Half Empty (First Wives Series Book 2)

by Catherine Bybee

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  Jeb and Reed walked in from the back door, with Rick close behind.

  “Okay, ladies.” Rick managed to get all their attention through the great room right as Wade and Ike walked in. “And gentlemen. The security system has been updated as of yesterday. Everything is being monitored remotely from our headquarters. Audio and visual. Trina, you’ll notice the new cameras we have put inside.” He pointed out two small fixtures that were in the corners of the great room and another in the kitchen. “There are more in the hallways and other common spaces. Bathrooms and bedrooms are not online. The backyard, and especially the back office, are live. The front door and gate are up, as usual. We have also placed a few cameras on the perimeter of the property for shits and giggles.”

  “That seems like a lot of work, considering we plan on leaving in a week,” Trina said.

  Rick let his usual smile lapse, and his gaze traveled to Avery, lying on the couch.

  No one continued to question the need for more cameras.

  “So keep that in mind if anyone wants a little touchy-feely in the kitchen. Not that my men will go out of their way to watch, but you never know.” Rick was joking, his men weren’t really like that, but then again . . .

  Trina’s eyes found the whites of Wade’s, her heart skipped a beat. Since Reed and Lori already knew the drill of surveillance, and Shannon didn’t have a man in the house that she knew enough to be touchy or feely over . . . and Ike and Jeb didn’t seem to be into each other, that left the warning squarely on Wade and her.

  “I think I’m safe there,” Avery said from the sofa.

  Oh, yeah . . . and Avery. Who probably wouldn’t mind someone watching if she were up to doing anything other than sleeping and popping a pill every four hours.

  Rick continued, “We have a team overhauling the ranch as we speak to get it ready for your return. Wade?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I assume you have a security system at your place.”

  “I do. Although not quite as extensive as what you seem to have here.”

  “There are always people around, anyway,” Ike told him. “It’s a working ranch.”

  “Which means you need more security, not less. Trina, do you plan on spending any time at Wade’s?”

  She glanced at Wade, then back at Rick. “Well, yeah . . . eventually. I mean, I hope—”

  “Then we’ll send in a team.”

  Wade held up a hand. “Whoa, wait just a minute.”

  Before Rick could continue, a call from the gate did a double ring on her phone.

  Trina answered while Rick and Wade talked about cameras and alarms. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Petrov? This is Detectives Armstrong and Gray. We’d like to have a word with you.”

  Trina’s heart started to pound in defining thumps. “Okay.”

  She pressed the button for the gate to open. She looked up to find everyone staring.

  “Detectives Armstrong and Gray are here.”

  She noticed Lori’s back stiffen, her chin come up. Reed and Lori exchanged glances, and Wade moved to her side.

  “I’ll let them in,” Jeb offered.

  “I still don’t remember anything more from the last time I spoke with them,” Avery said from the couch.

  “It’s okay, Avery.” Shannon sat by her side.

  Armstrong and Gray stepped into the room and did a quick scan. While both detectives weren’t small men, they didn’t quite compare to Rick and Jeb, with Reed close at their heels. “Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Petrov, but we had a few questions and a new development to share.”

  “Did you find the bastard who did this to me?” Avery asked from the couch.

  Gray stepped around the kitchen island so he could look at Avery. The man seemed uncomfortable. “No, ma’am. But we do have a lead on a surveillance camera coming from the parking garage.”

  “We’re following up on it,” Armstrong added.

  “What kind of lead?” Reed asked.

  “Sometime after the cameras spotted Ms. Grant entering the garage and before the police and medics showed up, a known felon was seen leaving from a back door. The cameras from a Chinese restaurant adjacent to the garage picked him up.”

  “What kind of felon?” Rick asked.

  Avery pushed herself up on the sofa as she listened.

  “The kind that people hire to do the unthinkable. Which is why we are delivering this news, and not Officer Ferrero, who you spoke with the day of the assault. Our departments agreed to consolidate the cases, since we think they are connected.”

