Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“You think he’d kill his own father? His own sister?!” The words felt alien in my mouth. I thought of my own sister, Erin. Nothing in the world could make me hate her.
“I can tell you’ve never been a cop,” Callahan told me. Then his voice softened. “When a woman’s killed, about one time in four it’ll be a family member who did it.”
No. Come on, no way. But then Lorna said something, Miles looked up and just for a moment, the anger in his eyes was open and unguarded. He stormed out, leaving Lorna close to tears.
“Miles wasn’t in the convoy in Mexico, was he?” asked Callahan.
“No,” I said reluctantly. “He had a stomach bug.”
“And he didn’t go on the boat with Russ, either.”
“No…” It was a beautiful spring day but suddenly, I couldn’t feel the sun on my shoulders at all. An icy dread had started to creep through me. I didn’t want it to be real.
“Wanna hear my theory?” asked Callahan. “Miles has been working with Van der Meer for months. The plan was to kill Russ, have Miles take over as CEO, then Miles would sell the company to Van der Meer. They hire the hitmen in Mexico but they fail, thanks to you. Then they get someone to blow up Russ’s boat and this time it works…but then they find out Miles isn’t inheriting the company after all. Russ must have found out they were working together, that’s why he changed his will.”
I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see it. I was determined for this not to be true. “Your theory doesn’t make sense. Why would they try to kill Lorna? If she’s killed, the company would pass to Cody, not Miles.”
I heard a chair creak and imagined Callahan leaning back in smug satisfaction, waiting for me to catch on. But I wasn’t smart like him. “What?” I begged.
“Think it through, cowboy. How old is Cody?”
I looked towards Cody’s room. I could see him through the window, building with Legos. “Nine.”
“Can you inherit a billion- dollar company at the age of nine?”
“No,” I said tiredly. “Some adult would hold it in trust until—”
I broke off.
“I bet you a million dollars,” said Callahan, “that Lorna’s will says Miles holds onto all her assets—including the company—until Cody’s eighteen.”
Oh Christ. The ice had spread through my whole body, now. I struggled for something, anything that would make it not true.
Then I remembered the hug. The way Miles had held Lorna and Cody so tight, just a few minutes ago. No one was that good a liar. Relief flooded through me. “No,” I told Callahan. “He loves her. And I spoke to him at the marina, he really did seem sick.”
“Here’s a funny thing about Miles McBride,” said Callahan. “I’m looking at his school records and do you know what he was good at? I mean off-the-charts good, so good his teachers were pushing him to go into this instead of business?”
“What?” I asked.
“Acting. He even got offered a place at The Hessington School of Performing Arts - that’s like the British Fenbrook Academy.”
And finally, reluctantly, I lowered my instinctive resistance and let the idea in. And the more I thought about it, the more it all made horrible sense. Miles had inherited all of Russ’s people skills. But he’d lost his mother, then been sent away to boarding school in England when he was still young. If he was bitter, resentful…is it possible that he’d grown up to be almost the reverse of Russ, equally charismatic but utterly cold inside?
I closed my eyes. “What do we do?” I asked.
“I can’t do much,” said Callahan. “The bank records I obtained illegally. Can’t use ‘em. I don’t have enough evidence for a warrant. So it’s your call, pal.” He took a deep breath. “Do you tell Lorna that her brother’s trying to kill her?”
25
LORNA
I’d gone down to my office to try to get some work done. But I could feel the pull of the photo through the wood of the desk. After an hour, I finally gave in, hauled open the drawer and grabbed it.
I stared into Maria’s eyes. Why? Why had my dad done that? She was beautiful: had it just been lust? Or something else?
A noise in front of me. I looked up to find JD standing in the doorway. I slapped the photo face-down on the desk. “What’s up?”
He stepped slowly into the room and shut the door behind him. His eyes went to the photo, then to me. “Nothing that can’t wait. What’s that?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. An old photo.”
JD sat down across from me and pinned me with those soulful blue eyes, patient but firm. I held out for about four seconds before I gave in. I flipped over the photo and told him everything I’d learned in Poland. “I don’t get…” I leaned my elbows on the desk and ran my fingers through my hair, staring at the photo. “Why do men cheat?”