by Sharon Sala
Talia eased herself up and went inside. Only after the cool air hit her did she realize how good it felt. “Can I help you do anything?” she asked.
Leigh looked pale and shaken. Watching them dig her husband’s grave had been gutting.
“You’ve already given me something wonderful. You brought joy back into my son’s life. As tragic as Stanton’s loss is for this family, you are the gift that none of us saw coming.”
Talia hugged her. “You’re going to make me cry again. Seems like these days that’s all I do.”
“These days will pass,” Leigh said softly. “They won’t pass quickly, but they will pass, and we will be all the stronger for it when they’re gone.”
Nineteen
Riordan was worried about Clayton’s revelation being too good to be true until he, too, saw the evidence Andrew Bingham had produced. He didn’t care how it had happened, because he now had what he needed, and instead of putting one member of the family behind bars, he was going to put two.
“We appreciate your honesty and your good intentions in coming forward with this evidence,” Riordan said. “I have your phone number. You’ve given your deposition. If there are any other questions that arise, we’ll contact you.”
Andrew nodded. So much for leaving the country right now; however, Florida would be a good second choice.
“Will I have to testify or anything?” he asked.
“I seriously doubt this will go to trial. Purposefully going after a gun shows intent. Cleaning the gun afterward and wiping it clean of prints speaks to an understanding of guilt. And the victim was run down like prey and then shot in the back, which eliminates the excuse that it was an accident. No matter what reasoning the killer can come up with, it will never excuse premeditated murder. However, thanks to you, my job is almost done. The rest will be up to the courts.”
“So I’m free to leave?” Andrew asked.
Riordan nodded.
Andrew straightened his jacket as he stood, and then shook their hands.
“Gentlemen, I won’t say this has been a pleasure, but it has been enlightening.”
He left with his laptop, gratefully leaving the damning evidence behind. It was time to plot a course for sunny Florida.
Riordan looked at Chief Clayton and grinned. “What do you say we go arrest ourselves a killer?”
“I appreciate the offer to ride along. I’m ready when you are. Where do you think he is right now?”
“I checked. He’s at work.”
Clayton nodded. “Then let’s do it.”
* * *
Blake had just finished a call to one of their overseas subsidiaries, trying to calm the panic and uncertainty rolling through every aspect of their financial empire. He glanced at the clock, then thought about seeing if Charles was free for lunch. Things had been a little strained between them since the incident at the lake house, and he wanted to make sure his son knew he had his back.
He was a little put out with his Uncle Jack for behaving as if Justin no longer existed. Despite what he’d done, he was still family, and then he remembered they’d done the same thing to Leigh with far less reason.
Deciding a face-to-face invitation was a better choice than a phone call, Blake left his office to find Charles.
He stopped at his secretary’s desk.
“Connie, I’ll be out to lunch for a couple of hours,” Blake said. “I don’t have any afternoon appointments, but if there’s an issue or another call from one of the companies, have them call my cell, okay?”
“Yes, sir. Have a good lunch,” Connie said.
“Thank you,” Blake said, and walked out into the hall, then headed left to Charles’s office.
This was Charles’s first day back at work after the fight with Nita, and he was still self-conscious about the scabby streaks on his face and neck. When his father walked in, he was genuinely glad to see him.
“Hey, Dad. What’s up?”
“I came to see if you wanted to go to lunch with me.”
Charles grinned.
“Yes. Absolutely. Is Uncle Jack coming, too?”
“I haven’t asked him yet. Do you want him to tag along?”
“As long as no one talks about the splash we made on the national news, I’m good,” Charles said.
“I’m so sorry all of that is happening,” Blake said.
“So am I,” Charles said, as he began logging out of his computer and locking up his desk. “Sometimes I can’t believe all this chaos is real. One day we were just doing our thing, and then all of a sudden we’re caught up in the middle of a nightmare.”
Blake frowned. “Well, a man was murdered. That’s what started it.”
Charles shrugged. “But we didn’t know him.”
“Well, actually the rest of us did, just not you.”
Jack walked in at that moment and patted Blake on the back. “I’m going to lunch. Do you two want to come along?”
Charles glanced at his dad and nodded.
Blake got the message. “Sure, Uncle Jack. We’d love to.”
They walked down the hall to the elevator and moments later exited into the lobby of Wayne Industries.
A janitor was using a floor polisher on the white marble tiles. The guard in the lobby was on the phone, but he quickly hung up and smoothed a hand down the front of his uniform when he saw them coming. A pizza delivery boy was coming in the front entrance with a half-dozen boxes of pizza. Some people were obviously staying in for lunch.
Then Charles saw the police cars pulling up at the front of the building and pointed.
“Hey, Dad. What’s going on?”
Blake sighed. “Who the hell knows,” he muttered.
Jack frowned. “Does this shit never end?”
They watched Constable Riordan, Chief Clayton and a trio of officers enter the lobby, but when the officers suddenly fanned out as they approached, Blake’s gut knotted.
