by Mark Stone
“You’re not married either, are you?” she asked, finally looking over at me.
“I am not,” I said, nodding at her and smiling again. “Never had the pleasure.”
“You’re young,” she said, shrugging. “It’ll happen if you want it to. Though, I’ll admit, pleasure is a strong word for it some of the time.”
Here we go. This was what I needed to really delve into what I needed to talk about.
“It’s a wife’s duty to support her husband, Detective Storm.” She winked at me. “At least, it’s the duty of a good wife. I went to these parties for the same reason I moved down here, the same reason I pretended to like winter sports and to enjoy whatever sort of beverage was actively being sponsored by my husband on any given month.” She finished off her champagne. “Because it was my job.”
“That’s an old-fashioned view of things,” I said, setting my champagne glass down because I just couldn’t stomach the stuff anymore. “Does your husband subscribe to that same mentality, I wonder?”
This was a risky move. Aubrey Cash could have very easily slapped me across the face and walked away, making it nearly impossible for me to talk to her husband after that. Still, I needed to take a chance if I was going to get at the goods. When a curious smile spread across her face, I relaxed.
“Why, Detective Storm? What have you heard?” she purred.
“I tend not to believe everything I hear,” I said, grinning at her. “The people in this town are notoriously unreliable when it comes to the truth.”
“Those would be the same people assuring me that you’re here because you and your half-brother are looking to make amends?” she asked, arching eyebrows at me.
“Peter and I have always had a complicated back and forth,” I said, which was about as far from the truth as you could get. In actuality, the relationship Peter and I had shared in the past was quite simple. There was none at all. I barely thought about him and, when I did, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I had to imagine he repaid my efforts in quite the same way. Of course, for the purposes of tonight, it was better to spin a web than to go with boring old reality.
“You don’t have to make excuses with me, Detective Storm,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m more than aware of the real reason you’re here tonight.”
“You are?” I asked, my heart speeding up as I took her in. Was it possible that she knew what I was doing and, if so, how? Did that mean she had something to do with this, or knew that her husband did.
Just as Aubrey had assured me would happen, a man came by holding a stainless-steel plate full of champagne flutes.
Aubrey waved him off and I muttered “Not on your life” when he came toward me.
“Would you like to take a walk in the courtyard, Detective Storm?” Aubrey asked, blinking at me. “It’s a lovely night, and we can talk with more freedom out there.” I was down for that. “I never even knew this place had a courtyard.”
“Makes sense,” she muttered as we walked through a long hallway and pushed out of a pair of glass double doors. “I doubt you were invited up here for Sunday dinners as a child.”
The courtyard was breathtaking. A square of roofless garden in the center of Storm House, it held rows and rows of night blooming jasmine and quaint little trees pleasing to the eye. There were fancy sculptures dotted throughout the place as well as pieces of art hanging from both the outer walls and even some of the trees. A strong floral scent hit me as I ventured out into it.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she asked, looking at me and obviously reading a sense of wonderment on my face.
“Honestly?” I asked, looking at her. “I can’t believe my father could make something so beautiful.”
“He didn’t,” she answered quickly. “This was the product of his second wife, Cecile, or so I’m told.”
“Figures,” I muttered.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Aubrey quipped.
“What do you mean?” I asked curiously.
“You said your father couldn’t make something beautiful,” she explained. “He made you, did he not?” She shook her head. “And you are quite a sight.”
I shook my head, sensing something from the woman that I hadn’t before. Was it possible that she had brought me out here because she was attracted to me. “That was quite by accident, I’m sure.”
“There are no accidents,” she said, stopping as she leaned down to smell one of the jasmine. “I believe that with my whole heart. I have to.” She leaned back up, blinking moisture out of her eyes. “I had a son once, Detective Storm. He’d have been close to your age if he was still with us.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said honestly, looking at the ground.
“No mistakes,” she reminded me, swallowing hard. “There’s a reason my boy isn’t here tonight. I’m not sure what it is, but I know it exists.” She shook her head. “There’s a reason for everything.” She cleared her throat as her face steeled over. “Just like there’s a reason you’re here tonight.”
“And what, Mrs. Cash, would that reason be, pray tell?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.
“I love how naïve you think I am, Detective,” she said, smiling at me. “Not all rich people started out that way, you know. I didn’t have your brother’s birthright or my husband’s God given natural abilities. I got where I am by sheer grit and force of will.”
“Funny,” I answered. “I thought you got where you were by marrying rich.”
She chuckled harshly. “Well, even that requires a certain skill set. My husband has never been good with money. When I met him, he had drunk his way through most of his fortune. The fact that he’s standing where he is today is because I picked him up and put him there.”
“And here I thought you said a wife’s duty was to support her husband, not move him around like a puppet,” I said.
