Sex, Lies & Bourbon (Sex and Lies Book 5)

by Kris Calvert

  “Got anything in there for me?” she asked, tilting her neck in pain.

  Reaching in, I pulled out a smaller PX4 Beretta with a gold barrel, loading it before handing it over to her. “Let me get you some ice for your head. Did you call for back up?”

  She nodded.

  “This is crazy. You can’t just shoot whoever shows up,” Lena cried.

  “Be quiet Lena,” I said calmly as I walked behind the bar, filling a plastic bag with ice. “There’s enough making me crazy without you making me crazy.”

  I eased the ice to the base of Ginny’s neck and kissed her on the cheek. I hated seeing her in pain. It was all too much—all of it. “EMTs coming too?” I asked, picking up the house phone. “You need medical.”

  “I’m fine. I am.”

  “You should get that looked at,” Lena offered up.

  Ginny held the ice to her head. “Win, I have back up coming. I want to take everyone in.”

  “Everyone?” Lena asked. “Why?”

  “Why?” Ginny’s voice was laced with anger and sarcasm. I knew she’d had enough. So had I.

  “Just sit there, Lena,” I said waving my gun around. “There’s a lot we need to talk about. Your old-ass fiancé is on my shit list.”

  “What are you talking about Win? You’re acting crazy.”

  “Really?” I pulled the leather book from the back of my waistband. “Ask me what this is, Lena. Ask me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Win. What’s going on?” Ginny’s voice was calm. I was on the verge of losing control and she knew it.

  “This. This is going on,” I said holding the book in front of my face. “I know the truth and it’s time Lena knew it too.”

  “What are you even saying?” Lena asked, the tears now flowing all over again.

  “I think you should explain yourself,” Ginny said, now trying to stand.

  Scraping the underside of my chin with the book, I stared Lena in the eye. “Magnus was having an affair with our mother when she was killed.”

  “That’s a lie and you know it!” Lena shouted. “You don’t want me to be happy, that’s all!”

  “Jesus, that’s not it. Don’t you understand? He wants in. He wants in no matter what. What he doesn’t understand is that it’s just not possible. Tell me what you know, Lena. Tell me now.”

  “Win!” Ginny shouted, trying to break me from my rant.

  Lena straightened herself in the leather seat, looking me dead in the eye. “You don’t care about Winter Haven. Not like me. Not like Maggie. If you did you wouldn’t wait until now to show up.”

  “You’re wrong, Lena.” My calm voice now matched her cool demeanor. “I do care. I just couldn’t deal with Dad, but what I learned last week when I flew in was that Dad was never the person I had to deal with.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lena sobbed. “Of course you had to deal with Dad.”

  I shook my head. “Dad wasn’t a Winterbourne. We are, Lena. We are. Don’t you see?” I said kneeling at her feet. “Magnus doesn’t want you, he wants in.”

  “Stop it. Stop it now!” Lena cried. “You’ve said some hateful things to me in my life, but that was the worst.”

  Putting my explanation to Lena on hold, I turned and watched a barrage of FBI agents burst through the front doors of my home. “FBI!”

  My heart was pounding out of my chest as I rose to greet Agent Knotts and his band of men.

  “Good job, guys.” My voice was deadpan and full of sarcasm. “The dead body isn’t here, it’s down there,” I said pointing behind me. “I’ve got this on lock down. Secure the crime scene in the office and get medical up here for Agent Grace. She’s been injured.”

  Holding her ice bag in one hand and the gun in the other, Ginny groaned. “I’m fine. I’m going with Knotts.”

  “The hell you are,” I said squaring her shoulders. “You’re staying here until a doctor clears you. You probably have a concussion and I know you need stiches.”

  The other agents had moved out of the house to get down to the crime scene and thankfully, an EMT came in with a trauma kit. “You got this?” I asked him as he began to tend to Ginny.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied, lifting the bag of ice from Ginny’s head to take a closer look.

  “Go,” Ginny insisted. “I’m fine. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like shooting Magnus. Let Knotts take the lead. He knows what he’s doing. I promise.”

