Baltimore, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 7.10 P.M.
‘Dammit, Gwyn, your house is made for Smurfs or something.’ Thorne’s grumble was not a new one. He said the same thing every time he came to Gwyn’s condo. But this time his voice was softer, his groan a little more authentic as he dropped his big body onto her low sofa. Built especially for short people. Because that was what she was.
‘It’s not forever,’ Gwyn snapped back, mostly because she was just so damn glad to see him out of that hospital bed. She pulled his feet from the floor to the sofa, putting a pillow behind his back. ‘Just until your house is released by the cops and we’re sure it’s clean.’
Because he was afraid it had been bugged or wired for cameras by someone other than himself, and it was not a paranoid fear.
Her front door opened and Lucy barged in, pocketing her key, and was followed by a . . . horde. A welcome horde, to be sure, but more people than Gwyn had ever had in her place all at the same time. The doctor had come into Thorne’s hospital room right after Hyatt’s departure and Thorne had signed himself out, against her orders. The doctor had wanted to admit him for observation, because even though the drugs had sufficiently worked their way out of his system, he’d had a very close call.
But Thorne had wanted out of there and Gwyn couldn’t blame him. She always hated hospitals too. More importantly, he wanted to be in a private place when he told them what Gwyn was anticipating to be a very painful story.
Lucy had a small duffel bag in one hand and Thorne’s bass in the other. She dropped the bag on the floor and put the bass in the corner. Of all Thorne’s things, the bass was the one possession he treasured, because it had belonged to his father. He kept it locked up in a special safe. Gwyn had only heard him play it once.
‘I packed you some clothes,’ Lucy told Thorne. ‘JD and that horrible little Detective Brickman were with me in your house the whole time, so don’t say any of those things you’re getting ready to say, because I was safe.’
Thorne scowled. ‘Thank you,’ he grunted. ‘And thank you for getting my bass.’ He lifted his cheek when Lucy bent to kiss it. ‘Do I have a swarm of media around my house?’
‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Part and parcel, Thorne. You knew to expect it.’
‘I know. But I don’t have to like it. At least getting in here was easier than getting away from the hospital.’
Because Gwyn’s new condo had excellent security. She paid for it through the nose, but along with a kick-ass security system and several handguns in her safe, it enabled her to sleep at night. Sometimes.
Lucy checked Thorne’s eyes and nodded at whatever she saw there. ‘You’re looking better. Did they tell you what they found in your system?’
‘Yeah. I’ll cover that.’ He looked to the door with a sigh. ‘When everyone gets here.’
Within five minutes, Gwyn’s small living room was packed to near bursting. Jamie had positioned his chair at the foot of the sofa. Phil was sitting at his feet. Sam and Ruby were on the floor along with Paige. Clay and Stevie took the only chairs because they’d accumulated enough injuries over the years to make walking painful, so sitting on the floor was not going to happen. Stevie still walked with a cane after being shot nearly three years before, and probably always would. Clay was noticeably slower after his last brush with a bullet – taken while guarding his adult daughter, Taylor.
Clay had brought Tweety back, and the dog followed Gwyn around, looking puzzled at all the people.
Taylor’s stepfather, Frederick, filled out the group. He pulled two of the milk crates she used to store her vinyl albums from a corner, carefully stacked the albums on the floor, then made the crates into a makeshift chair. ‘I worked a ranch for years,’ he said when Clay tried to make him take his own chair. ‘I’ve sat on a whole lot worse, trust me.’
The two men had bonded over their love for Taylor, who was absent. ‘Is Taylor babysitting?’ Gwyn asked.
‘She is,’ Lucy confirmed.
‘And loving it,’ Frederick added, then gave Thorne his attention. ‘What the hell happened, Thorne? Who is Patricia Segal, and why was she in your bed?’
‘And why is she dead?’ Clay added, and heads nodded throughout the room.
Thorne sighed. ‘Okay. Look, this is hard. I haven’t talked about this in nineteen years. So . . .’
‘So . . . ?’ Clay prompted.
‘Take all the time you need, Thorne,’ Paige said quietly. ‘We’ll be patient. Won’t we, Clay?’
‘No,’ Clay answered. ‘Because this is really bad.’
Heads bobbed in nods again, murmurs rippling through the room.
