Darker: The Inquirer

by M. S. Parker

  “Thanks,” I said dryly as I took the seat across from him. “You try gettin’ up at the ass crack of dawn, flying for a few hours, then getting home to find your place trashed and vandalized. See how good you look then.”

  “I heard about that.” Maury’s expression grew serious. “No one was hurt, right?”

  “Not physically, at least,” Nyx said. “Scared the Huxleys pretty good, though.”

  “I heard that too,” Maury said. “They’re good people.”

  “I hope that means you’re going to help us find the bastards who did it.” After a moment, I added the part I hadn’t told Maury yet. “And help us prove why they did it.”

  “Why they vandalized and trashed the ranch? I figured it was the usual racist shit.” Maury leaned forward. “What aren’t you telling me, Bradyn?”

  I looked at Nyx, and she nodded. It was time to bring someone else into the know. It was a risk, especially for Nyx, since she had to rely mostly on my judgment, but a line had been crossed. I didn’t know if whoever had trashed our cabins would have hurt anyone if someone had been there, but it wasn’t something I was willing to risk if they tried again.

  Starting with my part of things seemed the easiest. “I’ve been working on a documentary about some of Savannah’s most prominent families but focusing on the truth of their pasts.”

  “Yours?”

  “That’s one of them, yes.”

  Maury let out a low whistle. “You’ve got some serious balls on you.” As soon as he said it, he glanced at Nyx and blushed. “Sorry, miss.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She made a dismissive gesture. “And it’s Nyx. Not miss.”

  “Sorry, mi-Nyx.” He turned back to me. “You don’t think your parents had the place trashed as a warning about the film.”

  Another reason I liked and respected Maury was that he was smart. He could’ve been a detective or start working his way up the other ranks, but he’d only ever wanted to be a training officer. I was glad to know that someone like him was influencing future police officers.

  “It’s not just the film,” I said. “You saw Nyx’s PI license, right?”

  “From New York. I remember.”

  Not a surprise. He didn’t miss much. “There’s some confidentiality about her case,” I continued. “But what you need to know is that she found out my ancestors did some seriously shady shit. Even more than owning slaves, I mean.”

  “You think your parents would go to all that trouble just so you won’t badmouth people who lived a couple hundred years ago.”

  “More like they’re worried that we can prove they not only know what their ancestors did but that they’re still covering it up, which means they could lose a lot of money,” Nyx said. “Pride is a nice motive by itself, but if you add in money…pretty bad combination if you ask me.”

  “It is,” Maury agreed. “I’m guessin’ that means you’re sure it’s your parents behind what happened at the ranch.”

  “I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.” I sighed. “But you know as well as I do that it’ll be almost impossible to get enough evidence to arrest them, let alone convict them.”

  “And you think I can help you.”

  “We want to confront my father, and we need you to help us figure out a way we can do it and use whatever we get in court.”

  Maury let out a low whistle. “You’re going to help send your dad to prison?”

  “If I have to,” I said. “I’m hopin’ that we can get somethin’ bad enough that he won’t be able to just talk his way out of it. He’ll have to bargain at the very least.”

  While Maury thought, I turned my attention to the food on my plate.

  I hated that it’d come to this. I’d never thought of my parents as being ‘good people.’ Yeah, they donated to a few worthy causes, like St. Jude’s and the American Red Cross, but they also gave money to the Daughters of the Confederacy, though that was one they tended to keep under the radar.

  They gave money to politicians who said all the right things and smiled in all the right places, but who had some of the darkest shit to hide. So, decent had probably been the best I could’ve given either of them. Even after I was disinherited, it hadn’t made me think they were bad.

  But I’d never thought they’d cross the line into flat-out actively illegal shit. Covering stuff up was illegal, but it wasn’t violent. Didn’t make it right, but actually sending people out to vandalize and harass innocents? If it’d just been me, I wouldn’t have been as pissed, but Shadae and Brew? Nyx?

  Hell no.

  It didn’t matter if my parents weren’t actually getting their hands dirty. I was done just digging and sharing. Reaction was done. I was going on the offensive. I’d use my family name as a platform for change.

  Starting with making my father accountable for everything he’d done, but it wouldn’t end there. It was time to be proactive.

  Thirty-One

  Nyx

  It’d taken me until after midnight to get the cabin cleaned up since I hadn’t done any of it before Bradyn and I had gone to meet with his cop buddy. At least I knew now that Maury was a good guy. Bradyn wouldn’t have gotten Maury involved in this mess otherwise.

  I couldn’t lie. Part of the reason I’d put off cleaning until after we’d gotten back to the ranch was because I’d wanted an excuse to not sleep with Bradyn. He wouldn’t have taken it badly if I’d turned him down, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t strong enough to say no. I didn’t think there was a strong enough word to explain how much I wanted to be with him.

  Which meant I needed to take a step back and remind myself that I was a whole person, even without him. I could never let myself become like my mom, needing a man so bad that she’d ignore anything that threatened it.

  It had nothing to do with being nervous at what Bradyn and I were trying to do. Nothing at all. It wasn’t as if the last time I’d confronted someone with the shit they’d done, I hadn’t been believed. Nope. Not that at all.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” Bradyn said as we got into his truck. “I can do this myself.”

