Chapter Twenty-Five
Kat stared at Alex in horror. But wasn’t looking at her, he was looking out the sunroof, his head resting against the back of his seat. A heavy silence filled the limo until it became oppressive.
“Her aim was incredible,” Stephen finally said.
Kat glanced between the two men. “You can’t possibly believe…” She couldn’t even say the words.
“Why not?” Alex sighed. “Maybe she hated Emma. She worked with her. God knows, that alone would probably give her motive.”
But there was no way in hell Genevieve Harrington killed Karen Young thirty-six years ago. Doesn’t mean Genevieve didn’t know how Karen Young died, she thought. Which would have meant she knew about the case. Would Genevieve kill somebody to protect another?
“Who’s Matthew?”
“Matthew Harrington?” Ethan asked. “He was an undercover NYPD officer. He died years ago, in a meth lab explosion.”
“He didn’t,” Alex corrected. “Though he went to extreme lengths to make it look like he did.”
“You’re kidding,” Ethan said slowly. “Did the senator know?”
Alex looked at Kat. “Matthew is Genevieve’s brother? But…Matthew was using his own sister as protection, was trying to kidnap her? Were those men in the conference room working with him? Why?”
“Not sure yet,” Alex shrugged. “Back to the senator. Did he seem surprised his son was alive?”
Kat closed her eyes, replaying the scene in her head. “I believe so. The senator started running toward him, but Matthew fired off a shot.” They were all silent while Kat struggled to remember more. “The senator called him ‘son.’ Matthew said, ‘I am not your son.’ Emphasizing the word not. Then Matthew started talking about revenge. Said there’s no better revenge.”
“No better revenge for what?” Stephen asked.
“I don’t—for cutting him off? The senator wanted him clean. No wait! After that, Matthew said that isn’t what this is about.” She studied Alex, looking for any light to go off, but his face remained expressionless. “Nothing?”
He ignored her question, instead asking, “What about Genevieve Harrington?”
“She was crying, scared. She didn’t say a word.”
“Despite my warnings, Emma was about to blow the scandal wide open,” Alex said, surprising the hell out of her. He was actually going to share information? “We don’t think it’s a coincidence that she was killed at the senator’s party. One theory,” he stressed, “is that Matthew Harrington killed Emma to keep her from airing the story that he was alive. But maybe Genevieve did it for him. We also believe Emma was cozying up to Mark Prescott to get an inside connection to the senator. If either of them found out, both Mark Prescott and Senator Harrington had motive as well. And although our intel pointed toward the senator not knowing his son was alive, we couldn’t verify that with one hundred percent accuracy. So if we’re to believe the senator didn’t know, it kind of shoots down his motive.”
“And Mark Prescott’s.”
“And Mark Prescott’s,” Alex agreed.
Which left Genevieve or Matthew. Fishing, Kat asked, “What’s the connection between Senator Harrington and Jessica Adams?”
Alex clenched his jaw. “There isn’t one.”
“Mark Prescott and Jessica Adams?”
“Again, no connection.”
“Bullshit,” Kat shot back. “Mark Prescott was at the hospital the other day. And guess whose room he went into?”
Alex glared at her. “When were you going to tell us this?”
“I just did.”
“Kat,” Stephen growled, squeezing her fingers a little too hard.
“I didn’t remember who he was. Not until I saw him again tonight.” And she tried to figure out if it tied their two cases together, but other than the stabbings being the same, she still couldn’t find the connection. Only Jessica Adams, but Alex refused to tell her what it was. “You’re not going to tell me?”
Apparently not. Alex fell silent, staring out the sunroof again, lost in his own head.
“Why you were meeting with Genevieve?” Stephen asked.
“She was helping me with something.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It has nothing to do with the case,” she said softly, silently pleading with him to drop it. And he must have seen something in her expression through the dimness of the limo, because he finally relented with a single nod of his head.
They drove the rest of way in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Kat struggled to stay awake, suddenly exhausted, but didn’t want to wake up leaning against either man if she fell asleep. She glanced down at her leg, pressed against Ethan’s.
Stephen tried to take her with him when they pulled into Alex’s main house. Slowly she shook her head, praying he’d understand that she wanted to talk to Ethan first. It was the right thing to do. But as the warmth in his expression was replaced with nothing, she knew he didn’t get it.
Ethan was silent as Alex and Stephen got out of the car, his gaze focused outside the window. Only the music playing softly in the background broke the silence, but it wasn’t enough to cover the rising tension emanating from him. Kat inched away, intending to sit on the bench seat across from him, but she wasn’t fast enough.
Ethan grabbed her, pulling her onto his lap before he crushed her against him, burying his face in her neck. He breathed in deep, tangling his hands in her hair. “Tell me I didn’t lose you tonight.”
She couldn’t, despite the excruciating pain in his voice that pierced her heart. Couldn’t force herself to say the words.
“Look at me, Kat,” Ethan demanded softly, shifting his hands, forcing her to look up at him. “Tell me I didn’t lose you.”
“I can’t,” she whispered, hoping he didn’t hear the pain in her own voice. The pain he’d mistake for hope.
“Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me?”
Kat was saved from responding as the car door flew open. Kat gasped, heart racing, only to see the driver standing outside the door, her house behind him. She hadn’t even realized they’d stopped. She scrambled out of Ethan’s arms, taking the driver’s hand when he offered it.
“Thank you,” she said politely as she stepped out of the car, wincing when she stepped on the stones in her bare feet, her shoes forever lost in a parking garage. Ethan scooped her up as the driver got back in the car and pulled away, holding her there for long moments without moving. “Put me down. I can walk.”
And she didn’t want Ethan carrying her over the threshold like a groom carries his bride. But Ethan ignored her, every muscle suddenly tense. With a roar of pain unlike she’d ever heard, Ethan lowered her feet to the ground and rushed toward her door.
A second later, he hurled something through the air, but even as Kat saw what it was, confusion still bubbled through her.
The vase smashed against the tree, shattering in a million pieces, blue and white flowers littering the ground at the base. And it was then she noticed the balloon as it floated up toward the heavens, the metallic surface glinting in the moonlight.
Congratulations! It’s a boy!