Her dog curled up at her feet, Gwyn perched on the arm of the sofa, leaning against Thorne’s rigid back. Here she could give him support, but the mirror on the opposite wall allowed her to see his face. There were mirrors all over her condo. Nobody would ever sneak up on her in her own home, ever again. ‘At least he’s honest,’ she murmured in Thorne’s ear. ‘You want me to tell them what we know so far?’
Thorne nodded gratefully. ‘Please.’
Gwyn proceeded to tell them everything she, Thorne and Jamie had discussed in the hospital room, including the possible scenarios. ‘Hyatt says the woman is Patricia Linden Segal. This means something to Thorne and Jamie. All I know is that Patricia Linden is the sister of the boy Thorne was accused of killing nineteen years ago.’
Thorne twisted abruptly so that he could look up at her over his shoulder. ‘Did I tell you that?’
‘No, but I can Google,’ she told him, keeping her tone sarcastic. Sarcasm was both her weapon and her best shield, and she wielded it as bravely – and as often – as she could. ‘It wasn’t easy to find, but I was determined. You were being seen to by the doctor and I needed something to do.’ She’d always respected his right to privacy, but the game had changed the moment she’d found a dead woman in his bed.
It would have been nearly impossible to find the article about the murder of which Thorne had been accused if she hadn’t known his legal last name had once been White. He’d changed it to Thorne when he was eighteen and she’d never asked him why. But now she thought she knew. The name change had been filed in the court only a few days after the jury had returned with their not-guilty verdict.
She wondered why he’d chosen Thorne as his new name and not Jamie’s last name – Maslow. When they were alone, she planned to ask. Among many other things. Her list of private questions was steadily growing.
‘So the murder of Patricia Segal is a deliberate link to your past,’ Clay said.
‘Deliberate and painful,’ Phil murmured, and Gwyn remembered that the man had known Thorne back then. He’d been Thorne’s teacher in high school, and he and Jamie had taken Thorne in. But that was all she knew. Neither Thorne, Jamie nor Phil ever talked about that part of their lives.
‘Yeah,’ Thorne murmured, then bumped her lightly with his shoulder, indicating that she should continue.
‘The only other thing I know,’ Gwyn went on, ‘is that the doctor said that Thorne had been given GHB – and a lot of it. It is possible to OD on the stuff, and he’d come very close to full cardiac failure.’
Angry murmurs filled the room and Jamie’s jaw clenched. ‘The doctor also said that had Gwyn not found him when she did,’ he said, ‘there wouldn’t have been enough of the drug left in his system to find. It has a short half-life. Levels had already dropped considerably. The doctor wasn’t exactly sure when he’d been dosed, but she guessed at the minimum he could have been given based on his body weight, considering he’d been knocked out. She believes he’d been dosed at least four hours before Gwyn arrived, maybe a little more.’
‘How long had the victim been dead?’ Stevie asked.
Lucy shrugged. ‘Her wounds were fresh. I’ve recused myself from the autopsy due to my friendship and business relationship with Thorne. Neil Quartermaine will do it, but I trust him to do a good job. We’ll have to wait for the report, but I can tell you that rigor had only started to set in. I noticed that her jaw was affected when I tried to find her pulse, but her extremities were still fluid. I’d guess that she’d been dead no more than two to four hours.’
‘Does Hyatt know this?’ Stevie asked.
‘Yes,’ Lucy said. ‘Well, he knows my two-to-four-hour guess because I told him that when they first brought Thorne in. Unless Thorne gives his permission for the ER doc to share his medical information with Baltimore PD, she hasn’t told Hyatt yet about the time frame in which he was drugged.’
‘I didn’t give my permission,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m not sure if I will or not. It depends on what else we find.’
‘We’ll come up with a plan of action, but we can’t do that until we hear the whole story.’ Clay grimaced as Paige elbowed him. ‘Dammit, Paige, that hurt.’
‘You’re supposed to be being patient,’ she hissed.
‘You’re supposed to not hurt me,’ Clay shot back.
Stevie rolled her eyes. ‘Guys, enough. See what I put up with every damn day? They call themselves professional business partners, but they squabble like siblings.’
Clay had brought Paige into his PI firm three years before, but their work styles – and their personalities – had meshed together as if they’d known each other forever. The two grinned at one another before turning back to Thorne expectantly.
Thorne shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry for you, Stevie. I’d have knocked their heads together a long time ago.’
