by Julie Miller
Claire wore her sound transmitters and speech processors again, so she heard every word. She politely stopped when Amelia dashed in front of them to bar the door. “Miss Ward, you do realize that your predecessor was killed because she was loyal to the wrong person, don’t you?”
The executive assistant gulped. “I shouldn’t be loyal to your father?”
“I hope you are.” She nudged the redheaded woman aside. “He’ll want to see me.”
A.J. bit his lip to keep from smiling at the cutting tone. Claire had the makings to be every bit the corporate shark as the other members of her family were. If that’s what she wanted. In a week’s time, he’d learned Claire Winthrop would shine at whatever she wanted to be.
He opened the door and Claire marched inside. The grumblings at the interruption were quickly replaced with gasps of shock and shouts of joy.
“Claire.” Cain Winthrop was the first to rise. He hurried down from the head of the table and scooped her up in his arms, kissing her cheek and hugging her tight. “Oh, baby, baby. Dwight Powers told me you were all right, but I couldn’t believe him until I saw you with my own eyes. I missed you, baby, I missed you.”
“Dad. I told you I didn’t want to be called baby.” He set her on the floor and pulled back to inspect her with his eyes.
“I know, sweetie. I know, I know. I’ll work on it, I promise.” He pulled her in for another hug. “I love you. I’m just so happy to see you safe again. Does this mean you’re coming home?”
A.J.’s blood froze as Cain curled his arms around his daughter and patted her back. On his left hand he wore a gold signet ring, with four lines of gold overlaying the ruby underneath. Four angled lines, like the murderer’s imprint on Valerie Justice’s neck.
A W.
Winthrop.
More than anything, A.J. wanted to rip those hands away from Claire. But they hadn’t come here to make any outright accusations. They’d come to lay out a few facts about the murder to force the accomplice’s hand.
Cain Winthrop’s hand.
The man his father had said would change the truth to suit his purpose. The truth was, he had a hand in Valerie Justice’s death, and his own daughter was the eyewitness who could put him in prison for life. Accessory to murder. Conspiracy to commit. The list of crimes went on and on.
Was Antonio Rodriguez, Sr. just another name on Winthrop’s hit list? Had his father uncovered the man’s crimes years before and been silenced? Would he lose the woman he loved to the same conspiracy and cover-up?
A.J. stood back while the others around the table—her Uncle Peter, her stepbrother Gabriel, Gina Gunn, Marcus Tucker—all gathered around to greet her.
Claire was the one to push the group aside and take a seat at the table. “Dad, Peter, everyone—A.J. and I have uncovered some very interesting pieces of information about Valerie’s murder.”
“Oh, honey, do you want to talk about this now?” Peter Landers asked. He slipped on his glasses and sat at the end of the table opposite Cain. The other board members filled in in between. No one asked A.J. to sit. He didn’t mind; he preferred the advantage of easy movement among all these corporate predators. “Maybe you should go home for a rest. Let us take care of this.”
Claire shook her head. “Valerie’s murder concerns me more than any of you because I’m the one who saw it.” Seeing she had everyone’s attention, she continued. “There’s a hit man in Kansas City named Dominic Galvan. He’s from—” She turned to A.J., more for effect, he thought, to show she’d been working with the police. “What’s the name of that country?”
“Tenebrosa,” he answered. “In Central America. It’s a country known for its civil wars and illegal drug exports.”
“I saw his name in the news,” said Gabe, thumbing through the pages of a report in front of him. “What do drugs and a hit man have to do with us?”
Gina shook her head. “I’ve never heard of him.”
“I think one of you knows him very well.” Claire’s statement generated a buzz of questions in the room that she quickly silenced. “One of you was also here the night Valerie was murdered. One of you hired Galvan. And I—” She reached for A.J.’s hand, and he could tell from her grip that her confidence wasn’t one hundred percent in place, despite her brilliant performance. “We have a way to prove it.”
