Bethesda, Maryland,
Tuesday 14 June, 5.30 P.M.
Gwyn glanced around the reception area of Angie’s very upscale salon, taking in the displays of expensive cosmetics and hair products, all high-quality stuff. It was good she’d given a fake name, she thought wryly. She had enough cash for the salon service itself, but she would have been tempted to splurge on the makeup, and her credit card clearly said Gwyn Weaver.
Interspersed among the product displays were several framed magazine and newspaper articles, many with Angie’s photo, so at least Gwyn would recognize her on sight. Angie had received ‘Best Of’ awards for the salon and ‘Businesswoman of the Year’ awards from the local chamber of commerce as well as several women’s professional organizations. She’d achieved success and the respect of her community.
Gwyn really hoped that she wasn’t in league with Tavilla. But if she is, I’ll help take her down. No way was this woman going to hurt Thorne. Not again.
‘Amber Kelly,’ she chirped to the woman behind the desk. ‘I have an appointment with Angie.’
The woman smiled wanly. She was young, pale, tall, pencil thin, and dressed all in black. ‘You’re our bride-to-be. Congratulations. Would you like some champagne?’
‘Please,’ Gwyn gushed, bouncing on her toes, which in four-inch heels was harder than it looked. ‘This has just been the perfect day.’
And it had been. She still wore the glow of sex with Thorne, although that last time had seemed like so much more. She’d been more than content to give him pleasure, but he’d wrested control only a few minutes into her efforts, rolling her to her back, sliding into her . . . reverently. She’d held his gaze the entire time, and even though she’d had to crane her head back to do that, it had been worth it.
Worth it, worth it, worth it. Those had been the two words he’d uttered over and over as he’d taken her, each roll of his hips as gentle as a slow wave. Bracing himself on his hands, he’d held his body high over hers, careful with her, like she was fragile and precious.
She’d felt precious. And even though they’d tried positions where she was able to feel his skin with every slide of his flesh into hers, this one seemed far more intimate.
When she’d come, it had been so hard she’d seen white lights twinkling all around her. And when he’d come, it was with a silent intensity that made her shiver all over again.
‘Wow,’ the receptionist murmured. ‘I am so very jealous of you right now.’
Gwyn blinked to find the woman holding out a flute of champagne. She accepted it with a polite but puzzled frown. ‘Why?’
The receptionist’s smile turned sly. ‘You know that scene in When Harry Met Sally where Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm? I have a feeling I just watched the real thing.’
Gwyn laughed, slightly embarrassed, then even more so when she remembered that Thorne, Alec and Ford were listening to every word of her conversation. ‘Guilty as charged,’ she managed, taking a sip of the champagne to cover her discomfiture. ‘Oh my. This is really good.’
‘Only the best for our clients. Come with me. Angie is ready for you.’
Gwyn was directed to a stylist’s chair behind the wall that provided the clients with privacy from those waiting in reception or anyone walking past the big windows looking out onto the street.
Despite the salon’s elegance, the stylists’ stations looked much like those in more financially accessible places. There was a chair in front of a mirror surrounded by lights. Tucked into one edge of the mirror was Angie’s cosmetologist license, and below that, several photographs. Some of them were of Angie – the woman hadn’t really changed that much from the photo she’d found – but all of them featuring the same young man. Angie was a slender Hispanic woman, her high cheekbones and flawless complexion making her pretty enough to have been a model in her youth. Not that she was old. She’d been in Thorne’s graduating class, so she couldn’t be much older than he was.
The young man, though . . . Gwyn found herself leaning forward to study his face. He was a teenager, a recent high school graduate if the little number dangling from the tassel on his cap was anything to go by. He was startlingly . . . familiar. Blond hair, bright blue eyes and a dimpled smile that managed to be warm and slightly self-deprecating all at once, as if he was uneasy being the center of the photographer’s attention.
‘Hello.’
Gwyn jerked her eyes up to the mirror, where Angie herself stood behind the chair, smiling at her. Gwyn smiled back. ‘Hi. Thank you for fitting me in.’
Angie’s smile grew, and a dimple popped in her cheek. Exactly in the same position as that of the boy in the picture. ‘It was my pleasure, Miss Kelly. I like to have a little hand in happily-ever-afters. Weddings are my specialty.’