‘Like to see you try that,’ Paige muttered, but it was said with humor. Paige was a black belt and an international sparring champion. Thorne had her by about eight inches in height and a hundred pounds of solid muscle, and Paige had recently given birth to a beautiful daughter, but it would still be a fairer fight than most.
Gwyn chuckled. ‘I’d buy tickets.’ She had a lot of respect for Paige. The woman had helped her immeasurably over the last few years. The self-defense classes she taught had enabled Gwyn to feel confident enough to leave her house again. Now Gwyn had her own brown belt. Her personal goal was to be a black belt by the time she was forty. That gave her two years, and Paige believed it was possible. Paige was her hero and one of her greatest allies.
Now she gave Gwyn an encouraging wink that managed to convey as much sympathy as sass, and it struck Gwyn that her sensei was there for her as much as for Thorne. That at some point the woman had become one of her friends as well. It shouldn’t have surprised her so much. But it did. Maybe they’d been friends for a while. Maybe I just never noticed.
It made her wonder what else she hadn’t noticed from within the walls she’d hidden behind for the last four years. Maybe it’s time to come out now. Thorne needs us. All of us. All of me.
‘You’re supposed to be on my side,’ Thorne murmured.
Gwyn leaned in close. ‘You know I am,’ she whispered, so that only he could hear.
He drew a deep breath, then let it out. ‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s do this.’
She lifted her eyes to the mirror to find he was looking at her reflection as well. There was something there. Something grim but also . . . hopeful.
‘Yes. Let’s,’ she murmured back, and felt a tiny spear of terror because she was promising him . . . something. She wasn’t entirely sure what, and that scared the bejesus out of her. One step at a time. It was how she’d lived her life for the past four years. She’d get through the next few days. And then they’d see.
Baltimore, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 7.30 P.M.
This story . . . Thorne didn’t want to think about it. He never wanted to think about it. But he always did. Every time he walked into Sheidalin he thought of it. And he thought of Sherri.
‘I wasn’t born in this country,’ he started. ‘I came from New Zealand as a child.’
Every eye blinked at that. ‘I never would have thought that,’ Stevie said. ‘You have no trace of an accent.’
‘Because I left when I was young. And I was . . . persuaded to lose it when I moved to the US.’
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Persuaded by whom?’
‘My stepfather, but I’ll get to him in a minute. My father’s name was Thomas Thorne Junior. I’m actually a third.’ He swallowed hard, remembering his dad. How much the man had loved him. How much I loved him back. ‘My dad died when I was five, and my mother remarried. She told everyone it was because she’d fallen in love with Willy White, but that wasn’t true. She told my grandmother – my father’s mother – that it was because she could no longer afford to support me on her own, but that wasn’t true either. My grandmother paid the bills and made sure I saw every one of them, in case I ever had to do it myself someday. The life-insurance money my father had left my mother was more than enough.’
‘Why would your grandmother think you might need to pay the bills when you were only five years old, Thorne?’ Lucy asked, and he realized he’d gone silent.
‘She didn’t really expect me to pay bills, but she was old and she worried about what would happen if she died, because after my father’s death my mom started drinking. She drank a lot. Anyway, she met up with this man, Willy White, in a bar and brought him home. He was not a nice man. But by then my mother was no longer a nice woman either, so they got along all right. I was another story. He liked to use his fists and he was a big guy. I wasn’t this big then.’
‘Because you were only a baby,’ Ruby murmured, her voice thick. ‘He beat you?’
Thorne smiled down at her where she and Sam sat on the floor, twined around each other. He’d always had a soft spot for Ruby, starting back when she worked for Lucy in the ME’s office. She was fiercely loyal. ‘It’s okay, Ruby. I turned out fine.’
Her smile was teary, but that was because she was pregnant and her hormones were all over the place. That would make what he was about to say next hard for her to hear. He gave Sam a glance that he hoped communicated some kind of warning. He was relieved to see Sam’s arm tighten around her. All right then.
‘My mother married him because she got pregnant. He continued to beat the shit out of me. What I didn’t know at the time was that he beat her too. In any case, she lost the baby. All I knew was that she’d miscarried and that they yelled at each other a lot afterward. I didn’t understand why at the time. It made sense later. Anyway, he was an American working in New Zealand on a visa, and if his abuse became known and he was arrested he could lose his job, because his visa would be revoked. I only know this because it’s what they argued about most often. My mother would threaten to tell, and I wished she would. But she never did. His job ended and he was called back to the US. We came too. We became citizens a few years later, right about the time he lost his job. He’d come back from lunches drunk too many times. He blamed my mother and me, right up until the year I turned fifteen.’