Marcus Tucker shoved back his chair and circled the table. “This is your doing, Rodriguez.” He jabbed that stubby, annoying finger in his face. “This is absolute slander. None of us are guilty of anything except trying to do what’s best for the company and this addle-brained daughter whose imagination—”
A.J. snatched that finger and twisted, earning a curse as he shoved against Tucker’s shoulder and drove the bigger man to his knees. “One, Miss Winthrop has a better grasp of the real world and how to live in it than anyone in this room. And two, if you ever insult her in front of me again, I will break your finger.”
Releasing Tucker, A.J. stepped back, knowing the security chief would want some payback. He charged forward one step, but seemed to think better of any rash action, considering their audience and the fact that A.J. didn’t budge. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Miss Winthrop.” He looked to Cain to include him in the apology. “I’d just like to know where you’re gettin’ these so-called facts that can prove one of us is working with Galvan.”
A.J. felt Claire’s eyes seek him out before dropping the bombshell. He nodded his support.
“I know it’s a rather indelicate subject, but one of you was having an affair with Valerie. It ended just before she died. We believe that’s why she was killed. She knew something about illegal goings-on at the company—probably using our import and customs agreements to transport drugs into the country from Tenebrosa and distribute them. KCPD thinks there are some local murders tied in with the drug smuggling—getting rid of the competition, I believe, so they could be distributed without local interference.
“Valerie was a woman scorned. And she wanted revenge. She probably threatened to expose her lover as the man who’s been using Winthrop, Inc. to make himself a very rich man.”
Gina’s cheeks blanched, then dotted with color. “That’s why Dwight Powers wanted the semen samples. To prove which of you men slept with Valerie.”
“I slept with her,” Cain confessed, his gaze touching his daughter and stepchildren.
“What?”
“Dad?”
“Cain.” Gabriel’s protest wasn’t one of shock. It was more of an accusatory sneer as he stood and crossed the room to his stepfather. “You son of a bitch. You cheated on Mother?”
“Only once. The day Valerie disappeared.” Cain rose and faced his stepson, but his stony expression didn’t reveal whether he was apologizing or justifying his actions. “You know your mother. Or maybe you don’t because you’re out gallivanting around town every night—or flying off on a business trip so you don’t have to spend much time with her.”
“Don’t you dare insult—”
“I am a grown man. I’ve built an empire out of nothing. I knew true love once—with Claire’s mother—but it was snatched away from me far too soon when she died. I don’t need to be managed or manipulated. I need to be loved and accepted and supported as I am.” He turned to include Gina in his explanation, as if he saw a pattern in the family genes. “All Deirdre sees are deals and dollar signs. I’d love to retire to our cabin on the lake. But that doesn’t suit your mother’s social calendar.”
He turned to Claire next, addressing her mention of the DNA, maybe even apologizing for not being the father he’d hoped to be for her. “Valerie and I had been friends for many years. In some ways, I think she always understood me better than either of my wives.” He paused. “She’d been dropping hints for a number of weeks that she wanted to make things more personal between us. I set it up with Marcus to make it appear that Valerie was traveling with her beau to the Bahamas.
“She went to the airport, but then came back to hole up in
her apartment for a week. She said she’d be at my disposal—whenever I could get away, whenever I needed her.” Cain shook his head despondently.
“I knew Deirdre wouldn’t suspect anything if she thought Valerie was out of the country.”
He sank back into his chair. A.J. took note of how tightly Claire gripped the arms of her chair. She wanted to go to her father. But she held back, letting him spill the rest of his story. “The day Valerie disappeared—the day she died—I went to her apartment. I let her seduce me. Hell, I didn’t put up any fight. I talked about divorcing Deirdre and the possibility of committing to something more serious with Valerie.”
“You’d divorce Mother?”
He waved aside Gina’s protest. “I didn’t love Valerie, but I could relax with her. I went home when we were done to think about whether I could make any promises to her. And that’s when Claire stormed into the house, claiming Valerie was dead. It had only been a couple of hours since I’d seen her. I was thinking about changing my life for her. And then she was gone.”
