Shattered Trust (Shattered #2) (14 page)

Chapter 23

Madrigal

Again I must make do with what I have. My mother’s journals were a wonderful discovery that would have shed light on those important months leading up to her murder. But they’ve been burned beyond recognition, and only a pile of ashes remains.

So I’m forced to take extreme measures.

The house we lived in when I was a child still stands. I’d avoided going there in the last twelve years, but now? I have to, no matter the cost. I’ll need someone to accompany me. The question is who. It can’t be Steele, not as busy as he is setting up his new law firm and dealing with Mitch’s case. Charlie is busy with that as well, and Cristina’s at her internship. Madison’s not an option. So my only choice is Hunter Stone.

We make the trek up I-66 to the Beltway and from there to the Arlington house I lived in until I was twelve. My grandfather never sold or rented the house, but took care of it as if my mother still lived there. The house lies empty, but the grounds have been landscaped, the grass mown, the hedges trimmed. The furniture inside is exactly as I remember.

“Where is your parents’ room?” Hunter asks.

“Upstairs on the second floor. Maddy and I had our children’s suite on the third. Olivia lived with us up there.”

“No other bedrooms on the second floor?”

“Guest rooms. But as far as I know they were never used. Nobody stayed here other than the family. The servants had their own quarters in the back of the house.”

“Strange.”

“Not really. My mother and father were only children, and my grandfather had his own house. So no family members to visit.”

When we get to my parents’ bedroom, I take a deep breath. I haven’t seen the inside of this room in over twelve years.

Sensing my distress, Hunter steps back and allows me space and time to gather my courage. Finally, I grab the knob. It turns as easily as if it’s been oiled or kept in good repair all these years. Clearly, somebody’s taken care of it, and the orders could have only come from one person—my grandfather.

I thrust open the door and step inside. Everything looks exactly the same. My parents’ king-sized bed in the center of the room. My mother’s vanity table with its tufted bench. A chest of drawers on the side, and the hope chest in front of the bed where my mother stashed the quilt at night when they slept. Now it covers the bed. Such happy colors. Turquoise and peach in a traditional wedding-ring pattern. She’d loved that quilt. So had I, thinking how well it symbolized their happy union. How very wrong I’d been.

Like the furniture in the rooms below, the furniture here is dust-free and so is the carpet beneath our feet. Not even a ghost of a bloodstain remains. Had Gramps replaced the rug? More than likely. He’d want the place to remain exactly the way it’d been before my parents were killed. I wander to the vanity table and pick up a framed photograph. The four of us smiling at Christmas. Another one of my mother and father on their wedding day. She’d been so beautiful in her wedding gown.

“You look like her,” Hunter whispers over my shoulder.

“Yes.”

I pick up another Christmas photo. This one includes the four of us plus Gramps and Mitch. While everyone’s staring into the camera, Mitch is looking at my mother. The longing on his face takes my breath away. Clearly, he loved her. Why hadn’t I figured that out? It makes perfect sense now that I think about it. She must have had some feelings for him as well since she insisted Gramps make him a co-trustee of the trusts he drew up for Madison and me.

“What about friends? Didn’t you have sleepovers?”

“No. My father never allowed it.” That should have been my first clue that something was wrong. My beautiful mother had gone from one control freak of a father to another in a husband. She should have married a man who truly loved her. Like Mitch. He never married. Was he happy to worship her from afar?

My stomach churns at the myriad of possibilities this discovery creates. Where was Mitch the night of my parents’ murders? That question never came up as far as I know. It never seemed important back then. But now? At one time, he and my mother were close friends. Would she have turned to him, revealed her abuse? If she had, I doubt Mitch would have stood aside and allowed it to continue. He would have done something. Could he have walked in on them and found my mother dead? If he had, would he have killed my father? Seeing how the alarm had been turned off, he could have simply entered the house. Is that why Gramps manipulated Helga’s testimony? Because he knew Mitch had killed my father? Or maybe Gramps killed him himself?

God, so many possibilities. I don’t dare mention this to Steele. Not with him having to deal with Mitch’s case right now. He’s bound to have a jaundiced view. I’ll need to figure things out on my own. And there’s only one way. To go directly to Mitch and ask him point-blank.

As the thoughts whirl around in my head, I sway on my feet. My vision starts to waver.

