Puzzled, she handed it over and took a seat at the table. “Any idea what’s on the DVD?”
“Sorry, I’m not at liberty to say.” He turned the television on and stuck the DVD into the device.
Not at liberty? “He’s dead, Mr. McCaffrey. What difference would it make now?”
“Just watch. I’ll leave you alone, but if you need me, I’ll be right outside.” He walked out and closed the door.
The DVD began to play. It was her father, seated behind his desk in his office at the firm, with his hands clasped in front of him.
What the heck?
Chapter 42
“Hello, Jenessa.” Her father looked away from the camera for a moment, appearing uneasy. Then, he took an audible, deep breath and focused his eyes directly forward.
It felt as if he was looking right at her and a chill shimmied down her spine, knowing he never would again. She took her own deep breath and laced her hands together in a tight grip.
“If you’re watching this, it means I must have passed away. I don’t know how old you are at this point, but hopefully old enough to forgive me and let the past go.”
Forgive him? Was he going to apologize for all the animosity between them? It made sense now that it was for her alone.
Jenessa pressed her lips together and squeezed her hands tighter as she watched, her eyes riveted to the TV screen.
“My dear daughter, I am so sorry that I drove a wedge between us, and I am sorry that I made it seem like it was your fault. The truth is, when your mother died…well, your sister wasn’t the only one that blamed you. I’m ashamed to say, I did too, even though deep down I knew it was my fault. I was the one who drove your mother to go to Sacramento that Christmas season, not you.”
Tears began to form in Jenessa’s eyes as she heard the words she had longed to hear all these years. Still, it angered her that he was only able to admit this in death. All those wasted years. All those misplaced feelings. She wiped at her cheek and continued watching, wondering what more he could have to say.
“I was always leery of you dating the son of Grey Alexander—even when Logan took you to the prom. I had seen how Grey treated the women in his life and I assumed Logan would follow in his father’s footsteps.”
She tried to get a read on her father’s expression. Was it only regret or was there a hint of guilt by association on his face?
“Jenessa, when you became pregnant by Logan, my fears seemed to be coming true. There’s something you need to know. Maybe you already do, I don’t know, but Ramey deserves to finally know the truth. It was Grey Alexander that got Lucy St. John pregnant. Grey is Ramey’s father. Though I wasn’t around when Ramey was born, I was well aware of how badly Grey treated Lucy and the baby. As Grey’s attorney, I was responsible for making payments to Lucy on Grey’s behalf. I rationalized my actions by telling myself it was merely child support—a good thing, but the truth is, it was a payout to keep Lucy from telling anyone, especially Ramey. As such, sadly, I was also privy to Grey’s demeaning comments about the woman.”
Her father hung his head, shaking it side to side, wearing a shameful expression. “You have to understand, Jenessa, I didn’t want that for my own daughter. I hated the thought that you would have anything to do with that family.”
Knowing what she now knew, Jenessa could completely understand why her father had felt that way. Those few recent run-ins with the portentous Grey Alexander had left her feeling much the same way as her father had.
“There is no way that Grey would ever have allowed you and the baby to ruin Logan’s chances of becoming a great college quarterback. He would have done anything to ensure that Logan would go on to have a successful life.”
Anything?
“If you had kept the child, you would have been forever tied to that miserable family, and I couldn’t chance that what happened to Lucy would happen to you.”
What happened to Lucy? Did he mean the payments or what landed her in a shallow grave at the lake? Could her father really have had something to do with her death? Or was he an accessory after the fact?
“There’s something else, Jenessa. I know Ramey felt abandoned, but there’s more…I want to tell you what really happened to Lucy St. John.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Jenessa murmured. “Here it comes.”
She sat up straight and held her breath, waiting for him to continue, just as a knock came at the door, startling her a little.
Ian McCaffrey pushed the door open a few inches, sticking his head inside. “Just checking to see if you’re done.”
She quickly pushed pause and gave her head a shake to bring herself back to the present.
“Sorry,” McCaffrey said, “I can see you’re not. I’ll give you some more time.”
He bowed out and she turned her attention back to the DVD. “Okay, Dad, you were about to tell me something important.”
Her father went on to explain how he had been Grey’s attorney for several years by that point, and that Lucy had contacted Grey, asking for a lump-sum settlement. “When Grey got the call from Lucy, he told me that he and Lauren argued bitterly over it,” her father said. “Grey phoned me and insisted I meet them at the lake house to discuss a settlement. I agreed, of course, what choice did I really have? I hid my car in the woods, and when Lucy arrived, I stayed tucked out of the way in another room, listening, without her knowing I was there.”
Jenessa stared, breathless, visualizing the scene as her father went on.
“I heard the three of them talking, then quarreling,” he said. “When the argument began to escalate and become quite heated, I thought I’d better intervene. So, I stepped into the living room to find Lauren with her hands on Lucy’s arms, screaming in her face, jerking her back and forth. Then Lucy pulled back from Lauren’s grip and stumbled backward. She hit her head, hard, on the jagged corner of the burl-wood coffee table.”