  I leaned in and kissed her on the lips. There was so much I needed to tell her. So much I hadn’t even come to grips with myself. “I’ll be back.”

  Rushing down the pathway, I wondered what Magnus really knew about my family. After being in the safe room, it was clear my father never knew any of it unless my mother told him. I had a feeling that on her thirty-third birthday, she was sworn to secrecy. Cee Cee was the one to ask, but I’d not seen him all day.

  The flashbulbs were already going off. Knotts stood in front of Piper’s desk observing the scene. Another young agent walked in and back out again. I could hear him retching in the bushes just outside the door.

  Piper Presley was dead. From the look of the wound on her neck, the knife was sharp. I swallowed hard and shook my head. So much death, so much grief.

  “Ginny walked in before the killer had a chance to leave the building. So he knocked her in the head,” I said squatting down to place a finger in the blood from Ginny’s head on the floor.

  “Who knocked her out?” Knotts asked, looking at me and pulling his ringing phone from his pocket. “Knotts,” he answered.

  “What? Did you call for back up?”

  From the tone of his voice, I knew something was wrong.

  “I’ll be there just as soon as I can.”

  He hung up and stared me in the face. “They just found John Lee dead in his house.”

  28

  GINNY

  The EMT looked me over thoroughly, checking my eyes, asking me questions, but mostly just irritating the cockadoody out of me.

  “Keep holding your ice on the back of your neck. I’m afraid you’re going to need stitches.”

  “What?” I groaned. “I don’t have time for that. “I need to get down to the crime scene. This is my investigation for pity’s sake.”

  Feeling dizzy again, I sat back, trying to focus my eyes on the ceiling.

  “Miss Grace?”

  “Agent Grace,” I sighed, correcting him. The last thing I wanted tonight was to be a damsel in distress.

  “Agent Grace, I need to run out to the truck and get another cold pack and the AllaQuix.”

  “What?”

  “It will stop the bleeding on your head. The scalp bleeds something awful and yours is pretty bad.”

  “Fine, fine. Just hustle up and do whatever you gotta do. I’m heading to that crime scene pronto.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he replied, walking out of the room.

  “I’m going to get a towel,” Lena said.

  “No Lena,” I begged. “We need to stay together.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  With a sigh, I leaned my head back again, this time closing my eyes. My blurred vision was improving but not enough to keep the dizziness from muddling my mind. I concentrated on taking deep breaths and wondered if Knotts’ men had picked up John Lee. No matter what the twelve-year-old working the meat wagon had to say about my injuries, I was driving to the Louisville office for Lee’s interrogation.

  “C’mon,” I whispered. Knitting my brow in pain, I was becoming more impatient by the moment. “Let’s go guys.”

  “Lena, what have you done?”

  I blinked hard, pushing myself up in the seat of the old leather chair. Magnus was soaked in blood and water, his white wife-beater clearly visible through the cotton dress shirt drenched in the pink mixture. His body shook, his eyes fixated. The sanguine fluid that covered him was diluted by the rain that dripped from his face and eyela
shes. Still he didn’t blink.

  “Magnus.” I ground the word through my teeth.

  “Oh my God. Are you okay?” Lena cried, coming to his side.

  His lips trembled as he stared past me.

  “Magnus, are you hurt?” Lena asked.

  He whispered an inaudible word, water spitting from his lips.

  “Here.” I tried to hand him the same towel Win had given me—he didn’t move. “Tell me what happened?”

  Magnus stood still, trembling, wet and confused. Wincing from my own pain, I tried unsuccessfully to stand. He moved away from me.

  “Magnus,” Lena cried, holding onto his arm “It’s me. It’s Lena. Are you hurt?”

  “What did you do?”

  “What’s going on?” My voice was quieter, calmer.

  Taking his head into his own hands, he pushed his face together as if he could squeeze whatever was in his mind out by force.

  “Magnus!” Lena shouted, taking him by the hand and moving him from the pool of water and blood that now formed at his feet.