“Whoa!” Stone says, catching me by my elbow. “Are you okay? You look pale. Here. Sit. Put your head between your legs. I’ll get you some water.”

I wait on the stuffed aquamarine chair in the corner of the room until he returns with a cold bottle of water.

“How did you manage that?”

“I keep a cooler in the back of my car. Before we left the house, I put the bottles and some ice packs inside.” He waits until I take a couple of sips before saying, “I think we should go.” His eyes register nothing but kindness and concern.

“No. I’m not done yet.” Coming slowly to my feet, I test my ability to stand. When my knees support my weight, I walk toward the hallway, make a right, and climb the stairs to the third floor where my room and Maddy’s were located. Her tiny bed’s still there. It will never be slept on again. At least not by her. At some point, I’ll call Goodwill or the Salvation Army and donate most of the furniture. But only when I’m through with my investigation.

I head toward the wall where Mom marked our heights. I find the one that recorded Madison’s at different ages. The mark for four shows she was forty inches tall. With Hunter trailing, I retrace our steps and walk to the hallway window that faces the backyard. It was there Madison spotted Gramps digging up Scruffy’s grave.

“How tall would you have to be to reach the bottom of that window?”

Hunter pulls out the tape I’d asked him to bring and measures the distance. “Forty inches.”

“Could someone forty inches tall see into the backyard?”

“No. Only the top of her head would reach the bottom of the window. She would have had to use a step stool.”

We had one. She’d used it to open chest drawers too high for her. But when she told us about Gramps digging in the backyard the night of our parents’ murders, she’d never mentioned that detail. It’s entirely possible she forgot. Or maybe, just maybe, she dreamed the whole thing up.

Chapter 24

Trenton

“Why did you leave the firm, Mitch?” I’ve come to the Loudoun County Detention Center to interview Mitch, but he’s not cooperating and stares stone-faced at me.

“Do you want to be found guilty of first degree murder?” I ask.

He relaxes into his chair, seemingly without a care in the world. “That’s not going to happen.”

“How do you know?”

His gaze reminds me of the one he used when I said something incredibly stupid during my youth. “They have to prove me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“And you think they won’t be able to do that? You had means and opportunity!” I yell.

“But no motive.” In contrast to my excited voice, his is a soft whisper.

“How do you figure that, Mitch? You argued with Holden that very afternoon. He threw you out of his house. And that night? You were there to rescue Madrigal after he locked her in. How on earth is that not motive?”

“First of all, I was with you most of that time. You jumped the fence to get inside. Not being as nimble as you, I remained outside. You’d taken very few steps before the shots went off. One wounded you. The other killed Holden. How on earth could I have traveled that distance and gotten into the house without you seeing me?”

He’s right, damn it. It doesn’t make sense. But then it doesn’t make sense that he was charged with Holden’s murder either. The prosecution has something up their sleeve, and I don’t have a clue what it is. And Mitch stubbornly refuses to cooperate. Maybe if I take another tack, he’ll let something slip. “I saw somebody running toward the wall and climb the fence.”

“And you think that was me? With my bad knee?” When he was younger, he’d injured his knee playing tennis. He’d undergone surgery to repair it, but it had never healed right. “Besides, he was running away from the house, and you yourself said the shots came almost on top of each other. So whoever that runner was, he didn’t kill Holden.”

“You could have hired somebody to do it.”

He comes upright, rattles the handcuffs chained to the table. “I wouldn’t—I’d never do such a thing.”

No. If he ever killed somebody, he’d do it himself, not pay someone to do it. Or would he? The more he stonewalls me, the more I think I don’t know him as well as I do.

Regardless, I have to keep his trust in me if I’m to have any hope of getting the truth out of him. “I know you wouldn’t. But they can sell that theory to a jury.”

“They can’t just throw out accusations without something to back it up. They’d need proof, which they won’t be able to get because I never did such a thing.” For a couple of seconds, air bellows in and out of his lungs, but gradually he gets his breathing under control. “How are the girls?”

So he wants to change the subject. Okay. We’ll take a break from my interrogation. And even though he’s my own client, it is an interrogation. “Fine.” I fill him in on Madison’s doctor visit. “Madrigal’s handling her meds now. She seems pleased with Madison’s progress.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Madison.” A rattle tells me he resents being handcuffed. If I were in his shoes, so would I. “Holden used drugs to control the women in his life.”