‘I’m just Amber.’ Gwyn settled into the chair and fingered the ends of her hair. ‘I want to look princessy, but my guy likes it long, so he made me promise that you wouldn’t cut it.’
‘Then we shall do both,’ Angie said, and draped a cape over her, drawing it around her shoulders to snap it at the back of her neck. ‘Where are you going for your big night?’
My bed was just fine for our big night, Gwyn thought, but she smiled brightly into the mirror. ‘Paris. I’ve never been and I’m so excited!’
Angie was studying her hair, testing the springiness of her curls and the weight of it. ‘When do you leave?’
‘We have an eleven p.m. flight out of Reagan National.’ Gwyn had made sure that the flight existed, just to be on the safe side. ‘We’ll get there in time for a late lunch or an early supper and we’ve made arrangements with a little chapel for an evening service.’
‘So I need to style it so that it lasts at least until then,’ Angie said seriously. ‘Flights are hard on hair. I’ll have to use some pretty strong hairspray. Is that okay?’
Gwyn nodded dreamily. ‘That’ll be fine.’
After a trip to the shampoo bowl, Gwyn was back in Angie’s chair, staring again at the photos of the young man. ‘I can’t help but think that I’ve seen that boy somewhere,’ she said conversationally.
Angie spared a glance at the photos, her expression softening. ‘No,’ she said almost sadly. ‘My nephew lives in Iowa. I don’t get to see him all that often.’
Iowa. Gwyn had to take a breath so that she didn’t reflexively stiffen in the chair. Detective Prew had said Angie had gone out west to ‘some state with corn’ during Thorne’s trial. If her nephew lived out there, she’d probably stayed with family.
‘You look very proud of him,’ she remarked. ‘I can see that you’re related. You have a dimple in the same place.’
Angie smiled again, revealing said dimple. ‘We do.’ She cast another longing glance at the photograph, a glance that was decidedly . . . maternal. ‘Liam is a good boy. I’m proud of him.’
Gwyn knew that look. She’d seen it in her own mirror every time she thought of her ‘nephew’, usually on his birthday, but it was also the look she’d learned to bury whenever anyone said the word ‘son’. Because Aidan wasn’t Gwyn’s nephew any more than Liam was Angie’s.
‘I can see that,’ she said quietly. You should tell Thorne.
About what? Angie’s son or mine?
Both. You know it’s the right thing to do.
And she did know that. She also knew it would be a hard thing to say. My son. She’d never spoken the words aloud to anyone, not even to Lucy, not since that awful day she’d signed the papers so that her beautiful boy could have the life he deserved with parents who could provide for him.
Because she wouldn’t have been able to. Not then. She remembered the scared, unemployed, uneducated young woman who’d foolishly believed the man she’d thought she’d spend the rest of her life with when he’d told her he loved her. Water under the bridge, Gwyn. After all these years, the only thing she had left was self-recriminations, and they never helped.
She wondered what Angie’s circumstances had been and mentally did the math. If Liam had recently graduated high school, he’d be about seventeen or eighteen.
About the same age as Aidan, who’d turned eighteen ten months before. That had been the kicker for Gwyn. The nudge she’d needed to get on with her life. To get counseling so that she could dig her way out of the darkness in which she’d been floundering since Evan. Because Aidan’s parents had promised they’d tell him he was adopted when he turned eighteen, or if he asked, whichever came first.
Hopefully he’d want to meet Gwyn someday, and she wanted to have her life together when and if that day ever came.
Her eyes were drawn to a photo of Angie and Liam together, smiling. ‘How old is he? Your nephew?’
Another wistful smile. ‘Eighteen just last month.’ But she brightened then. ‘He’s coming to Baltimore for college.’ Her whole demeanor changed. ‘He was accepted to Johns Hopkins, into their biomedical engineering department.’
‘Whoa,’ Gwyn said, suitably impressed. ‘He’s a genius.’
‘He certainly is,’ she said proudly.
‘And now you’ll be able to visit with him more often than before.’
‘I will.’ Angie did something magical with her hands, and Gwyn’s hair was suddenly up, delicate curls framing her face and making her look years younger.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed softly, and Angie beamed.
