Order of Protection

by Lexi Blake

  He’d fallen back into the trap and he wasn’t sure he would be able to get out this time. What would happen if Win changed her mind? If he gave her everything he had and then she decided to go back to that lifestyle? Hell, even if she didn’t, could he handle the one she had? Alicia was right. Win would always be a story. Whoever was with her would always deal with reporters and the extravagance of her lifestyle.

  She would have endless parties and tons of people who would try to get close to her to use her connections.

  “Henry, are you all right?”

  He hated the fact that Alicia was the one pointing out his vulnerabilities. “I’m fine. I’ll deal with Win when the time comes. For now, the best place for her to be is with me.”

  Alicia sat back down and reached into her bag. “I hope it stays that way because I think she could be good for you if you let her. I hope you don’t let the fact that you chose poorly once mean you won’t ever choose again. Now, you wanted to ask me some questions.”

  Thank god. Yes, he wanted to focus on something, anything that wasn’t his relationship with Win and the fact that they probably had an expiration date. “What do you think of Trevor Hughes? I saw in my reports that you recently worked with him.”

  Her eyes rolled in perfect disdain. “He’s a massive ass, but he’s also the head of a major entertainment wing, though I’ve heard Bellamy Hughes is moving him. Good for the old man. Anyway, yes, I recently spent some time with the moron. Now, there’s a man who could use some therapy. When he’s drunk, he talks up a storm.”

  “What does he talk about?”

  “The normal male chest-pounding crap. We were at a party together in L.A. a few months ago and he was wasted. He told me he would be taking over Hughes Corp, and I should start dating him then to get in on that action.”

  “Why would he think he’s taking over Hughes? Technically the company belongs to Win.”

  “He said something about how he had a plan. He’d learned a secret or something, and when the time was right, he would spring it on Win and she wouldn’t see it coming. Like I said, he was wasted. I didn’t take it seriously.”

  But sometimes alcohol could lower inhibitions just enough that the truths one didn’t want out slipped away more easily. He would have to take a longer look at Trevor. “Do you remember approximately when you spoke to Trevor at the party at Win’s place? If you can give me the time, that would be helpful.”

  “It was before I talked to Win. I wanted to avoid Trevor. I planned on leaving after I had my talk with Win, especially since the real object of my quest wasn’t there.” She had her phone in hand. “I’d hoped you would be there since Brie had gone out of her way to let me know you were seeing Win. Now, of course, I know you wouldn’t have come.”

  He didn’t like that Brie had known all about him when Win had never once mentioned Brie to him. It didn’t seem fair. “Win wouldn’t have wanted me there. I had no idea at the time that she was the head of the foundation. So you planned on going home after the discussion with Win. Do you remember what time you began that conversation?”

  She groaned. “No. I didn’t keep minutes of my evening out. I know it was late.”

  “I need more than that.” The jury would want precision. “Did anyone witness your conversation with Win?”

  She thought about that for a moment. “There was a bartender working on the balcony. He might remember something. People tend to remember me.” She sat up a little straighter. “And I realized I have something. I know that I took this video after I talked to Win and before all the craziness happened. Teddy Seeran played the party. He’s such a cutie. I’m crazy about his new album. I recorded his last two songs and I realized Win’s in this video. You can see her walking around the edges of the crowd. I think that was when she was looking for Brie. Does this help?”

  She tapped the screen and turned the phone his way.

  She’d had video footage and she hadn’t bothered to tell anyone? He thought about explaining the idea of withholding evidence to her, but he was too busy watching the DA’s whole case fall apart. The video on the phone was time-stamped. Sure, there were ways to screw with that, but Alicia wouldn’t know how. This was what every defense attorney dreamed of. His client on tape, walking around and talking at precisely the time of death.

  Win was innocent. He’d known it deep down in his bones, but here was the absolute proof.

  “Is it good, Henry? I’ve got some selfies with Teddy. Those have a time on them, too. I also uploaded them to social media. Will that help?” Alicia asked, eagerness plain in her voice.

  He reached out and clicked a button on his desk phone. “Could you have Noah join us?”

  His secretary agreed and he hung up. Noah was the only one he knew who would be able to figure out how to safely dupe Alicia’s phone. The evidence needed to be unquestionable. He had to find out if anyone else had video of that performance.

  “It helps, right?” Alicia wasn’t giving up.

  It wasn’t as hard as he thought to give her a little praise. After all, she’d made it easy to ensure that Win didn’t go to jail. “This blows the case wide open.” He kept watching the screen. Win walked up to an elderly couple, smiling in the background, and she spoke quietly to them. “Why didn’t you give it to the cops the first night?”

  “I didn’t think about it,” she admitted. “I do so much social media I didn’t even consider that I could have anything valuable there. I do mini selfie interviews all the time. It’s a part of my business plan. You’re the only one who wouldn’t allow me to post them.”

  It had been a massive fight between the two of them. Every aspect of Alicia’s life was ruled by her career.

  It wasn’t the same with Win—at least he didn’t think so—but it would always haunt her. She’d gone through something terrible. Would she come out on the other side and realize how much she missed her old lifestyle and all it had to offer her?

