“Nothing, I guess. Very well.” I stand up and go looking for him. He’s right where he should be, by the front door. “Hunter, I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
He comes to his feet. “Of course.”
“I’ve been investigating my parents’ murders. That’s why Charlie and Cristina are here.”
“I heard some rumblings about it, and of course I couldn’t help but overhear when Ms. Sanchez showed up.”
Darn. I’ll have to be more careful when I discuss the case. “Both Cristina and Charlie suggested you might be able to help us analyze the evidence. Would you mind?”
“No. Not at all. Let me get Alicia to cover the front door. She’s monitoring the security equipment.” Once he takes care of that detail, we head to the evidence room.
As soon as she spots him, Cristina’s eyes light up. Glad I made one person happy, because once Steele finds out, he’s going to be upset. No matter how much he denies it, he’s a bit jealous of our security guard. And when he discovers I’ve brought Stone into the investigation, he’s likely to go ballistic.
As soon as I firmly close the door behind Stone, I turn to Charlie. “Could you catch up Hunter on the facts of the case?”
“Sit over here, Chief,” Charlie says, patting a spot next to him on the settee.
Great. He’s calling Hunter “chief,” the same moniker he uses for Steele. Strike two.
After handing him the binder that contains all the known information surrounding the murders, Charlie walks him through the evidence. When he gets to the gruesome details, I ask Madison to leave. I don’t want her suffering nightmares again.
I’m proud of her when, without a single word of protest, she walks out of the room.
Once Hunter’s caught up, we spend the next hour discussing the evidence.
“Who was at the house that night?” he asks.
“My mother and father and Madison,” I answer.
“And your grandfather showed up in the middle of the night?”
“Yes.”
His brow furrows. “Wasn’t he on a business trip?”
“Supposedly.”
“Did he return early?” He flips through the pages in the binder. “That doesn’t appear to be noted here.”
“He must have, because the following morning he picked me up at my friend’s house where I’d stayed for a sleepover.”
“You’ll need to verify his whereabouts that night.”
“You’re right. I’ll have Charlie look into it.” We should have thought of it before Hunter suggested it, but with so much evidence to pore over, we hadn’t zeroed in on Gramps’s location that night. “For the sake of argument, let’s just say Madison saw him. But why was he there? You don’t drop in on someone that late at night.”
“Great question,” Hunter says.
“Maybe somebody who was there that night rang him up,” Cristina suggests.
“It couldn’t have been my mother. Not when she was being . . . abused. And my father wouldn’t have done it either. Not when he was the one abusing her.”
“Let me see those pictures again,” Hunter demands, sticking out his arm.
Cristina hands them to him.
He organizes them into various groups. First the photos of the entire room. Then the pictures of its different areas, and finally the close-up shots of my mother and father. The ones I find difficult to view.
“How did the newspaper get these pictures?” Hunter asks.
“If I had to guess, somebody got paid off,” Charlie says. “I can’t imagine they would have allowed a newspaper photographer to take pictures of a crime scene.”
Hunter leans over so his nose is practically buried in one of the photos. He taps it. “Your father’s body was moved. See how his feet angle the bed?” He taps another. “But in this one he’s parallel.”
“Maybe the way the photographer took the shot made it look that way,” I propose.
“Maybe, but my gut tells me differently.” He pats his very tight stomach, which Cristina does not miss. “I’d bet my bottom dollar that somebody moved him.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Do you have a magnifying glass, Charlie?”
The detective gives Hunter the fish eye. “Who do you think I am, Charlie Chan?”
I have to smile at him. “Olivia has a lamp she uses for her crafts,” I say. “It has a magnifying glass.”
“Go get it, please,” Hunter says.
When I return, we all gather around Hunter while he examines the photos in question. “There!” What was not apparent to the plain eye is quite obvious under the magnifying glass. My father’s body was shifted.
“Well, I’ll be,” Charlie says. “You’re right. He was moved.”
“Yeah, but the question is who did it and why,” Hunter states.
“Could have been a crime scene investigator,” Cristina suggests.
Hunter’s annoyed glare drills Cristina. “You know very well, Ms. Sanchez, they’re not allowed to move the bodies until everything has been photographed and evidence has been collected.”
Cristina bristles. Darn. I hope they don’t end up disliking each other. It would make things even more difficult than they already are.
“My grandfather. It had to have been him,” I interject, hoping to defuse the tension.
“He was there the morning after the murders?” Hunter asks.
“Yes. He was the one the police called. He was the closest next of kin.” Other than Maddy and me, and we were too young to be notified about the murders.
“They wouldn’t have allowed him into the room,” Hunter says, frowning.
“You didn’t know my grandfather. If he’d wanted into the room, a team of wild horses couldn’t have kept him out.”
“But why would he move the body?” Cristina asks.
“Maybe he saw something that he didn’t want entered into evidence,” Hunter says.
“Because?” Cristina asks.
“My guess?” Hunter says. “It would put him or someone else at the scene of the crime. Someone he wanted to protect.”
“But who?” I ask.