  “Are you hurt?” I managed to ask the question, the room now spinning around me. “Or did you hurt someone else? I want to help you, but you have to let me.”

  “It’s over,” he mumbled.

  “Maggie what are you saying?” Lena asked, walking past me. Picking up the towel on the table, she wiped the water from Magnus’ face.

  “Magnus?” I did my best to follow Lena around the room, my vision blurred, and my neck too sore to maneuver. “What happened?”

  Lena took a cleansing breath and tossed the towel in the corner, a determined look now filled her face. “I like you Ginny,” she said walking in confident strides across the room. “I do. But you can’t stay here. You can’t marry Win. You can’t be part of my family.”

  I surveyed the room and wondered what happened to the EMT who was going to be right back. Where was Win? Why, when I really needed a man, was there not one around? “What are you talking about?” I asked, moving my eyes toward the door of the library to get a better look into the entrance hall.

  “Everyone wants to be a part of this family.”

  Lightning flashed in the night sky and I could see the young EMT lying face down on the stairs leading into Winter Haven. Someone was two for two in the knock-out department tonight.

  Then out of the blue, it happened again. My ears rang and my head split open. It wasn’t until I saw the blurred vision of a candlestick hit the floor that I knew I’d been hit again. My head now lying on the back of the couch, I whispered to Lena, “What have you done?”

  “What needed to be done,” Lena replied. “I cleaned house.”

  I closed my eyes, the pain and dizziness filling my head. I reached into the couch to retrieve the gun Win had given me. “I don’t want to be a part of this family.” My whisper was barely audible.

  “Don’t lie to me!” Lena screamed the words and immediately digressed into a calm, determined character as a smile appeared upon her lips.

  I mumbled something incoherent and turned my head as best I could, hoping to draw their attention away from where I sat. I needed to get the Beretta firmly in my hand.

  “Your work is sloppy, Lena.” I slurred the words calmly.

  “Fuck you, Virginia Grace,” she said now pacing around the room. “You have nothing on me.”

  “You killed Robert and Piper. I can prove it,” I said, intentionally inflaming her guilty mien.

  “Lena.” It was all Magnus managed to say and he said it over and over.

  “You can’t prove anything. You have nothing. I know. I’ve seen your case file,” she said.

  “My father knew what went on here twenty-three years ago. He knew your father killed your mother, Lena.”

  “Of course he did! I watched every moment of it from right there,” she cried pointing to the corner of the library. “He chased her down the stairs, told her he didn’t love her and pulled a knife out of his pocket. I watched him slit her throat. I’ll bet your dad didn’t know that. But that’s okay, because what goes around comes around—and it was time for it to come around.”

  “Lena,” Magnus said again.

  “And before you ask, yes, I knew John Lee was my half brother. Maggie told me.”

  My head beat at a faster pace with my heart as Lena unfolded her story.

  “He was just a little more house-keeping, but I didn’t mind. He was an idiot. Even he didn’t know who the hell he was.” Lena let out a wicked laugh. “I tried to set him up, even gave him fake accounts online, but then you showed up—nosing around, asking questions, being all high and mighty with your FBI badge and my brother in your back pocket.”

  It took everything I had in my body not to pull the gun from the couch and tell her she was under arrest. But standing in front of me was not just one image of Lena. In my blurred vision, there were four of her. I needed to string them both along until Win or Knotts came back to the house.

  “No. No. No.” Magnus held his head, crouching in a chair. “Stop. Please stop.”

  Lena turned to look at a wailing Magnus and I took the opportunity to slide my fingers around the trigger of the gun. I couldn’t see, but I would still shoot if I had to.

  I watched Magus turn to face Lena, who now stood to look him in the eye. “Lena.” Magnus held his arms out to embrace her. “Let’s end this now, darling.”

  “Maggie,” she whined as she walked straight into him, canoodling her head under his chin. My gut told me something was wrong.

