***
Esmeralda hadn’t exactly meant to read it all, but it hadn’t exactly been that hard to put down either. It started out as a way of getting back at her itinerant boss, and turned into a plan to win him back from whoever it was that he’d happened to fall in love with, either by fair means or foul. That, she hadn’t quite decided yet.
She figured correctly that the object of his affection was Gracey, the girl who was all over the front page of Baltimore Sun, based on what was turning into an obsession to get her released from prison, but couldn’t for the life of her work out why. As far as Esmeralda could see, there was nothing special at all about the thin lipped, slightly quirky looking potential murderess. She was pretty, in a sort of odd, classical way, if that was the kind of thing you went for, which was what surprised her the most, because it wasn’t at all what Leighton usually did go for. Gracey looked like she wouldn’t say boo to a ghost. It was Pandora that seemed like the most likely candidate, perhaps even Isabella, but definitely not Gracey. Had Esmeralda not heard it in his voice when he said her name, she would have been completely convinced that it was someone else entirely.
She skimmed through the newspaper, which had very little to say about what was going on, apart from the fact that it seemed like an open and shut case, and a full and frank confession from Gracey was expected. Leighton got a mention as being arrested and subsequently released due to conflicting testimony. It seemed that the only reason the story had got out at all, was because Pandora was the one responsible for releasing it. Three pages were dedicated to an all exclusive interview, in which she supported her claims of seeing Leighton at the house. Esmeralda couldn’t believe the audacity nor the stupidity, but it paled in comparison to what she had read in the letter from Philip to Leighton.
It was an absolute revelation to her. She knew little about Philip beyond what Leighton had told her, and the man she saw through the words was nothing like the man she imagined. Not only did he not want to give Leighton up at all, he’d struggled for his whole life with the decision he’d made. But the most surprising revelation of all to Esmeralda, was the fact that Leighton’s mother was still alive. As mad as a box of frogs, but still alive. It was like reading a best seller.
Esmeralda wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do with the document. She had half a mind to keep it from him completely, but then figured it wouldn’t be a worthwhile punishment if he didn’t know he was being punished. If she gave it to him, he’d learn the truth about his mother and father, about the years he was being watched and the crippling sensation his father had when faced with the inability to resolve a situation he had little control over in the first place, which wasn’t necessarily such a bad thing. Leighton had always denied wanting to know those things, so maybe making him discover them was the best way to get her own back. Also, if he read the document and was pleased that he’d been given the opportunity to do so, Esmeralda stood to gain the credit for getting it to him. She’d just have to somehow cover up the fact that she’d spent half the night reading it.
***
Journalists swamped the Chesapeake Estate, taking photos of the three Logan girls, the room where the murder was committed, and Gracey’s bedroom, which had been crudely barricaded off with police hazard tape. Alexis posed, smiled sweetly and answered all the questions that were put to her with gusto. It had been Pandora’s idea, and it had been a brilliant one. Alexis made sure to wear one of her most expensive dresses, load up on gin, and lock the dog away in one of the garden sheds for fear it might rudely interrupt her moment in the limelight. Pandora was as bad as her mother, soaking up all the attention that was given to her, flirting outrageously with the muscled photographer and taking great pleasure in showing off Gracey’s room and her own. Isabella involved herself as much as she needed to, not to court too much attention. She corroborated Pandora’s story, but said little else about that fateful evening. She hadn’t found the body after all, and only knew what had happened when the police come over one night to take them all to the station. As far as she was concerned, Gracey could rot in hell. She wasn’t fond of her stepfather, but she wasn’t close to her sister either. She made pains to point out that Gracey had often mentioned that she’d be happier if Philip were dead, even though Isabella never thought she’d actually go ahead and do it herself. Pandora and Alexis were less inclined to comment. They said they were happy to leave it in the hands of the police.
“If Gracey is guilty, then she is no daughter of mine”, Alexis said. “I loved my husband, even though he never realized it.”
“What I can’t understand is why Leighton hasn’t been charged”, Pandora chipped in. “It makes me sick to think he’s been here.”
Journalists were camped outside Leighton’s hotel too, desperate to get to the billionaire before he disappeared into his penthouse suite, but he managed to bully past them without giving so much as a word.
Neither Leighton nor Gracey could sleep that night. Gracey tossed and turned on the paper thin mattress she’d been provided, while Leighton spent half the night talking to his legal team, the other half researching exactly what awaited her. The only piece of good news he could find, was that Maryland didn’t have the death penalty.
Chapter 28
Gracey woke with a start, when one of the attending officers brought her a thick porridge that looked like wallpaper paste, a glass of dirty water, and a cold coffee, banging on the door to get her attention. He didn’t quite slide it through a flap in the door, but it certainly wouldn’t have been out of place, based on the night she’d had.
Six hours in the interview room and six more of broken sleep, her only distraction from what was going on, the incredible moment of passion she’d shared with Leighton. That already seemed like a million years ago. For all she knew Leighton was locked up in the cell next to her. She thought she’d heard his voice in the middle of the night, but it could equally have been a dream.
