by Kris Calvert
Squeezing my hand tight, I felt every shred of natural protective instinct leave my soul. My body quivered. My lips followed suit. Biting down to stop them from giving away my stir of emotion, I paused, doing my best to keep my mouth shut. My heart took over my sense of self-protection as I uttered one word. “Okay.”
I regretted it immediately.
9
WIN
The simple act of holding Ginny’s hand in mine was erotic, the wave of emotion coursing through my body undeniable. I wanted to cup her neck, brush the chestnut tendrils from her face and press my lips to the delicate skin of her red lips. Love and devotion—it was the only feeling I ever had for Ginny. It was a feeling my mother had taught me. Being home and with Ginny again made it all the clearer to me. I never wanted to let her go.
I squeezed her hand and leaned in, kissing the delicate warm blush of her cheek.
“Well, well, well,” Lena sing-songed. “What do we have here?”
Pulling away, I watched Ginny swallow hard and I brushed a microscopic tear from the corner of my own eye. My initial thought was to say, nothing. Instead I spoke the truth. “Everything.” I stared into Ginny’s dark eyes, unable to contain my smile. “What we have here is everything.” Ginny had opened the door—I wasn’t letting it close.
“How are you holding up?” I asked. I’d decided to lay off badgering her over the relationship with Magnus until after the funeral. I would deal with one thing at a time—and do it in a manner that was best for everyone. I needed to gather stones—I needed to gather our strengths.
“I’m fine for a little while and then I replay what happened in my head and break down.” Lena’s eyes welled with tears and I pulled her to me and gave her a tight hug. “I just can’t walk through the house without seeing…you know.”
“The CTS decon team is on their way,” Ginny offered with genuine sympathy.
“What’s that?” Lena asked, pulling away and wiping her eyes.
“Crime and Trauma Scene decontamination.” I explained. “They’ll clean everything up and in a couple of hours—”
Lena held her hand in my face to stop me. “Don’t say everything will be okay, Win. Because it won’t.”
“You’re right. It won’t make it okay. But I can promise it will be better.”
“All right,” Lena sighed. I glanced back to Ginny and she gave me a somber nod.
“Do you think you might be up to answering some questions for me?” Ginny asked. “It’s just, if I don’t file a report with your statement, the boys from the Louisville office will be back. It might be easier if I take your statement while Win is with you. What do you think?”
I turned to look at my sister. Teary eyed and swollen, she nodded her head. “I think I can do that.”
Rubbing her back with my open palm, I leaned down to kiss Lena on the head. “Let’s get it over with.”
I escorted them both into the piano room, my great-great-grandfather’s portrait on his horse loomed large over our heads. It was time to come together as a family. It didn’t matter there were only three of us.
“This room is pretty interesting,” Ginny said. I could tell she was trying to start the difficult conversation with small talk.
“That’s our great-great-grandfather,” Lena said, pointing to the oil portrait.
“I always wondered how long he had to pose for that,” I joked, bringing a smile to everyone’s face.
“Hey, it goes with the Phantom of the Opera candelabra,” Ginny said, nodding her head toward the grand piano where it sat.
“This is just an old house,” I said.
“This is your legacy,” Ginny replied. “I went to bed last night thinking of how many families lived here—how many babies were born here, how many people—”
Ginny paused. I knew she was afraid she’d gone too far.
“It’s okay,” I said. “A family can’t live this long in one place without there being some tragedy. There have been plenty of people who’ve died here. Including Marshall Winterbourne himself.”
At that, we sat down and Ginny opened the file in her lap, unclipping a pen from her notepad with a snap. “Lena, I’d like you to start from the beginning and tell me everything exactly as you remember it.”
Lena glanced at me first and then to her hands. I knew it was going to be hard for her to tell the story of finding our father. I didn’t care much for the man, but he was my dad. I wasn’t looking forward to hearing it.
“It was about one-thirty or so in the morning, give or take a few minutes. I remember waking up and looking at the clock at one-thirty, but I didn’t get out of bed. Not yet,” Lena began. “A commotion startled me. I wasn’t awake, but you know, I wasn’t asleep, either.”
Ginny nodded to Lena, letting her know she understood. “What kind of sound was it?” Ginny asked. “Did you hear voices?”
Lena shook her head. “It was like—” she paused, choking through the word I knew she was going to use. I’d heard it myself the night our mother was killed.
“It was more like a muffled thud, but more than one. Which makes sense now,” she said, reaching for a box of tissues.
I glanced at Ginny as she gave my sister a look of sincere sympathy. “I know this is hard for you, Lena.”
Lena nodded, staring at the floor as if she was reliving the moment in her head.
“Then what happened?” I asked.
Ginny looked to me and knitted her brow. I’d asked the next question only to keep Lena from feeling pressured.
“I cracked open the door of my bedroom and glanced down the hallway. It was dark, but the wall sconces are on dim through the night—well, at least until dawn—lighting the pathways through the house. It’s dark inside Winter Haven at night.”
“What did you see?” Ginny asked.