“Dad?” Charles said as he took a step back, his voice suddenly pitched higher than normal.
“We’re fine,” Jack said.
Blake wasn’t so sure. This was too reminiscent of Justin’s arrest. What the fuck did the cops know?
The lobby guard looked nervous, but he stayed behind the desk.
Riordan gave a nod, and the officers headed for the Waynes.
Blake saw the handcuffs and panicked. What’s going on?” he said.
Jack Wayne glared and then shouted, “I demand to know the meaning of this.”
Riordan produced the arrest warrant. “Jeffrey Jack Wayne, you are under arrest for the murder of Stanton Youngblood. You have—”
Blake gasped. “You have to be kidding!”
Charles was shaking, afraid they were all going to be arrested before this nightmare was over.
“You have my alibi. You have nothing to back this up. Blake, call our lawyer. Now!” Jack demanded.
Riordan finished reading Jack his Miranda rights as the officers handcuffed him.
“Actually, we do have proof,” Riordan went on. “A most revealing video of you less than an hour before Stanton Youngblood was murdered running into the lake house to get a rifle, and then a follow-up video of you coming back forty-five minutes later, when you sat down and calmly cleaned the rifle before putting it back in the gun case.”
The shock on Jack’s face was obvious. “You don’t! You can’t! How—”
Blake was shaking. “Is this true? You have proof?”
“Yes. It was actually turned in to my office first, so we’ve both seen it,” Clayton offered.
Blake turned on his uncle in disbelief.
“From the start, you tore into all of us, trying to pin us down with alibis, making it look like all the trouble we were in was be
cause of something one of us had done, when all the fucking time it was you? Why? Just tell me why?”
Jack shrugged. “He ruined everything.”
“But it wasn’t that big an investment!” Blake cried. “We’ve lost far more money on bigger projects before, and one way or another we’ve always recouped it.”
“I guess you may as well hear the truth from me, rather than hearing it in court. I transferred money from offshore accounts, and from accounts the board never got a chance to approve, and I manipulated some assests through East Coast Lenders in order to buy up the loans from the bank and force those foreclosures.”
“But you aren’t in charge of all that! I am,” Blake said. “I handle the investments. How did you do that without me knowing?”
Jack lifted his chin in a defiant gesture.
“How do you think I did it? I forged your damn signature, you idiot. I would have put the money back. But then Leigh and her hillbilly husband blocked the project when they made sure the last two pieces of land we needed were unavailable, and with the annual audits less than three months away, there was no way to cover up a ten million dollar shortfall without major embarrassment.”
Charles’s shock morphed from fear to disbelief and then anger.
“You murdered a man because you were going to be embarrassed? We have billions. It would have been a simple matter of moving money around!” he cried.
Jack glared. “But I would still have been removed as CEO of Wayne Industries. It was the principle of the thing!” he shouted.
“I’ve heard enough,” Riordan said, and led Jack Wayne away.
Blake started to take a step, and then staggered.
Charles caught his father by the elbow and quickly guided him out of the lobby to his car. “Get in, Dad.”
Blake obeyed without comment.
Charles drove all the way back to the mansion in silence. He couldn’t look at his father, knowing there were tears on his face. That wasn’t how their world worked.
“We’re here,” he said, as he parked beneath the portico.
Blake fumbled with the door handle before he finally got it open, and then he followed Charles inside.
Frances was carrying a fresh bouquet of flowers to the table in the foyer as they entered.
“Oh, Mr. Blake, Mr. Charles, did Cook know you were coming home for lunch?”
“We didn’t come home to eat,” Charles said. “Are my aunts here?”
Frances nodded.
“Would you please ask them to join Dad and me in the library?”
“Yes, of course. Do you want anything to eat or drink?”
“Not now, Frances, but thank you,” Charles said, and led his father down the hall and into the library.
Blake sat in the nearest chair as Charles headed to the bar. A minute later Blake took the shot of whiskey Charles offered him and downed it neat.
“What are we going to do?” Charles asked.
Blake didn’t respond. He didn’t even act like he’d heard him.
Charles tried not to panic. It wasn’t like his dad to be so indecisive. “All right. We’ll talk about it when your sisters arrive,” he said.
Blake leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
A few minutes later Charles heard footsteps on the stairs and promptly poured Aunt Fiona a shot of whiskey, neat, and Aunt Nita a glass of wine. They were going to need it.
Fiona was fresh from a massage and still in her dressing gown as she sauntered into the library.
Nita was still in a state of defiance, and was experimenting with makeup and hair color. She looked ghastly to Charles, but since he was still pissed off at her, he was secretly pleased that she looked like a tramp.
“What’s going on?” Fiona asked, and then frowned when Charles handed her the whiskey.
Nita took the wine without comment, but her senses were on alert. Blake looked like shit, and the air was so charged with energy she could feel it. “Blake? What’s happening?” she asked.
