Wild Rebel

by Laurelin Paige

  “Sweetheart, that’s only the beginning,” he replied. “Better buckle in. It’s going to be a long morning.”

  Fifteen

  Two hours passed. Two hours of Donovan drilling for the particulars of Langdon Stark’s life. Two hours where every one of Jolie’s answers took me to a time in the past.

  My short time at Stark’s school had been completely unforgettable. I still remembered how the classrooms smelled. The sound of footsteps crossing the forbidden great hall remained distinct in my mind. Every encounter with Jolie—every stolen kiss, every shared dream—was etched permanently in my brain.

  Or so I’d thought.

  Now, as she sketched out the life of my once headmaster, events and details I’d neglected came rushing back. How had I forgotten Stark’s weekly interstate private school committee meetings? Or that he’d liked to play Chopin’s Death March during dinner? And that he imposed a “fine” for students who walked across the front lawn? (Students who weren’t me, anyway. I got the beating plus the fine.)

  There were new things I learned too. Family members of Jolie’s that I hadn’t been aware of. Friendships I’d heard nothing about. Side projects that hadn’t come about until after I’d left.

  “How about his money?” Donovan asked as we entered our third hour. “Does all of it come from running the school?”

  “About fucking time we got to something significant.” For the most part, I’d stayed silent, letting Donovan decide what he needed to ask, but I was starting to get restless, and the walk down memory lane was taking a toll.

  My partner glared, but neither he nor Jolie addressed me. “We have family money,” she said. “The school was founded by my great-great-grandparents as a philanthropic endeavor. It wasn’t intended to be the foundation of the family income, but every generation after them had at least one child that made it a primary focus. Since my father was an only child, it all rested on him.”

  More information I hadn’t been aware of, which stemmed a new thought. “It will be yours one day.”

  This time she shifted to look at me. “It will.”

  I didn’t know why it had never occurred to me. Is that where her loyalty had lain? With the school rather than her father? “Will you run it?”

  “I was supposed to take over when he retired. But I won’t step foot there as long as he’s still around.”

  There was no way he would make any transition of power easy. He was not a man who stood idly in the wings, and I was surprised retirement had ever been discussed at all.

  But if he stepped down, and she refused, who would run it then? Jolie was proud of the Stark contributions to education. I couldn’t imagine her giving away the family legacy without a fight. Was that the reason behind her wanting her father gone?

  The possibility had me softening toward her. Reluctantly.

  “So your father has outside investments?” Donovan’s tone made it clear he didn’t appreciate the deviation from his line of questioning.

  Jolie thought for a moment. “He must have. He never talked money with me, so I’m only guessing. He was very private about it.”

  “If he did have other investments, and if that was where his money truly came from, wouldn’t it be odd that he still stayed so involved with the school? He could have handed it off to a board to run.” Donovan tapped his pen against his notepad as he made each point.

  “You mean, maybe we hadn’t really been as wealthy as he made it seem? Maybe he relied on the income from the school?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  The man was good. He could have been a detective. Or an interrogator for the CIA. Or the mob.

  “I never saw any indication that he was worried about money. There were never phone calls from collectors. There was never a concern about how often we ate steak. He spoiled me on occasion, and we always had nice things and went on nice vacations. Some years it did seem we might have had an influx of cash. We have a cabin in the woods that he bought out of the blue when I was ten, and he bought a beach house in Key West and a yacht when I was nineteen.”

  His eyes glinted as though he’d hit a jackpot. “Sounds like he definitely has access to other money. Running a private school doesn’t buy you third homes and yachts, no matter how prestigious the place is.”

  “I really don’t think this is going to lead you anywhere. I’m pretty sure we just had enough passed down to pay for all the extras.” She paused, a flicker of doubt crossing her features. “I’d always assumed that, anyway.”

  “Possible. But then I’m back to questioning why he stayed personally involved at the school. Why not pay for someone else to do it and enjoy living life as a philanthropist? Does he enjoy being an educator?”

  “I don’t think he ever enjoyed anything besides being cruel,” she said, and though she didn’t look at me, it felt like a shared moment of honesty. No one knew her father’s cruelty better than the two of us.

  Donovan had spared me very little acknowledgement over the morning, but he looked at me now before replying. “Yes, Cade told me he was a sadist.”

  She fidgeted with the collar of her sweater. We’d never used that word outright. Donovan had been the first to say it to me, and of course that’s what Langdon Stark was. It was odd having a term for it. It felt minimizing. Like he simply suffered from a personality disorder and wasn’t really a malicious, inhumane monster.

  No, he was still that. He would always be that. The word didn’t take away his cruelty.

  If Jolie found the term hard to reckon with, she didn’t show it. “Kids find school torturous. Maybe that was enough for him to want to be hands on.”

  “Maybe so.” Donovan wrote something down. Then, after a beat, wrote several more things down.

  “Sorry I don’t know more about his money.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll get my guy to look into it.” He was still taking notes, preoccupied with his thoughts instead of us.

