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But as wrapped up as I was in reveling in being a new mother — and, with Calvin, experiencing every little sigh and coo and bubble like the new miracle it was — I’d managed to get the lowdown on what was happening with Max and Leslie Speros.
Apparently, once Henry talked to them separately, Leslie had broken down and confessed everything, saying she’d gone along with her husband’s wishes because they needed the money — they had two mortgages on their house and multiple maxed-out credit cards, and couldn’t see a way out of the mess they were in. Of course, she also said she had no idea that her husband planned to kill their son, only that he’d followed him to Globe to make sure he patched up his relationship with Chloe any way he possibly could so they could use her as a means of getting at my inherited fortune. The “garrote” had been a clay cutter Max had gotten from their garage, a relic of their daughter Emma’s one semester of taking pottery in high school, something he’d grabbed at the last minute after he realized that throttling his son with his bare hands probably wasn’t a very good idea.
Despite Leslie’s protestations of innocence, she’d been charged as an accessory to murder, and both of them were in jail awaiting trial. It seemed the judge didn’t trust them to honor their bail, not when they were so in debt and the Mexican border was only a hundred miles or so away.
That didn’t mean there weren’t some niggling questions that needed to be cleared up.
“I still don’t understand how Jack tracked me here to Globe, though,” Chloe told me the day after Josie’s visit. Little Celeste was sleeping in her bassinet, and my sister and I sat in the living room with the windows open, glad of another unseasonably mild day, a promise of warmer weather soon to come.
I’d been thinking about Jack’s appearance in Globe quite a bit — well, in between being obsessed with the new baby — and an idea had occurred to me. “I think it was Athene’s medallion,” I said, and Chloe’s eyes went wide. “I think Max Speros placed some kind of tracking charm on it, then put the idea in Jack’s head to give it to you. That way, he’d always know where you were.”
“That’s creepy,” she said, her tone emphatic, and I nodded.
“Extremely creepy. But it’s obvious he was a very controlling parent. Was he like that with Jack’s brother and sister?”
Chloe reached up to push a lock of dark hair back over her shoulder. “Not that I really noticed. But then, his older brother Ethan had already graduated from Stanford and had decided to stay in the Bay Area, so I didn’t see him very much. And Jack’s little sister Emma was so busy with cheerleading and all her other activities that she also wasn’t around a lot of the time.”
What would those two do now, with both their parents in jail and very likely facing substantial amounts of prison time? Maybe Ethan was old enough to manage on his own, but Emma….
I asked Chloe about that, and her expression grew sympathetic.
“Jack’s Aunt Tracy — his mom’s sister — was pretty close to the family, so I think Emma would probably go live with her.”
That was good to hear. All the same, I made a mental note to set up some kind of fund for Emma, enough to get her through college and have a decent start on life.
After all, none of this was her fault.
Chloe didn’t stay very long, as she’d only popped over during an extended lunch break. But I could see from the lightness of her step that, while she might have mourned Jack and his terrible end, she was ready to move on. As far as I was able to tell, my mother loved having her at the house, so there wasn’t any rush to find her a permanent place to live.
Eventually, though, she’d need a home of her own, and I did not doubt that Josie would help us find it when the time came.
And Calvin, although on leave from his job as chief of the San Ramon police for the next six weeks, was keeping in contact with his deputies…especially Ben Ironhorse, the one with the computer-hacking skills.
“Turns out that Max Speros was also involved with GLANG when it first started up,” Calvin told me. We sat together on the couch, a sleeping Celeste cradled in his arms. She’d just had her afternoon feeding and was now zonked out, little spit bubbles forming on her Cupid’s bow lips. “But it sounds like he had a falling out with Lucien, and that was when Athene stepped in. This would have been long before you ran afoul of Dumond.”
“How did Ben find all that out?” I asked, and Calvin only smiled.
“Trade secret.”
I stuck my tongue out at my husband and he laughed, even as he leaned over to press a kiss against my cheek — but gently, so he wouldn’t wake up our daughter.
However, that additional piece of information helped fill in more of the puzzle. Max had been playing with dark magic for a long time, which explained why he’d been able to put the tracking charm on Athene’s medallion and that awful hex on my Jeep. Exactly what had passed between father and son on that awful night we might never know — well, at least until the trial — but clearly, they’d argued, and Max had decided to rid himself of a son he now viewed as a liability.
After all, he had two other children.
Or at least, that was how I guessed his thought processes might have gone. How any parent could murder their own child, I had no idea, but as much as I hated to admit it, this wasn’t the first time that awful scenario had played out…and I knew it wouldn’t be the last.
“Love you both,” I said fiercely, and Calvin’s dark eyes met mine.
A nod, as if he understood where that comment had come from. “Love you both,” he said softly. “Now and forever.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder. Thank the Goddess for Calvin, and for all the love he’d given me over the past few years. Because of him, I knew men such as Max Speros were an aberration. There were far more good people than evil in the world…if you only knew where to look.
On Thursday, Archie finally made it over to see the new arrival. Hazel and Chuck and Victoria had already visited several times, but Archie had seemed to come up with one excuse after another for not coming out to the house.
Was he worried that seeing a real live baby in action might make him reconsider his decision to start a family with Victoria?
If that was the case, it was a little too late to have him change his mind.