‘Because then you became bigger than him,’ Sam said quietly.
Thorne knew he’d understand. Sam’s father had been an addict. Sam knew the drill.
‘Yeah. I told him that he’d laid hands on us for the last time. He hated me even more after that. He was barely making ends meet then. We counted every penny. But by some miracle . . .’ he grimaced as he said the word, because it still left a bad taste in his mouth, ‘I won a scholarship to a very fancy prep school.’
‘Ridgewell Academy,’ Gwyn supplied. ‘It was in the article about Richard Linden’s murder.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. I hated it there. I was so hopeful at first. It was my ticket out of my own life, you know? I worked hard.’
‘So hard,’ Phil murmured. ‘You were my very best student.’
Everyone blinked in surprise once again. ‘You knew him then?’ Clay asked.
‘Phil was my history teacher,’ Thorne said, then smiled at the older man. ‘The only one who spoke up for me when the shit hit the fan.’
‘Because the others were fucking cowards,’ Phil growled.
Jamie petted his partner’s hair. ‘Easy,’ he soothed. ‘He turned out okay, remember? We did good.’
Thorne swallowed a laugh. ‘Yes. You both did good.’
Jamie gave him a wink. ‘And you were already potty trained. Bonus.’
Thorne cleared his throat, conscious of the stares pointed in their direction. ‘They kind of adopted me. But I’ll get to that in a minute. There were a few of us scholarship students and I think we were all equally disappointed. The school really didn’t want us there, except for a couple of teachers like Phil. Maybe Coach Marion, but that was only because I was lead scorer on his soccer team. We made the state finals every year I was on the team. But even he didn’t stand up for me when the chips were down. He started to, but the principal threatened his job. Threatened Phil’s too, but Phil did the right thing.’
‘Your coach had a wife and five kids,’ Jamie said softly. ‘Phil had only me, and I had a trust fund.’
Phil gave Jamie a questioning look, and Jamie nodded. Phil turned to Thorne. ‘Your coach contributed to your bail. He made us promise not to tell. He . . . he never really got over not standing up to the principal for you. But he cared. You should know that.’
Thorne stared at the two men who’d been his fathers all these years. ‘Really? I . . . I’ll need to think on that later. I need to get through this.’ Because he was coming to the worst part. Sherri. He shuddered out a breath. ‘I had a girlfriend. Her name was Sherri.’
Behind him, Gwyn inhaled sharply. ‘Your letters,’ she whispered.
He’d known she’d figure it out. ‘Yes.’ He closed his eyes, remembering Sherri’s face. Her laugh. The way she’d looked at him that very last day.
‘When we started the club,’ Lucy explained quietly, ‘we each contributed three letters of the name of someone we’d loved and lost. The L-I-N at the end was for my brother Linus, who died when I was fourteen. I’m guessing S-H-E was Thorne’s Sherri.’
Everyone looked over Thorne’s shoulder at Gwyn, whose body had grown tense against his back.
‘I-D-A was from my aunt,’ she said stiffly, and he had the distinct impression she was lying. He wondered why.
A glance in the mirror revealed that her expression had grown shuttered. ‘None of us told the others who the letters were for,’ he said, trying to take the group’s focus off Gwyn. She was probably at her nerves’ end just having so many people invading her private space. She’d had lots of parties before Evan’s betrayal four and a half years ago. She’d moved immediately afterward, and this condo hadn’t had more than a few people in it at one time. ‘We just put the letters together to make Sheidalin and moved forward.’
His attempt to divert attention hadn’t worked. Everyone was still staring at Gwyn, and she shifted behind him uncomfortably.
Until Paige spoke. ‘Wait. Lucy and Linus? Lucy, your parents were the worst.’
Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘I know, right?’
That Lucy’s father had physically abused her as much as White had Thorne would be left unsaid, because chuckles filled the room and behind him, Gwyn relaxed. In the mirror he saw her throw a grateful glance Paige’s way. Paige’s slow smile was a silent ‘you’re welcome’.
