by HELEN HARDT
“It’s good, thank you.”
“And Lacey?”
“She’s fine. Doing well.”
“It’s not every day a lawyer becomes personal counsel to the CEO of a billion-dollar enterprise. And so quickly too.”
“You know as well as I do how she got the position, Blaine.”
“True. I always thought highly of Lacey. Smart as a whip, that one.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Or was, anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She married a man she’s known for less than a month.”
“They fell in love. And why the hell am I explaining this to you?”
“You certainly don’t owe me any explanation.”
“You’re right about that. Thank you for calling, Blaine, and checking in. I’m doing great.”
“How about lunch today?”
Seriously? We were so over. “I don’t think so.”
“Reconsider.”
“Uh…no, I won’t reconsider. Goodbye, Blaine.”
“Charlie—”
“What? What is it? I’m knee deep into planning a billionaire’s memorial service. I don’t have time to argue with you.”
“Reconsider. I have information you might need.”
Blaine Foster was still a silver fox with abs that could kill. Not that I could see them past his Armani elegance, but I knew what lay beneath that cotton button-down and wifebeater. The man was in his late fifties, but damn, his abs could cut ice.
He ordered for both of us, which irked me. It hadn’t bothered me when we were dating, but now? I found it patronizing. Roy never did that.
Wait. I’d never actually been out on a date with Roy. I had no idea whether he’d order for me.
Big lightbulb moment.
Blaine was one of the middle-aged professional men who had a first wife and first kids. I’d seen it before, while working at the firm. A man married young, right out of law school, and had children. Then he became successful and began catching the eyes of younger ladies.
Yeah, I’d fallen into that trap. I hadn’t caused his divorce, but I was certain someone in my age bracket had.
The man would then divorce first wife when first kids were in high school, marry second wife, have a vasectomy reversal, and start second family.
It was kind of sickening.
Of course first wife would ride the alimony pony and get child support until first kids turned eighteen. Maybe longer, if Dad was willing to pay for their college.
But usually Dad was focused on younger, hotter wife and second kids by then. First kids got the shaft.
I knew.
I was a first kid.
A big reason why I didn’t go to college was because my father had a new family to support. Apparently college wasn’t important for his first kid, and I didn’t want to go into major debt. My mother would have helped all she could, but all she could wasn’t enough.
So no college education for me.
Although Derek Wolfe had divorced his first wife, he hadn’t remarried and had a bunch of new kids. The Wolfes could at least be thankful for that.
“What did you want to tell me?” I asked Blaine. Might as well get right to the point.
“You look beautiful, Charlie.”
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. Yeah, he was still looking for second wife material. That was why he’d gotten too serious on me too quickly.
I still wasn’t going to bite.
Yes, he was attractive. Yes, he was brilliant. Yes, he had a lot of money.
If that hadn’t swayed me before, it certainly wouldn’t now.
He was no Roy Wolfe.
Not that I had Roy Wolfe. I wasn’t sure where we stood at the moment.
“What did you want to tell me, Blaine?”
“What? No response to me telling you how stunning you are?”
“Thank you. Now, what did you want to tell me?”
“How about, ‘You look great too, Blaine.’”
I set my water glass down on the table a bit more harshly than I’d intended. “You always look great. You know that. You don’t need me to stroke your ego. Go look in a mirror, for God’s sake.”
Blaine took a sip of his cabernet. He always drank at lunch, another thing that bothered me about him. His clients paid him seven hundred and fifty dollars an hour. He should be free of alcohol when he did their work.
“I’m not sure what I’ve done to produce such obstinance in you.”
Yet another thing that irked the hell out of me. He treated me like a child. To him, I was a child. We were over thirty years apart.
I smiled sweetly, though forced. “If you have something you think I need to know, please just tell me.”
“I will. I have every intention to, but first, can we just enjoy each other’s company for a few minutes?”
“Look, Blaine—”
“I’ve missed you, Charlie.”
“I’ve been gone from the firm for less than a week,” I reminded him.
“It’s not that, so much, though it was nice to see your pretty face daily. It’s more…I miss what could have been between us.”
I don’t. I couldn’t exactly say that, though, or he might not give me the information he thought I needed.
Which of course could be nonexistent. It might have been a ploy to get me to lunch.
“We’ve been through this,” I said. “You were moving too fast for me. I’m so much younger. I’m not ready for something so permanent.”
“I’m willing to slow down.”
No, you’re not. You’re looking for second wife. I know your story.
Of course those words didn’t leave the back of my throat.
Because it didn’t matter. Not now.
“I’m sorry. I’ve met someone else.”
He wrinkled his forehead. “So soon?”
“Blaine, you went out with Alice Engle two days after we broke up.”
“That? I was mentoring her.”
This time I let my eyeroll through. “Not buying it. Sorry.”
“I’m serious. She’s a law clerk. You know that.”
“She’s also my age. And gorgeous. And smart. Just your type.”