Lena closed her eyes, shaking her head. “At first I didn’t see anything—you know? It was all kind of a dream. Like I was asleep but awake…I’m not sure.”
Ginny narrowed her gaze and wrote something in her notes. “What else? Anything you can tell me, no matter how small or insignificant you think it may be.”
“I started to close the door to my room and call our security man,” Lena said.
“Security man? What is his name?” Ginny asked, poising her pen in her notebook again.
“Yeah” I added. “What’s his name?”
Lena pursed her lips. “Well if you’d ever come home butthead, you’d know him. John Lee. He’s been around for, gosh,” she said, looking to the ceiling for an answer. “I don’t know. Maybe five or six years? Daddy hired him when he sixteen. I remember, because he’d just started to drive and didn’t have a way to and from the distillery. Daddy bought him a used truck—just gave it to him.”
Ginny wrote his name down. “Then what happened?” she asked.
Lena exhaled, blubbering her lips. I knew everything she was saying was hard. I’d gone through the same routine when I was a kid. Being an adult didn’t make it any less painful.
“I walked out of my room and to the edge of the stairs. That’s when I saw it.”
“What exactly?” Ginny asked.
“At first I thought it was a black mark on the marble floor—at the top of the staircase. Sometimes the soles of men’s shoes will leave marks on the white marble floor. Funny how your mind can play tricks on you. I saw the…spot. I knew something bad had happened. I could feel it in my gut,” Lena said holding her stomach. “As I got closer I didn’t want to believe it was blood. But it was. Bright red blood. An enormous pool of it, and splatters. Blood splatters hit the wall as he tumbled to the bottom. That’s where I found him. At the bottom of the stairs—all twisted and broken.”
I receded into the wingback chair and looked around the room. It was hard to watch my sister in pain. I didn’t want Ginny to push her too far. I couldn’t bear Lena retreating into catatonic depression where she stared into the unknown, responding to nothing while utter desolation was her only discernable attri
bute.
“I know this is hard for you, Lena. I promise I do. You know, my father was killed when I was only four—my mother died when I was just fifteen. Now I only have my brother, too.” Ginny said looking to me.
Her concern was genuine and I appreciated the delicate way she was taking my sister’s statement. There would be plenty of painful memories when we would look back on this situation. This conversation wouldn’t be one of them.
“Is he a butthole like Win?” Lena asked, smiling through her tears.
“He is my older brother, just like Win. And yes, he drives me crazy. He taunts me, harasses me, calls me names and we fight like cats and dogs, but I love him something awful and I can’t imagine having anyone else by my side.”
Lena glared at me and sarcastically pursed her lips into a fish face. “Sounds vaguely familiar.”
I did my best to give her a smile.
“After you identified the mark as blood, walk me through what happened,” Ginny said, keeping the conversation from getting off track. I knew she wanted to get the facts and leave Lena alone. So did I.
“I looked over the railing of the bridge,” she explained, pointing behind her toward the grand staircase. “The chandelier wasn’t on so it was dark at the bottom. I hurried to the wall and turned on the lights. That’s when I saw him—crumpled at the bottom of the stairs—blood everywhere.”
Ginny nodded and looked to me as if to silently ask permission to continue.
“I screamed no, and fell to my knees, not wanting it to be true or something. It was like time stood still, like…I don’t know. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem real to me.”
“You were in shock,” Ginny offered.
“The rest is kind of a blur,” Lena continued. “Lights, police, cameras flashing. I couldn’t bear to watch any of it. Magnus put me in the library and called Vernon to come sit with me while he spoke to the police and whomever. It seemed so different than the night Momma died.”
“Yeah, but how could you remember that, Lena?” I asked. “You were tiny. You weren’t even around—slept right through all of it.”
Lena stared off into space and I knew the look. I called to her, hoping to break her thoughts. “Lena?”
“Yeah, of course. You’re right,” she said, looking back to me.
“So Magnus Page was here the night of the murder?” Ginny asked. “Or did you call him?”
“He was here, but he wasn’t with me—Win,” she said, looking at me and making a face.
“Well, that begs the question Lena,” I said. “What in the hell was he doing in the house at two in the morning if he wasn’t with you?”
“I don’t know Win. You’ll have to ask him.”
“Don’t worry,” I huffed. “I will.”
“Okay, okay.” Ginny cut us both off. “Tell me this, who has complete access to Winter Haven? Who has the security codes and keys to the house?”
“Me, Win, Dad, Magnus, Cee Cee, John, Vernon, Piper. I dunno…the cleaning staff?” Lena replied, questioning her own response.
“I’m going to need a complete staff list. Anyone and everyone who could enter Winter Haven undetected.”
Lena nodded and looked at me. “Piper can help with that.”
“Piper?” Ginny asked, stealing a glance at my silent exchange with Lena.
“Piper Presley,” I said. “She’s the marketing director for Winter Bourbon.”
Then Lena opened her mouth and said exactly what I didn’t want her to say. “She’s Win’s ex.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and closed my eyes. The beautiful moment Ginny and I’d shared just prior to sitting down with my sister had been a flash of perfection—precious love in the garden of happily ever after, only to be shit on by a bird otherwise known as my sister.
