Tibo pulled out a piece of paper from his folder. “The state is asking for bail in the amount of two million in cash and five million in bond based on the severity of the crime and the lengths the defendant went to conceal the crime with her children—”
“This is ludicrous! Are you kidding, Tibo?” Jack cut in. “I’ve never heard of such outrageous amounts.”
The look the DA tossed his way was anything but friendly. It was all business. They were adversaries in battle, fighting to win at all costs. “As I said, Iris O’Connell is accused of murdering her husband, and, based on the evidence, we believe she will be a flight risk. Her children have the means, contacts, and knowledge to see that she flees the jurisdiction, considering the overwhelming likelihood of a conviction. The state will be seeking the maximum of life in prison with no chance of parole. Based on this alone, we also ask that the defendant be fitted with a monitoring bracelet and confined to her home until trial.”
Jack could hear whispers behind him, outrage from Owen, and an F-bomb, he thought, from Luke. “Your Honor, my client is not a flight risk,” he said. “She’s the mother of six grown children, with grandchildren, and another grandchild on the way. She has deep ties to this community, where she raised her children, and she has a modest income from a pension. She has no priors, Your Honor, not even so much as a parking ticket. She has no access to that kind of cash.”
“The court does not consider Mrs. O’Connell a flight risk in the least, Mr. Lewis,” Judge Thompson said. “At the same time, this is a murder charge. Taking into account no priors, bail is set at five hundred thousand, with two hundred and fifty thousand posted in cash.” The judge took in Iris beside him. Even to Jack, her face seemed pasty white. The judge shook his head. “And I see no need for a monitoring bracelet. The trial is set for two weeks from today and will be assigned to Judge Anderson.”
As the judge banged his gavel, the bailiff was at the table, his hand on Iris’s arm.
“Go,” Jack said to her, rubbing her arm. “I’ll see you out there. This is just procedure. We’ll post bail and have you home.”
As she was led away, he turned to his wife and her siblings, this band of misfits that was his family. He could see Marcus’s outrage and the emotions on their faces. Of course, they all wanted to say something.
“Let’s go post bail and get your mom out of here,” he said. “We’ll have time to talk after. Remember, poker faces. Say nothing, no matter what. There’s cameras and reporters, people out there you thought were friends, and every one of them will suddenly have a story about you. Hold your heads up. Get your mom home. I’ll see you over there.”
As the rest of the O’Connells filed out of the courtroom, Karen looked at him with agony in her blue eyes.
“That’s a lot of money, Jack,” she said. “I have about one hundred in cash…”
He rested his hand on hers. “You and I have the cash. We’ll post it. But, hear me, it’s only going to get worse, and you know it. You’re used to it as a lawyer on the other side, not with an entire town coming at you.”
She shut her eyes for a second and pulled in a breath, and he could see the toll this was taking. “One step at a time?” she said, and he wasn’t sure whether it was a question.
“Yeah, let’s go,” he replied.
As he walked out of the courtroom with his wife to where bail would be posted, where Iris would be released, he thought of how this was quickly becoming a circus. He wondered, did they have any idea what they were in for?
Likely not.
Chapter Fourteen
He knew it had been a mistake to come back, even though something about Livingston had been calling him for so long.
He took in his son in the family room by the old brick fireplace, a room with an old shag carpet that he’d been planning on ripping out, and the girl sitting beside him on the dated sofa that had come with the house.
He could hear the video game, the blasting of guns, as he looked down from the kitchen into the family room of the sparsely furnished house. He hesitated only a second, taking in everything about the teenage girl, Alison. Her dark hair and eyes were a different shade than his son’s, but she had the same shape of face as Brady.
The fact was that her family was going through the worst thing imaginable.
He shoved in his earbuds, taking in the news playing live from the courthouse on his iPhone, a broadcast about the murder trial of Iris O’Connell.
