Chapter Twenty-One
Humidity hit them as soon as they exited the airport. “I could never live here,” Lori muttered as Reed placed their luggage in the back of the rental car.
“I spent a summer here when I was a kid, swore I’d never do it again,” he said, keeping small talk going while he kept an eye on the people walking around.
Sasha had walked right through first class before sneaking just out of the first cabin and settling two rows back in coach. The back of Reed’s head burned the entire flight.
Lori slid into the passenger seat, and he took one more look around before taking the wheel.
“If it wasn’t so hot, I wouldn’t mind traveling here more often. The people seem to take life a little easier.”
“Nothing slows down in LA.”
She pulled her shirt away from her chest a few times, and he twisted the fan on high. “Okay, copilot. Where am I going?” Reed asked.
“The hotel. I’ll touch base with Trina, and then we have dinner with Alice’s sisters. Tomorrow we face the board.”
Reed removed his phone and looked up the address of the hotel. “Might as well relax, it’s going to take us close to an hour to get there.”
Lori placed her purse in the back seat and relaxed. “Gotta love Texas.”
He pulled out of the rental parking lot and onto a frontage road to the highway. Sunglasses became his cloak as his eyes worked overtime, scanning the traffic around them.
Would Sasha follow them, or did she already know the destination of the hotel? “How long have Trina and Avery been here?”
“They flew in last night.”
And if Sasha managed a plane ticket, on the same plane as Lori’s, chances were she knew where they were headed.
Reed picked up speed on the highway, kept an eye on the rearview mirror.
“Have I said thank you for being here?” Lori asked.
“You did, and you don’t have to thank me. I’m glad you asked.”
She reached over, ran her hand along his arm. “I’m glad I asked, too. Even though I need a bodyguard about as much as you do.”
A tiny bit of his soul was buying a round in hell right at that moment. Not only did she need a bodyguard, she needed a new boyfriend. Right now, he sucked at being both.
“You got awfully quiet over there,” Lori said.
He grasped her hand in his free one. “Just enjoying the drive without traffic.”
She squeezed his fingers and laid her head back. “You do that. I’m going to try and nap. I haven’t been sleeping all that well since the monitors went in.”
“Are they making noise at night?” He hadn’t noticed the night he spent sleeping in her bed.
“Nothing like that. I’m just wondering who is listening to hear if I snore.”
Reed kissed the back of her hand. “You don’t snore.”
“You wouldn’t tell me if I did,” she said with her eyes closed. “Those kinds of things only come out when couples argue.”
Couples? Had they become that?
He looked over to see her staring. “Not that I’m suggesting we’re a couple.”
“I suppose it’s a little early to use that definition, but I understood what you meant.”
She still looked as if she’d said something wrong.
“It’s all good, Lori. Close your eyes and snore away. I’ll wake you when we get there.”
She closed her eyes and said, “I don’t snore.”
Lori met Trina and Avery in their adjoining room to chat privately before dinner.
“We have a few things to go over before we meet with Alice’s sisters. Are you okay with Avery being here?” she asked Trina.
“Oh, please. I trust Avery as much as I trust you and Sam. So hurry up with the legal garbage so we can get all the details about your new bodyguard.”
Lori felt the heat in her cheeks growing. “The legal garbage, as you call it, is why I’m here.”
“Yes, I know . . . and we will be knee-deep in all that tomorrow. So skim it for tonight.”
“Okay, here is the gist. You know how politicians say a lot without saying anything?”
Trina and Avery both nodded.
“That’s you tonight. You can talk about your struggles surrounding Fedor’s death, your genuine shock when you learned of Alice’s will. But keep everything on the surface. If I interrupt you, it’s not because I’m rude, it’s because you’re probably saying too much.”
“When I spoke with Alice’s sisters on the phone, I didn’t think they were out to find me inept.”
“You don’t know what they want. And since we’re talking about so much money, it’s safe to assume there are people that we’re going to meet either tonight or tomorrow that aren’t happy it’s going to you. If they ask you a question you’re not sure you should answer, look at me. I’ll nod if I think you’re safe, or chime in if I don’t.”
“Okay, got it.”
“And no overdrinking tonight.”
Avery glanced at Trina. “Is it me, or does she sound like a mom?”
“She does, but I have to agree.”
Lori smiled. “That goes for you, too, Avery.”
“But I’m not inheriting anything.”
“No, but you know more about the personal stuff than anyone. Gotta keep a lid on a few things. Remember, people will look right at you and pretend they’re your friends while they are plotting behind your back. This is business.”
Trina frowned. “I hate that people can’t be trusted.”
“We’ll figure out who are the ones you can, but chances are we won’t do this in one visit. This meeting will help me get the right person on your legal team to help cover this end for you.”