  “Ferris won’t have a problem with any of this?” I asked when he’d been silent for a while. The PI had been on our payroll for years, but he’d been searching (unsuccessfully) for Jolie, not hacking into financial accounts. It might not be in his area of expertise.

  Donovan didn’t look up from his notepad. “We can’t use Ferris. He’s doing surveillance on someone else right now.”

  “On whom?” I’d only told him to drop the guy two days ago. What other job did he get him on since then? Something for the firm?

  “Me, if you must know.”

  “He’s doing surveillance on you? For us?”

  “For Sabrina, actually.” There was plenty to follow up with after that comment, but Donovan waved his hand like he was flicking away a bug. “Never mind that. I have someone else. Someone more suited to this type of work. He’ll be able to track all his accounts and when money was put in and taken out. We’ll have a better idea what we’re looking at once he gets an initial report back to me.” Finally, he returned his focus to the woman beside me. “You do realize this might take some time?”

  She sat up straighter, and I could feel panic emitting off her. “How much time? I’m only in town until Friday.”

  “It’s a long shot to say that we’ll have what we need by then. Is this urgent?”

  “I want it done as soon as possible.”

  My partner glanced toward me, and I took the cue. “I think he’s asking if you’re safe.”

  I felt my chest tense as I waited for the answer. I’d wanted to know about this since she’d first told me she wanted Stark dead, but she hadn’t been forthcoming with her motives, and asking outright had felt somehow too personal.

  Or maybe I was afraid of what she’d say.

  “Oh. Yeah. I’m safe.” Seeming to sense it wasn’t enough assurance, she added, “My father doesn’t know where I live. He hasn’t been part of my life in ten years.”

  My muscles relaxed, and once again air flowed in and out of my lungs. She hadn’t been ready to leave when I’d left, but sevente
en years had passed. Of course she’d gotten away eventually.

  But then my relief took on a new shape as I realized the implication of her statement. “Years? Is any of this information you’ve given today still accurate?”

  “We don’t need recent information to find something in the past.” Donovan not only didn’t seem to think it was a problem, he also didn’t seem surprised.

  I was already feeling pissy because of all the memories that had been drudged up and wasn’t in any mood to realize Donovan had put things together that I’d missed. Adding to my annoyance was recognition that my knowledge of Jolie was hollow. There was so much I didn’t know about her. So much of her life that I’d missed. So much of her life that she’d kept me out of.

  I turned my wrath where it belonged—on her. “What are we even doing here, Julianna? If you haven’t talked to him in years, then why do you suddenly—?”

  She cut me off but addressed Donovan. “Do you have to know my reasons to make this happen?”

  “I do not,” the traitor said. “I just need to know what the time frame has to be. I’ll push to have things happen as fast as possible, but no promises. And if safety becomes a concern, we’ll want to rethink our plan.”

  “Sure. Thank you.”

  I shook my head, my fingernails digging into my palms, wondering if I should think about hitting the boxing club again later.

  Donovan turned unexpectedly to me. “Need to walk it off, Cade? You could take a trip to the vending machine if you need to blow off some of that hot energy. Weston still has that dartboard in his office, if you’d prefer.”

  I would prefer punching him in the jaw.

  “I’m good.” I gave him a forced smile. I wasn’t about to let him look like he was the tough one, and fantasizing about kicking his ass was already calming me down.

  “Glad to hear. We’re nearly done anyway. Any other details you can tell me? Anything odd? Anything at all out of the ordinary ever happen at school or at home?”

  “Um...” Jolie sighed, the first sign that this conversation was exhausting her as well. “Someone gave him a car once.”

  “Gave him a car?” His reaction suggested he thought this was something he might have been told earlier.

  “Yeah. A Land Rover.”

  “A parent? A bribe for school entrance?”

  “I don’t know who gave it to him. I don’t think it was a parent, but maybe. I don’t know.” She seemed flustered. Embarrassed maybe for not bringing it up before or for not having better answers.

  “Definitely worth looking into.” He made a note.

  “Yeah, his wife wasn’t too happy about it.” She looked at me. I could feel her eyes even though I refused to look in her direction.

  “I’ll bet.” He circled whatever he’d written before. “What else?”

  “He owns a gun. He owns several guns for hunting, but he always kept those at the cabin, and this one wasn’t for hunting. It’s a revolver.”

  “Legally registered?”

  “I think so.”

  My entire body tensed at the thought of that man with a gun in his hand.

  “When did he purchase it?”

  “Uh, when…” She didn’t want to say it, which told me everything.

  “He got it when I left, right? He get it for me? In case I came back?”

  She nodded, her mouth tight. “He keeps it in the nightstand by his bed. Or he did. I don’t know if he still does.”

  “Loaded?” I asked, surprised at how calmly I was discussing a man wanting me dead.

  “No, but the bullets are in the same drawer.”

  “Good to know,” Donovan said, like we were talking about double A batteries instead of bullets. Like I hadn’t just realized how close I’d come to probably losing my life. The number of times I’d considered going back, the number of times I’d actually started out in that direction…

  I’d thought I was a coward for staying away. Turned out I’d also been smart.

