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“Instead, you agreed to hire Henri,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And Nat agreed to pay him five thousand dollars.”
“No.” Brooke appeared confused by his words. “She couldn’t pay. That’s why she killed herself. And it was my fault.”
CHAPTEREIGHT
Rayne studied Brooke’s expression with a frown. She genuinely appeared to believe that Nat had refused to be blackmailed and instead killed herself to protect their secret. She also appeared to have suffered from the guilt that she’d carried all these years.
“Henri told us that Nat gave him the cash,” she told her onetime friend. “That’s what he used to buy his plane ticket to America.”
Brooke shook her head. “That’s impossible. She didn’t have that sort of money. Besides, she told me that she wasn’t going to let herself be extorted by a grubby stable hand.”
“I told her to pay,” Trent abruptly broke into the conversation.
They all glanced at him in surprise.
“What?” Brooke demanded.
“She called me the morning we were headed to Austria. She told me what happened, and that she was going to refuse Henri’s blackmail,” Trent admitted. “I begged her to reconsider. I didn’t want Brooke to be hurt.”
Rayne widened her eyes in surprise. “You knew about your sister and Nat?”
“Of course.” Trent shrugged. “They wanted me to claim to be Nat’s boyfriend. At least in the beginning. Later, Nat was frustrated with the act.”
“I didn’t know she’d called you,” Brooke breathed, her expression troubled.
Trent sighed. “After Nat’s suicide we never talked about what happened.”
“How far were you willing to go to keep your sister from being hurt?” Niko asked, his voice hard with suspicion.
Trent sent him a wary glance. “What are you asking?”
“Did you kill my sister?”
“No one killed her,” Brooke insisted. “She committed suicide because I broke her heart.”
Niko stubbornly shook his head. “She didn’t kill herself.”
“That threatening note you found came from Henri,” Brooke told him. “Nat showed it to me.”
“Henri might have written the note, but if Nat had killed herself, someone wouldn’t have taken a shot at us less than an hour ago,” Rayne said.
Brooke jerked, as if shocked by Rayne’s accusation. “What are you talking about?”
“Someone followed us after we left here and tried to kill us.” Rayne carefully watched Trent’s expression. He wasn’t nearly as accomplished as his sister in hiding his emotions. “Why would they do that if they weren’t trying to keep us from prying into the past?”
“Because you’re a pain in the ass,” Trent muttered, looking more like a sulky child than a potential killer.
Brooke abruptly stepped in front of Trent, as if protecting him from Rayne. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Trent and I were meeting with a potential client for the past two hours.”
Niko snorted as he glanced at the shotgun. “Now why don’t I believe you?”
“If you need proof, there’s video surveillance that covers the main house and all of the outbuildings, as well as the paddocks.” Brooke pointed toward the rafters. Rayne tilted back her head to see the small camera that was angled downward to capture the barn on video. “There’s no way either of us could have left the property without being seen.”
“You could have sent one of your employees,” Niko pointed out.