“That is the question. And once you find the answer, you’ll be a lot closer to discovering your parents’ murderer.”
Chapter 19
Trenton
When I get to Madrigal’s house, Alicia Carson, Madison’s bodyguard, is posted at the door, which means Maddy must be home. I head to my room and unpack my belongings. Once I’m done, I return to the foyer in search of intel. Alicia would know Madrigal’s location. “Where’s Ms. Berkeley?”
“The evidence room.” I’d known about it, of course, as Madrigal had described it to me Thursday night. But with everything going on, I hadn’t had a chance to check it out. Eager to see her, I walk toward what was formerly the parlor.
There I find Madrigal, Cristina, Madison, Charlie . . . and Hunter Stone. What the hell?
Madison stands at the ready in front of one of the boards. After Charlie blurts out a few words, she scribbles madly. Cristina writes something on another one and stands back to study all of them.
Madrigal’s seated in one of the settees, a coffee table in front of her with a book of some kind resting on it. But what grabs my attention is the gorgeous son of a bitch rubbing shoulders with her. Hunter Stone. They’re flipping pages, whispering about something in the book. Cozy does not begin to describe them.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Madrigal’s head comes up. “Trenton. You’re home.”
Everyone in the room stops what they’re doing to stare at me.
“It’s after six. Where else would I be?”
She walks up to me, places her dainty hand on my chest, and shoves me out the door. “You can’t be in here.”
I allow her to exile me to the corridor. No sense making a scene in front of everyone. “Why the hell not?”
She crosses her arms across her chest in a move I’ve come to know very well. Whatever
she’s going to say, I’m not going to like. “I’ve decided to conduct the investigation without your help. I need to do this on my own.”
I snort. “On your own? There were four people in there with you, including that bastard Stone!” I yell.
“Will you hush?” She grabs my hand and leads me toward the screened-in porch where I first proposed we move in together. Could that really have been only a week ago? So much has happened since then. But that plan’s gone up in smoke, burned to cinders by Mitch’s case, the need to establish my own law practice, and now Madrigal’s determination to exclude me from the investigation into her parents’ murders.
“Hunter’s helping us with the evidence. His assistance has been incalculable. Between him and Charlie, we have a new theory of the crime.”
“Such as?”
She tosses her head. “I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Won’t. I want to do this on my own, Steele. Can’t you understand that?”
“You’re shutting me out of your parents’ murder investigation?”
“Yes, I am.” I’ve never seen her this adamant.
“Why?”
“You ordered Charlie to keep the detective’s file from me. Did you think I would never find out?”
“You’ve seen what’s in that file. I wanted to protect you.”
“I don’t need protection. You knew how important that information was to me, and yet you asked him not to hand over the folder.”
Time and time again, she’s told me she wants to stand on her own. I took that choice away when I kept the file from her. The look on her face tells me I’m losing her, and I have no one to blame but myself. I breathe in and out. Hard. The damage to our relationship is right there in her eyes. But it’s not in my nature to give up without a fight. “I can help. You know I can.”
“Not going to happen. You’d be in there calling the shots. And I’d never know if the decisions came from you or me. It’s important I solve this. Besides, you have enough to worry about with Mitch, setting up your new office, and getting new clients. You don’t need any more on your plate. Can’t you see that?”
I’ve been pushed aside. That’s what I see. But I’m not going to make a big deal of it. She’s dug in and not about to change her mind. I’ll have to wait until an opportunity comes along, because I sure as hell am not ceding my spot to Hunter Stone. “Fine. When will dinner be served?”
“Half an hour or so.”
“I’ll be in my room.” The room she assigned to me. Not the one we’ve been using for the past couple of nights. If I’m going to seethe, I want to do it in private. “Got some calls to make.”
“Okay,” she says in a pained whisper. Her decision to shut me out comes with a price. I’m hurting, but so is she.
At dinner, to which Charlie’s been invited, they purposefully don’t discuss her parents’ case. Cristina and Madrigal share news about law school friends. Madison asks Charlie a million questions about his investigative work, and he’s more than happy to answer. I’m glad to see her interested in something else besides horses. At least that handsome bastard is not seated at the table. He’s gone back to his duties as guard, as well he should, since that’s all he is.
After dinner, Charlie leaves, and Madison and Cristina head upstairs, which leaves Madrigal and me alone in the living room. The room exudes Southern gentility with its French doors and lacy curtains, vintage sofas and cream antique chairs. I think far enough ahead to lock the doors behind us. Madrigal waits patiently on one of the couches for me to make my move. Going by her staccato breathing, she knows what’s coming.
I pull her into my arms and ravish her mouth. She doesn’t protest as I take things vertical. I give thanks she’s wearing a skirt as my hand rides up her bare thigh to her mons. When I circle her pearl, she moans and writhes beneath me. She knows what I’m doing, claiming her, proving she’s mine in the most primitive of ways. But when things get a little too hot and heated between us, she pushes me away. “We have to stop. Anyone can see through those French doors.”
She’s right. Only sheer lace curtains cover the damn things.
With a groan, I come upright and head for the bar cart. “Want a drink?”