  “Do you have a picture of him?”

  Everyone turned to look at Avery. It wasn’t just the question she asked, but how she said it. Her voice was low and her words so slowly said, it didn’t sound like her.

  “Do you remember a face?” Gray asked.

  “I might. A picture might spark a memory.”

  That was news to everyone in the room. So far Avery hadn’t said one word about remembering anything, let alone a face.

  Gray stepped over to the couch and removed his phone from his back pocket. Reed and Rick crowded in close to get a look.

  Trina watched Avery’s expressions while Shannon held her hand.

  “This is the image from the back of the garage. It’s poor quality, but we can still ID his face, since he is in our database.”

  Avery blinked a few times and lifted her good hand to the screen to zoom it in. “Is he wearing boots?”

  “Yes, he is. Do you remember boots?”

  She closed her eyes but didn’t say a thing. “Do you have another picture?”

  Gray turned the phone around and scowled through a few things before showing it to her.

  Trina peeked around Rick’s shoulder. With a haircut and a shave, the man in the picture would have been attractive outside of the acne scars on his face. But in this one, an obvious mug shot, as evidenced by the number he was holding and the plain background of the photograph, the man looked as if he’d been on the streets and either hadn’t slept or had been taking drugs.

  “Is this him?”

  Avery blinked several times. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay.” Shannon patted Avery’s arm.

  Gray didn’t seem surprised by Avery’s answer as he put his phone away. “We’re looking for him and will bring him in for questioning when we find him.”

  Avery looked away. “Thank you.”

  “Mrs. Petrov?”

  Hearing Detective Armstrong address her as a married woman rubbed her the wrong way. “My late husband cared about me so much he killed himself. If you don’t mind, Detective, please call me Ms. Petrov, or Trina will work.”

  “Ms. Petrov,” he obliged. “When was the last time you saw Cindy Geist?”

  It took Trina a second to realize who he was talking about, since she never used Cindy’s last name. “My housekeeper?”

  “Yes.”

  Trina tried to remember the exact date. “It was after our trip to Europe last year.” Her gaze moved to Lori. “About two months after Fedor’s funeral. I came back to close up the house. She agreed to come in periodically to keep the place up and supervise the cleaning crew.”

  “She didn’t come in while you were here preparing everything for sale?”

  “No. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her since we got back. She never returned my calls.”

  “Why are you asking?” Reed asked.

  The detectives looked at each other, and before they could open their mouths, Trina felt her skin grow cold. “Cindy Geist died in a car accident five days ago.”

  “Oh, God.”

  Wade moved closer and pulled her hand into his.

  “Brake failure on a blind corner only a few blocks from her house.”

  Trina couldn’t process the information before her mind denied it. “Brake failure? No, no, no . . . how can that be? Her husband is an auto mechanic. I met him once.” Trina squeezed her eyes shut in
search of his name. “Allen? Yes, Allen. He was proud of his work. Popped the hood of her Mustang . . . it was a Mustang, vintage year. I don’t remember which. But he was passionate about the work he’d done on that car. He loved her. Sent her flowers on her birthday, asked me if it was okay that he surprise her with a midweek day off.”

  Trina felt tears spring in her eyes. “He wouldn’t allow her brakes to fail.” She shook her head. “That isn’t right. That can’t be right.”

  “We didn’t like the sound of it either,” Gray told her. “Her husband is demanding an investigation, not that he needs to. Cindy was the only one with the keys to the house, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “She came twice a month to clean?”

  “That was the arrangement.” Trina couldn’t picture the woman dead.

  Armstrong was taking notes. “When was she employed by you?”

  “Fedor had her on payroll before we were married.”

  “She was the one who found your deceased husband . . . is that right?”

  Her screams and Trina running in to find out why would live in her memories forever. “Yes.”

  Wade wrapped an arm over her shoulders.