‘I thought you’d like it this way.’ She tugged and poked pins into the do, murmuring apologies when Gwyn winced. ‘Gotta make sure it stays.’ She winked in the mirror. ‘For Paris.’ She took a step back, surveying her work. ‘I’m going to find the heavy-duty hairspray,’ she said. ‘Just relax for a minute or two.’
When she was gone, Gwyn resumed her study of the photos. Young Liam had turned eighteen a month ago. Right about the time that four hundred thousand dollars had been deposited in Angie’s account. The same month that years earlier the Lindens had given her money for her business.
And then Gwyn knew why the boy’s face was so damn familiar. Glancing around for Angie, she pulled out her phone and studied the photo she’d snapped late Sunday evening while sitting at Phil and Jamie’s kitchen table. It was the photo of the Linden family that Jamie had included in his case file. She enlarged it until Richard Linden’s face filled her screen, then glanced up at the mirror, where an almost identical face stared back. The only difference was Liam’s smile, which he’d clearly inherited from his mother.
‘Angie is Liam’s mother,’ she whispered, hoping Thorne could hear her. ‘And Liam is Richard’s son,’ she added, swiping the photo closed just as Angie came back shaking a can of hairspray.
‘Let’s get you fixed for Paris,’ she said.
Gwyn forced herself to smile back. ‘Merci.’
Bethesda, Maryland,
Tuesday 14 June, 6.10 P.M.
Thorne sat back in his seat, stunned. ‘Did she just say what I thought she said?’ he asked Alec and Ford. The three of them had been gathered around Alec’s phone, which he’d had on speaker while recording everything that was said inside the salon.
Thorne had needed to pull himself from his own thoughts when Gwyn had spoken the words so quietly. Liam is Richard’s son.
He’d been stuck back on Guilty as charged, unable to hide his reaction. Not the burning of his cheeks and certainly not the hardening of his cock. But he’d borne it, because he was not adjusting himself in front of the other two.
Luckily, the conversation had shifted to Gwyn’s plans for Paris and what she wanted done with her hair. Still, his pants had remained uncomfortably tight.
‘She said Liam is Richard’s son,’ Ford said slowly. ‘And Angie is Liam’s mother? So . . . Richard Linden and Angie?’
‘If so, then Richard raped her,’ Thorne said harshly, remembering the look of sheer terror on Angie Ospina’s face all those years ago. ‘He treated her like she was his plaything. The timing is right, if the kid just turned eighteen. So the Lindens must have been paying her for more than her silence in refusing to testify on my behalf. They’ve been paying for their grandchild.’
‘How does Gwyn know this?’ Alec asked skeptically. ‘It seems like a huge leap.’
It did, Thorne had to admit, even though the notion made so much sense. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. We’ll ask her.’
Ford gave a low whistle. ‘Here she comes. Gotta say, Angie is good at her job.’
Thorne could only stare as Gwyn left the salon, a cheerful smile on her face that he knew was completely forced. But Ford was absolutely right. She was gorgeous. She had been before she’d gone into the salon, though.
He opened the side door and helped her climb in. As soon as the door slid closed, the smile evaporated from her face. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘That Richard is Liam’s father?’ Ford asked. ‘We heard it.’
‘But we’re not sure where it came from,’ Alec added honestly.
‘What happened that we couldn’t see?’ Thorne asked her gently, because she was trembling. ‘How did you know?’
She straightened her spine. ‘It was how she looked when she talked about the boy. She said he was her nephew. But there is no way that’s the truth.’
‘You sound certain,’ Alec said cautiously, and she shot him a look so . . . hard that Thorne blinked. It was not a look he’d ever seen on her face before. Ever.
‘I am,’ she snapped, then closed her eyes on a sigh. ‘Call it intuition, but I just knew.’
‘Okay,’ Alec said slowly, but his doubt was still clear.
Opening her eyes, Gwyn pulled her phone from her purse. ‘Look at this.’ She showed them the selfie she’d taken in front of Angie’s mirror, the chair spun so that both her face and the back of her hair were visible. She enlarged the selfie, readjusting the placement so that a vertical row of photos stuck in the mirror’s edge was visible. ‘Look at the young man in these photos.’
