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“No,” Reid replies. “Police attention displeases him. The question now is: who had the most to benefit from Kenneth’s death.”
“I told him about the development,” Blake says, looking at me and then glancing at Reid. “What you don’t know is that your father took over Kenneth’s role in that project when he died.”
“And stands to benefit ten million dollars,” I add.
“I’m not surprised,” Reid says. “I’d already mentally gone there. Jean Claude never said his name to me but he told me to quote ‘get your fucking house in order or I will.’ He went on to say that anyone who brings him legal trouble won’t be around long. We have to handle our father, or he will.”
I look between them. “So just to be clear. We believe that our father killed Kenneth for money?”
“Yes,” Reid and Blake reply at the same time.
“And I now have to tell Abbie that my father killed her ex-husband and framed her for the murder.” I scrub my jaw. “How do I make this right with her?” I ask them because asking myself has gotten me nowhere.
“By putting him in jail for the murder,” Blake suggests. “That gets rid of him for Jean Claude and keeps him alive.” He glances at Reid. “Is that good enough for Jean Claude?”
“It might be,” Reid says. “But we’ll have to prove he did the crime. I have no doubt we can get him to admit it while we record him, but that’s going to punch the company in the mouth. He founded the firm. We’ll be the sons of a killer. Everyone we love will be stalked by the press. Our employees will be affected. We need to all step back and think about this before we take action.”
“Before I do anything, I need to tell Abbie,” I say. “Youknowwhat she’s going to think. It’s inevitable. Will I be just like my father?Am Ijust like my father?” I run a hand through my hair. “Hell, maybe I even told her that I’m just like my father when I wanted to scare her off. I can’t fucking remember.” I look at Reid. “I needed better news than this. Why the hell didn’t youbring me better news?” My voice is low and taut, my words for his ears only.
He leans closer. “You aren’t going to lose Abbie. I didn’t lose Carrie and I shared every dirty little secret I own.”
Because Carrie loves him. Because she already loved him when our bastard father went after her and us. I stand up. “I need to think.” I’m walking by the time I finish that sentence and I don’t look back. I just hope like hell that’s not what Abbie does when she hears just how bad, bad gets with my father, with my family. With me. Hell, because that’s where this is leading. I’ll have to tell her everything. Before my father tells her for me. It needs to be my story, told my way, with my explanation.
Fabulous.
Fucking fabulous.
I not only have to tell her that my father killed her ex-husband and framed her. I have to tell her about Kendall.
Chapter eighty-two
Gabe
Gabe
I walk Battery Park without even seeing where I’m going, without feeling the cold air whipping off the ocean just beyond the rail. Without caring that I have no coat. The past plays in my head. The present plays in my head. My fucking father won’t get out of my head. And Abbie. Abbie is in every part of me, rooted deep and spreading like sunshine. Light my father is determined to darken, determined to destroy. I don’t know how or when, but I end up in the bar by my office, the one where I met Abbie. The one really damn close to my father’s apartment. I down a fast whiskey, desperate to lessen the edge of my mood, before it’s my fist in his face that does the job. And I do so while sitting at the table in the corner where Abbie was sitting the night I met her. I’m not a violent man though I am a man who believes in consequences. I’ve never physically touched my father and neither has Reid but maybe, just maybe, that’s where we went wrong. We’ve never made him feel real fear, and really, does a man like that understand anything else?
I’m about to order another whiskey when my phone buzzes with a text from Abbie:Where are you? I need you.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I need her, too. What in the hell has happened to me? I now have a dog and a woman waiting on me at home.Home. That word guts me. I haven’t had a home since my mother died. Any place where she was at, was home. Until it wasn’t. Now, home is where Abbie and Dexter wait. I’m a damn fool sitting at a bar. I’m here when I should be there with them. Instead, I’m avoiding the confessions I know have become inevitable. Because I don’t want to lose the woman I know as home. I type a reply:I’m on my way back now. Are you done with Reese?
Yes, she replies. They’re about to leave.
I’ll be right there,I answer, but Reese’s prep work feels short. Why?
I toss money on the table and I’m already walking, determined to get back to the apartment before Reese leaves, his support of Abbie’s interview now in question. My future with Abbie in question as well.You aren’t going to lose, Abbie.Reid’s words come back to me. Reid who has been through this. Reid who, thanks to our father, had to tell Carrie he’d been connected to a murder our father committed. Just one of the ways our father tried to control him, by setting him up, by owning him. Or at least trying to own him.
I’m almost to the building when my phone rings. I grab it, register Cat’s number and answer. “You’re already done?”
“Reese has a plan, which doesn’t include her answering tons of questions. Which you’d know about had you been there. What’s going on?”
“I can’t talk about this on the phone. I’m on my way there.”
