“Had to cross a stream. It wasn’t on the topographical map,” Nick said.
His brothers’ voices were reassuring, a beacon from his life beyond this night when everything would either be resolved or go to shit. Comms was like that — comforting and strangely intimate.
“Then it wasn’t big enough to slow you down. Hurry up,” Ronan said.
“Easy for you to say. In position,” Nick grumbled.
“About time,” Ronan said. “Keep it tight. We need to coordinate entry.”
Declan watched the door at the back of the house. “Sounds good.”
“Five… four…” Ronan started the countdown, “three… two… go.”
Declan drew his weapon and sprung from the tree line, keeping low as he hurried toward the back door, his gaze on the curtained window.
He caught sight of Nick in his peripheral vision, moving toward the cellar door on the side of the house. He ignored the movement and focused on his own target.
His exposure was brief, nothing more than a few seconds as he crossed the minimal grass between the tree line and the house, but after navigating the forest, it felt longer. He felt exposed, and he half-expected the door to fling open, for Neil to be standing there with a weapon he wouldn’t hesitate to fire.
He flattened himself against the house beside the door. “Here.”
“Me too,” Ronan said in his ear.
Nick was next. “At the cellar. I don’t want to open the door until you guys are on your way in.”
Now that they were in position, they needed to move quickly. The longer they stood outside the house, yammering into the comms system, the greater the chance someone would hear them.
Declan took the countdown. “Three… two… one.”
He stepped in front of the door and kicked hard. The wood was old, but the impact still sent a shock through his body.
The door flew open, a weak beam of light leaking onto the concrete stoop.
A crash sounded from the front of the house: Ronan.
Then there was a series of impressions: an older home, shabby furniture that included a faded floral sofa and a lamp emitting yellow light from a dated end table. Beyond the living room a pale, thin man, his face etched like a map, stood in the doorway to what looked like the kitchen, his mouth open in shock.
It took Declan a second to realize it was Neil.
Declan moved into the room, his gun raised.
The movement shook Neil from his stupor, and he lunged out of the doorway and into a narrow, dim hall.
Declan followed, the smell of musty carpet assaulting his nose. He aimed for Neil’s leg and fired.
The shot rang through the house and Neil went down hard and fast.
Then Declan was on him, straddling his body, pointing the gun at Neil’s forehead while the other man stared up at him.
“Jesus christ,” Ronan said behind him. “Could you be any louder?”
“It’s not like we were quiet coming in,” Declan said. “Besides, I want to make him bleed.”
He dragged Neil to his feet, surprised by how little he weighed. This was the man they’d been chasing all these months? The man who had the power to tear apart Kate’s family?
He grabbed Neil’s shirt in one hand, his gun still in the other, and shoved him back against the wall at the end of the hall. Neil hit the plaster so hard a crack formed over his shoulder.
“Where is Beth?” Declan asked.
Neil’s eyes clouded with confusion. “Beth?”
“Your daughter. Where is she?”
Neil didn’t flinch. “I don’t know.”
Declan released the safety on the gun.
“I haven’t heard from her in months.” Neil’s voice was eerily calm considering he had a gun pointed at his head.
“You’d better start talking.” Declan pushed the gun harder into Neil’s skin.
He winced. “No need to be a brute. Just tell me what you want to know.”
“I want to know what the fuck — ”
The rest of his sentence was lost to an ear-splitting explosion somewhere behind Declan. A second later a dark circle appeared on Neil’s forehead. Declan was so shocked he didn’t realize what it was until blood started oozing from the hole.
Neil’s eyes had gone wide and unseeing.
“What the — ”
He turned his head, wondering why Ronan would put a bullet in Neil’s head right when they were about to get the information they needed to save WMG.
But Ronan’s weapon was at his side, Nick standing in the living room beyond his shoulder, an expression of confusion on his face.
And Beth, Beth stood between them, the gun in her hand still pointed down the hall where Neil had been alive just seconds before.