He’d watched her, seeing her short dark hair, her round face. Iris was a woman he’d never forget. He wondered if he could’ve picked out the kids, who were now grown. Their faces were down, the cameras were flashing, and the people circled and crowded around the family as they left the courthouse.
The lawyer was Jack Curtis, whom he knew was married to Karen, who was the image of a young Iris. The reporters called out to Iris, to Marcus—to Owen, the eldest. He admired their restraint, considering they’d have had every right to knock those vultures to the ground.
He willed them to do it, but at the same time, he knew they were doing everything right.
“Alison, what time do you have to be home?” he called out, looking down. The kids didn’t pull their gazes from the video game at first, but then Alison did.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t heard when they’ll be home.” She gave that teenage shrug she did anytime she was uncomfortable. It was just something about her he’d noticed.
That was all she said, even though he’d listened carefully to everything she’d said to his son. Her aunt Charlotte had arrived home an hour after leaving that morning, saying she had time off, but Alison knew she’d lost her job. Her parents weren’t letting her go to school because of what people would say about her grandma, her family. They didn’t want her hearing the trash talk.
She wasn’t supposed to talk about what had happened, but she openly wondered with Brady about whether her grandmother had in fact killed Raymond O’Connell, her grandfather. Maybe that was why he hadn’t been able to walk out of the kitchen and leave the two of them alone.
He wondered what Ryan would think if he knew what his daughter was speculating about Iris. The girl didn’t hide the fact that she loved her grandmother even though she wondered whether she was guilty. It seemed one didn’t cancel out the other. Alison was lost, troubled, he could see, and looking to bend Brady’s ear. She’d walked to the park that afternoon and waited for Brady to get out of school, and he’d brought her there after hearing the rumors spreading, the gossip that fueled public scrutiny over the O’Connell name.
There was just something about his son. Brady had a soft spot for the down and out. He took after his mother that way.
He replayed the news from a different station, a different camera angle on the O’Connells as they surrounded their mother. He watched as they climbed in their cars to leave the courthouse, and he wondered for only a second whether he should tell Alison that they were on their way home.
An email popped up on the screen, confirming the booking he’d made to Barbados, the cottage on the beach, all white sand. The tickets had been paid for. His son’s school wouldn’t be notified. Tonight, he’d tell Brady.
Playing with fire was one thing, but being stupid and careless was another. And he had been so careless only one time before.
“Brady, don’t forget you have that report due in your history class,” he said.
He didn’t look up but could hear Alison whisper something to Brady with her teenage attitude. The fact was that she was sitting too close to his son. Then there was the low-cut shirt, her body too much like a woman’s. His son had eyes for the girl, and he couldn’t let that happen.
“Did it already, Dad,” Brady said, as if he were just a passing thought. “Scored!” He put down the remote. “You want to head out to the park?” he said, turning to Alison.
Ray lifted his gaze to his son, seeing how much he liked this girl, who was Ryan O’Connell’s daughter. He’d seen Ryan only once f
rom a distance, and there was something about him. He could see himself in him at that age.
“Don’t be long,” Ray said, taking in the way Brady grabbed his jean jacket and pulled it on. He strode to his son, as Alison was already at the front door, bending over, tying her shoes. “No funny business,” he said. “She’s going through a rough time, and you know what I mean. Hands to yourself, no matter what.” He knew his son understood.
“I’m not a jerk, Dad,” he said.
Ray took in his teenage son, who was going on eighteen but had been held back a year. He knew Brady wasn’t telling him everything. “No, you’re a teenage boy with hormones, and that girl’s family is falling apart. I’m serious. Don’t be a dick. Let her talk, but that’s it. Be home in an hour.” He lifted his watch. “I have some things to do, someone to meet, so start the burgers if you’re back before me.”
“Fine,” Brady huffed out.