He opened his mouth, but I gestured him to stop.
“Please, Blaine. I can’t date you anymore. I hope that doesn’t keep you from giving me whatever information you have that you think I need.”
26
Roy
If nausea had an image, it would be the one in my mind right now.
My baby sister, six years old, my sick father hovering over her, touching her.
Hurting her.
Rock, my brother I hardly knew—the man with the hardest exterior I’d ever seen—had been reduced to a few tears while telling the story.
He’d gone out of his head at fourteen, when testosterone was raging through his body, urging him to take risks, when his brain didn’t let him see past tomorrow.
He’d gone after the bastard with a knife.
I didn’t know whether to be frightened of my brother or to applaud him.
In reality, I felt both.
But that had been adolescent Rock. The Rock of today, other than an arrest for a biker brawl he hadn’t started, had kept his nose clean.
He didn’t speak highly of Buffington Academy, the military school our father had sent him to. I could only imagine what he’d gone through there. Of course, it was probably better than juvenile hall, where he would have gone if my parents had pressed charges.
All those years…
Reid and I locked gazes.
“God. Riley,” Reid said, his eyes glassy. “We always thought she was his favorite.”
“He took her on all those special trips.” I gulped back the breakfast that threatened to emerge on the table in front of me.
“My room was next to hers,” Rock said absently. “There was no way either of you could know.”
“Still,” I said. “How
could we have been so blind? So envious of everything he lavished on her?”
“We need to find her,” Reid said. “Get her the help she needs.”
“Except she doesn’t want to be found,” Rock said. “The two of you have told me that more than once.”
“But she needs—”
“Look,” Rock continued, “I’m not in her shoes, but I do know what it’s like to be thrust into a situation over which you have no control. I’m not going to lie to you and say I’m completely over all of it, but I tell you. The big sky of Montana did a lot to heal me. I had to let it go and accept that I couldn’t save her. I’d tried, but I couldn’t. He would never let me. Being away from all this dysfunction did a lot to heal me. Why do you think I was so damned angry when the bastard made me come back here to run his company? And if I didn’t, all of you would pay? What the fuck kind of thing is that to do to your kid?” He shook his head.
“We were all surprised by it,” Reid said, “and frankly, now I’m even more confused. If you truly tried to do him in—”
“I was fourteen. I was hotheaded. I never would have been successful, in retrospect. But damn, there are times I still wish I had been. All of you could have been spared what you went through.”
“We didn’t go through what Riley went through,” I said.
“No,” Reid agreed, “we didn’t. He didn’t touch us sexually. But we did go through a lot. You, not as much, Roy, because you kept to yourself. But he used me for a punching bag on a regular basis. I was the target once you left, Rock.”
“I’m sorry,” Rock said.
“You were fourteen, like you said. You didn’t think it through. But that was the end result.”
“I got whaled on my fair share,” I said. “I won’t pretend he was as hard on me as he was on you, Reid, but it’s not like I got off scot-free.”
I well remembered taking the insufferable beatings from my father.
“How long did the physical abuse go on?” Rock asked.
“Until we were big enough to stop it,” Reid replied.
Silence.
For the first time in my life, sitting here with Rock and Reid, I truly felt like we were brothers. Brothers that went beyond DNA. Brothers who understood each other. Brothers of the soul.
We were all completely different people, but we were connected by more than our blood.
“It’s pretty clear,” Reid said, “why Riley disappears every now and again.”
“Most interesting is that she did the disappearing act before our father was murdered,” Rock said. “Was he around when she wasn’t?”
Reid gulped audibly.
Was he?
I looked to Reid. “I stayed away from him, and I was never in the office. I have no idea if he was around when she wasn’t.”
“I guess I never thought much about it,” Reid said. “I was always in the office, but I steered clear of him as much as I could. I mean, who wouldn’t?”
“She’s gone now,” Rock said, “and we know she’s not with him. I think it’s safe to assume it’s possible she wasn’t with him when she disappeared before.”
“Who knows what we can assume at this point?” Reid said.
I nodded.
After what Riley had been through at our father’s hands, of course she wanted to disappear. Hell, I’d thought about it more than once. And Rock? He’d done it. After military school, he’d never returned to Manhattan.
Now, having been to Montana twice, I understood why.
Montana was good for a person’s soul. It was almost a cleansing balm.
I needed to cleanse myself before I could be with Charlie again. She deserved a whole man, not someone whose insides were as big a mess as mine were.
God, the secrecy.
Rock had spilled his biggest secret.
Now I had to spill mine.
Except I’d held it in for so long—hidden it from even myself—that I wasn’t sure I could put it into words.
“Father Jim,” was all I said.
“What about him?” Reid asked.
“I don’t want him doing the memorial service.”
“Why not? Dad gave that church a ton of money over the years. He owes us.”
“It’s not that.”