  He looked up. “There was zero reason to post that crap. It was our private life.”

  “Nothing is really private in my world.”

  “Because you won’t let it be,” he retorted, the phone still in his hand. He glanced over and saw Noah making his way down the hall. Henry could still hear Teddy Seeran wailing about love and his hair or something. He didn’t listen to that shit. It was annoying. “You have a psychopathic need for approval.”

  She shrugged. “Attention. I actually don’t care what people think as long as they’re paying attention.”

  Noah poked his head in. “You wanted me?”

  “Can you pull this video off Ms. Kingman’s phone in a way the DA can’t question? Because we’re going to have to turn the entire thing over to the police. She’s got proof that Win wasn’t in her room at the time of death.”

  Noah’s eyes widened. “Are you fucking kidding me? We have proof?”

  He wished he felt more satisfaction than he did. He was thrilled that he could save Win’s life, but he had to make a decision and it might have just been made for him. He wanted more time. He wanted weeks and months where she needed him. But it wasn’t going to happen because he wasn’t about to let this chance get by. Her life was precious.

  Noah took the phone. “Yeah, I can do it. Holy shit. We’re going to be so fucking famous. They’ll all come to us now.”

  Alicia turned to the youngest Lawless sibling. “So I did good?”

  There was no way to miss the way Noah glanced down at those well-paid-for breasts. “You did, ma’am.”

  Henry was surprised to find he didn’t care. He was actually feeling a little magnanimous toward her. “Noah, this is my ex-wife, Alicia Kingman. She’s incapable of monogamy and will eat you alive in the sack. As long as you understand that you would be utterly insane to want anything more than a purely sexual relationship with her, she could be a good friend. She’s quite intelligent and she can be f
un to be around, but she’s not the woman you want to lose your heart to. If you understand that, you should ask her out.”

  Alicia looked back at him, and he was shocked to see tears in her eyes. “Really? You’re giving me a billionaire to play with?”

  He shrugged. “As long as he knows what he’s getting into. I did, Alicia. I didn’t realize it would change me. I don’t think it would change him.”

  “Ms. Kingman?” Noah offered his hand and he was smiling like he’d just gotten a present. “If you would come with me, I’ll help make you the heroine of this whole case.”

  She stood up and turned to Henry. “I liked you then, Henry. But this man you are now? If Win helped you be this man, then don’t let her go. And keep that fucker Trevor away from her. He’s such a prick. He talked about sending an assassin to take her out in Sweden. Who even jokes that way?”

  Henry’s blood went cold, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Noah go still. “What did he say?”

  Alicia waved it off. “When he was drunk at that party a couple of months ago, he talked about taking care of his problem. Said he knew assassins. Sure he does. Is there such a thing as a Swedish assassin? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Swedes are massage therapists.”

  Noah’s eyes had gone wide. “Two weeks before the attack on Win in Stockholm, he took out twenty thousand cash. I have the records. I was just going over them. Customs records don’t have him bringing back anything even close to that value.”

  “There’s no line on the customs form for hiring a killer.” Henry didn’t like the way his heart had started racing. “Why would he do it? If Win dies, he and his father lose the company.”

  Alicia put a hand to her mouth in obvious shock. “You mean he wasn’t kidding? Someone tried to hurt her?”

  “It was kept quiet in the press, but while she was in Sweden an unknown assailant followed her into an alley and nearly strangled her to death. He would have killed her had a couple of club kids not been taking a shortcut to their car. At the time Trevor was with a group of Win’s friends who’d come to bring her back to the States. Perfect alibi, but if he hired someone, he wouldn’t need to be there.”

  “I’ll get someone in Europe to try to run the assassin down,” Noah said. “I don’t know. This doesn’t add up unless Trevor’s just trying to burn the whole place down.”

  It didn’t. Trevor got nothing if Win died. It was actually much better for him and Bellamy Hughes if she rotted in prison. Legally, she wouldn’t be dead, and the money hadn’t come from her crime, so it couldn’t be seized by the government. All that money and power would stay right where it had been—in the Hughes men’s hands. They lost it if she died.

  Something played through his brain. Something someone had said earlier. It was a lead, a clue that might start to form the core of a theory.

  The theory of the crime. It was where he would normally start building a case, but not with this one. He’d been thinking on an emotional level.

  A crime usually had several theories he could attach to it, stories that, when played out to logical conclusions, led to the dead body and gave reason for the crime.

  Why would Trevor Hughes kill Brie Westerhaven? Perhaps that wasn’t the question he needed to ask. Why would he kill his cousin?

  “Uhm, do you want me to wait?” Noah asked.

  Henry heard Alicia hush him. “Shhh, he’s thinking. That’s the look he gets when he’s finally putting the threads together. He’s found one and he’s going to pull it.”

  Well, at least a year’s worth of marriage had taught her something about him. He let the noise fall away. She was right. It was often like he had a messy box of yarn and thread, like the one his grandmother would keep by her rocking chair. He had to find the right one. Sometimes he would pull and it would come up short. It wasn’t right.