His gaze touched on each person at the table, begging forgiveness. “When Claire said Valerie was dead, I knew it had to be a mistake. Val had sworn to stay hidden away to be discreet so that no one would guess our intentions. I had Amelia call, pretending to be Valerie. I wanted to get to Val’s apartment, speak to her myself—find out why she’d risk discovery, find out if she’d betrayed me—before the police got involved. If she was at the office that night, she was up to no good.”
Peter Landers stood and cleared his throat before sauntering to the door. “You know, this is all playing out like a gripping Murder, She Wrote rerun. But I have better things to do with my time.” He turned to Cain. “Pull yourself together and don’t confess to anything else until I get our lawyers here. I’ll post Rob Hastings’s bail as we discussed. I still think we should turn him loose as a liability and let him mount his own defense. But that’s the board’s call.”
He leaned down and kissed Claire’s cheek. “It’s good to have you back, dear. Even if you are spouting nonsense.” He crossed to the door, pausing to look down his nose at A.J. “Detective, I think you’ve brought enough harm to this family. May I suggest that the next time you pull a stunt like this, you don’t involve Claire.”
Marcus Tucker followed Landers out the door with a huff.
“Damn you, Cain.” Gina shot to her feet and hurried around the table to catch one of the men who’d exited. “Wait. I want to talk to you.”
Gabriel Gunn buttoned his suit jacket. “I thought we were family, Cain. I don’t know if Mother will forgive you for this.” He pressed a kiss to the crown of Claire’s head. “Good to have you back, pipsqueak. Rodriguez.”
After the last board member had left, Cain Winthrop spoke. His gaze seemed distant, as if focused on the past. “You know, Rodriguez, years ago your father came to me and told me a very similar story. He said he’d overheard Valerie late one night, talking with someone on the phone about a shipment from Central America. Said he could tell from the conversation that it was something illegal—she was bypassing a customs inspection and talking about making a deposit of money in a coded account. But I didn’t believe him. I trusted my family not to hurt me or the company.”
A.J. held himself perfectly still as Cain told him what he’d suspected all along. “Someone believed my father’s story, and didn’t want him to tell anyone else.”
Cain nodded. “I always wondered about that car wreck. The timing…”
“A.J.” Claire pushed her chair back and stood beside him. “What are you saying? That the same man who killed Valerie killed your father?”
This was it. He was going to lose her. But his quest for justice overruled the needs of his heart.
With a rueful sigh, A.J. touched her face one last time. Then he circled around her, walked up to Cain Winthrop and held out his hand for the damning evidence. “Mr. Winthrop. May I see your ring?”
“YOU CAN’T ARREST my father. That’s not what we agreed to.” Claire hustled after A.J. down the hallway toward the elevator. His partner Josh had already put Cain Winthrop in handcuffs and taken him downstairs. “You said if I talked long enough about everything you suspected that one of them would reveal something. You could trace their actions and see who contacted Galvan.”
A.J. paused long enough to turn so she could read his lips. “Your father revealed plenty. He was with Valerie that afternoon. He suspected she was using him and his company. He had no alibi.”
“He didn’t kill her. And he wouldn’t let anyone try to kill me.”
“He’s got the ring, Claire. And DNA will match him up to Valerie’s bed.”
She tugged at his arm to stop him. “That’s your proof?”
He dangled the marked plastic bag with the gold ring inside. “The facts say he’s our man. The markings on this ring match the imprint on Valerie’s neck. Made after her death. It shows he picked up the body and moved it. Now we’re going to get your dad to hand us Galvan.” He reached for her, but she scooted away. Her rejection didn’t seem to surprise him. If anything, it set the shape of his mouth into a grimmer line. “I’m sorry it turned out this way. But at least you’ll be safe now. You won’t have to run or hide anymore. I told you—I needed you to be safe. No matter what it cost me.”