  “Not a chance.” I reached over and squeezed his hand. “My case is a big part of why this happened, and I’m not going to let anyone scare me away.”

  “I hate that my family’s so deep into this.” He started down the driveway. “Not just the vandalism or even the hiding stuff. It all comes down to that whole ‘the South will rise again’ shit. Did you know there are a lot of schools down here that teach the Civil War had nothing to do with slaves? That all the poor plantation owners wanted was states’ rights?” He shook his head. “Like it doesn’t matter that those ‘rights’ they’re talking about violated basic human rights.”

  “You sound like you’ve had this argument before,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for us to be talking about his fucked-up family when we were on our way to meet the fucked-up head of the fucked-up family, but hey, this was harder for Bradyn than it was for me, so I’d talk about almost anything he wanted.

  “I’ve had that argument a million times, for all the good it did.” He sighed. “I just get so tired of it, you know? We’re in the twenty-first century. You’d think people were more…I don’t know…enlightened or something.”

  “Enlightened. There’s a ten-dollar word,” I teased.

  He smiled but didn’t laugh. That, as much as the little lines at the corner of his mouth told me he wouldn’t be finding much funny until all this was done. Or maybe nothing about his family would ever be funny.

  Shit.

  “Do you…do you want me to do this alone?” I rubbed the palms of my hands on my shorts, trying not to think about all the ways my offer was making my stomach churn.

  He shot me a quick glance. “Hell no! I’d never leave you alone with my dad.”

  One look at his face told me he wasn’t worried about a repeat of what’d happened with Antoinette and his father. He was worried his dad would hurt me somehow.
He was protecting me, but he also needed me. It was a strange combination, but one I actually understood. It was that sort of line that every good Dominant walked. I was just used to being on the giving side of it rather than the receiving.

  Maybe he and I sharing dominance could actually work after all.

  If we hadn’t been dealing with all this extra shit, I would’ve had him pull over someplace a little more private and ridden him right there in the driver’s seat.

  “I’ll follow your lead,” I said. “If you need me to say or do anything, just let me know.”

  “Thanks.”

  It got quiet again and stayed that way until we reached the Traylor home. A massive, sprawling home that was bigger than some apartment buildings in New York. And if all of the information we’d collected was right – and I had little doubt that it was – it’d been stolen. Sure, it hadn’t been this big when the Clancy’s had taken it, but seeing it now, knowing where it’d come from…no nerves were going to stop me from doing what was right.

  As Bradyn parked the truck, a thought popped into my head.

  “If your dad’s governor of Georgia, why’d we come here instead of going to his office? It’s Tuesday.”

  “His office is actually in Atlanta,” Bradyn said. “We just happened to get lucky that he had a photo op in Savannah this morning and decided not to commute today.”

  I frowned. “Isn’t Atlanta a couple hours from here?”

  “Not by plane.” His hands tightened on the wheel. “I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise that the Traylor family has a private plane at its beck and call. Dad has an apartment in Atlanta too, so he usually staggers his commuting every couple days or so.”

  I whistled a long note. “Must be nice.”

  “It was.” Bradyn got out but paused before closing the door. “But it wasn’t worth my integrity.”

  I took his hand when we met at the front of his truck, and the two of us walked up to the door side-by-side. The person who answered Bradyn’s knock wasn’t someone I’d seen before, but since Bradyn and he knew each other by sight, I assumed it was an employee of some kind.

  “Your father is in his study.”

  “Thanks.” Bradyn led me around the massive staircase and down a hallway lined with pictures.

  Not like family photos, but painted ones of people from a hundred years ago or more. My history class hadn’t covered clothing through the years, but I would’ve had to be pretty stupid not to know those styles of big dresses and weird pants were from a long time ago. All the frames had little metal things at the bottom that I figured probably had people’s names on them, but we were walking too fast for me to read them. We weren’t running, but we were definitely not dawdling either.

  We stopped at a closed door about halfway down the hall, and Bradyn knocked.

  “Come in.”

  The first thing I noticed when we walked in was that Clancy didn’t look surprised to see us. The second was that more paintings hung in here, but they were all of men, and I could see a little of Clancy, and even a little of Bradyn, in them. I wondered how many of the names I had on my Calvert / Traylor family tree were being displayed here.

  As Bradyn moved ahead of me, I reached into my pocket and started recording. I just hoped Clancy thought Bradyn and I were the sort of people who might cause some problems but wouldn’t think to actually do something to get evidence. If we couldn’t get him to confess anything or if he figured out that I was recording him, we’d lose the element of surprise, and that just might cost us everything.

  “Is somethin’ wrong there, son?” Clancy wasn’t wearing a smirk, but I could hear it in his voice. He knew exactly why we were here, and he was pleased about it.

  “Let’s not do this,” Bradyn said.

  “This?” Clancy raised an eyebrow.

  “This little dance you like to do. Both of us circlin’ around until someone finally gives and speaks first.” Bradyn’s voice was even. “You know damn well why Nyx and I are here.”