  Instinctively, I pulled the gun from my waistband as I watched Magnus Page drop to his knees and grasp his chest. In a last desperate breath, blood spittled from his mouth as he gurgled one last word. “No.”

  I held my gun in the air. “Lena drop the knife.”

  Stone-faced, she took two steps toward me—the knife falling from her fingertips as if it was an unwanted piece of trash.

  “Lena!” Win shouted, rushing into the room.

  “Win!” she cried moving past me and into the arms of her brother.

  I dropped the gun, my head reeling.

  Wailing in Win’s arms, Lena cried. “He killed Mom and Dad both, Win. He killed them all.”

  “Shhhhh,” Win said, rocking his sister back and forth on the rug. “Ginny? Where’s the EMT?”

  I gasped, staring at Lena unable to believe what I’d just witnessed. “Lena just killed—”

  “I did, Win. I killed Magnus. He came after me and I…I just didn’t know what to do so I took the knife from his pocket and shoved it into his body,” she sobbed. “I killed the man I was going to marry. I killed him.”

  Knotts walked in behind Win, taking inventory of the scene. “Holy shit.”

  I dropped my head back on the sofa. My ears rang and everything went dark.

  “Agent Grace, stay with me,” someone shouted in my face. “Get her on the gurney and let’s get her out of here!”

  Prying my eyes open one last time, I looked up and swallowed hard as the tears started to well in my eyes. “Win?” I whispered.

  “I’ll be right behind the wagon. I’m coming to the hospital with you.”

  “Win, your sister.” The words were tight in my throat as my vision faded from blurry to black.

  29

  WIN

  I called out to the only other agent I knew by name besides Knotts. “I need to go to the hospital. I have no idea where my grandfather and the houseman Vernon are. My guess is they went into the storm cellar when the weather kicked up. I’m taking my sister with me to be checked out. You and Knotts control this chaos. I’m counting on you.”

  Allen nodded.

  “No,” Lena cried. “I don’t want to go to the hospital. I’m fine. I’m just…you know…freaked out. I had to…”

  I put my arm around her and kissed her on the head as Agent Knotts walked into the front entrance. “You’ve been through a traumatic event, Lena. You’re probably in shock. Come to the hospital.”

  “Fine,” she agre
ed. “Let me get my purse.”

  “Knotts,” I called out. “You’re in charge.”

  “Thank you sir, but SAC Grace already turned the reins over to me.”

  I realized after I said it, this wasn’t my show. I was supposed to stay out of this case. And yet here I was. Smack dab in the middle of it.

  “Sure,” I replied. “I’m taking one of the cars out here to follow the ambulance in case I need a siren.”

  The wagon was locked and ready to go—the young EMT was not waiting on me. As we drove up the long lane and onto the rural highway, I felt guilty for not being in the back of the ambulance with Ginny. I leaned into the car window, propping up my head with a sigh. “Wanna talk about it?”

  Lena shook her head no.

  “How did you manage to get the knife from him?”

  “He hugged me and I could feel it in his suit jacket. I pulled it out when he confessed to killing Mom and Dad and…I don’t know,” she explained calmly. “I just shoved it into him. I didn’t know it was that sharp or would work that easily.”

  I nodded, rubbing my index and middle finger across my lips still trying to piece it all together. “And he admitted to killing them? And Piper and John Lee?”

  Lena rocked back and forth in the seat. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  I took my eyes off the road for only a moment to look at my sister. The tears had dissipated. She seemed calm—very calm. Even seasoned agents were rattled after discharging their weapon. I worried she was headed for another episode.

  “It’s gotta be open and shut. Open and shut.”

  “What? The case? Maybe,” I replied, keeping a tight tail on the ambulance. “We’ll sort it all out. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  She nodded and let out a heavy sigh. “I just hope all that blood comes out of the oriental rug in the library. You know how that rug just brings the room together.”

  Her comment scared the shit out of me. She was leaving me and heading into another psychotic state. I could see it in her distant eyes.

  We turned into the ER loop of the hospital and I parked in the police spot. “Please!” I shouted, “My sister needs assistance!”