  “Was she the one who cleaned up . . .” Armstrong’s words trailed off.

  “No. The funeral home suggested a service. I didn’t want anyone who knew Fedor picking up those pieces.”

  “They didn’t do a good job.” Avery’s cold words from the sofa turned every head in the room.

  “Excuse me?” Armstrong asked.

  “I was searching for a hidden drawer in his desk. My dad has at least two, so I thought I’d find something. Since Fedor had a pen worth a quarter of a million dollars just sitting in the drawer, I thought it was worth looking. I didn’t find any. But I did find blood. Dried blood on the underside of the desk. It’s like the cleaning crew did half the job and figured no one would look. Gross.”

  “That’s right. You told me that when I was at Wade’s house for the party. Wait . . .” Trina turned to stare at Reed. “Didn’t you say the office was spotless? No prints, no blood, nothing?”

  Reed nodded.

  Without words, Trina pulled out of Wade’s arm and marched toward the back door of the house. She stormed toward Fedor’s office, pulled away the caution tape the police had put there, and shoved the door open before flipping on the lights.

  The place was still in shambles. In addition to the room being torn apart, there were smudges of black dust everywhere. She’d watched enough television to know what investigators left behind when looking for fingerprints. Without a beat, she moved to the desk, which wasn’t in the exact place it normally was, but was still sitting upright.

  Someone called her name, but she didn’t look up to see whom.

  She walked around the desk and ducked to look underneath.

  The lighting didn’t allow a visual of anything, so she stood, placed both hands on one edge, and pulled with everything she had.

  No one was more surprised than she was when the desk fell over and crashed to the side with a noise that filled the room. She was pretty sure she’d pulled a muscle with her effort, but she ignored the pain in her shoulder and dropped to her knees. She ran her hand over the exposed wood of the underside of the desk.

  Nothing.

  She searched the legs of the desk, opened a drawer, and looked under it.

  Nothing.

  “Nothing! There’s nothing here.” Her blood started to boil. She punched the side of the desk once . . . twice . . .

  Wade stopped her from doing it a third time. “Shhh.”

  “Why?” She felt tears again. “Why would someone come in here and scrub away his blood?”

  Before her mind could come to the right conclusion, she heard Armstrong say, “We need to open up Fedor Petrov’s file.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  There was a rule when dating that absolutely everyone knew and most followed. Don’t talk about your ex.

  Unless the police were questioning you because the suicide of said ex had become a murder investigation a year after it happened.

  Wade sat next to Trina while the detectives asked her questions about the day of Fedor’s death. She didn’t remember many details. She’d joined her husband on one of his many trips to the hospital. She’d left the hospital before Fedor, which wasn’t uncommon. Since her mother-in-law was chronically ill, a twenty-four-hour vigil wasn’t practiced. Although Trina had spent more time at the hospital that day, since Alice had slipped into a coma a couple of days before Fedor’s death.

  Fedor worked out of an office in the city and would often return there after seeing his mother, and then come home late to eat and hibernate in his home office for hours. Which explained why Trina and Fedor had separate bedrooms. A question Wade had had since he first walked into her Hamptons home but didn’t want to ask.

  The detectives left after what felt like hours of questions. The minute the door closed behind them, Wade expected everyone to take a step back and sigh. Only that didn’t happen.

  Rick’s phone rang.

  Lori reached for her purse and said she needed to call someone named Sam.

  Reed turned toward one of the hidden cameras and said, “Did you catch all that? We need files on everything from that day.”

  It was as if the room mobilized, and the only people surprised by the activity were Wade, Jeb, and Ike. The three of them watched the others in silence.

  “Are you okay?” Shannon had moved to Trina’s other side.

  Wade put his attention back on the woman who had stolen his attention since the day he set eyes on her.

  “I should have known. Everyone painted Fedor as weak and capable of killing himself. He wasn’t weak, he was losing the only woman who loved him with every ounce of her being. He was sad and distraught over not being able to stop it.”

