The Bourbon Kings #1 (48 page)

“I need someone to tell me if my father is embezzling from the family company. To the tune of over fifty million dollars.”

Jeff whistled softly. “That’s a lot of cabbage, my friend.”

“My brother managed to get me access to … Christ, it’s about five hundred pages worth of spreadsheets and financial disclosures, but I have no idea what I’m looking at. I want you to come down and tell me what happened, and it has to be now—before he figures out I’m onto him and gets rid of anything that incriminates him.”

“Listen, Lane, you know I love you like the long-lost Waspy brother I never had, but you’re talking about forensic accounting. There are people who specialize in that—for a reason. Let me find you someone you can trust—”

“That’s my point, Jeff. I can’t trust anyone with this—it’s my family we’re talking about.”

“We can blind all the documents. I can help with that—so that whoever it is won’t know—”

“I want you.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lane.”

Thanks to having known the guy for years, Lane was very aware that his job was now to shut up and let Jeff grumble his way down the rabbit hole. Nothing was going to sway the guy; there was no persuasion to be brought to bear, and if you did try to mouth off, sometimes it worked against you.

Instead, Lane knew if he kept quiet, all their years together were going to take care of the problem.

Bingo:

“I’m going to insist someone check my work,” Jeff muttered. “And
fuck you—that’s non-negotiable. I’m not going to be responsible for screwing this up just because you have some romantic notion that I’m brilliant with numbers.”

“But you are.”

“Damn you, Baldwine.”

“I can’t send a plane for you. It would create too much attention.”

“That’s okay. One of my family’s is on the East Coast. I’ll get on it tomorrow morning—and no, I can’t come sooner. I’m going to have to shift some things around at work.”

“I owe you.”

“Damn straight you do. And you can start repaying me tomorrow night. I want free booze and loose women if I’m going to do this.”

“I’ll take care of everything. I’ll even pick you up at the airport myself, just text me your arrival time.”

Jeff was muttering obscenities as the guy hung up without saying good-bye.

As Lane put his own phone down, he blew out a breath. “Thank God.”

“Who was that?”

“Guess you’d call him my best friend. He was the one I was staying with up north. Jeff Stern. Brilliant finance guy. If anyone can make sense of the money trail, he will. And after that …” Lane rubbed his eyes. “God, I guess I should go to the police? Maybe the SEC? But I’d really rather handle it quietly.”

“What if your father’s broken the law?”

A sudden image of William Baldwine in an orange jumpsuit made him relieved, in a sick way, that his mother was so out of it. “I’m not going to get in the way of the authorities. What I’m worried about is that he’s used Mother’s power of attorney to drain her accounts, but I don’t have access to those records—they’re all at Prospect Trust.”

“If the police or the FBI get involved, they can find that out.”

Lane nodded, remembering the sight of that body bag leaving Easterly. “If Rosalinda committed suicide over this, my father has someone’s blood on his hands. He needs to be brought to justice.”

“You know, usually I try to look on the bright side of things, but …” She took his hand. “Well, no matter what happens, I’m with you, okay?”

Looking over at her, he said gravely, “That’s all I need. No matter where this all goes … if I have you—”

The phone rang again, and he laughed as he picked it back up. “He’s having second thoughts. No, Jeff, you can’t back out of it—”

“Are you near a TV?”

Lane sat up. “Samuel T.?”

“Are you?”

“No. What’s going on?”

“I need you to come to my house right away. The police are looking for you, and when you weren’t at Easterly, Mitch called me.”

“What—what are you talking about?” Then he thought,
Oh, shit.
“Look, I realize Edward and I technically entered the business center under false pretenses, but the goddamn facility’s on the property, for one thing. And as for the documents we—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and right now I don’t care. Chantal went to the emergency room first thing this morning all beaten to hell and gone. She told the authorities you did it to her when you found out that she was pregnant after you filed the divorce papers. They’re placing you under arrest for first-degree domestic assault, and they might have enough to lift it to attempted murder.”

“What!” Lane jumped to his feet. “Is she insane!”

“No, what she is is in surgery. They’re resetting her jaw at the moment.”

“I never touched Chantal! And I can prove it! I wasn’t even home last night—”

“Just get to my house. I’ll broker an intake in the middle of the night so there are no pictures of you going in—and we’ll bail you—”

“This is
bullshit
,” Lane spat. “I’m not playing this game with her—”

“This isn’t a game. And unless you make an appearance down at that jailhouse, you’re going to be considered a fugitive.”

Lane looked over at Lizzie. She was sitting up, in full alarm, braced for bad news.

All at once, he remembered passing Chantal in that Mercedes as she had left Easterly. Her face had been covered with the glasses, that black veil.

For all they knew, she’d pulled a
Gone Girl
and done the stuff to herself. He hadn’t put the woman in true pathological territory before, but maybe he’d underestimated the crazy.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m coming in. I’ll be at your farm in twenty minutes.”

Hanging up the phone, he heard himself say, “I have to go.”

“Lane, what’s happening?”

The dishes from their nice dinner were still on the table, the cushions of the sofa still dented from his having laid back and stroked her legs.

And yet those moments, which had happened mere minutes ago, were gone, gone, gone.

“I’m going to take care of it,” he told her. “I’m going to make it all go away. She’s lying. Once again, she’s lying.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Stay here—and don’t turn on your radio. I’ll call you as soon as I can and explain everything.” Marching back over to Lizzie, he took her face in his hands. “I love you. I need you to believe that. I need you to remember that. And I’m going to take care of this, I swear on my momma’s life.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“It’s all going to be okay. I promise.”

With that, he left her house.

At a dead run.

