“Who was Tom working for?”
“How the hell should I know?” Carl snaps, letting out a strangled cough. He smacks his tongue against the inside of his gums. “They were top secret. I don’t even think he knew.”
Pursing my lips, I consider this. While my father’s criminal ties shifted to me when he died, by proxy, I’d never been able to ascertain an identity behind them. Just knew that occasionally, they’d send me someone to take care of or investigate, not unlike the things I did for Kal Anderson and my brother.
My gaze slides over to Alistair, who’s lounging on the sofa, one arm thrown up over the back as he stares up at the ceiling.
I wonder if he knows.
If my father gave him the list of people he wanted implicated, perhaps he also told him about Tom’s involvements.
Bitter resentment hollows out in my chest, threatening to undo all the progress I’ve made with my brother over the last decade.
“He… Tom knew what… would get your father in trouble.” Carl’s words become less frequent and his breaths shallow. “He set him up… but that’s all I know.”
Frankly, that’s all I need to know.
Alistair gets to his feet. His forehead scrunches as he walks over, studying Carl with a blank expression.
As Carl begins struggling to inhale and exhale, he grows panicked, though his body is too drained to do much. Paralysis takes him slowly, and I notice the exact moment he catches on, looking up at me with a hint of betrayal in his eyes.
Within a half hour, he’s dead.
Sighing, Alistair walks to the sofa and grabs his suit jacket. I take the tincture from my pocket and hold it up, shrugging.
“Saxitoxin.”
“Naturally.” He pauses. “But why? You could’ve threatened him, continued with the torture. You didn’t even figure anything out.”
“He had over a decade to come clean, and my patience for secrecy is fast running out. It’s not always about the information. I’m clearing Dad’s list, regardless.”
Staring at the man’s lifeless body, I can’t stop a twinge of disappointment stabbing at my chest. I’d been hoping for a clear-cut confession. Something saying Tom killed my father directly, so that his inevitable demise wouldn’t feel like a complete waste.
Action without answers is a simple, hollow victory.
One I’ll take but won’t enjoy nearly as much.
Alistair leaves as I begin cleaning up, ridding myself of Carl’s body by draining his blood, dismembering and packing him into stiff storage containers, and delivering him to Tom’s security team under the guise of it being something his secretary had special ordered.
When I get back to the beach house, I don’t immediately go inside. The lights are on downstairs, though the curtains are drawn so I can’t see in.
Not that I need to. At this point, several weeks into our little arrangement, I have Lenny’s daily routine down to a bloody tee. Since the brunch at Primrose Manor, we’ve gone out on a scourge of public outings, satisfying the interest of those who seem to have nothing else going on in their lives.
It’s impossible to go anywhere and not see our faces plastered on a blog site or gracing a television screen. While the attention makes me incredibly uncomfortable given my personal life, Alistair at least says his poll numbers are increasing.
I’m three-quarters of the way done with a fifth of Jameson when I see a shadow on the porch. It moves slowly, sticking to the white siding of the house, as if trying to peer inside.
My brows furrow and I sit forward, looping my wrist over the steering wheel. Taking a swig from the bottle, I watch as it comes closer to me, wondering if Lenny’s come to investigate my whereabouts.
The shadow freezes at the porch steps, like a deer in headlights. I can’t tell if they’re looking at me, and that’s why they’ve stopped, or if there’s something else out there.
Something sinister that I can’t see.
Fiddling with the door handle, I try to get out, but my vision clouds and my hand doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with my brain. I struggle for what seems like hours before I finally latch on and shove it open, stumbling out of the Range Rover with a grunt.
When I look up, the silhouette is gone.
Chuckling to myself, I start up the front walk. My chest warms at the thought of Lenny running and hiding from me, possibly punishing me for leaving her alone in the house more often than not.
Part of me hopes that’s what she’s doing. Being the defiant, fiery girl I met at that party, so I have an excuse to fuck it out of her.
I get to the front door and push it open, spotting her on her knees across the room. I don’t even pause to consider the fact that she’s naked, or that it doesn’t seem possible for the shadow from the porch to have made it back inside to hunch over a canvas that quickly.
My feet carry me to her like a sailor being lured to his death at sea.
23
Jonas’s breaths come in short, scattered bursts as he throws open the front door.
He stands at the threshold, eyes wild and his dark curls tousled like he’s been running his hands through the strands for hours. Casting a look about the foyer, he takes a moment as if to gather himself before stepping inside and slamming the door.
One hand on the wall, he stumbles slightly, his leather jacket squeaking as he leans into the plaster.
Keeping my eyes on him, I slide the empty box of frozen French bread pizza to the side, pushing it under an end table, pulling my brush away from the canvas before me.
Tripping over his boot, Jonas clutches the wall, kicking the shoe off and across the room. It hits the fireplace in the living room, landing in front of the couch. He grumbles under his breath, bending down to unlace the other; after nearly toppling over, he gets frustrated and punts the other off as well.
It crashes against one of the massive windows behind me, the sound echoing through the house.
I dip my brush into my cup of water, then gently into a light-blue paint tin. He comes over, staring hard at me as he grabs the doorknob to the office. Almost as if he can’t stand upright on his own.
My eyes narrow. “Are you drunk?”
“Are you naked?”
Glancing down, I resist the immediate urge to cover myself. In all honesty, I’d forgotten until this moment that I’d taken my robe off in the first place. There’s something innately calming about painting, especially since I moved to the beach house, that allows me to get fully absorbed in the work so I forget reality.
Though with the way he looks like he wants to swallow me whole right now, I’m kind of wishing I’d paid more attention.
“I’ve told you. I like to paint naked.”
“Yes, yes. It’s freeing, or whatever nonsense you say.” Scrubbing his hands over his face, he stalks over to where I’m kneeling, stopping just in front of the plastic tarp I use as my workspace.
“I’ve been doing it since I was little. Can’t change the process now.” Shrugging, I bring my brush down on the painting, creating a watercolor sky across the top of the page. “If you don’t believe me, you should try it sometime.”
The weight of Jonas’s stare burns into the top of my head as I work, adding subtle pinks and oranges with no actual vision of what I’m creating. My art has never worked out that way; it’s always an idea, a foggy concept that pops up in my head, but that I can’t necessarily see until I begin.