  Rage. Trevor Hughes hated his cousin, but rage wasn’t the reason for this crime.

  Money was still the reason. He could feel it.

  But the money was locked away. He couldn’t get to the money if Win was dead.

  “What did the will say?” Henry said, opening his eyes to find David had joined them. Noah, David, and Alicia were all looking at him intently.

  “The will? The Winston-Hughes will?” David asked.

  “What’s the line of succession when it comes to the company? Win wasn’t named in the will, correct?” This went back further than Brie Westerhaven. Much further. Brie’s murder might have been incidental. She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or she’d learned something she shouldn’t have. Yes. Yes. She’d been the one Trevor had turned to.

  “No.” Noah was busy pulling up notes on his tablet. Thank god for geeks. Henry himself would have been forced to go find his handwritten notes amid the files. “The will was actually written before Win was born, and they hadn’t gotten around to naming her specifically. It states that the company should go to any natural children of the couple or any children the couple adopted in the future. The company would be divided equally among those children.”

  “And what if one or the other died first? Any provisions for children that might come from a second marriage or relationship?” He was onto something. It was right there. All he had to do was keep asking the right questions and it would fall together. Not the truth, but a theory. The truth would be harder. It had to be proven, but he could work from a theory.

  Noah scrolled down. “Yes, if either spouse died, the other was the direct heir and any children would have been secondary heirs.”

  “What did Brie Westerhaven spend several thousand dollars on a few weeks before her death?”

  “It was probably cocaine,” Alicia quipped. “That girl liked her blow.”

  He stared at his ex-wife.

  She frowned his way. “You know that look is one of the reasons I married you. I think it’s kind of hot, but now it’s a little scary.”

  “Are you talking about the weird DNA ancestry stuff?” David asked.

  Alicia paced behind David. “Why would she do that? The show did an entire episode on Brie’s ancestry last season. They delved deep into her history. Brought in a team of experts for it. It was one of the lowest-rated shows, probably because you could actually learn something from it. She and Hoover went to a testing facility and everything. Hoover was an idiot, of course. They even did a whole breakdown about Brie’s parents. It was quite fascinating. The next episode was about Hoover trying to figure out how to program his remote.”

  “Why would she want to do more testing on herself?” Noah asked. “It’s one of those things you only really need to do once.”

  And there it was. When logic failed, the answer was incorrect and another, more reasonable answer must be applied to the theory. “She wasn’t testing herself. She was testing Trevor. What do we know about his mother? Besides the fact that she bailed shortly after Bellamy took Win in?”

  David shrugged. “She hasn’t come up in any of the investigations. We know she was in Paris at the time of the murder. She hasn’t been back to the States in years.”

  “But Trevor visits her regularly,” Noah pointed out.

  “She was the girl next door,” Alicia said.

  “What do you mean? And how would you know anything about this?” He wasn’t discounting her. The devil often knew things normal humans didn’t.

  “I told you. I’ve always been fascinated by the story. Billionaires die in a storm at sea and the only thing left is a baby wrapped in a life vest, found floating and half-dead by two fishermen a day and a half later. Win was a miracle. I’ve read books about the family and watched all the movies and TV specials. A lot of people are fascinated by her and her family.”

  Okay, he could buy that. “Tell me about the girl next door.”

  “Trevor’s mother’s parents lived next to the Hughes family, upstate. This was long before Win’s father made his fo
rtune and created Hughes Corp. She was friendly with both of the brothers. There were rumors that she dated Win’s dad before settling down with Bellamy.”

  “He thinks he’s Win’s brother, not her cousin.” It fell neatly into place. “He had Brie try to run tests. It’s why she turned up on the island that week I met Win. They hadn’t seen each other in months, and I don’t think Win had any intention to see her.”

  “She would have had access to both Win and Bellamy.” David clapped his hands together. “She could have stolen hairbrushes or toothbrushes and sent them off along with Trevor’s DNA. Win would have gotten suspicious if she’d found Trevor in her bathroom, but not Brie.”

  “Oh, I get first dibs on this, Henry,” Alicia insisted. “I helped. First dibs on the film rights because this is going to be juicy.”

  Henry stood up. “Can I talk to Win before I sell off her rights?”

  “Of course,” Alicia agreed.

  He needed to do this in person. “David, find someone who can check Brie’s mail. I want those DNA results as soon as possible, and Noah, call the DA. I want the charges dropped on Win. Tell them they can put that video out and look like heroes or I can put it out and sue them for false arrest. I’m serious. I want a press conference this afternoon with the DA and NYPD admitting that Win Hughes is an innocent woman.”

  Noah gave him a salute. “Will do, boss.”

  Henry strode out the door. Win would be free by this afternoon, but he might have to blow up her world to do it.

  Would she walk out the door or hold on to him?

  Either way, they had decisions to make, decisions he wasn’t ready for.

  THIRTEEN

  Win looked up from her book, glancing at the clock. It was barely ten A.M. Henry had left a little over an hour before. By now he would be sitting down for his morning conference with David and Noah. They’d gone over his schedule for the day. He had the conference first thing and an interview with Alicia shortly after that.