Watching Alex and Cindy stare at each other was not unlike watching two alley cats circle each other, spitting and hissing. Zoey kept her eyes on the recording counter on her tablet, trying not to wince at the words coming out of Alex’s mouth. She knew he was right. He had to say these things to Cindy. They needed more information to move forward. She’d found a lot of hints, but very little information that was solid. Rumors and ghosts was all she had been able to find. Philip Blankenship had covered his tracks well.
Cindy gave in, in the end. Zoey felt the moment it happened, even without looking at her. The air in the room relaxed, settled gently, and the tension that Zoey had collected in her shoulders faded gently away.
“There are five of us, in total,” Cindy said. “I know all the others. To the best of my knowledge, no one else does. Olivia knew of Arturo, of course, and Thalia. I’ve done everything I can to keep the twins hidden from everyone. Of course, they weren’t young enough for Philip to begin…interfering in their lives yet.”
“Interfering?”
Cindy cocked her head ever so slightly to the side. “You think that I wanted to be molded into his inferior copy? That my mother wanted him constantly involved in our lives, reminding her of what had happened on one horrible night?”
“I think that a smart person would use any advantage that they were given to screw over someone who had hurt their family.”
At that, Cindy managed a faint smile.
“Arturo was killed in his home last night. The others are Thalia Nicolaevna, and Henry and Irene Brie. Arturo was only a few months younger than me. Thalia had just turned 20. The twins are just children.” Cindy sighed and shook her head. “Olivia came to me last year and asked me to sign something stating I would never attempt any claim on Philip’s estate, never publicly attempt to claim myself his child, never seek any kind of acknowledgment.”
“Did you sign it?”
Alex and Cindy both glanced at Zoey, as if they’d forgotten she was in the room. She cleared her throat, and spoke more carefully. “Obviously, it changes everything if you did.”
“I did not,” Cindy said. “At the time, it was mostly just because I was furious with Olivia. She knew exactly what Philip had done to my mother, knew that he continued to force himself into our lives, and did nothing to stop it.”
“Do you have a copy of the document?”
Cindy nodded. “At my office. It’s in my email, and there’s also a thumb drive in a concealed compartment in my desk. My entire hard drive is backed up onto it, as well as the specific correspondence from Olivia and her associates.”
“Is she still in contact with you?” Alex seemed more than happy to let her ask her questions. She was a reporter, after all. Not a great one, maybe, and not one who’d managed to get much attention, but her instincts and her training were still there.
Cindy shook her head. “About three months ago, right before Philip died, she cut off all communication. My emails to her bounced, my texts have gone unanswered.”
“What were you talking to her about?”
That faint smile again. It wasn’t unlike Alex’s, that small one that made her heart beat just a little faster. On Cindy, though, it looked sadder. “We are in the same spheres, and we do what we must to avoid each other. She doesn’t want to be reminded of what her husband did any more than I do.”
It didn’t ring true, but Zoey made the call to let it go for now. She’d ask more questions later, when Alex wasn’t there to be hurt. Hearing his father called a rapist was enough for anyone, no matter how much they disliked their parents.
“So what makes you think that you’re in danger?” Zoey asked.
“How much do you know about the wording of Philip Blankenship’s will?”
“Tell me what you know,” Zoey said, “and let’s see where I might need to fill in the blanks.”
Cindy’s eyebrows skipped up for a moment, and she smiled a little bit more. “Philip, for whatever reason, did not name Alex and Claire specifically in passing on his assets to the heirs. The language of the will merely said that his assets would be split equally among his children. Whether or not his intention was for his bastard children to receive some portion of his assets?” Cindy shrugged. “It would end up in the courts, I imagine. Olivia would surely contest it.”
“What makes you think I wouldn’t contest it?” Alex asked, his voice hard.
Cindy’s eyes went cold. “You could try, I’m sure. But to be clear. He didn’t just support our mothers, he supported us. He intervened on our behalf many times. He made sure that I got into the best schools, he made sure that Arturo got the capital and training necessary to start a successful business, and once it was functioning, he convinced his friends to get their offices and homes remodeled. An argument could absolutely be made that he treated us as he treated his own children.”
“Even better,” Alex amended. “Although I suppose I had his name, and he figured that would do his work for him. Since he was apparently too busy taking care of his bastard children to notice the ones he was legally obligated to.”
“All right,” Zoey said, before Cindy could fire back as well. “You two aren’t ever going to be besties, and no one blames you for that. We need to focus on why Cindy feels threatened, how that lines up with what we’ve discovered, and what we do about that.”
She watched Alex close his eyes, and take the kind of deep breath that people learned from Eastern arts instead of Western ones. His chest and his stomach expanded gently with the air he drew in, held, and then slowly and completely released. When his eyes opened again, she saw in them quiet focus and mellow determination. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is all a lot to take in. I had an idea—but five? And all of you with potentially a claim on the fortune? Olivia is going to lose her mind.”
“Just Olivia?” Zoey asked, her tone quiet but questioning. “Not you?”
Alex directed his gaze towards his hands. His fingers were knitted together, and it was a few minutes before he spoke. “My mother is very aware that it is her fortune that saved the old man from bankruptcy. Much of what AEGIS has become was built from her money. She put up with as much as she did because leaving Philip would mean leaving so much of her money behind. Her father wasn’t wise enough to insist on a pre-nup, and she was a naive girl, convinced she’d always be in love. If she believes that instead of the money and the influence being divided between her two children, it’s to be split between seven children, most of them—I can only assume—not black?” Cindy nodded, conceding the point. Alex’s eyes closed for one moment, in what Zoey had to assume was pain. He scrubbed his hand over his jaw. Was there stubble there? Had he shaved before she’d seen him this morning? “I don’t know what she’d do,” he said, quiet. “I think—she could be capable of anything.”
“There’s only four of us now,” Cindy said, her voice quieter and more respectful than Zoey had anticipated. “And I can’t get in touch with Thalia.”