  “Tsk, tsk.” Clancy shook his head. “Language. We raised you better than that.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him exactly the sort of example they’d set for their children, but that wasn’t why we were here. Priorities.

  “You’ve done some shitty stuff to me, but this? You’ve gone too far.”

  I wondered if Bradyn was intentionally cursing now just to aggravate his father, and I found that funnier than I probably should have. I managed to keep from laughing, but only because I knew it’d bother Bradyn.

  “I guess it really shouldn’t surprise me, but I never thought you’d go after the people you’re supposed to be protecting.” He took another step toward his father’s desk. “You’re the governor of the entire state, and that’s supposed to mean something. Or does it just apply to those of us with less melanin?”

  Clancy’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a nasty accusation to make, son, especially against your father.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe if you’d been a different sort of father, I wouldn’t have to make any accusations.” Bradyn hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Who’d you hire to trash the ranch?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about.” Clancy smiled again.

  “I have no idea how you manage to cover up so much shit if you keep hirin’ people too stupid to properly frame someone else.”

  The smile didn’t falter. “Do explain.”

  Didn’t anyone just flat-out say what they meant anymore?

  “If they’d been smarter, they would have stuck with either robbery or racially-motivated vandalism,” Bradyn explained. “The race angle doesn’t explain why only Nyx and my cabins were trashed since we’re, you know…white. But if they’d only been tryin’ to steal stuff, writin’ racial slurs on the house without breakin’ in was stupid. I would’ve thought you were smarter than that.”

  Color crept up Clancy’s neck and into his cheeks. “Watch yourself.”

  “I don’t think so.” Bradyn shook his head. “I think I’m done watchin’ myself around you. In fact, I think I’m done listenin’ to you at all. I’m goin’ to do what I want, and you’re goin’ to let me.”

  Clancy laughed, but it was a sound as ugly as the expression on his face. “I think you’re forgettin’ who I am.”

  “No, I know exactly who you are.”

  I didn’t know if Clancy saw the flash of sadness that crossed Bradyn’s face, or if he would even care if he did, but I saw it, and it pissed me off that it’d been Bradyn’s father who’d put it there.

  “I think I know better now than I ever have who you are. What our family is.” He inhaled deeply before continuing. “I know what the Calverts did to the Adams’ family, and that you know too. I know you – and probably Mom and Ashley – have been covering it up.”

  “You’ve been busy,” Clancy said. “But you’re just a disinherited son, out to spread rumors about your poor family. No one’s gonna believe you.”

  “They will if I have proof.” The words were soft, but the impact on Clancy was visible.

  “You don’t.”

  “I do,” Bradyn countered. “Like I said, you should have picked better goons. They may’ve shredded a lot of stuff, but they never bothered to pay attention to whether or not they had the originals. And contrary to what you may think, I’m not stupid. I made more than one copy.” He glanced at me.

  I didn’t hesitate. “Ditto.”

  Clancy looked startled, as if he’d forgotten I was there. From what I knew about him, I suspected that was exactly what’d happened.

  “I made copies too,” I said. “In case you didn’t understand what ditto meant.”

  “Your taste in women has…declined.” He made a face like he’d just eaten something nasty.

  “I’m sure you meant that as an insult,” I said, “but since I know what a lying, cheating bastard you are, I’ll accept it as a compliment.”

  “You know, in my day, girls knew their place.” Clancy glar
ed at me.

  “Well, nowadays, women like to make their own place.” I gave him my best snarky smile. “I’m sure you boys understand.”

  If looks could kill, I would’ve been six feet under.

  But we still wouldn’t have shit to use against him. We needed him to start talking.

  “I’m still waitin’ to hear what I’m supposed to’ve done that’s so bad I would’ve done somethin’ as heinous as vandalizin’ one of my people’s property to hide it.”

  What was it I’d said about coincidence and fate?

  “You’ve been hidin’ what our ancestors did after the Revolutionary War,” Bradyn said. “You know what Matthew Calvert did.”

  Clancy slammed his palm onto his desk. “Matthew Calvert was a patriot.”

  “He was,” Bradyn agreed. “But that didn’t make him any less a criminal.”

  “What, exactly, was his crime?” Clancy asked, his bright blue eyes sparking. “He fought for a new country and then claimed a piece of it for himself.”

  “He stole it,” I said, hoping me talking would provoke him again. Keep him off-balance. “Stole it from hard-working people who just wanted to make good lives for themselves.”

  Clancy made a sound that made me want to punch him. Well, more than I already wanted to hit him. “Stole it? Matthew merely took spoils of war. It was the way of the world back then, and it’s still the way of the world for the most part.”

  “Zachariah and Ester Adams were every bit as American after the war as Calvert,” I pointed out. “Wouldn’t that land have been as much a spoil of war for them as for him?”

  “Every bit as American? Come now, girl. Not even a Yankee like you could be that naïve.”

  “Why wouldn’t they have been? I mean, wasn’t that the whole point of the war? Freedom from the whole kings and nobility shit? Equality?” How was he not seeing that I was baiting him?

  He shook his head. “Of course, my family has always believed in equality for all, but back then, before the War Between the States, there was only so much God-fearing white folk could do.”