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“Why is this happening?” she choked out, her fingers digging into Leander’s shirt. “Why did they kill him? Whyhim?”
His gaze swept past her head, landing on me. The guilt was clear as day in his eyes. He may as well have had a neon sign pointing at him.
“You?” I asked in French, blinking at him. “Why do you think it’s because of you?”
He shook his head, turning his attention back to Olivia and whispering softly to her. A poem, from the fragments I could hear.
As soon as she was asleep, curled up between the two of us, I reached over and flicked Leander’s hand.
He picked his head up, arching a silent eyebrow at me.
“What the fuck?” I stared at him expectantly.
“Shh!” He glanced pointedly at Olivia. I didn’t know if he was shushing me because of the volume of my voice, or the fact it was in English.
“Why do you think you’re to blame?” My French was never as good as my Italian, but it was passable. And hopefully he’d be a little more forthcoming if he knew Olivia wouldn’t understand us.
It took him a while to reply. I was beginning to think I’d lost my grip on the language entirely and bumbled the question when he finally spoke.
“You know my relationship with Marchese was never the best. The FBI used the contract with my company and the shipping manifests as evidence for their case.”
I wasn’t buying it. It was a flimsy argument at best. A lie, at worse. “But why take Cole?”
“They knew they couldn’t take you a second time.”
“Then they would have taken Elijah. Or Olivia. Someone closer to you than Cole.”
He shrugged, not even believing his own explanation, it seemed.
“The original kidnappers wantedyou,” I continued. “That leads me to believe I was a happy accident, that their original plan was to use you to get to me.”
It was his turn to look unconvinced. “After all is said and done, it doesn’t really matter does it? Cole is still dead.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him, mainly because he wasn’t wrong. Cole was dead, for reasons unknown. But one thing was for certain — we weren’t going to stop looking until we had an answer for Olivia.
31
Bennett
The day of the funeral was cold and windy, a sign summer was over and fall was here to stay.
Leander chose to bury Cole in Holyrood Cemetery, in one of the vacant plots his father earmarked for all the children he and Eleanor never had. It was fitting, since Cole and the rest of Leander’s friends were the family he’d been denied for so long.
Having been purchased by a Welles, it was a pretty spot in the older, picturesque part of the cemetery with a beautiful view of the river. Cole would have liked it.
The funeral was a private affair. A dozen or so other people, mostly from work, came to pay their respects. Cole’s mother was dead. He had a half-brother, somewhere, that he hadn’t talked to in years. There was no other family except for us.
That was precisely the reason I first took note of the burly man standing off to the side, watching us from a distance.
Since Olivia was standing between Leander and I in our attempt to shield her from the wind, I couldn’t speak to him directly. I reached around her and tapped the small of his back.
He looked at me over the top of her head, brows furrowed.
I flicked my gaze toward the scraggly man wearing all denim.
Leander’s jaw tightened and a murderous look crossed his face. He gave a slow shake of his head before glancing at Elijah. Elijah was oblivious to both the man and Leander, staring at Cole’s casket with a startling intensity, like he might float away if he broke eye contact with it. Jake was also focused on the casket, only moving to reach up and lay a hand on Elijah’s shoulder gently.
After the service concluded, Leander turned his back on the stranger, offering Olivia his arm. She slipped her hand in the crook of his elbow and leaned into him as they headed for the car.