“Why can’t that be you?” Trina asked.
“My specialty is divorce. I can advise you now because of the circumstances.”
“But I trust you.”
“You can trust those I send your way, too. But remember, the one thing you should never speak of to your new representation was the intention of your marriage.”
“Aren’t they legally obligated to keep that secret?”
“They are and probably would. But those aren’t chances Sam and I like to take. Consider the what-ifs of your current situation if something leaked about you and Fedor.”
Trina shook her head. “I don’t even like the current situation, let alone the what-ifs of something different.
“Good. We’re all on the same page.”
“So do we do the pinky First Wives handshake, or what?” Avery teased.
Lori rolled her eyes and looked at the ceiling.
“So Reed is your stand-in bodyguard, eh?”
“He just needed an excuse to sit next to me on an airplane and sleep in my bed,” she told them.
“I don’t know, he was very professional looking when you both walked into the lobby. He’s big enough and has a perfect resting bitch face for the job.”
“Can guys have a resting bitch face?” she asked Avery. “I thought that was only women.”
“Not sure, but he had one. Don’t you think?”
Lori sat back and listened to the debate about men and their facial expressions until the conversation wavered.
“Okay, so we’re meeting Alice’s sisters, Diane and Andrea, at the restaurant in an hour. I’ve been instructed that we need to take two cars for security reasons.”
“How very Secret Service of us,” Avery said. “Security for Trina I totally get. For me, not so much.”
Trina’s playful grin fell. “Petrov didn’t threaten me.”
“Yes, he did. Remember he shook his fist at you? I wouldn’t put it past him to threaten you again.”
“Aren’t you just a ball of positive,” Avery prodded.
“Realistic. Even if it’s negative. You can’t ever accuse me of bullshitting you just to make the circumstances look better than they are. Even before you both signed contracts for your marriages, it was me who sat you down and talked about the pitfalls.”
“Which totally didn’t apply for me,” Avery said.
“They didn’t apply for me either,” Trina added.
Lori pointed to Avery. “You haven’t gotten out of the honeymoon stage of your divorce. Give it a few months.” Then again, Avery didn’t seem to let anything in, so having the reputation of a gold digging woman might not faze her at all. “And as for you . . .” She pointed to Trina. “No one foresaw Fedor taking himself out. Still bugs the garbage out of me that we didn’t pick up on that in our research on the man.”
“Don’t blame yourself or Alliance. I was living with the man the last several months of his life, and I didn’t clue in.”
“Still . . .”
“Fine, beat yourself up. But do it in your room, I need to get ready for dinner.” Trina stood and shooed them both out.
The bodyguard keeping tabs on Trina sat at the end of the hall. He looked up as Lori and Avery stepped out of the room.
Lori kept her voice low. “You’re good for her,” she told Avery.
“We’re two women who would never have met outside of you and Sam. I’m grateful.”
“I am, too.”
Avery spun in a circle, then laughed. “Why did I walk out of the room?”
“Divorce brain.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s your mindset once your marriage is over and you have to do everything by yourself again. It leaves you walking in circles.”
“I thought maybe it was early Alzheimer’s.”
Lori knocked on Trina’s door.
When she answered, Avery pushed through. “Left my key in my room.”
“Goofball.”
Steak in Texas . . . nothing beat it. Though having too much was like having a bad potato in Idaho, or nasty cheese in Wisconsin—it just shouldn’t happen. Lori attempted to avoid feeling drunk on red meat and one glass of wine. Like Avery and Trina, she wasn’t going to overdrink and lose her edge during this trip.
But the steak threatened to cut the ice off her bones. Not to mention Diane and Andrea were some of the loveliest women she’d met in her life. Considering her job, Lori had met many, but these two were either Oscar worthy in their acting abilities, or they genuinely embraced what their late sister had put into motion.
Diane Hall and Andrea Upton had left their husbands and their children at home. Much as Lori hated booting Reed to the side, this dinner was about Trina. So Reed and Trina’s bodyguard were at a table directly across from them . . . visible, but not listening or part of the conversation.
It had taken a bottle of wine and two bites of steak before everyone at the table relaxed enough to talk.
Andrea was the youngest of the three sisters at forty-eight. Diane was fifty, and Alice had been fifty-three when she passed.
“She was too young.” Andrea cut into her steak. “If she’d still been married to that son-of-a—”
“Andi!” Diane cut her off.
“Ruslan was the worst thing to ever happen to this family.”
“Fedor didn’t like his father. You’re not offending me by speaking your mind,” Trina told them.
Andrea continued, “If Alice had still been connected to that man, I would swear he had something to do with her death.”
“Cancer isn’t something you can pass along like a cold,” Diane told her.
