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I still can’t wrap my head around this. Declan couldn’t have done that, could he? He was Dad’s most loyal lieutenant.
“Well, one thing’s for certain,” I say, slumping over. “Declan is damned dangerous when provoked. If we’re going to go against him, if we’re going to accuse him of being a traitor, we'd better tread carefully.”
“You’re right about that,” Oliver agrees. “The only person more dangerous than Dad was Declan.”
“You want to go talk to him now?” I offer. “He’s probably still in his office.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Oliver agrees, pulling out his phone to text Eva to let her know we’d be gone. “If he’s in a good mood, we can ask a few subtle questions.”
“Nothing that would make him suspicious,” I warn. “We don’t want him catching on.”
“Agreed,” Oliver says with a nod.
The two of us head out immediately, tension forgotten in the wake of our mission to get the truth from our uncle.
Arriving at Declan’s office, we head up to find him still working as the sun goes down.
“Boys,” he says with a nod. “I’ll be right with you.”
We sit, sharing a silent exchange between us. Oliver is going to let me take the lead here, suss out Declan with a few pointed questions. Then Oliver will go in for the kill.
“Alright, what brings you boys to my office so late in the day?” Declan asks, sitting back in his chair as he swivels around to gaze at us.
“We were going through a few things with the insurance company with regard to the fire,” I lie smoothly. “We’ve been doing repairs on Shadowvale, as you know.”
Declan nods, pen dangling between his fingers. “What did you need from me?” he asks.
“There was some question about where everyone was at the time of the fire,” I tell him.
“Thought the fire investigators already closed the case?” Declan asks, still calm as ever. If he suspects something is weird about this line of questioning, he doesn’t give anything away.
“Well, because we’ve put in a new claim, they’re doing some more investigation,” I explain. “We want to replace the library, and there’s a lot of valuable books that were burned. They asked us to account for everyone’s whereabouts starting from two days before the fire.”
“That’s unusual,” Declan says, letting his pen fall so it’s tapping against the desk. “I don’t know if I can recall. I might have had a meeting that day.”
“A meeting? With whom?” Oliver asks.
“I’m not sure. I can look it up,” Declan offers. I sit back and wait while he pulls out his leather planner, flipping through the pages.
He shakes his head and sighs. “Looks like I was trying to meet with Sal DeLucci to bargain with him about the waterfront development,” he notes. “I’d forgotten that. I hoped that we could avoid bloodshed if I bribed him to look the other way while we put in for a deal on the property. I guess it didn’t work.”
Despite the explanation, something still feels off about it. I nod, though, along with Oliver.
“You two sure came a long way to ask me a single question,” Declan says, frowning.
“That’s because we also came to tell you that we’re going to start seeing Evangeline,” Oliver jumps in. “I know you don’t approve, but she’s no longer a maid. She works for Aunt Bridget now. I just wanted you to hear it from us, in person.”
Declan purses his lips. “All three of you?”
“We don’t mind sharing,” I tell him. “The three of us are close, especially after losing Dad. If anyone were to come between us, we’d have no problem cutting them out of our lives.”
“That’s right,” Oliver adds. “You hurt one of us, you hurt us all.”
Declan shrugs. “As long as you don’t let it interfere with your work, I couldn’t care less who you have in your bed.”
“Good,” I say, nodding. “Good. We’ll be going now. We just wanted to tell you.”
“Thanks,” Declan says, sounding confused and a little annoyed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Theo. We’re still on for our meeting, right? Or are you going to be busy with your little maid?”
