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Of course. The Queen of Cups, reversed. Co-dependency, weakness.
She’d wanted that money, too…enough that she was just fine with emotional blackmail and even murder to get it.
“That’s ridiculous,” Max Speros said, his tone cold enough to drop the temperature in the room by at least ten degrees. “And utterly insulting.”
“No, it’s true,” Chloe chimed in. “Selena told me about Lucien Dumond’s money and your sister Athene. It makes total sense — you thought you could get to Selena’s inheritance by going through me. I guess my question is, did you encourage Jack to date me, or was it just a stroke of luck that your son started seeing the half-sister of the woman who inherited the money you thought you were entitled to?”
For a long moment, neither Max nor Leslie said anything, and I wondered what I would do if they tried to stonewall us. I supposed I had enough evidence that I could go to Henry Lewis and hope he’d think it was sufficient to place them both under arrest, but I couldn’t be sure of that.
Then Max Speros’ mouth quirked in a lopsided smile. There was absolutely no humor in his expression, though, and I wondered if the smile had turned out so crooked because he couldn’t quite get all his facial muscles to obey.
“I think you need to leave,” he said, but Calvin stepped forward, expression utterly blank.
When he looked like that, anyone who knew him well also knew they shouldn’t fool around.
“Chloe asked you a question.”
That was all he said, but I saw the way his hand rested on his hip — the same hip where he was wearing his service revolver. I’d never once seen him fire it, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t…in the right situation.
And although I was halfway worried that Max would still challenge him, would say this wasn’t his jurisdiction and he needed to butt out, it seemed Jack’s father was a little fuzzy on that aspect of the situation. He forced a chuckle that didn’t fool any of us, then said, “I don’t have to say anything without a lawyer present.”
“You’re not under arrest, Mr. Speros,” Calvin replied. “The Miranda laws don’t apply.”
“Maybe not,” Leslie put in, her face white with strain, “but that also doesn’t mean we have to stand here and listen to these sorts of horrible accusations.”
Stalemate. I allowed myself the smallest of glances toward my husband, but his attention was fixed on the Speroses, not me.
But then Chloe stepped forward, chin up. “You made him date me,” she said, her voice firm, dark gray eyes blazing with fury. “You made him do whatever he had to so we’d stay together. And then when we broke up, you wouldn’t let him walk away. What happened that night, Mr. Speros? Did Jack finally grow a spine, and you strangled him because you realized he wasn’t any use to you and he might tell me the truth about what was really going on?”
No response…except maybe the smallest twitch of one of the muscles near Max’s left eye.
But that was enough for me.
And yet I still wanted to know for sure.
“How did Jack get in Chloe’s Airbnb?” I pressed, ignoring Max Speros’ continuing silence. “There wasn’t any sign of forced entry. Did one of you pick the lock?”
Now a flicker of contempt showed in his dark eyes. “No need for that. Or did you think that my sister Athene was the only one in our family with any magical ability?”
Of course. He’d used some kind of charm to open the lock…just as he’d probably placed that hex on my car. I couldn’t know for sure whether he’d been trying to kill me or simply move me off the chessboard so I wouldn’t continue trying to track down his son’s killer. And when that gambit had failed, he and his wife had decided the best thing to do was to get the heck out of Dodge and do everything they could to make sure suspicion never fell on them.
Not that their plans really mattered at his point.
He raised his hands — to do what, I wasn’t sure, since I didn’t practice the kind of dark magic utilized by practitioners of the black arts.
Chloe made a move forward. To protect me against the coming blast?
I didn’t have a chance to find out, because at the same moment, Calvin’s gun went off, impossibly loud in the confined space.
A bright red stain appeared on the knee of Max Speros’s jeans, and he let out a cry of pain, whatever spell he’d been intending to cast forgotten as he fell to the floor. His wife uttered a shocked sound as well and dropped to her knees next to him.
Grim-faced, Calvin holstered his gun and then unclipped the handcuffs he’d had hanging from his belt. “Max Speros, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of your son, Jack Speros.”
The room seemed to spin around me. I wondered if the sudden dizziness was just the aftermath of hearing the pistol go off in the small room, but then an odd wetness soaked my leggings, making me look down in sudden comprehension.
“Good timing,” I said.
“Because I think my water just broke.”