‘Oh my God.’ Thorne immediately saw the resemblance and was taken back nineteen years. ‘Richard,’ he murmured. ‘Liam could be his twin.’ He shot Gwyn a look of pure admiration. ‘You are very good.’
Her cheeks pinked up at his praise, but the hard look in her eyes remained. ‘I kept thinking I’d seen him before, and then she said he lived in Iowa.’
Ford frowned. ‘Why is that important?’
Thorne understood. ‘Because that’s where they grow corn.’ He told Ford and Alec what Detective Prew had said about Angie going out to visit relatives in Iowa around the time of his trial, and how she’d stayed away for two years. ‘There was about six months between my arrest and my trial. If Angie was raped around the time of my hallway brawl with Richard and his friends, she’d have been showing by then. If she’d already been assaulted – and made pregnant – I can see her being afraid of the Lindens’ threats.’
‘Huh. Wow.’ Alec had pulled up his own photo of Richard from the Internet. ‘There is an incredible resemblance.’
Ford leaned over to see the photo. ‘It makes a lot of sense. Really good catch, Gwyn, but what does all this mean with respect to what’s happening now?’
‘I don’t know.’ She frowned slightly. ‘Maybe nothing. Except that the Lindens knew that Angie had had Richard’s baby. Maybe they didn’t know right away, but they did as of the time of the first loan, when she started the salon.’
‘They paid her for her silence,’ Ford said with a frown. ‘I suppose it could have been some under-the-table child support, but I’m wondering if it’s more likely that they bribed her or she extorted them.’
Gwyn shrugged. ‘Regardless of why they paid her, they did, and without publicly acknowledging that the boy is their grandson. That’s the important part, because if word got out that Angie was pregnant and Richard was the father and that he’d raped her, it would have given the police another possible suspect – Angie’s father, perhaps, or someone else in her family.’
‘But the Lindens were determined that I be found guilty,’ Thorne said slowly, mentally rearranging the puzzle pieces that had been in such disarray in his mind. ‘Enough that Richard’s father lied in court about altercations I’d had with Richard. Why?’
‘Good question,’ Gwyn murmured. ‘Maybe Linden Senior was trying to divert attention away from someone else. Rich people hate scandals.’
‘True,’ Ford agreed. ‘That would make sense if they already knew about Angie’s pregnancy.’
‘Definitely something to consider,’ Gwyn said. ‘I also wonder how many other people had a reason to kill Richard. Could Angie herself have done it, Thorne?’
Thorne shook his head. ‘Whoever did it had to have been able to physically overwhelm him, then cut him open and bash his face in. Angie isn’t tiny, but I can’t see her being physically able to do all that. Besides, the Lindens had as much contempt for her as they did for me. She was a scholarship kid too, and the Lindens never let us forget that they paid our way.’
‘Sound like real assholes,’ Ford muttered.
Thorne nodded. ‘They were. If they suspected Angie was involved, they might have turned on her then too.’
Gwyn bit at her lip. ‘Linden Senior was willing to perjure himself on the stand. That’s desperation. He really wanted you to take the fall. So I think you’re right. If he’d had anything credible on Angie at the time, he would have used it rather than risk the legal consequences of making up stuff about you. But why did he want you blamed for this crime so badly? It’s almost as if he was protecting someone.’
‘So they not only knew Thorne didn’t do it,’ Alec said, ‘but they had an idea of who did?’
‘Or why they did.’ Thorne rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on. ‘I keep coming back to the key ring. That is a weird thing to shove into a carved-up body. Weirder to shove into Patricia’s body all these years later. It means something. I guess the question remains: who knew about the key ring?’
‘You mean, who knew about the key ring who’s also still alive,’ Gwyn clarified. ‘The person who put it there knew, either because he was Richard’s killer,’ she said, ticking off on her fingers, ‘or because he – or she – was with Richard’s killer if he didn’t act alone. The EMTs knew, but one of them is too scared to talk and the other is MIA. The ER doctor knew, but he’s dead. The ME claimed not to have seen it, and Lucy has vouched for his integrity. The ME tech knew and he’s dead, his wife living a good life in Chevy Chase.’