13
Kate leaned against the wall, staring at her sister. Beth sat on the edge of the bed, holding the cup of tea Kate had brought her like it was something foreign. She’d said next to nothing since Declan had led her into the house, Ronan and Nick silent behind them.
Kate thought she’d be mad when she saw Beth. Thought she’d at least be hesitant, that she’d want to find out everything Beth knew, everything she’d done. But familial instinct had taken over the second Beth walked through the door with Declan, and the next thing Kate knew she was rushing toward her sister, throwing her arms around her as tears streamed from her eyes.
Forgiveness hadn’t even entered her mind. Neither had justice.
She was just glad Beth was alive.
Kate had taken her upstairs to the last remaining bedroom and started a hot shower in the en suite, then helped Beth, who’d seemed almost catatonic, undress.
She’d said only one thing: He left me all alone.
Kate didn’t have the time or energy to decipher the meaning of the words. Instead she’d gone to work finding Beth a change of clothes from her own small wardrobe and heating water for tea.
Declan, Ronan, and Nick had settled into the living room with a bottle of Brennivin, an Icelandic liquor that could strip the paint off Kate’s Lexus, saying little about the raid except that Neil was dead, killed by Beth, who’d appeared out of nowhere.
Beth had fired the fatal shot before Ronan knew she was there. Nick hadn’t even made his way up from the basement in time to see the whole thing happen.
By the time Kate had returned to the guest room, Beth was sitting on the edge of the bed in Kate’s sweatpants and one of her long-sleeve T-shirts.
Beth’s dark hair was wet, longer than when Kate had last seen her, and she’d lost weight she couldn’t afford to lose. Her face looked almost gaunt, with deep hollows under her cheeks and shadows under her eyes.
Kate had handed her the tea and leaned against the wall. Now that the shock of Beth’s reappearance had worn off, Kate’s questions had come roaring back. She was still glad her sister was alive, but Beth had a lot of explaining to do.
“Where have you been?” Kate asked.
Beth looked down at the tea like the answer to the question could be found in the leaves settled at the bottom of her cup. “Morocco for a while. Then Portugal and Norway. Then… here.”
“What were you doing? Why didn’t you call or text? Mom has been worried sick. We all have,” Kate said.
She was surprised by the anger that flashed in Beth’s eyes. “I doubt that.”
Kate crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re in no position to play black sheep. We were worried. You can believe it or not. It doesn’t really matter.” She shook her head. “What have you been doing, Beth? What were you up to with Neil?”
“He lied.” She spoke in a monotone. “That’s why I didn’t tell you, why I ran. He lied and I bought it. I let him use me.”
“Use you how?”
She took a sip of the tea and set it on the nightstand next to the bed. “He was my father.” She watched Kate’s face for her reaction. When she didn’t get one, she continued. “But I guess you knew that.”
“I figured it out right bef
ore you disappeared. I would have talked to you about it, wanted to talk to you about it, but you were just… gone.”
“He’s the one who told me. I’d always felt different, but…”
“But what?”
“You guys kind of gaslit me.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “No one gaslit you.”
“You did,” Beth insisted. “I knew I was different, knew I didn’t quite fit. Not like you and Aiden. But when I tried to tell you, when I tried to tell Dad, you called me a drama queen, told me I was playing the victim, and you know how Dad felt about people who played the victim. Mom was the only one who didn’t blow me off.”
“I mean, Beth… Aiden and I didn’t know. What would you have said if I’d told you I didn’t fit in? Would you have jumped to the conclusion that I had a different father? That my feelings were anything but adolescent angst?” Kate sighed. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We didn’t listen. But gaslighting someone requires knowledge Aiden and I didn’t have. We were in the dark until six months ago.”
“But it made sense then, didn’t it?” Beth’s glare was defiant.
Kate searched for the right words, aware that they were treading on tricky territory. “It explained a lot.”