“What do you mean?”

“He used them on Marlena whenever she disobeyed him, used them on his wife too. He liked his women docile.”

“How do you know this, Mitch?”

“Marlena told me. He’d slip drugs into his wife’s tea whenever she ‘stepped out of line.’ His phrasing.”

God. The man was a monster. “And Marlena never reported him?”

“Who would she report him to? She was fifteen. Nobody would believe her.”

“He seems to have taken the same tack with Madrigal and Madison.” After her mother’s death, Madrigal suffered a breakdown, so he’d placed her in a mental health care facility for an entire year. With Madison he took a different direction. He’d asked his friend, Dr. Holcomb, to put Madison on a drug regimen for God only knew how long. “Madrigal is working with this new doctor to find out if Madison really needs all those pills.”

“My guess is she doesn’t. It’s something Holden favored. And as long as he had his friend prescribing pills and no one objecting to it, everything was fine. The bastard. I’m glad the son of a bitch is dead. If he were still alive, I’d—”

“Mitch, for God’s sake, keep your voice down.”

“Why? You’re my attorney,” he tosses out. “Nobody should be listening in.”

“True. But I’d just as soon not take any chances.”

His head droops as despair seems to flow over him. “Damn his black soul,” he whispers. “I hope he’s burning in hell. How could he do that to his own daughter and granddaughters?”

“The man had an ego the size of Texas. He never could stand anyone going against his wishes, and he needed to be in control.”

“He wasn’t infallible. The decisions he made ultimately cost him his daughter’s life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Marlena’s marriage to Tom Berkeley. Holden picked him out. Dangled him in front of her every chance he got the summer after her junior year in college. God. She hated those damned company picnics. But found it impossible to say no to her father. She was terrified of him. And then when she went back to college, Tom was always around. It got to the point she couldn’t go anywhere without him following her.”

“How do you know all this?”

Lost in his narrative, he continues almost as if I’m not there. “She’d tell me. I wanted to do something, but I was at Harvard and she was at William & Mary. I told her to hang on. That college would be over soon. And then I would take her away from her father, from Tom. But then one day she called to tell me she was pregnant and Tom was the father.” When he looks up, tears shimmer in his eyes.

“She was pregnant with Madrigal.”

“Yes. I wanted to propose after graduation. I thought getting my Harvard degree would make me worthy of her, but I waited just a shade too long.”

“And then you had another opportunity when she came to you.”

His head jerks up. “What do you mean?” Fear lurks in his gaze.

And I know why. He’s afraid I know the truth. But I’m not ready to reveal that to him. When the proper opportunity arises, I’ll use it to find out why he left the firm. But for now, I’ll play dumb. “She came to you a couple of months before she died, asking for your help. You said so yourself.”

His tension eases. “Yes, she did.”

“If everything had gone according to your plans, she would have run away with you. It would have been you, her, and the girls.”

“And it would have been perfect. I’d have made sure of that.”

“I know you would have, my friend.”

There’s a knock at the door. With a rattle of keys, the guard enters. “Time’s up.”

I come to my feet. “I’ll see you soon. Anything you need?”

“No. Just tell the girls I love them.”

I squeeze his shoulder on the way out. After I retrieve my belongings from the locker, I wander out to my Jag. It’s one of those hellacious summer days. A storm’s brewing on the horizon. Soon it will arrive. And then all hell will break loose.

Chapter 25

Madrigal

“Thanks for seeing me, Uncle Mitch.” He looks the same and yet different. The orange prison uniform suits his blond coloring, but in only a few days, he’s lost some weight. Shadows darken the skin below his eyes, and that special vivacity he always had has gone missing. I sense surrender in him. Like he’s fought the good fight and is resigned to his fate, which doesn’t make any sense. He’s always fought for what he felt was right. Why, look at how he took on Gramps. When it came to championing Madison and me, he’d always been fierce. But now? It’s like he’s given up. I hate to see him like this. “How are you, Uncle Mitch?”

“As fine as can be expected under the circumstances. How’s Madison?”

“She’s . . . content. Goes riding every day.”

“Of course.” He bows his head.