“There are many forms of support, Detective Storm. Some people require more than others.” She plucked one of the jasmine flowers and twirled it between her fingers. “When our son died, my husband wanted to move from Colorado to some damned little island off the coast here. The entire island didn’t even have roads. Cars weren’t allowed there. Can you believe that? He bought a house there and everything. I’ll admit, I’ve been tempted to banish him to it on more than one occasion, but what kind of punishment would that have been? To throw someone into exactly what they wanted.” She shook her head. “I’ve sacrificed a lot to get him here, and I won’t have it taken away by some embittered bastard detective who thinks he’s finally got his shot at the big time.”
This was about me? I narrowed my eyes, opening my mouth to respond.
“Don’t act so foolish, Detective,” she said, reading my face and cutting my response off at the root. “You and I are on two different sides of a coin. Your brother made a foolish mistake. Transporting drugs is no small matter.” She shrugged. “The board of directors at Storm Industries doesn’t look kindly on that, and they will take action.”
It made sense to me now, the way Richard was converged with all those people, the way he was wrapping them all around his little finger.
“And, if the board votes him out, the company will need a new CEO,” I said.
“A stepping stone,” she answered. “My husband is beloved in this country. He’s a sports star. He’s been on cereal boxes, for God’s sake. Soon he’ll run the most successful company in Naples and, when I expand that company to employ more people in this city and the surrounding counties than anyone in the history of the state, he’ll be a shoe in for public office. I’ll ride this wave to White House. Your brother might think he can parade you around, the good Storm, for all to see. He might think your reputation will rub off on him. After all, who better to disprove a contested drug charge than a damned police officer.”
She had it all wrong. Aubrey had cooked an entire plan up in her head, one that didn’t exist.
“I get where you’re coming from though,” she said
. “You want what’s yours. You want your piece of the pie.” She looked down at her feet and then back up again. “So, tell me, how large is that piece exactly?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“How much?” She spat back. “How much money, how much equity in this company will it take to get you to turn around, call your brother out in front of everyone here, and walk out of this party? I’m prepared to make it happen.” She glared at me. “Unless, of course, you’d rather go back to fishing bullets out of the bodies of dead girls.”
Something struck a chord in my heart, a piece of information that was strange. I was about to open my mouth and question her about it, but my phone rang.
Looking, I saw it was Boomer calling from his desk phone, which meant business.
Holding a solitary finger up to Aubrey, I took the call.
“Where are you?” Boomer asked before I even had a chance to speak a greeting.
“Storm House. I’m at the party,” I answered.
“Good,” he said, and I could hear the tenseness in his voice. “I want you to bring your brother in.”
“What?” I asked, my eyebrows knitting together curiously.
“In cuffs, Dillon. You bring that son of a bitch here in cuffs. I want him arrested in front of all of his damned friends.” Boomer sounded.
“Boom, what’s going on?” I asked, turning away from Aubrey.
“We got DNA back from the body, Dillon,” he said. “The cells found under Victoria’s fingernails, it belongs to your brother.” He sighed heavy. “That’s not all, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t say it,” I muttered, knowing where this was going.
“We took paternity on the fetus, Dillon. It’s his.”
Chapter 19
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Peter said, looking at me from across the table in the interrogation room. I had done as Boomer ordered, slapping the cuffs on my brother and placing him under arrest for the murder of Victoria Sands right there in front of the entire crowd at Storm House. It was the second time since my return to Naples that I’d hauled Peter in before a crowd of his peers at his own house. This time was different though. This time, there could be no doubt.
“I didn’t do this, Dillon,” he said, his eyes full of pleading that, to my own chagrin, registered as genuine to me.
I shook my head. Perhaps Ethan had been right about me. Perhaps I was too close to any situation involving someone with the last name Storm to be able to judge it correctly. It shouldn’t have been like that. I knew the truth about my brother. I knew he wasn’t a good man. An abandoned son and a history of selfishness was enough proof of that. I had even thought he might have been capable of killing after my father’s funeral. I was proven wrong about that, but maybe that was only because of a technicality. Just because he hadn’t been the one responsible for killing Lionel Sands didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of murder. He obviously was. Otherwise, how would his DNA end up under Victoria’s fingernails?
“I don’t want to hear it, Peter,” I said flatly, pushing my apprehension aside and trying with everything in me to keep my composure. I had been lied to every step of the way about this. Peter had obviously been in contact with Victoria. He had been in very close contact, seeing as how the baby she was carrying was his. He never mentioned that though. He never once spoke of knowing where she had been for the last three years or even that he had seen her in passing. He was trying to cover for himself, but that would stop today.
“My patience with you is completely exhausted,” I said, my leg jittering under the table. “So, unless the next words out of your mouth can shed some light on where this woman has been for the last three years and how she ended up dead, carrying your baby with your DNA under her fingernails, I suggest you call your lawyer.”
“I don’t need a lawyer!” he banged against the table. “I didn’t do this!” He leaned forward, pleading coloring his voice. “You believed me before, about the drugs. You have to believe me now.”