“No, thank you.” Polite as always. It was one of the traits that appealed to me when I first met her. She’s always been a lady. Prim and proper in public. A sex kitten in the bedroom. After dropping a couple of ice cubes and pouring two fingers of the Macallan Fine Oak into a tumbler, I turn back to her. “I’m going to put down a deposit on that nearby property.”
Her eyes widen. “Do you need to do that now? You have enough on your plate, Steele.”
“If I don’t, somebody may snap it up.”
“What will you do with it?” When we first talked about it, before everything went to hell in a handbasket, she wanted us to own the property jointly. But her question clearly signals she’s changed her mind.
“Inspect the house. If it’s worth saving, I will. If not, I’ll tear it down and build something new.”
Her eyes mist over. “I hope you won’t do that unless there’s good cause. I love that place.”
“I’ll hire an engineer and see what he has to say.” I swirl the ice in the glass. “I’m thinking about selling my apartment in Crystal City.”
“Why? Until your new property is habitable, you’ll need somewhere to live.”
In other words, I won’t be living here much longer. If that doesn’t spell doom for our relationship, I don’t know what does. How could everything have gone so wrong so fast between us? I clear my throat and get ready to take the hit like a man. “Are you saying we’re through?”
Her eyes mist over with tears. She pats the sofa cushion next to her. “Please sit.”
A punch to the gut, that request. She’s fallen for the gorgeous bastard, and she’s about to say good-bye.
“I’ve been thinking about your proposal that we move in together. We can’t continue as we have been in the last week. Not in the long run. That’s very clear to me.”
This is it. Here it comes. There’s the door. Don’t let it slam you on the way out. Taking the seat next to her, I drape my arm over the back of the couch and wait for the ax to fall.
“Madison and I have been talking.”
Not where I thought she was going with the discussion, but okay. “About?”
“She doesn’t want to commute back and forth to school. So when it’s back in session, she wants to board there during the week. She’d asked Gramps, but he wouldn’t allow it. Probably because he wanted to keep tabs on her. Given her medications, it makes sense.”
“And you’re considering this?”
“Yes. She’s been taking her meds for the last several days. Well, except for the one pill she says makes her feel like a zombie. And she’s doing well. She promised she would stick to her medication. She knows if anything happens at school, I’ll yank her out and bring her home. She really wants this, Steele.”
Is she seeking my counsel? From the look of expectation on her face, it appears so. But I don’t want to overstep if she’s not. “Are you asking for my opinion?”
“Yes.”
Suspicion is in my nature, so I have to ask, “You’re not just throwing me a bone because you shut me out of the investigation?”
Her tinkling laugh rings out. “I’m not that devious, Steele. I truly want to know what you think.”
“Okay.” If that’s the case, I owe her the best advice I can give her. One obvious issue jumps out at me. “What about boys? Aren’t you afraid she’ll sneak one into her room?”
“It’s an all-girls school, and Philippe will be two hours away at the University of Virginia. Too far away to drop in.”
I snort. “You don’t know the mind or sexual drive of a college boy. A two-hour drive is nothing to a young man in lust.”
She tosses her head, which sets her dark hair dancing around her shoulders. I want to tangle my hand through t
hat mass of curls, pull her onto me, and brand her as mine.
“They have a very good security system, Steele. And iron bars on each window.”
“Now that’s something that can be counted on.”
“So you think it would be okay to let her do it?”
I twirl a loose curl that’s fallen across her face around my finger and breathe in her scent. My cock lets me know in no uncertain terms what it wants. “You’re her guardian now, so it’s your decision. But if it were my younger sister, I’d at least give her a chance to prove herself.”
Her limpid gaze finds me. She’s not unaffected by my touch. But then I’m not playing fair.
“I thought so too. I’m going to say yes.”
“Madison will be thrilled, I’m sure.” Letting go of her hair, I toss back what remains of the Macallan.
“She’d come home on Saturdays and Sundays, of course. If for no other reason than to ride Marigold. I’d be home during the weekends as well. But during the week, I was wondering, could I live with you in your Crystal City apartment?”
My heart stutters. Did she just ask me if she could move in with me? The thought of having her all to myself five days a week is everything I’ve dreamed of. Apparently the ax is not about to fall after all. “Yes, sweetheart, you most certainly could.”
“Thank you, Steele.” Her smile is just as sweet as the rest of her.
“You’re welcome, Madrigal.” Something momentous just happened. Something that will set the course for our relationship—and yes, there will be a relationship, at least for the near future. “In the meantime . . .” I cup her face in my hands, kiss her lips, nibble at her throat.
“Not here. I know a better place.”
“Your room?”
“Gramps’s bedroom. I haven’t been in there since he passed away. It’s about time I was. But I don’t want anyone to see us heading there, so we’ll go up the back way.”
She gets to her feet, as do I. “Back way?”
“Yes.” Taking me by the hand, she leads me through the French doors and along the outside of the mansion. “I’m sorry to say that at least one of my male ancestors carried on an extramarital affair.”
Shattered Trust (Shattered #2) Page 12