“She misses her boyfriend.”

His head jerks up at that. “She has a boyfriend?”

“Yes.” Of course he doesn’t know. The whole episode with the boyfriend happened after he’d been thrown in jail. “His name’s Philippe. She met him at a steeplechase race.” I tell him as much as I know about the young man, leaving out the details about Philippe sneaking into Madison’s bedroom. Uncle Mitch would just get upset if he knew.

“She’s growing up.”

“Yes, she is. She wants to board at school during the fall. I think I’ll allow it.”

“Holden kept her on a pretty tight rein. At times he took extreme measures to curtail her freedom.”

“You knew about the drugs?”

“Yes.”

“How did you find out?”

“She had a fall from her horse and ended up in the hospital. She called me on her cell in tears because Holden was threatening to put down her mount. Apparently, she’d been on some heavy-duty meds and had refused to take them. Holden ascribed her wild behavior to not following her regimen.”

“You didn’t know before that?”

“No. I didn’t know he’d gone that far. She slept in the stable for an entire week, petrified that he’d follow through on his threat. I interceded as best I could, but Holden flat out told me it was none of my business. That Madison was his granddaughter and he’d do what he thought was best for her.”

“Yes, I can see Gramps saying that. He could be pretty stubborn.”

Something about my words causes him to frown. “He didn’t force you to take meds as well, did he?”

“No. But he did lock me in my room on a couple of occasions when I sneaked out of the house.”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry you went through all that. I asked Olivia to keep tabs on the situation and let me know if Holden became too dictatorial, but she never did.”

“She was afraid of him, I think. Or afraid he’d fire her and she’d never see us again. She’d grown attached to us.”

“Thank God she was there. She acted as the buffer between Holden and you. Otherwise, God knows what he would have done.”

“Was he that way with my mother?”

He nods. “Growing up, Marlena was terrified of him. He imposed strict curfews on her time away from home and didn’t approve of most of her friendships.”

“But he approved of you.”

“Not really. I don’t think he realized the extent of my friendship with your mother. I didn’t count. I was a charity case at her high school, there on a scholarship. So he couldn’t envision her choosing me as a confidant. And then there was the fact I was a boy. Unlike most teenagers, Marlena was singularly uninterested in boys.”

“But you did become friends.”

“Yes, close friends. Very close friends.”

I reach out and cover his handcuffed hands with my own. “You loved her.”

He heaves out a sigh. “Yes, I did. But I was foolish and proud. My vanity got in the way. I wanted to offer her something more than a poor man with no prospects. I waited until after graduation from Harvard to propose to her. But by then it was too late. She’d fallen in love with your father. Right after she graduated from college, they married.”

My lips bow into a smile of sorts. “She was pregnant with me.”

“You know?”

“Of course. I can do basic math, Uncle Mitch. I was born in September, and they got married in June. It stands to reason she was carrying me.”

“Yes. Nothing I could do at that point.”

The guard who escorted me into the room appears. “Time’s up.”

My lips twist. “I’ll come back. I promise. Do you need anything?”

“It’d be nice to have a photo of your mother and the two of you.”

“I’ll bring it with me next time.”

“Just the photo. They don’t allow us to have frames.”

Probably so the prisoners can’t use them to fashion weapons.

“I understand. Until next time.”

“Say hello to Madison.” His heart is in his eyes. His eyes. They’re Madison’s eyes.

My breath shorts. Could he be Madison’s father? Is that why he cares so much about her? How did I not see this before? I was too close to him, to Madison. That’s how. But now the murder investigation has opened up my eyes to this new possibility. And it’s something I must seriously consider. Well, there’s one sure way to find out. Compare their DNA. I’ll have to find a way to get something from him. A hairbrush would do. I can get it from his house.

“I will. Is there something you’d like from home?”

“There is. A picture of your mother and me when we were teenagers. It’s on my dresser. Trenton has the key to my house. He can let you in.”

“Sure, I’ll bring it. Take care, Uncle Mitch.” Bending down, I kiss him on the cheek.

He tugs on my ponytail the way he’s done since I was five. “You too.”

As I walk out of the jail, I debate the best way to tell Steele about our meeting. I never told him I’d be visiting Mitch. And seeing how Mitch is his client, he’s bound to object.