“Who else?” Ginny asked, ignoring the ex comment and now, me. “Who is John?”
“John Lee,” Lena said.
“Yeah, who is John?” I asked, trying to ignore what had just happened.
“Oh my gosh. For the last time, he was the guy Dad hired like five years ago to act as security around Winter Haven.”
“Tall, blonde hair?” I asked, recalling the armed man roaming the property in the morning fog with me.
Lena nodded. “We had some kids try to break into one of the rickhouses a few years back and I guess Dad just wanted someone to watch over the place. He mostly works nights, so no one really knows him. I mean it’s not like he’s invited to any of the company parties or anything—or if he is, he’s never shown up.”
“What about the cleaning staff?” Ginny asked. “Any of them unhappy with their job here or with your father? That goes for any of the employees in the distillery too.”
Lena shook her head. “Not that I know of. Cee Cee is the one who really knows the people at the distillery. I mostly deal with the house staff—although I rarely allow them in my quarters. I don’t like the cleaning people in my room. I’m private that way. I also deal with the gardeners—all the domestic stuff.”
Ginny listened and continued to take notes, but paused and I could tell by the look on her face she was deciding whether or not to ask her next question.
“What is it?” I asked. “You want to know something, but you’re afraid to ask it.”
It was my way of letting her know I might have an ex on the property, but I had nothing to hide.
“Did your father ever discuss selling the distillery business with you, Lena?”
Lena slowly brought her teary gaze from her now destroyed Kleenex to meet Ginny’s question. Her hesitation to answer was incriminating. “Lena?” I asked, waiting for an answer myself.
“What would that have to do with his murder?” she asked.
“Lena,” I said, suddenly perturbed. “Answer the question.”
“No one said anything to me about selling Winter Bourbon,” she replied.
The three of us sat in silence. Something was up. I was certain Ginny sensed it too.
“Have you overheard anyone talking about Winter Bourbon being sold?” Ginny asked posing the question another way. “Maybe they didn’t discuss it directly with you, but you knew of it or heard about it?”
Lena took a deep breath. “Maybe.”
“What the hell, Lena?” I stood and began to pace the parlor. “Were you ever going to call and say something about it?”
“Look ass-wipe, you never call, and may I remind you, you never care what’s going on around here. Why would I contact you? You left me here to handle everything. Did you ever think that maybe I wanted to leave Kentucky and follow my dream? No. All you think about is yourself.”
“What?”
“You know it’s true, Win,” Lena said, her voice rising in anger. “I went away to school too, but I came back.”
“No one made you come back, Lena,” I replied, keeping my voice calm.
“No,” Lena said standing. “I made the decision to put my family first because they needed me.”
“Dad didn’t care about the distillery, all he cared about was money and he certainly didn’t care about us. I was gone and you—you were in and out of—”
“I’m done here.” Lena stood, sweeping her hands down the front of her skirt and walked from the room, turning to leave me with parting words. “At least Dad’s greed kept our family’s heritage and business going. What have you done? And I can’t believe you were going to bring up—never mind.”
I watched my sister storm from the room and decided not to chase after her. I’d let her cool down. Emotions were running too high and it was a recipe for disaster. At each turn I felt like I was running up against roadblocks so old and painful it would take years to sort through.
We had our father’s blood in the front hallway and funeral directors and caterers to speak with about the arrangements before the day would be over. I didn’t want to deal with anything else, but I knew I needed to. I had to take the lead. Lena was right, I hadn’t been around to be a pa
rt of the family as I should, and that was selfish. I couldn’t undo twenty years of avoiding Winter Haven in one day, but I had to start somewhere.
Looking back to Ginny, I watched her keep her nose in her notes, still writing. “Sorry about that. I mean, I’m sorry we can’t give a decent statement without it turning into family brawl. This is what I wanted to protect you from.”
Ginny picked up her folder and walked past me, pausing before leaving the room just as Lena had. “I have one small job for you, Win. Can you handle something?”
“Of course.”
“Have Piper Presley email a list of everyone who works in or around the house to this account,” Ginny said, shoving a business card into the palm of my hand.
“And by the way, Win, everybody’s family is messed up—everybody’s. People aren’t perfect, they’re human.”
“Ginny, wait.” I hurried to follow her into the front entrance of the house, pausing as I saw in the light of day what Lena was referring to. The amount of blood on the marble steps and bottom of the staircase was overwhelming. I took one look and turned around, feeling sick to my stomach. It wasn’t that I’d never seen a brutal crime scene—I had. It wasn’t even that it was my father’s crime scene. It was my recollection of my own mother at the bottom of the stairs, bleeding out and into my ten-year-old hands. I thought of how I howled out loud for someone to help. My hands began to—shake—my heart beat wildly. I couldn’t catch my breath and suddenly I was right in the middle of my worst nightmare.
“Win?”
Pulled from my flashback by the whisper of my name I answered. “Yes?”