‘Anyway, back to Sherri.’ All eyes returned to Thorne and he drew another deep breath. ‘We dated all the way through high school. Her father wasn’t crazy about me, but I called him sir and treated Sherri like she was precious. Because she was.’ His voice cracked a little and he cleared his throat again. ‘So he didn’t hate me.’
‘Who was Richard Linden?’ Clay asked. ‘The brother of today’s victim.’
‘The school bully,’ Phil said bitterly. ‘Goddamn, I hated that kid.’ He aimed a look of challenge up at Jamie. ‘I can say that now. I’m almost retired.’
Jamie smiled down at him. ‘I was fine with you saying it then. He was a piece of shit. So were his parents.’
It was true. ‘They were very wealthy and they donated a lot of money to the school. They donated the money for our scholarships, actually. And never let us forget it.’ Thorne raised a brow. ‘Because we had little originality, we called Richard “Richie Rich”. He really was a total piece of shit. Thought he was entitled to everything. And anyone.’
Sam frowned. ‘He went after Sherri?’
Thorne found he could honestly chuckle at that. ‘Hell, no. Sherri was only five feet tall, but she would have kicked his ass if he’d laid a finger on her. No, there was another girl. Another scholarship student. Her name was Angie. And Richard thought she was his private little toy. I disagreed. We’d had a shouting argument about it earlier in the week that everything went to shit. I told him he was a privileged little . . .’ He winced. ‘Well, it wasn’t very nice.’
Phil laughed. ‘He called him a “privileged little limp-dicked Napoleon”.’
‘You remember that?’ Thorne asked, surprised.
‘I thought it was fantastic. You managed to blend an honest insult with a historical one. I gave you an A.’ Phil sighed. ‘But Richard had a posse and Thorne didn’t.’
‘I was known as a bully, but I’d never laid a finger on him,’ Thorne said sadly. ‘I was huge by then – six-three and still growing. I was also browner than tan because my father, my birth father, had been part Maori. I did not fit in at Ridgewell Academy. That I had the highest GPA in the school after Sherri made Richard even angrier. He went after Angie when he knew I’d see. He was pawing her in the hallway right near my locker. I pulled him off her. It was the first time I’d ever touched him. Next thing I knew, his friends were on me.’
Phil’s smile had evaporated. ‘Coach and I had to drag them off him. The boys were vicious. They were all athletes, all big guys. Not as big as Thorne, but there were four of them. And they kicked his head first. Then his ribs. It was . . . shocking. I’d never witnessed a fight like that. I was a good bit more sheltered then. But even later, after I’d gone to the inner-city schools, I rarely saw fights like that. Coach and I got Thorne up and took him to the office to see the nurse. He could barely walk. They’d destroyed his knee.’
‘Well, not destroyed,’ Thorne grumbled. ‘It got better.’
‘It took a year, some surgery, and a lot of physical therapy,’ Jamie said mildly. ‘But because the boys who’d attacked him said Thorne had started it, he was expelled. The girl – Angie – had been threatened into silence by Richard, I’m sure. She denied he’d ever touched her. No cameras back then. It was Thorne’s word against Richard’s.’
Thorne shrugged. ‘When I got expelled, my mother was upset. My stepfather was publicly upset but privately smug. Said he always knew I’d be a thug like my father.’
Stevie’s brows lifted. ‘Your father was a thug?’
‘My father was a professional rugby player. He was a good man.’ His voice cracked again. ‘A damn good man.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Gwyn murmured as her hand ran down his arm comfortingly. Then it was gone. But it was enough.
‘Thank you,’ he managed. ‘My father also played the bass guitar, and I’d taken it into school that day because we were practicing for a music assembly. The principal refused to let me take it home and wouldn’t allow the teacher to give it to Sherri either.’
All eyes shifted to the bass standing in the corner, then back to Thorne.
‘Why not?’ Ruby asked, then sighed. ‘Because he was afraid of the Linden family. They were the deep pockets.’
‘Essentially,’ Thorne said. ‘That was on Thursday. But on Friday, the music teacher slipped Sherri the keys to her room. That Sunday night, Sherri and I broke into the school to find my guitar, but we found Richard instead. He’d been beaten and stabbed, and he was bleeding badly. I wanted to run.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Lucy said confidently.
‘You wouldn’t,’ Gwyn added, and he met her eyes in the mirror. She looked defiant and pissed off. Just like her old self. It almost made him smile. But he was thinking about Sherri and what came next, and the almost-smile faded.