“I thought we were in the twenty first century”, Gracey said, rubbing her sore neck and looking disappointedly at the breakfast tray.
“This isn’t a hotel”, the ward sergeant remarked. “And I made that myself so don’t be getting all catty on me.”
Gracey lifted a spoonful of porridge into the air, grimaced and then pushed the tray to the side. She’d rather go hungry than risk being poisoned. The irony made her laugh.
“Suit yourself”, the sergeant said. “It might be a long time before lunch.”
“Can you tell me what’s going on, please?”
“I’m just the desk sergeant, and I only just got in. If you weren’t all over the TV, I’d have no idea what you’d done. Someone’ll be along later to fill you in on what happens now. You better get used to the wait, maybe the space too. I have a feeling that you’re going need a lot of patience moving forward.”
“Wait”, Gracey said, but the door was already closing. “I didn’t do it, I keep telling them.”
“Patience”, was all the desk sergeant said before the huge locks clunked into their bay.
Gracey sat back on her fold-out bed, defeated. There was nothing she could do but wait. That and hope that Leighton would find her.
***
Leighton could see the journalists from the windows above, swarming around like a pack of hungry wolves. The story had been all over the morning TV news, where snippets of an interview with Pandora were played alongside sweeping images of the Chesapeake estate, and promises of a full and exclusive update later on in the afternoon. He had managed to get copies of the newspapers delivered to his room, which now sat spread out across the bed. Each one covered in conjecture masquerading as truth.
That was exactly what he intended on spending the day changing. After only a few seconds of waiting, the phone was picked up.
“911, what is your emergency?”
Leighton cleared his throat. “I have trespassers in my house, and they are refusing to leave.”
“What is your address please, Sir?”
<
br /> The journalists in the street drank coffee and waited. Leighton made his voice tight.
“2742 Gulls Pike Avenue, Baltimore, 21224.”
“Do you feel threatened, Sir?”
“Yes. Please send someone as soon as you can.”
“Ok, bear with me, I’ll have a unit dispatched as soon as possible. Would you like to stay on the line until they arrive?”
“No, that’s not necessary, thank you.”
Ten minutes later, Leighton was once again fighting the crowds of journalists on the way to his car.
When he arrived at the house, two police cars were already there to greet him, along with a pair of confused officers and a very pissed off mother and daughter, still in their dressing gowns.
Leighton’s breath condensed in the air. “I am the legal owner of this property”, he said, handing the police officers the titles of deed. “This family have been trespassing here for the last week without my consent. It’s time for them to leave.”
“Murderer”, Pandora shouted, even though she was still eyeing him up.
“Fuck off back to New York”, Alexis added, the first of the day’s cigarettes in her mouth. Around them, a hastily woken news team filmed the scene as it broke.
The two police officers looked at each other. Pandora and Alexis looked at each other. Isabella looked at them all from her bedroom window.
“Come on”, one of them said, turning to the women. “I reckon it’s time to get your stuff.”
“This is my house”, Alexis shouted, “And that man killed my husband.”
She pointed her cigarette at him viciously. “He should be in prison.”
“A statement please, Leighton.”
One of the journalists thrust a microphone at Leighton, equally viciously.
“You’re going to turn these people out on the street?” said another. “That’s not very humanitarian of you, is it?”
There was pandemonium. Alexis and Pandora refused to leave and the police officers didn’t feel comfortable attempting to eject them, especially not when it was all being broadcast live on TV. They were conscious of making sure they did the right thing, and completely unsure what that thing should be. In the end, they phoned for back up, and specific advise on how best to handle the situation.
“A comment, please, Mr. Tempest.”
“Is it true your net worth is in the region of sixteen billion dollars?”
“Let them have their house, Leighton. Haven’t you already got enough?”
“Did you kill Philip Mandrake De Vries, Leighton? Did you kill your father?”
“Please”, Leighton said eventually. “This is a difficult time for everyone. I have decided to move into Chesapeake Estate and use it as my base of operations for the foreseeable future. If the Logan family were to remain, it would be a conflict of interest.”
“Are you having an affair with your stepsister?”
The question rang in Leighton’s ears.
“He fucked her”, Pandora said, her face turned into a snarl. “I saw them.”
“Disgusting”, Alexis added. “Your own flesh and blood.”
Leighton hung his head. Alexis was intelligent enough to know that they two of them were not related in any way, she was just being intentionally inflammatory.
“This isn’t going to look good, Leighton. Accused of conspiring to kill your own father, now ejecting your new family out onto the streets. An affair with your stepsister, it’s positively Shakespearean.”
Leighton turned to the police officers. He could see more flashing lights coming up the drive.
“Enough”, he said. “This is private property. Do your job and remove them.”