Alec scowled. ‘I’d forgotten about her. I meant to run some background and financial checks but I lost the thread. I’ll get on that ASAP.’
Thorne was studying Gwyn. ‘What do you mean, “with Richard’s killer”?’
She shrugged. ‘You said his injuries were extensive. In the trial transcripts, the prosecutor used your size to insinuate you could have done it.’
‘You read the transcripts?’
She nodded. ‘That night at Jamie and Phil’s. I couldn’t sleep, and Jamie left them out on the table. Anyway, the prosecutor put forth that someone huge had to have committed the crime. Jamie countered that it didn’t have to be a single someone. It could have been two people or even more, that Richard was a punk and he treated enough people badly that there could have been others with motive. He even mentioned Angie as one of those people, because Richard had groped her in the hallway, but the prosecutor objected on the grounds that Angie had said that the groping had never happened. It could even have been one or more of Richard’s friends. Even if they weren’t there with him, they might have known why someone shoved a key ring in his gut.’
Thorne nodded again, because he’d been thinking the same thing. ‘Let’s start at the top. Darian Hinman was Richard’s best friend and he doesn’t live too far away.’
‘We’ve been instructed by Clay to remain with you, rendering assistance where necessary,’ Alec told them. ‘Clay wants this whole mess settled so he doesn’t have to worry about Stevie getting shot at again. We’ll take you wherever you want to go. That way the Fed tailing you only has to chase one vehicle.’
‘I’m sure he’d be grateful,’ Thorne said dryly. ‘But we’ll take Gwyn’s car.’ Because there was no way he was making these kids a target. ‘Thanks, guys. I do appreciate your help. I just hate that I’m putting you in harm’s way.’
Ford shrugged and started the van. ‘Sooner we clear this up, the better for all of us.’
‘And don’t worry about trying to lose us,’ Alec added with a smirk. ‘I have the address from Clay. He got it from Frederick, who got it from Jamie.’
‘Of course he did.’ But even as he sighed the words, his throat closed up. He was so damn grateful that he had these people, people who cared.
Please don’t let them get hurt, he prayed. Please don’t let anyone else die.
Chevy Chase, Maryland,
Tuesday 14 June, 7.05 P.M.
‘Wow,’ Gwyn breathed as Thorne drove them around a perfectly landscaped bend at the end of the long driveway leading to the home of Darian Hinman. ‘We’re never going to get to him for even a hello. These are the kind of people who have butlers and maids and valets who say “sir” and put your socks on for you.’
Thorne chuckled, just as she’d hoped he would. His hands loosened their death grip on the steering wheel, at least a little. ‘I hope I’d think of something better for them to do than put my socks on for me.’
He pulled the car up to the front of the mansion, which was lined with actual pillars, like it was some antebellum antique. It might actually be, Gwyn thought, taking the place in. It had a rolling front lawn where honest-to-god peacocks strolled without a care.
‘I wonder if Hinman’s butler cleans up after those damn peacocks,’ Thorne said dryly. ‘Talk about fucking pretentious.’
She nodded. ‘Pretentious. That’s the word I was looking for. I keep expecting women in hoop skirts with parasols to come round the house any minute. Is this joint as old as it looks?’
‘Yep. Property records say the main house was built in 1851. It’s been in Hinman’s family from day one.’ He glanced up to his rear-view mirror, frowning slightly at the sight of Ford and Alec approaching in their van. The black SUV with Joseph’s hand-picked agent brought up the rear.
‘Alec and Ford are not going to leave you,’ Gwyn murmured. ‘You’re going to have to be okay with it.’
‘No, I don’t have to be okay with it,’ he snapped. ‘I might not be able to make them leave, but I don’t have to be okay with it.’
‘Fair enough.’ She cast her gaze up at the three-story mansion. ‘I find myself admiring this place kind of against my will.’ She glanced at Thorne. ‘Does that make me a bad person?’
‘No.’ He reached over to cup her jaw. ‘It’s a beautiful structure. Does that mean you want a place like this, maybe even a little?’
Gwyn laughed, but leaned into his touch. ‘No way. That’s way too many toilets to clean.’
He leaned over the center console to brush a kiss against her cheek. ‘That’s what I’d get the butlers and maids to do. I have to say, you’d look awfully pretty in one of those fancy dresses with your hair done up like that. Princessy.’