Her father paused, closing his eyes for a moment, as if the memory of it was painful. He shuffled a small stack of papers on his desk, and then continued.
“Lucy didn’t get up, she remained motionless on the floor, blood beginning to pool around her head. I was frozen to the spot as Lauren began screaming hysterically. Grey bent down and checked for a pulse. But he shook his head as he stood up. She was dead.”
Jenessa had predicted a similar scenario, unsure of the exact players involved, still, the confirmation sent flashes of brutal visions through her mind. She paused the DVD momentarily to collect herself.
How could her father have lived with this all these years? How could any decent person? What part did he actually play?
When she felt ready, she resumed the video, waiting for the answers. It was, as she had expected—Grey had ordered her father to take care of the mess before anyone in Hidden Valley missed them. He’d told her father that he and Lauren had to get back, and that no one could know they were involved in Lucy’s death.
Her father’s eyes appeared moist as he relived and confessed his deeds. “I didn’t know what else to do, Jenessa. You have to believe me. Grey Alexander represented ninety-five percent of my clientele and I was certain that if I refused, Grey would fire me—or worse, blame me. And whose word would the police believe? It would be two against one. If they believed Grey and Lauren, my life would be over. I know it sounds selfish, but it wasn’t—not purely anyway—I was thinking of my family. Knowing what I do about Grey Alexander, I believed I had no choice but to help them—and keep my mouth shut.”
Her father dropped his head into his hands now, his shoulders rising and falling as if he were sobbing. Then his body stilled and he looked up, his eyes wet with tears and full of pleading. “It was an accident. Lucy St. John was already dead. No one could change that. What else could I do?”
“I don’t know,” Jenessa whispered. “But there must’ve been something, Dad.” Shaking her head, she sat there, not shocked exactly, more like dumbfounded at the reality of it all, as her father explained how he’d reluctant
ly agreed to take care of the body after Grey and Lauren left. He admitted to burying Lucy’s body in a shallow grave in the woods about fifty yards from the Alexanders’ lake house.
At least he’d confessed to that, told them where to locate her body. He would have had no way of knowing they had already found it, unless he’d anticipated it when he’d seen them break ground at the construction site.
“My God,” Jenessa said, “his last days must have been awful, constantly worrying about the body being discovered.” It’s no wonder he had a heart attack. Or maybe that’s what caused it.
Her hatred for Grey Alexander came to the forefront. Indirectly he had caused the death of both her mother and her father. Part of her wanted to get up at that moment and go throw all this damning evidence in his face, tell him what a sorry excuse for a human being he was, but no. She needed to hear the rest, and she needed to be smart about this.
Her father’s confession continued on the screen. “I can admit I was a coward, Jenessa, but I wasn’t stupid. I made sure I had insurance in case Grey tried to pin the murder on me. So I took a comb from the bathroom, it had several hairs still in it, and I planted it with the body. I needed to implicate Grey, too. If I was going to go down, I would take him with me.”
Relief washed over her at the confirmation that Logan did not have anything to do with it. Her father couldn’t have known they might have been Logan’s hairs.
With the tears in his eyes now streaming down his cheeks, her father brushed them away with his hands and continued. “I don’t know what you think of me right now, but I am not a bad person. I made bad decisions for the right reasons, and trust that I have been wracked with guilt for years. It ate away at me, day after day. I regret that I wasn’t man enough to stand up to Grey Alexander. I only hope you can use this information to make things right, and—”
He leaned closer to the camera, the expression on his face was unlike any she had ever seen there before. “And I love you, Jenessa. I always have. I hope you can forgive me one day.”
She wasn’t surprised to find out her father was involved after finding the mate to the suspicious cufflink, but she hadn’t expected the DVD confession. The only bright spot was that he hadn’t been the one responsible for the death of her best friend’s mother.
The way he had told the story, Lucy’s death could possibly be considered an accident, or at the most involuntary manslaughter, but covering it up was a crime in itself, accessory after the fact. Her dad would have been guilty of that at the very least.
Coming clean after he was dead was the coward’s way, but at least now she had something to take to the authorities. She looked at the clock. The Deputy DA and Detective Provenza were at the station at this very moment, questioning Grey Alexander.
Jenessa willed her tears to retreat. This was not the time to break down. She needed to get this evidence to the police station. She wiped at her cheeks, then bolted from her chair and pushed the eject button on the DVR. She slipped the disc back in the box and stuck it in her purse. Maybe the DVD could help get a confession out of the great and mighty Grey Alexander, or his ice queen.
When she opened the office door on her way out, she found Ian McCaffrey leaning on the narrow counter, talking to his assistant. He looked up as she approached. “All finished?”
“I am.”
He stood up straight. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not right now. I’ve got a couple of scumbags to string up.” Jenessa breezed past him and stepped into the elevator. “But you and I will talk about this later.”
As the elevator doors glided shut, a thought popped into her mind and Jenessa stuck her hand between the doors to stop them from closing. When they began to open again, she poked her head out. “Mr. McCaffrey?”
“Yes,” he replied, still standing near his assistant.
“Do you know who adopted my baby?”