She couldn’t believe her father was a murderer any more than she could believe A.J. hadn’t been using her all along.
All that they’d been through, all that she’d given him—had been for nothing. He was a cop, through and through, just like he’d said. And all the good she’d seen in him, all the trust she’d shared, didn’t mean a damn when it came down to doing his job.
Everything inside Claire was breaking. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to cry. “No wonder you didn’t believe we had a future together. It didn’t have anything to do with our ages or the money or where we come from.”
She looked into those beautiful golden eyes for the last time. “You think my father killed yours.”
Chapter Thirteen
Claire waved to Aaron on her way up the porch steps. Between KCPD and Marcus Tucker’s armed security team, she should be plenty safe in her own home.
It was a tragic bit of depression that had her thinking she wouldn’t care if Dominic Galvan did find a way through all of the guards protecting her. She’d lost her father. As a result of his actions, she was pretty sure she was going to lose her stepfamily. And she’d lost A.J.
She tossed her purse on the stand in the foyer and crossed the marble tiles into the library. She paced the room, digging through her memories of the past week and trying to figure out where she’d made her first mistake. Was it trusting A.J.? Giving him her body? Her heart? Was it thinking a naive, sheltered woman like her could stand up for herself and make a difference in the world?
With her students? With a friend’s death? With a man who couldn’t see he was every bit the man his father had wanted him to be?
She should have stayed in her small, rarefied world. Let her family take care of her problems for her, let them make choices for her—in men, in careers, in friends.
A.J. had encouraged her to think for herself. He hadn’t acted like she was an ungrateful fool when she expressed an opinion or disagreed. He shared his burdens with her, albeit reluctantly, believing she could handle them, believing she could make them more bearable.
If she’d stayed in her own little world, she wouldn’t be hurting now. Her father wouldn’t be in jail. And A.J. wouldn’t be carrying a truckload of guilt on his shoulders.
But she was a different person now. Smarter. Tougher. She was the woman she was always meant to be.
She wasn’t a woman who surrendered to obstacles in her path. A.J. had to be wrong about her father. There had to be some proof she could find to clear his name. He hadn’t killed Valerie and he wouldn’t have killed A.J.’s father, either. There had to be a way to get through to A.J.
Claire sat at her desk and kicked off her shoes. She
turned on the TDD phone to check for messages and wound up dialing the Fourth Precinct.
“Detective Rodriguez, please.” She flipped the switch to speaker phone and watched the words scroll across the screen.
“He isn’t available right now. May I take a message? Or would you like to leave something on his voice mail?”
“Voice mail, please.” What she wanted to say couldn’t be trusted to a pink slip of paper. She wanted A.J. to hear it in her voice—at least she hoped he could hear what she had to say.
She touched the screen as his message played across, and wished she could hear the real thing.
He’d been the real thing.
She was going to clear her father, and she was going to find a way to get A.J. back. It’s what the new and improved Claire Winthrop would do.
“A.J.,” she began. “It’s Claire. I know talking isn’t your best thing, but I think we need to. I’d at least like you to listen to me. I love you, A.J. How do you say it in Spanish? Te amo? I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose my father, either. And maybe you weren’t mine to begin with—I mean, not really. Sheesh.”
The machine recorded the sound of her frustrated sigh and Claire shook her head. She stood up and walked away before she rambled off any more tiresome clichés. She raised her volume so the phone would still capture her voice. “Anyway, call me when you get a chance. I’ll be—”
A sharp chill washed over her, leaving her covered in goose bumps and shaking. She could feel the eyes. She could feel the hate. He was here. Watching.
Claire spun around and frowned in recognition. “Uncle Peter.”
How long had he been standing there? She glanced beyond him into the foyer, peeked at the stairs, looked through every window. No. It couldn’t be. Peter had loved her mother. He loved her. But the sensation had stopped. Maybe she’d just imagined that paranoid feeling, or she’d picked up on the strain that marred her uncle’s features. “What is it?”