“I am not going anywhere”, Pandora protested, while Alexis stormed inside, desperate to get to the drinks cabinet and fill up a holdall bag with gin before the police dragged her away from her former property, kicking and screaming.
That was essentially what they had to do, and it took six police officers to put into action. They were threatened with arrest, almost handcuffed and then finally convinced to leave of their own accord based on the negative consequences if they didn’t, and the fact that it actually looked so much better on TV if they did. To facilitate the process, the three girls were loaded into the back of a police car which gave the impression they were actually being arrested, Isabella the only one amongst them happy to go quietly.
When they had finally been removed, Leighton turned his attention to the journalists that had somehow remained. He asked them kindly to leave, which they responded to with a barrage of questions of their own. Eventually they had to be escorted to the perimeter of the property by the police, where the huge gates that Pandora had been more than happy to open to them last night, were slammed in their faces and locked.
Under instruction by Detective Foster, who had found out about the bedlam that morning, the three Logan girls were brought directly to the police station.
Alexander curled up at Leighton’s feet. Finally there was silence. Part one of his plan had already been actioned, part two was to get Gracey out of prison and bring her home.
“Come on boy”, he said, ruffling the dog’s hair. “Let’s go and see what we can find.”
Chapter 29
While Gracey whiled away the hours in a police station holding cell, waiting for someone to tell her exactly what was going on, Leighton began organizing everything he could in her defence. Through his legal team, he was able to find out when Gracey’s case was to be heard (tomorrow morning), what they planned to do with her in the interim (nothing) and how much her bail would likely be set at, if granted at all (over a million dollars, and likely higher due to Leighton’s public profile). He organised a full forensic sweep of the house and grounds, while preparing a team of scientific and independent criminal experts to be kept on a retainer for when a trial was announced, and he paid a team of private investigators to look as closely as possible at all three Logan girls. Leighton assumed Pandora to be the guilty party, intentionally distracting the focus away from herself and onto himself and Gracey, and he was prepared to leave no stone unturned in proving it. He wouldn’t have been surprised if all three were guilty, however.
He tried to make contact with Gracey again, but was only able to do so through Alex. Detective Foster had forbidden him access on grounds that he was still a suspect in collaboration, despite Esmeralda’s testimony that proved otherwise. There was little else he could do once all that was in place, other than wait, and hope for the best. Leighton knew bail was granted in only ten percent of murder cases, but he didn’t want to think of what might happen if it wasn’t. If he had more time, he might be able to present an adequate case of defence to the state prosecutor, but to get reports back on tests would take too much time. The state was keen to push the case through as quickly as possible, which was why it had been bumped up to be seen tomorrow morning. Murder cases never usually took more than seventy two hours to bring to court. It was standard procedure. Gracey would be put in front of the prosecutor in the morning and be charged with murder.
It had been a crazy few weeks. Leighton never expected any of this at all. He had come to say goodbye to a man that never knew him. To look him in the face, once and for all. He hadn’t expected to be arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder his father, nor fall in love with someone who was about to be charged for the crime. Neither had he expected to be the sole recipient of everything that his father owned. That almost confused Leighton more than anything else at all. Why did his father, who had spent almost twenty years in the company of his wife, leave everything he owned to him? Sure he hated her, but did he hate her more than he hated Leighton, to deny her his money and give it all to him? There was something he was missing.
When the doorbell went, he left it, expecting it to be another team of journalists intent on getting full access to the exclusive, messed-up story. Almost immediately afterwards his phone rang, and a quick glance at the display told him who it was.
“What are you doing here, Esmeralda?”
“Well seeing as you’ve insisted on not coming home, what kind of PA would I be if I didn’t bring that home to you”, she said, pushing past him and into the house. “That, and I thought you might need the company. A big house all on your own. You’ll go mad.”
“I wasn’t sure you still wanted to be my PA after what happened between us.”
Esmeralda rolled her eyes. If she wasn’t still his PA, what chance did she have of winning him back? She knew she looked good too. The flight took less time than she did to get ready, and she knew the value of presenting Leighton with what he had already decided to pass on. She’d chased him, but now she was prepared to let him do the leg work. Esmeralda was just as proactive as her panty-melting boss.
“And I’m not on my own, I have Alexander, he’s been very faithful. I expect that apart from the real murderer, he’s the only one who knew what happened.”
Esmeralda handed him her coat and walked towards where she guessed the kitchen was.
“Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me why you are really here?”
Esmeralda sighed and ignored him. The kitchen was the third room she came to. It was always her favorite in any house. Closest to the food, always warm, never far away from the wine. She ran her finger along the large dining table and slumped down into the huge wooden arm chair that took up space at the end of it. Leighton smiled at her. He knew there was a reason why he’d fallen for her. She was cocky and arrogant when she wanted to be. Pissy and moany too, but right now she was showing her better side. Esmeralda dumped the jiffy bag onto the table nonchalantly. “Red”, she said. “Something full bodied.”
Donkey Doubled: A Twin Stepbrother Menage Romance Page 32