“Dad doesn’t feel well,” Charles said. “Uncle Jack has been arrested for that man’s murder. The authorities have video proof of him going into the lake house to get the rifle, then bringing it back and cleaning it later.”
Fiona moaned and covered her face.
Nita frowned.
“There was video equipment set up at the lake house?” she asked.
Charles shrugged. “It seems so.”
“Did you know?” she asked.
Charles rolled his eyes. “Hardly.”
Nita downed her wine like it was water and then set the glass down so hard it shattered.
“You know he did that,” she muttered.
Charles’s shoulders slumped. She was talking about Andrew, saying that Andrew had been the one who turned their uncle in. “Yes.”
“Well, shit,” Nita said. “Why didn’t he try to blackmail us with it? He knows we would have paid.”
“Maybe he was afraid it would shorten his life,” Charles muttered, thinking of the people recently targeted by the family.
Nita sighed. “Who knew the slick bastard had a streak of honesty? But more to the point, where does this leave us?”
“I don’t know, but I need you to see to Dad. I have to go call the lawyer and let him know Uncle Jack has been arrested.”
The sisters looked at each other and then at their brother.
“What’s wrong with him?” Fiona said.
“He just quit talking,” Charles said, and headed to the office to make the call.
* * *
It was late in the evening.
The Pharaoh brothers were gone. Jesse was feeding the chickens, and Bowie was at the barn when Constable Riordan drove up to the Youngblood home.
Leigh was in the kitchen making supper, and Talia was in the living room, stretched out on the sofa and looking out the window. “Leigh! Someone just drove up!” she called.
Leigh wiped her hands and turned down the fire on the chicken she was frying. She saw the vehicle through the window and recognized the constable’s car.
“It’s Constable Riordan,” she said, and hurried to open the door just as he began to knock. “Good evening,” she said.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Youngblood. I know it’s late in the evening for a house call, but I have some important information.”
“Come in,” Leigh said, and then introduced Talia. “Constable Riordan, you remember Talia Champion.”
Riordan nodded at Talia. “Yes, I do, and may I say how happy I am to see you alive and healing,” he said.
“I don’t remember your help in rescuing me, but I am very grateful,” she said.
“Have a seat,” Leigh said.
“No, no, I won’t stay that long, but Chief Clayton and I both agreed that it was only proper that you hear this news from one of us. And since I was on my way back to the office, I volunteered.”
The back door slammed, and then they heard footsteps moving quickly through the house.
“That’s Bowie,” Leigh said, with a smile. “He enters and exits a house just like his daddy.”
“What’s going on?” Bowie asked.
“I came to tell you that we arrested the man who killed Stanton today. He confessed after the fact, but it didn’t matter. We have proof.”
Leigh’s chin came up, as if she was bracing herself for yet one more blow. “So it wasn’t Justin after all.”
“No, ma’am, it was Jack Wayne.”
Leigh blinked. It was her only physical reaction.
Bowie felt blindsided. He’d laid the steak knife they’d taken away from Justin across that man’s plate. It was a good thing he hadn’t known then. He would probably have put it in his back, instead.
“Did he say wh
y?” Leigh asked.
Riordan wished she hadn’t asked that, but he wasn’t going to lie. It would all come out later anyway.
“It appears Wayne forged Blake’s signature to embezzle money from quite a few accounts in the family company. It was to help facilitate a series of questionably legal foreclosures that removed a number of local homeowners from property the Waynes’ partners in the development of a resort here on the mountain wanted, and he was angry that when Stanton paid off your relatives’ loans and protected two key pieces of land, he made the resort impossible. Once the investors pulled out, his financial misdeeds were going to be found out.”
Leigh was stunned, shaken, but also filled with disbelief. “I can’t imagine the board would have had him arrested.”
Riordan sighed. “But they would have removed him as CEO, and he couldn’t have stood the embarrassment.”
Leigh moaned. “Killing Stanton wouldn’t have changed any of that! Oh my God. He did it out of spite?”
Riordan shrugged. “I can’t say exactly what was in his head, but I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Bowie saw his mother’s eyes lose focus, and then she was falling.
He caught her before she hit the floor. Despite the pain, Talia quickly got up from the sofa so Bowie could lay Leigh down. She went to get a wet washcloth. She wrung it out, folded it up, and came back and put it on Leigh’s forehead.
In that vulnerable position, Leigh looked more like the teenager who’d run away with the boy she loved than the woman she’d become.
“I’m sorry,” Riordan said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Bowie shook his head. “We’ve got this, but thank you for taking the time to come tell us in person.”
The back door banged again, but this time the steps were slower and halting.
“It’s Jesse,” Bowie said.
Leigh was already rousing, and she began trying to sit up. “I just got dizzy. I’m okay,” she said.
“Sit!” Bowie ordered. “I’m going to get you a drink of water.”
Riordan was heartsick for this family on so many levels.
“If there’s nothing I can do to help, then I’ll be getting out of your way,” he said, and let himself out.