‘No, I didn’t. I gave him first aid, tried to stop the bleeding. Told Sherri to call 911 and then run. I didn’t want her involved because I knew the cops would assume I’d done it. Richard and I hated each other. But I couldn’t leave him there to die.’ He dragged air into his lungs. ‘Sherri had just called 911 when the cops piled in. She’d barely started talking to the operator. Someone else had called first.’
‘We never found out who,’ Jamie said with a sigh. ‘But that Sherri had called at all was one of the things that saved Thorne. That and the fact that they found a bloody knife outside in the bushes. The prints didn’t match Thorne’s.’
Lucy straightened. ‘Someone left a bloody knife with your prints on it at the crime scene this morning.’
‘Yeah,’ Thorne said grimly. He’d noticed the knife immediately while looking at the photos that Gwyn had so cleverly taken. ‘Back then I was arrested because I’d fought with Richard a few days before. It didn’t matter that he’d started it. It didn’t matter that his friends beat me up. It only mattered that I was seen putting my hands on him.’
‘But Sherri was a witness that you hadn’t murdered Richard Linden,’ Clay said, studying Thorne carefully as he made the observation.
‘Yes. She was arrested too. For trespassing, as it turned out. Her father came to bail her out, but I hadn’t been arraigned yet so I was stuck in jail.’ He closed his eyes. ‘She and her father were struck broadside by a pickup truck on their way home from the jail. Neither survived.’
A heavy silence filled the room. Then Gwyn’s hand gripped his biceps and squeezed. He covered her hand with his and held it there. She laid her head against his back, cuddling him. Comforting him.
‘I was . . . devastated,’ Thorne confessed, his eyes still closed because they’d filled with unexpected tears.
‘The police ruled that the crash was deliberate,’ Jamie said into the silence. ‘The truck had been waiting for Sherri’s father’s vehicle. Witnesses said that it accelerated, knocked them off the road, then sped away. Its license plate was covered in mud. No one got the number. The truck was never found. That was the other thing that saved Thorne. His only witness was murdered.’
‘Jamie and my brother had their own firm back then,’ Phil said. ‘My brother’s specialty wasn’t criminal law, but Jamie’s was, so I asked him to review the case.’
Jamie nodded. ‘I would have done it because he asked, but I was compelled to fight for Thorne after talking to his mother and stepfather. He was this awesome kid, and they just threw him away,’ he said sadly, and Thorne’s throat closed at the memory.
Jamie cleared his throat. ‘His stepfather painted Thorne as a violent boy, said he feared him. Told the police that too. He told the jury that Thorne had beaten his mother, that when he tried to stop him, Thorne would hit him too. He made a credible witness on the stand. The fact that Thorne was so much bigger than he was by that point didn’t help. The jury believed Willy White. I could tell.’
‘But that night after he testified,’ Thorne said bitterly, ‘Willy went home, argued with my mother, and she ended up dead.’
‘Oh, Thorne,’ Lucy murmured. ‘I’m sorry.’
He shrugged. He’d never stopped missing her, despite her betrayal. ‘My stepfather was tried for her murder. Went to prison. Died there.’
‘Good,’ Ruby stated furiously, and Thorne found himself smiling at her again.
‘You’re very bloodthirsty, Ruby,’ he said.
She firmed her trembling lips. ‘Damn straight.’ Then leaned into Sam, who kissed the top of her head tenderly.
‘Jamie was able to get the judge to issue special instructions to the jury to disregard my stepfather’s testimony. The prosecutor didn’t fight him because he’d witnessed my mother and stepfather arguing over it. My mother apparently had some conscience. She wanted to tell the truth the next day, that I had never laid a finger on her, that my stepfather lied. But she never got to. That’s what they’d argued about the night she died.’
Gwyn rubbed her cheek into his back and he could feel his shirt growing wet. She was crying. For me. It gave him . . . hope. ‘So, the jury found me not guilty because there were 911 records of an earlier call. And they did have Sherri’s statement from her trespassing arrest. That was allowed into evidence. And right after that, I changed my name to Thorne and moved in with Phil and Jamie. Tried to put all the ugliness behind me.’
