nervous stutter of a laugh.
‘I was going to. I told him I’d found the album. He looked at me as if I’d said I’d done something stupid that wiped fifty percent off the company’s share price. So I didn’t say anything more about it.’
‘Maybe he was sick and wasn’t there.’
‘Ha! You’ve never met him, have you? He’s never been sick a day in his life. Being sick is for losers. If somebody chopped my arm off with a chainsaw, he’d tell me to man up and stop complaining.’
Evan kicked back in his chair, went to stand looking out of the window, a restless energy suddenly in his legs demanding movement. It was the mention of Gerald Bloodwell. He was curious, but the job Merritt wanted to hire him for still seemed bizarre.
‘You want me to find out why your grandfather wasn’t in your mother’s wedding pictures?’
Merritt let his exasperation show in his voice.
‘It’s not only that. They’re hiding something. And I can’t ask any of them. If they’ve kept it from me all this time, they’re not going to tell me now. I can’t let it drop either. It’s affecting my relationship with my mother. I look at her and think, what else aren’t you telling me?’
Evan didn’t need anyone to tell him about the cruel games your own mind likes to play, the doubts and fears that come calling in the small hours of the morning, the way that not knowing eats away at you. He’d been there, would be there again. But there was a problem.
‘Your family won’t be happy about me digging the dirt.’
Merritt’s voice was a mix of smug satisfaction at having a ready answer and apprehension at what that answer implied.
‘I’m surprised they haven’t called you already. Somebody tried to kill Arabella again yesterday. She’s in the hospital.’
Evan didn’t need the timeline spelled out. The latest attack had taken place on the day after Thomas Carlson died. His daughter Arabella had already inherited.
He ended the call with a couple of things on his mind.
It had never been about the money.
And Merritt wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been told the whole truth.
11
‘I thought I’d be seeing you again,’ Leon said when he picked Evan up in the Bentley at Logan International. ‘You here to stir up trouble?’
‘Only if you think it might help.’
Leon grinned at him. Evan noticed a bruise on his jaw and a graze on his knuckles as if he’d been in a fight, didn’t say anything about it for the moment.
‘Tell me what happened to Bella.’
Leon shook his head gently, not a refusal, but in disbelief. There was a residue of anger in his voice. Anger at himself for being so stupid.
‘After Mr Carlson died, everybody relaxed. We all thought she was safe.’
A dozen words and already Evan could’ve argued with him. The person or persons who knew the things he wasn’t being told didn’t think that at all.
‘The security was dismissed, the police at the bottom of the drive too. Then Bella decides she wants to go shopping. She made up some excuse about needing to get something to wear for the funeral. Personally, I think it was just to get her out of the oppressive atmosphere in the house. So I drove her to Newbury Street, waited in the car while she went into the shops. She came out of one of them with her arms full of bags. It’s lucky really. If she’d only had one or two, I wouldn’t have gotten out to help her. Then suddenly I heard the roar of somebody gunning a big engine. I looked around and an SUV is coming right at us. I dived at Bella, knocked her across the sidewalk, landed on my chin.’ H
e angled his face at Evan, thrust out his jaw. ‘That’s where I got that.’
‘What about Bella?’
Leon sucked air in through his teeth, looked a little sheepish.
‘I’m a lot bigger than she is. I really sent her flying. She hit a railing and sort of flipped over it, bounced down a flight of concrete steps on her head. She was out cold. Blood pouring out of a gash in her scalp. I swear I saw the white of the bone. And there’s all these sickos with their phones out taking pictures of her lying there all crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. If I hadn’t been so desperate to get her to the emergency room there’d be a lot of people walking around with phones stuck up their asses, I can tell you.’ He looked at his grazed knuckles gripping the wheel like he was wishing he’d skinned them on the bystanders’ faces, then carried on. ‘She’s got a concussion and a broken arm and a couple busted ribs. They said she’d be okay but they want to keep her in for observation.’
He made the word observation sound as if it involved cutting off random limbs for the fun of it.
‘Don’t give yourself a hard time. It’s better than being dead.’
‘I suppose.’
‘What about the car?’
Leon shook his head.
‘Big black SUV. A Merc, I think. I was too shell-shocked and concerned about Bella to try to get a look at the license plate. And like I said, all the other sickos were more interested in getting a photo of a nearly-dead body to put on Fuckface or whatever they call it. There might be CCTV, I don’t know . . .’
‘The plates won’t be real.’
They lapsed into silence. Leon flicked on the windshield wipers as the rain started to come down. Evan stared out of the window, his thoughts as bleak and cheerless as the gray afternoon outside. There wasn’t much on the horizon to brighten them either.
Blair was at the hospital when he got there, talking to a bored-looking police officer sitting on a chair outside Bella’s room. She came to meet him, hugged him. It surprised him. Rich people don’t hug the help. But it was an emotional time all around.
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