Ray followed them to the front door, still stuck on the minute Brady had walked in with Alison, bringing her to their home, this temporary place he’d planned to stay longer. He wanted to remind his son of what he’d said: “Don’t bring anyone over.” Yet Brady hadn’t listened. Here was Alison.
Above everything else, the fact was that Iris was in trouble, and he’d left her too many years ago to save her now.
He listened to the door closing. He’d put a deposit on this place, having paid for four months, along with the promise to work on the house, but he knew they’d walk out of there and never return.
As he stepped down into the family room, he picked up the remote and turned the TV back on to the breaking news. Crews were now outside Iris O’Connell’s house, and the cameras were going crazy as the family pulled up. Each of them walked in the house and closed the door.
So a body that should never have been found had been dug up by a dog. The soil, evidently, had eroded, and the DA was under the impression that the body was Raymond O’Connell’s.
The problem was that Raymond O’Connell didn’t exist.
Chapter Fifteen
“No, stay home,” Marcus said to Charlotte over the phone. “Don’t come over here, and if any reporters call or show up, don’t talk to them. I love you.”
He hung up and pulled at his tie, loosening it, because it was beginning to choke him. He stood in his mom’s kitchen, which was now put back together, listening to the shower running, knowing his mom was taking a well-deserved long one. His siblings were in the living room with Jack, talking about the situation they were all in.
“So how’s everything at home?” Luke said, striding into the kitchen, where Marcus had gone to make a quick call, thinking he’d be talking to Alison, not Charlotte.
“Well, Charlotte’s home,” he said. “Seems that asshole Lonnie decided she had a conflict of interest and basically told her to go home and not come back. He fired her.” Marcus was livid, wanting to wrap his hands around the man’s neck.
Where had Harold been? Not there, evidently. He’d been assigned the shit job of giving out speeding tickets at a spot just outside town. Well, at least Charlotte wouldn’t be in the lion’s den, so to speak. Small blessings. He wouldn’t share that thought with her.
“You knew that was coming, though, didn’t you?” Luke said. He pulled open the fridge, reached for two beers, and held one out for Marcus, who just shook his head. Luke rested it on the island before unscrewing the top of his and taking a swallow. “I think we should talk about what’s next, here. Jack was just saying the evidence in the case, although circumstantial, could tie it up. The blood match on Dad’s letter is key. Man, would I love to get my hands on that letter…” He lifted the beer and took another swallow. “Why do you think she kept it?”
Marcus didn’t want to rehash that big why. He’d wondered the same thing. Then there was the body and the fact that he and his siblings knew about the blood at the house, and the knife. That was the one thing the DA didn’t have: the knife. He just shook his head.
“I don’t know,” Marcus said, unsure what he was supposed to feel. “Maybe we should be asking who the body is. There’s been no ID, but is it Dad? I can’t help wondering if it is.”
For a split second, he saw something out back. He wasn’t sure, but it was likely a reporter thinking he could sneak about and get some photos of the family in a private moment to splash across the papers, the internet, for the world to see.
“Ah, fuck…” He started to the back door.
“What?” Luke asked.
“Reporter, I think, sneaking around back, by the shed. Thought I saw him back there.” He pulled open the door and stepped outside, then strode across the yard, still hearing voices from the front of the house. Their privacy was gone.
As he really dug into each step, he could feel his fury, his anger, which had been pent up from this shitshow, coming to a boiling point. He’d somehow kept it under wraps until now. He knew Luke was right behind him as he rounded the corner of the shed, but he saw nothing.
Luke looked over the back fence and the alley it led out to, then pulled open the back gate and stepped out ahead of him, but there was no one there, nothing other than fences and garbage cans.
“No one,” Luke said, looking around. He walked over to the neighbor’s fence and looked over.
Marcus took a second, knowing he’d seen something. This was the type of cat and mouse shit he hated. “You know, I hate to say this, Luke, but I think it would be best if Mom didn’t stay here…”
Then he heard a footstep, and he whipped around to see a man, his height, older, with gray hair—and something about him was familiar. He wore a black T-shirt and blue jeans with a jacket overtop.