  “Trina?” Rick had lifted the phone from his ear to grab her attention.

  She swiveled her head.

  “The security system you had before . . . were there cameras?”

  “Only at the gate to see who was driving in. Everything else was basic burglar and fire alarm stuff.”

  Rick nodded and repeated what she said to whomever he was talking to on the phone.

  Lori returned after making her call in another room.

  Reed sat on the arm of one of the overstuffed chairs, and Rick concluded his call to join them. “We launch our own investigation,” Rick told Reed.

  “Follow the money,” Reed said.

  “The money ended up with me,” Trina sighed.

  “But it wasn’t supposed to,” Lori pointed out. “Fedor’s trust placed his assets back into Everson Oil’s hands. Fedor’s private company was divided between the shareholders, with the controlling interest given to Everson Oil.”

  “He didn’t leave it to you?” Wade asked.

  “No. I told you, we had a prenuptial agreement.”

  Rick turned to Lori. “Is there any way we can get Alice’s estate attorney to reveal what her original will stated, the one she had before adding Trina to it?”

  “That’s a hard push. Attorney-client privilege extends after death.”

  “Even in the case of a murder investigation?” Wade asked.

  “Especially in the case of a murder investigation. It’s part of the reason it was brought into law in the first place. A client needs to be honest with their lawyers, and the only way we can get that out of everyone is to promise to keep what we know to ourselves.”

  “But lawyers make mistakes. Sometimes they say things they shouldn’t,” Reed pointed out.

  Lori and Reed stared at each other with unspoken words.

  “So Lori has lunch with Alice’s estate attorney while we’re in New York and sees what she can find out.” Rick didn’t ask, he stated like his idea was a done deal.

  “I don’t know about that. Isn’t that risky for you?” Shannon asked.

  Lori blinked her gaze away from Reed’s to
look at Trina. “Only if he is hiding something to protect Alice and her name after her death. Since I represented you and Fedor in your prenuptial and following his death, it isn’t uncommon for me to follow up. If it feels like he’s hedging me away from a conversation, we know he is protecting her, if not, he’ll tell me what he can.”

  Reed sighed. “I guess that means we’re staying in town a little longer.”

  “I have Cooper flying in first thing in the morning to take my place,” Rick said. “If word leaks out that Fedor’s suicide is now a murder investigation—and news like that always drains through the cracks—there’s going to be a lot more people with cameras at your gate.”

  Wade listened to the entire conversation going on around him in silence until Rick mentioned the media. Then his thoughts turned to his own mother, and his own home.

  He looked at Ike and Jeb, who had remained silent during the entire exchange.

  “About that security system at my ranch . . .”

  Rick looked at Wade and smiled. “On it.”

  Jeb, Ike, and Wade volunteered to do a grocery store run before word got out. He used the alone time to hear concerns from the others.

  “Let me get this straight,” Ike started the second they were in the car. “The woman you’ve known for what . . . two weeks? Is the widow of a man who committed suicide, but now we find out he was murdered right before the man’s mother dies . . . all the money ends up in Trina’s bank. Her BFF has the holy shit kicked out of her for reasons unknown. Their friends rally together as if they are on some kind of military mission, with bodyguards and surveillance that rivals the White House . . . and you want to date this woman?”

  Jeb drove, and Wade twisted around in the passenger seat to address Ike. “Do you read, Ike?”

  “You mean books?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Did you ever read that book He’s Just Not That into You?”

  “I saw the movie, why?” Ike asked.

  “I didn’t see the movie, but one of the guys in the band had the book on our tour bus. I started reading it, and at first I thought, well, hell, this just sucks that there is a book out there to tell every woman all the secrets a man has. You know, the things we do and don’t do if we wanna keep a woman around, but we know it really isn’t going anywhere. It’s like a guidebook for women to wake up and realize when a guy isn’t in for the long run.”