She blushed. ‘Stop making fun of me,’ she mumbled.
‘You think that?’ He tugged her chin until she faced him. ‘I was being serious. When you came out of that salon today, you took my breath away.’
She smiled at him, pleasure lighting up her dark blue eyes. ‘Thank you.’
He kissed her forehead, then let her go. ‘I don’t suppose you’d stay in the car or go wait in the SUV with Joseph’s guy?’
‘No and no. His name is Detective Rivera, by the way.’
‘Don’t want to know,’ he grunted as he extracted himself from Gwyn’s small car. ‘Don’t want to get attached to them in case they get hurt.’
‘I suppose that’s fair too,’ Gwyn allowed. ‘But remember his name, just in case you need to speak to him.’
‘I’ll answer to just about anything,’ the detective in question said as he approached. ‘Agent Carter said I should accompany you on this visit.’
‘So I don’t punch Darian Hinman in the nose?’ Thorne challenged.
‘No,’ Gwyn said. ‘So I don’t punch him in the nose.’ Because she wanted to. This was one of the Neanderthals who’d beaten Thorne all those years ago. Beaten him and kicked him until he could barely walk. ‘Asshole.’
Rivera grinned. ‘If you do punch him, I’ll have to take you in and Joseph will have you confined. He told me to tell you that.’
Thorne rolled his eyes. ‘And your obedience was such a hardship.’
‘Nope,’ Rivera said cheerfully. ‘I wanted to say that.’ He looked over his shoulder at Alec and Ford, who wore amused looks. ‘You can stay in the van if you want, guys.’
‘Nope,’ Alec mimicked, just as cheerfully. ‘Our boss told us to stick close, just like yours did. Shall we?’
Gwyn led the way, watching the sidewalk for gaps in the mortar that would destroy the heels on her newest shoes. Thorne was at her side seconds later, though.
‘Do not get separated from me,’ he commanded.
‘Fine. But I still say we’re never gonna get past the butler.’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ Rivera said, more seriously. ‘I’ve got a badge.’
Well, at least he’ll be good for something. Then she abandoned the thought to enjoy the front garden before they knocked on that grand front door. The hedges lining the walkway had that wonderful old-garden smell that tickled her nose, making her smile.
‘What?’ Thorne asked, looking down at her with a fond smile of his own.
‘The hedges. My aunt had them in her garden in Baltimore.’
‘The aunt you named your part of Sheidalin for?’ he asked, and it took her a second to remember that she’d said as much on Sunday evening when the group had met in her apartment to strategize.
‘Yes,’ she said, stiffly now, and he frowned. He hadn’t believed her Sunday night either. She’d seen it in his face as she’d studied him in the mirror on her living room wall. She saw it now and was grateful to be coming up to the front door.
With any luck, he’d be sidetracked enough that he’d forget about the question. But you do have to tell him about Aidan sooner versus later.
Yes, but later. Much later. When she’d gotten used to this new thing they had going and had more stable ground beneath her feet. Then she’d confess her deepest regret.
She drew one more deep breath, wanting the calming scent of the hedges. But what she drew in was the antithesis of calming. What she drew in was the antithesis of life. Oh God, she thought as queasiness rolled through her stomach.
‘Fuck,’ Thorne muttered. ‘Not again.’ He turned to Rivera. ‘Do you smell it? Something or someone is very dead in there.’
One look at Rivera’s face answered that question. He was already reaching for his radio. ‘I’m your alibi. You’re welcome. Go wait in your vehicles, please.’
Gwyn was only too happy to comply. Backing away, she covered her mouth with her hand, desperately needing fresh air and trying not to gag. She found herself being supported by Alec and Ford, each young man taking one of her arms.
‘Dammit, I hate that smell,’ Ford muttered.
‘I, on the other hand, love it,’ Alec said sarcastically. ‘Fuck, Ford. Everyone hates that smell.’
Back at the car, Gwyn drew in huge lungfuls of fresh air. Thorne was still standing next to Rivera as the detective called in the obviously dead something on the other side of the door. Whoever or whatever it was, it had been dead for some time.
Gwyn could only hope Thorne had an alibi for that time too.