Anger rose in me. Did he really think I was this stupid? Did he really think I was just going to set aside valid DNA evidence and take him at his word just because he was my brother? If he did, he was about to find out the hard way that blood wasn’t thicker than justice.
“You know someone is after me. You said it yourself. It’s why we had that damned party in the first place,” he said, shaking his head, his hands running nervously through his hair. “Can you see what’s going on here? It’s the same people! They’re making it look like I did this.”
I sighed loudly. “DNA doesn’t lie, Peter. I believed you before because I didn’t see a motive for you to smuggle drugs, but this, I definitely see a motive for this.”
“How could you say that?” he asked, sitting back in his chair and staring at me as though we’d had some kind of bond that I had just betrayed.
“Because you have a past history of impregnating women who aren’t your wife,” I answered clearly. “You told me how difficult it was for you the first time that happened, and I doubt you’d want to go through it a second time. You spoke about your wife and how she’d take half your worth if she decided to leave you. That worth has gone up substantially lately, hasn’t it?”
He blinked at me, staring with our father’s eyes. “I didn’t get that woman pregnant,” he said. “I’ve never even met her, and that’s not the only thing I told you about my wife. I also told you how much I loved her and how it killed me to hurt her when Isaac was born.” He shook his head emphatically. “If you think I’d ever do something like that again, you don’t know me at all.”
“You’re right,” I said, pushing a sheet of paper toward him across the table. “I don’t know you at all, but I don’t need to. Not only is there enough evidence to arrest you for this, I’m guessing there’s more than enough to convict you. Do you think a jury of your peers is going to bat an eye at a man with a history of illegitimate children and a damned good reason not to have another one going down for the murder of his pregnant mistress?” I nodded at him. “You’re going to die for this, Peter.” I swallowed hard. “Unless you take a plea deal.”
Peter looked at me for a long moment before reaching for the paper I had pushed toward him. He looked it up and down.
“It’s the results of the DNA test, the one proving you’re the kid’s father,” I said somberly. “It was too soon in the pregnancy for sexual organs to have developed, but they think - due to the hormone levels in the fetus - that it was another boy.”
“Not another boy,” he said, pushing the paper back at me as his face twisted downward angrily. “Not another one, because this test is wrong. I don’t know how, but it is. I haven’t met this woman, I haven’t slept with this woman, and I sure as hell didn’t get her pregnant.”
“Explain it to me then,” I said, taking a deep breath intended to calm my racing heart. It didn’t do much good. I saw too much of my father sitting across from me; another man ignoring another child. Only, Peter had gone a step further. He had robbed this kid’s mother and the child of a life they could have lived together. There was no coming back from that. “If you’re so sure that you’re not responsible for this, then you need to tell me how it happened. How did your DNA get on her body? How did you become responsible for half of this child if you didn’t sleep with her?” I took another deep breath and leaned forward. “The district attorney has a vested interest in this case, Peter. You know that. This was his wife. You murdered his wife.”
“I didn’t murder anyone,” he shouted and, again, my gut was telling me he was being truthful. That couldn’t be though. There was no way.
“I don’t want to see you die, Peter. Do you have any idea how hard that would be on Ian?” I shook my head. “For once in your life, please think of someone other than yourself.”
“You think of someone other than yourself!” He stood up quickly. “You think because I grew up rich and because father loved me that I must be this awful person. You think I must be capable of the worst
things in the world, because it fits your narrative. This isn’t about your hurt or what happened to you in the past.” He blinked back tears now. “I haven’t been a perfect person, but I’m not the Gillian of your story. Right now, the people at my party are probably holding an emergency meeting to have me thrown out of my own company.”
“Shut up about your damned company,” I said. “A woman is dead.”
“And I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s not my doing,” he replied. “This is all some sort of trick. It’s a ruse and whoever set is up is playing all of you for fools.” He spit on the paper I had just handed him. “You want to show me that as though it proves anything, as though it’s anything other than garbage.”
“It’s enough to get you a lethal injection, Peter,” I said, standing to meet him. “Trust me. This isn’t my first time. Call your lawyer if you don’t believe me. Dollars to doughnuts, he’ll tell you that you don’t have a choice with this. He’ll tell you this is the only way to save your life.”
A beat or two of silence followed. Then, quietly, Peter said, “My lawyer was at the party. He watched all of this happen. If he was going to represent me, I’m sure he would have been here by now. Even my wife is still gone.” He shook his head, scoffing. “It’s sad to think this is what it’s come to. I had to look to you for help, and even that failed me.” He sat back down. “I really am alone, aren’t I?”
If I wouldn’t have still been so mad, so confused, and incensed, I might have actually felt bad for the guy. He was a killer though, even if my gut was telling me otherwise. And killers didn’t deserve compassion.
“I’ll give you a minute,” I said, turning toward the door. “Make the right choice, Peter. Don’t lose your life over this.”
He sat there silently as I stepped out of the room.
On the other side of the two-sided mirror, Boomer stood with Ethan Sands. The district attorney’s face was tight. There was no emotion visible on it.