“That man never got along with anyone, ever.”
Lori sipped her water. “How long were they married?”
“Nine years. Nine brutal years.” Diane poured more wine into her glass.
“Brutal?” Avery asked.
Andrea and Diane exchanged glances.
“She’s dead, Diane. It’s not like we’re spreading gossip.”
Lori glanced at Trina and Avery.
Diane finally spoke. “Alice never went public with anything.”
Lori felt her appetite waning.
“Alice was a strong woman,” Andrea exclaimed.
“She always struck me as a woman who didn’t put up with a lot,” Trina told them.
“But . . . she wasn’t always. When she and Ruslan first started dating, it was all wine and roses and stupid tokens men think turn heads.”
“It worked,” Diane reminded her sister.
“Yeah, until they were married. Then those trinkets became demands.”
Lori sat forward. “What kind of demands?”
“Ruslan wanted to take her place on the board. But no matter what he said or did, that wasn’t ever going to happen,” Andrea said.
“Why?”
“Because Daddy wouldn’t let it.”
“Your father is gone.” Lori knew the Everson estate enough to know the oil company went to the daughters.
“Gone, but reached beyond the grave to demand that his daughters stayed on the board as long as they were alive. Not their husbands, and not their children so long as we were sane and alive.”
“Which our sister was both right up to a few weeks before she passed,” Diane added.
“Daddy didn’t want any man marrying one of us and taking over.”
“But Ruslan didn’t get the memo,” Lori concluded out loud.
“Exactly,” Andrea told her.
Trina finished her glass of wine off. “That still doesn’t explain why Alice left me anything.”
“It didn’t shock us,” Andrea told them.
Trina leaned forward. “Then explain it to me, please. I knew your sister for less than a year of her life. Yes, Fedor and I were married—”
Lori felt the lawyer in her kick in. “Trina.”
Trina didn’t listen to the plea in her voice and continued. “Yes, we were married, but the honeymoon wasn’t even over. Why me?”
Diane released a long-suffering sigh. “Because Ruslan couldn’t get to you.”
Trina lifted her hands in the air. “Okay, so don’t give it to her son, who none of us saw doing what he did . . . but why not just leave it to one of you . . . or both of you?”
Andrea and Diane looked at each other before the younger sister answered for both of them. “We’ve asked ourselves that more than once. We’re not entirely sure.”
Lori felt her spine tickle. “But you have a theory.”
Silence spread over the table like fog.
“Two . . . neither of which you want to hear.”
Trina pushed her uneaten steak aside. “Enlighten me. I’ve been through too much in the past three months to have shock take me out now.”
“We don’t think Alice ever considered the possibility of Fedor passing before her. If she gave you the estate, it would encourage him to stay married to you.”
Trina put on her game face. “Was that a question?”
Diane diverted her gaze to her plate. “She thought it was awfully convenient that you and Fedor married so quickly after you met.”
Lori kept an eye on Trina, ready to jump in with one stray word.
“We didn’t see a need to wait.”
“Because of Alice?” Andrea asked, her eyes honed in.
Trina sucked in a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Fedor loved his mother. He wanted to see her at peace. Waiting to get married would only have prevented her from attending the wedding. That would have been cruel for everyone involved.”
A look of acceptance washed over Andrea’s face, an expression that told Lori the woman read through the lines and walked away with respect for the woman delivering it.
“So Alice wasn’t convinced their marriage would last,” Avery spoke when everyone had stopped talking. “So leave the whole damn thing to Trina?”
Diane laughed. “Yeah . . .”
“To keep it away from her ex-husband.”
“Yep. Fedor protected his mother from his father. We think she wanted Fedor to continue protecting women until he learned to protect himself.”
“Fedor wasn’t that weak,” Trina defended.
“Perhaps.” Andrea and Diane exchanged glances.
Lori noticed when Avery reached over and grasped Trina’s hand. “What is your second theory?” Lori asked.
“Alice wanted the target off her son . . . and us.” Diane looked beyond her shoulder to the table where Reed and Trina’s bodyguards were sitting. “If Fedor was still alive, there wouldn’t be a threat, but with his death . . .”
Lori shivered. “Trina is Ruslan’s target.”
Andrea turned to Lori, smiled. “But . . . and here is where I hope all of you listen and don’t ask too many questions.”
“I’m an attorney, I always ask questions.”
Diane laughed, drank the rest of her wine.
Andrea spoke for the both of them. “A mother as wealthy and wise as our dear sister Alice always did her homework. She knew the reach of her daughter-in-law’s friends. And knew, ultimately, that Trina would be safe.”
“And considering there are two very large and I’m sure very armed men sitting behind us, she wasn’t wrong,” Diane added.