His eyes widened a bit as he adjusted his posture, appearing a bit uncomfortable with the question. “It was a sealed adoption, Jenessa. No one can know.”
“I’ll definitely be back. We need to talk about that too.” She let the doors close.
~*~
Jenessa had phoned Michael on her way over to tell him she had some critical new information on Lucy St. John’s murder. She asked him to meet her up front so she could tell him everything.
When she arrived he met her in the reception area of the police station.
“How’s the questioning going?” she asked.
“They just started.”
“Well, I have a taped confession that—” she paused and glanced around, noticing the receptionist listening in, as well as an older couple sitting in the waiting chairs. “Maybe we should talk about this in private.”
Michael led her to the observation room and lowered the volume of the speaker. “What is it?”
Jenessa glanced toward the two-way mirror and it drew her attention. Detective Provenza and the Deputy District Attorney had their backs to the glass and were sitting across from Grey Alexander. Seeing him there, seated between two men in dark suits, he wore a smug look on his face and it made her blood boil.
She plucked the DVD from her purse and held it out to Michael. “My father’s taped confession of what happened to Lucy the night she died. His attorney just gave it to me.”
“Have you watched it?”
“I have.” Jenessa gave him the condensed version of what her father had said on the DVD, emphasizing who he’d claimed had been the one Lucy struggled with, but admitting he had been the one to bury her body. “That must be how his cufflink fell into the grave.”
“I’ve got to let Provenza and the DDA know right away,” Michael said.
Jenessa glanced back at the two-way window. “Wait. Look. What are they saying?”
Michael turned the speaker up.
DDA Rodriguez told Grey they had a witness who could put Lucy St. John at his lake house on the night she died. “Based on the fact that Logan had motive, opportunity, and his DNA was found on the dead woman’s body, we have a pretty compelling case against your son.”
Detective Provenza cleared this throat. “But someone recently pointed out to me that it could also have been your DNA, familial match and all. So, we know for sure that it was either you or Logan that killed Miss St. John.”
“It was neither,” Grey declared. “I’ll even take a polygraph test.”
One of the lawyers patted Grey on the shoulder. “Let us handle this.”
“The evidence shows it was definitely one of you,” the DDA said. “So, we can put your son on trial for her death, or you can confess and save him—your choice.”
Grey Alexander sat stone-faced.
“How much do you love your son, Mr. Alexander?” the DDA asked. “Truthfully, would you send him to prison to save your own skin? You know what happens to pretty young boys in Lompoc, don’t you?”
“Don’t say a word,” one of the lawyers directed. “He’s just trying to scare you.”
Grey shot Rodriguez a silent, hostile stare.
“If you killed her,” Provenza went on, “now’s the time to fess up.”
Michael, looking as if he couldn’t wait another minute, snatched the DVD from Jenessa’s hand, turned the speaker’s volume off, and dashed out the door.
Spinning back to the two-way glass, Jenessa turned it back on. “Sorry, Michael,” she said, even though he was already gone. “I can’t help myself. This is just too juicy to ignore.”
Chapter 43
Jenessa stood at the two-way window and watched as Michael entered the interrogation room. All eyes turned to him. He bent down and whispered something into Provenza’s ear. Provenza leaned toward the DDA and whispered something into his ear. Then they both stood.
“Wait here, please,” Provenza said to Grey and his attorneys. “We’ll be right back.”
They seemed surprised, muttering back and forth, likely wondering what was going on.
Jenessa raised
her hand to turn the speaker off, but paused. Yes, she should turn it off, she knew, because Grey was entitled to confidentiality with his lawyers after all. However, she wasn’t law enforcement, so could she slide? But what if she overheard something important, something that would definitely be helpful? How would she explain how she happened to overhear it without exposing the fact that she had purposely turned the speaker on?
She forced her attention away from that tempting speaker button, wondering if Michael needed help explaining the DVD. Jenessa took a few steps toward the door, but stopped. If the DDA and Provenza saw her coming out of the observation room, Michael could get in a lot of trouble.
She bit down on her bottom lip—she was stuck. She let out a long, loud sigh of frustration. Then, against her strong reporter instincts, she made herself turn the speaker off and remain where she was.
Before long, Michael came back into the observation room. They watched Provenza and the DDA step back into the interrogation room and stand just inside the door.
“You’ll be happy to know, Jen, officers are already on their way to bring Lauren Alexander in.” Michael gave her a sideways look and turned the speaker back on. “Don’t get used to this,” he said as he came to stand beside her, both of them facing the window.
We’ll see. She grinned. “This should be good.”
Her fingers brushed against his and he took her hand, squeezed it lightly, then let go, which made her smile a little.
“Mr. Alexander,” DDA Rodriguez began, leaning on the table with both hands, “it has just come to our attention that we have another eye-witness account of what happened to Lucy St. John at your home on Jonas Lake on the night she died.”
Grey and his attorneys muttered to each other briefly, then sat silent.
Rodriguez continued. “Maybe you want to reconsider making a full confession, telling us exactly what happened, in exchange for a deal.”
Grey’s eyes narrowed and his lips pinched into a straight line.
“What eye witness?” one of his attorneys asked.
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