A
s Lane’s Porsche roared off into the gathering darkness, Lizzie sat where he’d left her for a time. All she could think of was that none of them should be surprised. Chantal Baldwine was as tough as they came, and there was no way that woman was going to lose her social status and access to that Bradford lifestyle without putting up a tremendous fight.

So whatever this was might well just be an opening salvo.

Getting to her feet, she picked up their plates and thought, wow, not how she’d expected the evening to end.

But maybe he would still be back. He’d left his bag.

Damn you, Chantal.

Back in the kitchen, she put everything in the sink, pumped some dishwashing soap on top of the mess, and fired up the hot water.

She was about to get her hands wet when her cell phone rang over on the counter.

“Thank God,” she said, leaping across the tile. “Lane? Lane, can you tell me what—”

“Lizzie? Are you home?”

“Greta?” There was a whirring noise over the connection, like the woman was behind the wheel of her car. “Greta? I’m having trouble hearing you?”

“—home?”

“Yes, yes, I’m home. Are you all right?”

“—on my way”
—buzz, chirp, whrrrrr—
“there in ten minutes.”

“Okay, but I don’t want to finish working on that limb now. It’s nearly dark, and honestly, I’m not in the mood—”

“—off your phone.”

“What?”

The metaphorical seas parted and the German’s voice came through loud and clear: “You need to turn off your phone.”

“Why? And I will not.” Lane might call. “Look, I’m not really in the mood for company and—”

There was a loud chirp and the connection cut out entirely.

“Great.”

Putting the phone in her pocket, she went back to the sink, washed the dishes and the silverware, dried the lot of it, and put everything away.

She was out in the living room, sitting on the sofa again, nervously thumbing through the latest issue of
Garden & Gun
, when headlights flashed across the front of the farmhouse and the cobblestones of her drive crackled.

Getting to her feet, she pulled her shirt down and double-checked her hair wasn’t tangled. No sense looking like she’d rolled out of bed with Lane.

Especially because most of the sex they’d had had been on the rug in the hall. And on the stairs. And standing up in the shower.

Opening the door, she—

As her partner got out of the Mercedes station wagon, Lizzie could see Greta’s face was ashen and her shoulders bowed. And she looked like she was wiping away tears under those tortoiseshell glasses of hers.

“Oh, my God,” Lizzie said. “Is it one of the kids?”

The other woman didn’t answer, just came up on the porch and walked right into the house. Lizzie followed, closing them in.

“Greta?”

The woman paced around. Then finally stopped. “Were you with him last night?”

“Excuse me?”

“Lane. Just … were you with him? For the whole night?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Chantal is accusing Lane of beating her up badly enough to put her in the hospital.”

“WHAT.”

And that was when it came out: Chantal. The hospital. The police. The media.

Lane.

When Greta finally fell silent, Lizzie threw out a hand blindly as she backed up and fell into a chair. “I …”

“That man is a lot of things,” Greta said, “but I’ve never known him to raise a hand to a woman.”

“Of course not. God, no. Absolutely not.”

“Was he here last night?”

“Yes. I came home into the storm, and he was here. And he didn’t leave until the morning to take Miss Aurora to church.” She leaped up. “I’ve got to help him! I’ve got to tell the police he was with me—”

“There’s something else.”

“Can you drive me? I’m so scattered, I don’t think I should be—”

“Lizzie.”

At the sound of her name, she stopped, a cold fear gripping her chest. “What …?”

Now Greta’s eyes started welling up. “I’m sorry.”

“What! Will you just get it all out before my head explodes—”

“Chantal’s pregnant. And she told the police … it’s Lane’s.”

Lizzie blinked as everything came to a crashing halt: her thoughts, her heart, her lungs … even time and the laws of physics.

“She says that’s why he beat her. When she told him. She says he was furious.”

A wave of vicious nausea nailed her in the gut—except no. She
couldn’t be reliving what had happened before. She couldn’t possibly be in this exact same situation with Chantal and Lane again.

I’ve already done this,
she thought.
I’ve lived through this nightmare already.

God, no. Please, no.

“When …” Lizzie cleared her throat. “When did she go to the police?”

“First thing this morning. Around nine or ten.”

If you were hurt badly, you wouldn’t wait to get medical attention,
Lizzie thought.

If the woman was pregnant, and she told him when he got back to Easterly … he could very well have—

With a horrible lurch, Lizzie skidded her way down the hall—and barely made it to the bathroom before she threw up all that tenderloin.

B
y the time Lane pulled up to Samuel T.’s farm, he was mad enough to chew tin and spit nails.

Punching his foot into the brake, he skidded to a stop in the front of the man’s mansion and nearly left the engine running as he got out.

Samuel T. opened the door before he even made it around the car. “I called Mitch. He’s going to be here in forty-five minutes with an unmarked. They don’t want to wait to take you in, but we’re going to go in through the impound entrance. No one with a camera can get back there, so you’ll be all right.”

Lane brushed past the guy. “This is a total fucking lie! She’s batshit crazy and is going to—” He stopped and frowned at his old friend. “What? Why are you looking at me like that.”

By way of answer, Samuel T. reached out and took Lane’s arm. “How did you get these scratches all over your hands. Your arms. Your neck and face.”

Lane glanced down at himself. “Jesus Christ, Sam, these are from last night. I went out to Lizzie’s and this limb fell on her car.” When his friend just stared at him, he snapped, “She’ll testify in court if she has to. I pulled her out of her goddamn Yaris. I thought she was dead.”

“Are you seeing her again?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And you think she’s going to want to help you when she finds out Chantal’s having your baby? Again? Didn’t you two try this drama out a couple of years ago?”