  But I’d left her in that house with that man and a gun.

  I didn’t want to think about that and was grateful Donovan took another road of thinking. “What did your mother die from, Jolie?”

  “Not a gunshot. Brain aneurysm when I was four.”

  “You’re sure that’s what she died from and not just a story he told you?”

  Her frown said that it had never occurred to her to question it. Hadn’t occurred to me either.

  “I’ll have my guy follow that up too.” He made a note. “Anything else?”

  She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself like a hug, and I wondered what she was feeling. She hadn’t hated her father like I had. She hadn’t liked him either, but her feelings toward him had been more complicated. While she’d never told me about the times she’d been punished, I was sure it had been abusive. But she hadn’t gotten punished often. He’d also doted on her. Heaped her with praise. Treated her like a princess. They’d been close in a way I’d never been with my mother, despite the fact that I’d also grown up in a single-parent home.

  I’d resented her for that. For having something I’d wanted and for not being able to hate the man the way I had.

  What had I expected from her? To run off and leave him forever? What a fucking child I’d been.

  What a fucking child I was.

  Thinking of running away abruptly brought another thing I’d forgotten to mind. “There was that kid that went missing the year I was there. Bernard Arnold?”

  “He was just a runaway,” Jolie explained. “Not that unusual. Teens do that sometimes.”

  Donovan wasn’t so dismissive. “He ran where? Back home?”

  “No. Just away.”

  “They ever find him?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Once again, Donovan and I exchanged glances. It wasn’t something I’d thought was suspicious before. Like Jolie had said, teens run away. I’d considered running away more than once.

  He said what I was thinking. “Any chance he ran away because of your father? Is it possible he doled out punishment to him as well?”

  “I guess.” She didn’t seem to buy it. “But for real—kids run away. It wasn’t unusual. Two seniors took off when I was a freshman too.”

  Donovan opened his mouth, but already presuming he was going to ask for more information, she beat him to speaking. “Two girls. It’s possible they had an altercation with my father, but the rumor was they were in love. It’s more likely they ran off to be together.”

  This time I was the one boring my eyes into her, and she was the one who refused to look at me. “Huh. Who would have thought escaping was an option?”

  She flinched but still wouldn’t look at me. “And cruel as Daddy was with his mind games, I never once heard anyone mention anything about physical punishments. Other than Cade, I mean. And obviously he had reason and opportunity with Cade that he didn’t have with others.”

  “You might not have been the girl kids shared that kind of rumor with,” Donovan said bluntly. “Being his daughter and all.”

  I had a feeling she doubted that. She’d prided herself on being informed when it came to the student body. I’d always suspected it was one of the reasons she’d had the reputation with the boys that she’d had when I arrived on the scene. That rep had always bothered me, but I’d understood her motives. She’d wanted to be someone they could trust. She’d wanted to keep tabs on what her father might be doing to them. She’d wanted the attention to make her feel like someone cared.

  But Donovan had a point.

  “I never heard anything either,” I volunteered.

  “You might not have been considered a safe person either, all due respect.”

  Okay, that was another good point.

  “Do you remember the girls’ names? I’ll check them out as well.”

  She rattled them off. Donovan jotted them down.

  He was still looking at his notepad when he asked his next question. “You said he hasn’t
been part of your life in ten years. I’m assuming that’s when you moved away?”

  “Correct. I know my information isn’t necessarily accurate anymore.”

  That wasn’t where Donovan was going with his line of questioning. “He didn’t try to keep in touch or you didn’t let him?”

  “I didn’t tell him where I went. I found someone to give me a fake ID and was able to enroll in college under that name. Paid my own way with student loans.”

  I folded my arms over my chest, pretending this wasn’t interesting to me in the slightest.

  “And you’ve been using that identity since? You didn’t legally change it?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t want to be traceable.”

  “So now you live your life under the name Jolie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jolie...what?”

  I recognized what he was doing. He’d pushed me to have Ferris look into her now that we knew where to look, and I’d resisted. Donovan could never resist knowing all, though.

  But Jolie had never been a dummy. “Why are you focused on me all of a sudden? I haven’t been in his life in a decade. I’m not going to be able to give you anything that I haven’t already given you.”

  He produced his most innocent look, which wasn’t very innocent at all, but managed to win over a surprising amount of people. “I’m only trying to see if there are opportunities surrounding your estrangement that you might not have thought about. It seems safe to assume that something occurred that made you decide to cut him off.”

  “He was a strict man who brought out a belt anytime the dishes weren’t stacked correctly in the dishwasher. Does there have to be another reason?”

  “There does not.” Donovan knew when he’d met a wall.

  I wasn’t surprised by it. That was how she’d always been, whenever I tried to actually talk about what we were going through back then—cold and closed off. I’d had to put the pieces together about her father myself. I imagined she’d learned early that her father demanded perfection. She’d learned to always stack the dishes correctly before I ever met her. Without her giving him excuses to be punished, he had to look elsewhere.