“Marcus…” the man said.
He didn’t know why, but he felt as if the air had left his lungs.
“Luke,” the man added, looking over to his brother, who he knew was right beside him. “You both look good. Marcus, you still have that mark on your neck that you were born with.” The man gestured to the odd-shaped mole just under his chin. His blue eyes were so much like his, and maybe it was because he was so damn tired, but Marcus’s brain was short-circuiting. He glanced over to Luke, who didn’t pull his gaze from the man. Who the hell was this?
“So you aren’t dead, after all. I knew it,” Luke said, sounding so pissed. He shook his head.
The man gave everything to him before looking over to Marcus. “I met your niece, Alison, and that little girl you adopted, Eva.”
What the fuck? was the only thing that kept going through his mind. “You met my daughter and Alison? Where? What the fuck is this, some kind of sick joke? Who are you?” He felt the pinch of his jaw as he ground out the words.
“Would say this is good old Dad,” Luke said. “You look the same almost, older. Never forgot your face, even though I was so young. Isn’t this just a kick in the ass? So what is this?” He really did sound pissed.
Marcus didn’t think he’d heard right, but as he really looked at the man, he knew it was true.
“Your mother found herself in some trouble,” Raymond said. “It was all over the news.”
He took in the man’s big hands, just like his, which he fisted by his sides, and his broad chest. He was a man who looked after himself, yet he had left his family. Like, holy shit! They needed to get him in the house, to call the DA, to get these damn charges dropped in this bullshit case.
“She’s being charged with murder, your murder,” Luke said. “Yet here you stand, Raymond O’Connell, in the flesh. You walked out on your family like the coward you are, leaving your wife and six kids to figure it out. So where’ve you been all these years, Pops? Tried looking for you for a long time. You know what I found?”
“There is no Raymond O’Connell,” the man said. He had a deep low voice, a little raspy and very direct.
Marcus had never felt his mouth so dry. He reminded himself to pull in a breath. Maybe Luke’s questions had prompted him to go into cop mode, as he realized he couldn’t take Raymond in the
house.
“Yeah, I figured that out,” Luke said. “But that just created a lot more questions. So why?”
Evidently, his brother was the only one of them who could think on his feet, because Marcus was trying to wrap his head around who this man was. Never in a million years…
“I don’t understand,” Marcus said. “If you’re here, who was wrapped in that tarp in that grave in the woods? Then there’s the letter you left Mom. Evidently, it had blood on it. The night you left, she said you were acting strangely. Something happened, and she found your downstairs office wrecked, covered with blood, and a knife. You know she had Owen bury it? But someone saw him, and here we are. From what I’m thinking, this is a mess you created, a mess you’re responsible for, and we’re caught in the fallout.”
He said nothing for a second, giving Marcus everything, before he reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope. He held it out to him.
“What is this?” he said but didn’t take it.
It was Luke who reached over, took the envelope, and opened it. Marcus couldn’t look away from the man. His brain was starting to put two and two together, and he remembered his father in the kitchen, making pancakes.
“It will clear your mother,” Raymond said. “I can at least do that much before I leave.”
Leave? Like, what the hell?
“It’s handwritten,” Luke said, but Marcus only glanced at it.
“It’s the same handwriting as the letter in the evidence they’re using against your mother,” Raymond said. “It’s a confession from me, saying I heard about the news, and the man in question was someone I worked with, did business with. He won’t be in the system because he doesn’t exist, either. His identity will be sealed because of national security or something. I already emailed a copy to the DA an hour ago and to the Feds in case he tries to bury it. They can test the handwriting, but it’ll match.”
Marcus wasn’t sure what to make of Luke’s expression as he read the letter. Was it confusion? Luke lifted the letter in the air, tapping it with his finger, still pissed off. Good.
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