“Thought so.” Beth picked at the skin around her thumb. “Anyway, Neil told me two years ago. He said I deserved to know, and he was right. I asked Mom if it was true and she told me everything — the affair with Neil, her pregnancy with me, the way she and Dad made up and agreed that no one would ever know, that I would be just as much a part of the family as you and Aiden.”
There was a lot Kate wanted to know: how Beth had felt when she learned the truth, why Neil had chosen to tell her after all those years, why everyone had continued keeping the secret from Kate and Aiden.
But Neil was dead, killed before he’d had a chance to tell Declan what he’d been up to at WMG. Kate didn’t know how much time they had to stop whatever was coming.
“Then what?” Kate asked.
Beth shrugged. “For about a year, it was nice. We hung out, spent time together, got to know each other better.”
“You and Neil?”
Beth nodded. “We connected in a way I hadn’t with Dad. Neil was interested in me, in what I thought about things and what I wanted to do. He didn’t care whether I wanted to work at WMG.”
“And then?” Kate asked.
Beth plucked at a loose thread on the bedspread. “He started talking about WMG, about how it was stagnant, how it needed vision, new blood. He asked me what I thought about the company, about things that needed to change, asked me why I had fewer shares than you and Aiden.”
“You didn’t work there,” Kate said. “The additional shares were part of the package for going to work at WMG, for sitting on the board.”
“That’s what I told him, but he didn’t think it was fair. He said the company was a family legacy, and I’d been cheated out of my shares because Dad wanted to punish me for not being his,” Beth said. “And he said he’d been cheated too. That Dad had stolen the idea for WMG and made it his, that he’d frozen Neil out, making sure he would always be second to Dad, just like I was always second to you and Aiden.”
Kate exhaled her frustration. “Dad wasn’t that spiteful. He loved you. He tried to connect with you. He wasn’t the best at it, and he definitely had a one-track mind when it came to business, but that was just Dad. And Neil… wasn’t Dad.” Kate shrugged. “He just wasn’t. Maybe he brainstormed the idea for WMG in the beginning, but he never had Dad’s discipline, his vision. Besides, no one forced Neil to step back when Aiden stepped up. He made that decision on his own, and I’m sure it was a business decision, just like the ones Dad made. None of it was personal.”
Beth glared at her. “It felt pretty personal. Which is why I listened when Neil suggested a takeover.”
“I knew it.” Kate shook her head. “I can’t believe you’d do that to Dad.”
Beth stood, pacing to the wall of glass that looked out on the side of the house. Dawn was still a couple of hours away. The only thing visible was Beth’s own reflection.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Beth said. “You were the golden child. Dad’s favorite.”
Kate opened her mouth to protest, then changed her mind. She didn’t believe in favorites, didn’t believe her parents had them, but she’d seen firsthand that there was a unique chemistry between parents and their children. She’d been closer to her father. Beth had been closer to their mother. Aiden had walked the tightrope between them.
“Just tell me what he wanted you to do,” Kate said.
“He wanted me to sell him my shares. He said I’d get a spot on the board, that I’d be rich. No more begging Mom for money.”
“What else?” Kate asked. There had to be more. Beth could have sold her shares to Neil with a minimum of fuss and no legal jeopardy.
“My shares weren’t enough, even with Neil’s. Dad made sure of that. Neil wanted me to help him pitch new leadership to the other board members. He said it would mean more coming from a Walsh, that WMG was a family company and the board would want to know one of us would be involved if the majority stockholder changed.”
“So? Takeovers aren’t uncommon.” Kate studied Beth’s face in the mirror. She needed to see Beth’s reaction to her next question. “Why kill Dad? Why have him murdered when Neil could have accumulated shares on the sly and initiated a hostile takeover like anybody else?”
Pain flashed across Beth’s face. “I didn’t know about that. Not until after we both left the country. Not until I started digging on my own.”
“How could you not know?” Kate asked, her voice bitter. “It was all part of the same plan.”