‘Until today,’ Frederick said. He’d been so quiet that Thorne had almost forgotten he was there. Frederick had a way about him. Like he could fade into the woodwork if he wanted to go unseen. But the older man’s eyes were sharp and Thorne wondered what he was thinking. Frederick had proven himself a formidable man. He never spoke much about his past, but he wore . . . strength like an invisible mantle. It was something about the way he moved. The way his eyes were always assessing. Clay moved that way. So did JD Fitzpatrick. Thorne attributed it to their military training.
Thorne himself was far too big to disappear. He’d never wanted to. His strength was his physical presence and he’d learned to use it to his best advantage.
Regardless of how Frederick moved in the physical plane, his mind was always working the angles. He’d proven himself invaluable in the short time he’d been handling cases for the firm pro bono. Thorne was interested to hear his proposal for action. That the man already had a plan was not even in question.
‘Until today,’ Thorne agreed.
Stevie’s forehead was bunched in a frown. ‘Was no one else ever arrested for the murder?’
‘No,’ Phil confirmed. ‘I don’t think the cops even tried.’
‘So the real killer walks free,’ Stevie said thoughtfully. ‘At least one person knows what really happened that day.’
Gwyn came to her feet, her hands on Thorne’s shoulders. In the mirror he could see her looking at the assembled group with grim determination.
‘Somebody knows about Thorne’s past. Somebody who wants to hurt him. All this shit is going to come to light and people will wonder. They’ll make assumptions. That the victim this morning is the sister of the victim from nineteen years ago will make everyone ask if Thorne was guilty before as well. Just the hint of scandal could ruin his career. Let’s figure out how to keep that from happening.’
Annapolis, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 8.00 P.M.
He was smiling as he rejoined Margo, who’d taken her brandy to the library, curling up in one corner of the sofa. She smirked when he sat beside her. ‘How many times did Benny get you to read it?’
He had to chuckle. ‘Only three. Well, two and a half, technically. He fell asleep halfway through the third time.’
‘You spoil him,’ she said without any real heat.
‘He is my grandson.’ His throat grew suddenly thick as grief for Colin hit him hard. ‘My only grandson. All I have left of my son. Lo extraño.’ I miss him. Sometimes so much he thought he’d die from it. That his heart would simply stop beating.
He missed Madeline. She was his heart. His soul. But she’d been sick for a long time before she died, and he’d had time to prepare himself. Colin . . . ‘He was too young.’
Margo leaned toward him, brushing her fingertips over his upper arm. Her dark eyes were haunted. ‘I miss him too.’
‘I know you do,’ he murmured. Closing his eyes, he held out his palm and she grasped it, sharing his pain. ‘How could you not?’
They’d grown up together, she and Colin. They’d been best friends from the time they could crawl, and from there had become so much more.
‘When did you know you loved him?’ he asked, his eyes still closed.
‘I always loved him,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘From my first memories, I loved him. But when did I know that I loved him like I do now?’ She cleared her throat. ‘We were fifteen and he brought a DVD of my favorite movie when I had a bad cold.’ Her chuckle was teary. ‘He hated that movie, but he endured it so bravely. That’s when I knew.’
He smiled, grateful for the shared confidence. For just a little bit more of his son to tuck away in his heart. ‘What was the movie?’
‘Twilight.’
He grimaced. ‘My son has more bravery than I.’ And then he realized . . . ‘Had,’ he corrected himself. ‘He had more bravery than I.’
For long moments they said nothing, the ticking of the grandfather clock the only sound in the otherwise silent room.
‘We will make him pay,’ Margo whispered.
‘Yes.’ His tone was flat to his own ears. ‘We will.’
She squeezed his hand hard. ‘Let’s get down to business, Papa.’
Opening his eyes, he drew a breath and sat up straighter. ‘You have all the information we need?’
‘Of course.’ Margo looked insulted. ‘I know how to dig for information, Papa.’
He released her hand, then patted it fondly. ‘I know you do.’ His daughter-in-law had many talents, including fluency in six languages, necessary for the international trading deals he made routinely. He’d long planned for her to take her mother’s place as his office manager, but now . . . now he was considering grooming her to take over the organization he’d built over the course of his life. She might even be better at it than Colin would have been. I mean, I loved him, but I knew his strengths . . . and weaknesses. ‘Indulge me, if you would. They do not suspect you?’
‘Not even a little bit.’ Her lips curved, giving her a feline look. ‘They’re distracted at the moment.’
‘All part of the plan,’ he murmured. ‘Tell me everything you’ve learned.’