“So you found something that made you suspicious?”
“Not in the checks, no. It’s her shady as fuck behaviour. The way she wormed her way into dad’s life, and…” Caiden’s voice trailed off as he glanced at Weston. “Just the way she works people. She gets them wrapped around her little finger, and she’s managed to go from a disowned school dropout to the wife of one of the most powerful men in the country and a shareholder in Alstone Holdings. None of the four of us trust her, and we won’t make the mistake of underestimating her.”
“I see. I guess that makes sense.” I held his gaze. “The file wasn’t the only thing you had on me, was it?”
“No.” His eyes flicked between the others, and Zayde gave an almost imperceptible nod. “We’ve been watching you. On and off.”
“Yeah, that was pretty obvious, from the way you shadowed me all the time.” I rolled my eyes. “Other times, too, though?”
Caiden nodded. I’d gathered as much, from what Cassius had mentioned before, but I was glad he’d actually admitted it. I decided not to mention that I was more than a little pissed off with their invasion of my privacy. They didn’t know me when I’d first arrived, and to be honest, I’d have been suspicious of me if I was in their position.
“Also,” West added, leaning forwards in his chair and placing his hand over mine, “we got a code blue notification when your dad died. The day after, if you wanna be precise.”
“Code blue? Huh?” I stared at him.
“Yeah.” He removed his hand from mine and tapped on the computer screen, indicating a small icon in the bottom corner. “If any kind of serious issue happens relating to anyone either involved in, or related to someone in Alstone Holdings, they have an alert system so the other board members can be notified. Since I can access their systems, I have a connection to that, too, and that got sent out as a code blue alert at the time. Because we knew he’d met with your mother—we didn’t know he was investigating her, but we knew he’d been up here—and because you happened to be away at the time it happened, we weren’t sure what was going on. Whether you were involved or if it was just an accident.”
I was starting to get a clearer picture of the situation, and I was now almost positive that she was somehow involved in my dad’s death. At the very least, she was planning or already involved in something shady, and that deserved to be investigated.
“You know what, I bet he had a load of stuff on his computer. Like, proper evidence. Everything was destroyed in the explosion, though.”
“What about his work computer?”
“Nothing. Or if there was something, the hard drive was wiped, but I don’t think he would have risked storing anything on there. We’re lucky that we even have this file.”
“Let’s go through the other notes and write them out.” Weston brought up the document where he’d started making the to-do list.
“Well, CC has to be Christine Clifford, my mother. Since my dad had the photo, and from what he said in the text to me. So I think the first bit says ‘Christine Clifford. Meeting man. Alstone Holdings. Planning?’ That’s all pretty obvious, right?”
“Yeah.” Zayde agreed, and the others nodded.
“The other notes seem fairly self-explanatory, but we need to know who these people are. Davis, if that’s what it says, and Andromeda.”
“So you think my dad’s meeting or somehow connected with a Davis on Tuesday nights?” Weston mused. “I’ve lost track of his schedule now I don’t live there anymore, but there were plenty of evenings I was home alone.”
“Davis could be a first name or a surname,” Cassius interjected. “It might not even be Davis. Could be Mavis. All we can see is the first bit of the letter.”
“Good point. Add it to the document,” I said to Weston.
“And then we have Andromeda. No fucking clue who she is. Or what.” Weston turned to the others. “Anyone?”
“Sounds like a stripper to me.”
“Hey! It’s a lovely name, don’t be rude.” I reached over and smacked Cass’ arm playfully.
“Sorry.” He grinned, clearly not sorry at all.
We brainstormed for another ten minutes or so while Weston finished making all the notes, and we had the beginnings of a list of things to check.
Leaning back in my chair, I rubbed my hand over my face. “Okay. I think I’m done here for now. This is a lot to take in, and I need more sleep. Can we come back to this once we’ve had time to process it all and come up with some ideas?”
“Sounds good to me. I need to go back to bed,” Cass yawned.
I stood and made a point of looking at each one of them in turn. “I just wanted to say thanks to you all for helping with this. I know you have your own reasons, but it means a lot to me.”
“I told you. You’re one of us now.” Cassius winked at me, and I smiled.
“Yeah. Right, I’m going to head back to my place. Do you want me to leave the file?”
“Nah, take it and put it in a safe place. I’ve scanned in everything, anyway, and I’ve saved it to my secure storage. No one else is getting hold of that info.” West handed me the file.
Caiden and Zayde both disappeared without a goodbye while I was talking to Weston, but I shrugged it off. The dynamics of the Four intrigued me, so much. Weston and Cassius, making me feel welcome. Yeah, Cass was probably a little too welcoming…but Caiden and Zayde? Those two were a lot harder to read.
As I drove home, my mind raced with all the new information I’d been given this morning. One thing was for sure: I needed to speak to my mother and subtly ask questions, to see if I could find out anything at all that could be of use, no matter how small.
I groaned aloud. No way was I going through that alone. I guess it was time to set up another family dinner, so Caiden and Weston could be involved, too.
Fingers crossed it would go better than the last one.
NINETEEN
I parked in my usual spot outside my dad’s mansion. As West and I got out of my R8, he nodded at Snowflake’s car.
“You gonna do something about that?”
I stared at her car for a long moment.
“Yeah.”
Pulling out my phone, I checked the time and made a call to my usual garage. “Alright, Joe. It’s Cade. Glad I caught you before you left… Can you fit in a car for a complete respray? A rush job if you can… Yeah…it’s a burgundy Fiat 500. There’s some damage to the driver’s door… Matte black… Yeah. Put it on my account. Cheers, mate. Appreciate it.” I ended the call and turned to my brother. “Done. Booked in for eight a.m. on Tuesday. It’ll be in for at least a week, so you might want to break the news to her. Can you get hold of her keys?”
“Matte black?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Just get the keys, will ya?”
“Alright, alright. No need to bite my head off.” He stomped up the front steps and stopped at the top, waiting for me. “You ready?”
“Let’s do this.”
The game plan we’d agreed with Winter was simple enough. Act nice, no arguments, start some subtle digging. No mentioning the names we’d found written on Winter’s dad’s notes—it was too dangerous. We probably wouldn’t find out much this first visit, which meant we’d have to return. Couldn’t fucking wait.