“Wait,” Reid said. “We used to make jokes about the altar boys going into the confessional with Father Jim, but are you saying…”
I shook my head vehemently. “No. He never touched me. Never touched any kid, that I know of.”
“Then what’s the beef with him?” Rock said.
Indeed, what was the beef with him?
I’d suppressed everything for so long. So, so long.
Was Father Jim in those blurred images? Or wasn’t he?
“Nothing,” I said.
Rock cleared his throat. “I don’t buy it. What’s the problem with Father Jim?”
“Dad wasn’t a religious man.”
“So what?”
“We shouldn’t have a priest doing his service. That’s all.”
Yeah, that was all.
Nothing more there.
Except it was a lie.
I knew something about Father Jim. Something I couldn’t put into words yet. It had nothing to do with the altar boys or the nuns. Or even the parishioners.
No, it was far more sinister.
It concerned my father.
And I’d buried it long ago.
For good.
27
Charlie
“Of course not,” Blaine said. “That’s the reason I invited you to lunch.”
Right. The other stuff was just to soothe his own ego. He didn’t want me back any more than I wanted him back. Which was fine with me.
“Then what is it?” I asked.
“It’s about Derek Wolfe.”
“Okay. What about him?”
“Don’t you think it’s strange there hasn’t been a funeral yet?”
“Not particularly. They’re planning it now. It’ll be next week.”
“I see. I’ll look forward to it.”
“You’re coming?”
“Of course. Derek and I go way back. He was our firm’s biggest client.”
Right. That was how Lacey had gotten involved in all this.
“I understand the police are investigating all of his children…and Lacey.”
I dropped my mouth open. I didn’t know why I was surprised. It must be common knowledge. A high-profile billionaire had been murdered.
“Yes. They’re all innocent.”
“I believe they probably are.”
“Does this have something to do with what you want to tell me?”
“Yeah, actually. I like Lacey. Always have. I don’t for a minute believe she could murder anyone, not even Derek Wolfe.”
“Good. Because she didn’t. And you’re right. She doesn’t have it in her.”
“As for the Wolfe siblings, I don’t know them well, other than Reid. Reid shares his father’s business acumen, and he’s a pretty nice guy. Derek Wolfe paid our firm a lot of money over the years, so we did our share of ass kissing. But I’ll be honest with you, Charlie.”
I nodded.
“He wasn’t a nice guy.”
Right. Tell me something I don’t know.
“Uh-huh,” was all I said.
“I’m not sure what Lacey thought of him, but she hadn’t worked with him very long. He could be very charming when he wanted to be.”
“Lacey doesn’t discuss her clients with me,” I said.
“Charlie, of course she does. You’re her assistant.”
“She would never say anything disrespectful about a client.”
“That’s to her credit, then.” He cleared his throat when the waiter came by with our food.
Lasagna Bolognese. His favorite. I’d told him once that I loved it as well—which was true—and he’d apparently taken that to mean I wanted to eat nothing else. He ordered it for me whenever we went to a place that served it.
“Sure you don’t want a glass of wine?” He touched his finger to his goblet, indicating to the waiter to bring him another.
“I don’t drink during the workday.”
He laughed. “You’re young yet.”
I didn’t reply. It was easier not to. A petty argument over day drinking wasn’t the reason I was here. I wanted the information he said he had for me.
I took a small bite of my lasagna, chewed, and swallowed. Then a large gulp of my iced tea. “So Derek Wolfe wasn’t a nice guy. That’s kind of common knowledge, Blaine.”
“He’s a tiger in the boardroom, yes,” Blaine said. “I’m talking about personally.”
“Oh?”
This still wasn’t news to me. Did he really think I was that ignorant?”
“Yes. Let me tell you again. I don’t for a minute believe Lacey had anything to do with Wolfe’s murder. That’s why I want to give you this information.”
“Okay. Please do, then.” I took another bite of food.
“About six years ago, I took a case for Derek Wolfe. It was under the table, and he paid me in cash. At his request, I destroyed all the records pertaining to the case.”
I gulped. “What kind of case?”
“It had the potential to be a criminal case. A big criminal case. But we kept it out of the cops’ hands. It cost Wolfe plenty, let me tell you.”
“Quit beating around the bush, Blaine.”
“There’s one problem,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Attorney-client privilege.”
“That died with Derek, didn’t it?”
“No, not generally. There’s still the issue of ethical confidentiality. But Derek’s not the problem. There was another client in the case, and he’s still very much alive.”
I sighed. “Look, Blaine. If you’ve destroyed the file, all we have is you.”
“Not true. There’s the victim.”
“And you’re willing to tell me who that is?”
“I’m not willing to tell you who she is. But Lacey knows the name. That’s all I can say.”
“Are you saying Lacey worked on the case?”
“I’m not saying anything of the sort. Lacey’s a trusts-and-estates attorney.”
“Then how on earth—” I stopped talking when the waiter came by to refill Blaine’s wine.