Beth spun to face her. Tears were streaming down her face. “I didn’t know! Neil must have known I wouldn’t do it. That’s why he kept it from me, why he made it seem like no one would get hurt.”
“Oh Beth… someone was always going to get hurt. You don’t think it would have hurt Dad, that it wouldn’t have hurt all of us, to lose the company?”
Beth’s face was flushed with shame. “I knew. I just thought… I was so mad, so hurt. It felt like you and Dad and Aiden were part of the same club, like you’d never really loved me. I thought if I could play your game, if I could play it better, maybe you would respect me.” She gave a little shrug. “It’s not love, but it’s better than nothing.” Her chin quivered. “I wouldn’t have hurt Dad. I wouldn’t have let anyone else hurt him. I loved him. It wouldn’t have hurt so much otherwise. You have to believe me.”
Kate’s hand shook as she touched her forehead, trying to ignore the storm of emotion roaring through her: anger at Beth for being so stupid, at herself and Aiden for not seeing Beth’s attitude as the symptom of something bigger than it was, her parents for not being honest with all of them from the beginning.
And under it all, a deep sadness that her father had died for money.
For nothing.
It was too much. Too much to think about now. Too much to bear in the face of everything else.
“Did you plan to leave Boston together before the FBI raid?” Kate asked.
Beth sighed and dropped back onto the bed. “That’s when I knew things had gone wrong, that Neil might not have been honest about what was going on. He didn’t even tell me he was leaving.”
The sorrow was plain in her voice, and Kate had to resist the urge to scream.
Dad would never have done this to you. Never would have lied to you, never would have used you, never would have abandoned you when you needed him.
But there was no point. They had to move forward.
“Did you know Neil was hiding?” Kate asked.
Beth shook her head. “But I knew after the raid that he was in trouble, and I knew if he was in trouble, I might be in trouble too.”
“So you ran.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Beth said. “I was trying to find him, but I was afraid to call the old number or
send him an email after the FBI got involved, and I didn’t have any other way to reach him.”
“It wouldn’t have done you any good anyway. You were right: the FBI — and Declan’s company — were tracing Neil’s devices and email, but he never used them after the raid.” Kate didn’t need to know how Beth had gotten out of the country without being traced. That question was answered by the passport Kate and Declan had found in Beth’s safe deposit box before the raid. Neil had probably prepared her to run in case things went bad. “What did you do all that time you were in hiding?”
“Nothing at first. I was freaked out, afraid to go anywhere or do anything. So I just hunkered down in Morocco, which is how I started figuring out what Neil had been up to. By then, I knew I’d been screwed. Things didn’t add up.”
“What kind of things?” Kate asked.
“Like the way Neil wanted to take over WMG but didn’t seem to have any plans for the company. He wanted to know my ideas, but looking back, it seemed like he wasn’t as interested in WMG’s future as he was in taking it from Dad, from you and Aiden. And sometimes he made it seem like there were other people involved.”
Kate straightened. “Other people?”
Beth nodded. “So I started digging around, trying to figure out what he’d really been up to. I started with the biggest shareholders, because I knew Neil needed more shares. Even his put together with mine wouldn’t be enough. I guess he figured I wouldn’t bother checking, and for a long time, he was right.”
“You called shareholders?” Kate asked incredulously.
“I was nervous at first. I didn’t know if the FBI was looking for me like they were looking for Neil. But after awhile I felt safer, and most of the shareholders were willing to talk to me, probably because of my name,” Beth said. “The ones who’d been approached to sell all said the same thing — that the negotiation had been brokered by the agent for a company that was more or less anonymous.”
“We found that out too,” Kate said.
“It was pretty obvious by then that there was more to the plan than Neil had let on. That’s when I got pissed.” She looked down at her hands. “Not just at Neil. At myself too. I’d been so stupid. So I started looking for him. I wasn’t really thinking clearly. I just wanted him to pay for what he’d done. I wanted to show him I wasn’t as dumb as he’d thought.”
Last Chance (Second Chance Book 3) Page 9
