by Tracy Wolff
“Yes.” I hold a hand out to him, wait for him to shake. “And you are?”
“Frank Myers, Secret Service, and this is Jack Merski, from the Boston office of the FBI.”
I shake his hand as well, then step back, gesture for them to come in. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Water?”
“No, thank you,” says Myers. “We’re not here on a social call.”
I shoot him a cool look. “It never occurred to me that you were.” Annoyed now, I very deliberately cross to the Keurig that rests on a small table in the seating area and program a cup of coffee for myself. I keep them waiting as it brews.
“Please, have a seat,” I tell them as I finally make it back to my desk. I wave a hand at the two chairs opposite mine.
They do as I instruct, then do nothing but stare at me for long seconds. I can’t really complain, though, since I’m doing the same to them. But I’ve been in business long enough to know when to speak up and when to wait out the opposition. This is definitely the latter. They’re waiting for me to get jumpy, waiting for me to demand answers about my brother, which is exactly why I don’t. If they’re here to accuse me of killing Brandon, I don’t see any reason to make it easy for them.
When he finally realizes I’m not going to rise to the bait, Myers’s face grows even more sour. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says eventually.
“Thank you.”
“Because he was a candidate for the US House of Representatives, the investigation into his death is handled a little differently than most would be,” Merski tells me. “If he were already a congressman, it would be the Secret Service who searched exclusively for his killer. But since he’s not—and since the murder took place in his home in Boston—we’ve teamed up with the FBI to try to solve the case.”
I nod, and try not to look too unimpressed. After all, so far they aren’t telling me anything I didn’t know four days ago. Even if I didn’t have my own PI on the case, CNN has been very thorough with their coverage of the situation. I’d have to live in a box not to know what was going on with Brandon’s case. And even if I did try to avoid coverage, the reporters camped outside my house and calling my office every day would make that impossible.
Merski pauses, like he expects me to say something. Again, I wait him out.
To be honest, I feel a little bit like an asshole for not being more forthcoming. But I’m smart enough to know this isn’t just an information-gathering expedition. They aren’t here to talk to the victim’s brother and fill me in on the investigation—they could have done that over the phone instead of taking time to fly out here from the East Coast. No, they’re here because they want to poke at me, to find out what went wrong in my relationship with Brandon. And since I’m in no hurry to be accused of murdering my bastard of a brother, I’m more than willing to sit back and see how they come at me.
Myers loses patience first. “When’s the last time you spoke with your brother?” he asks after the silence stretches past the minute mark.
“At his fund-raiser in Boston. He and I spoke for a few minutes—”
“Witnesses say that it was a very intense discussion,” Merski interrupts.
“Intense seems like a fair word for it, yes.”
“What was the discussion about?” Myers demands.
“I wanted him to withdraw from the race and he refused.”
“Up until that point, you’d been very supportive of him.”
“Up until recently, yes.”
“And your change of heart was because of your wife’s previous relationship with him?”
“It wasn’t a relationship. He raped her and then spent the next year tormenting her.”
“That’s not what your mother says.”
“My mother is wrong.”
“That’s a big motive for murder,” Merski says. “Believing your brother raped your wife. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Frost?”
“For some people, yes.”
“For some people,” Myers repeats. “But not for you?”
“If you’re any good at your jobs at all, I figure you already know all the different pies Brandon had his fingers in. Most of those pies weren’t legal and almost all of them were violent.”
“You’re saying that you think the mob killed your brother.”
“I’m saying that I don’t know, yet, who killed Brandon. But that if I had to make a guess, Nico Valducci is where I would start.”
“That’s interesting,” Merski tells me. “Because we keep landing on you. A violent fistfight with your brother in Vegas a few weeks ago. Withdrawing your public support. Accusations of rape. You wouldn’t be the first man who went after the guy who raped his woman.”
“As you said, I did go after him. Hence the fistfight. But you know as well as I do that I was in California when my brother was murdered.”
“Which is why we weren’t here yesterday. But there are all kinds of ways to kill a man.”
“Perhaps, but as far as I know, shooting a man at point-blank range still requires being in the same room as he is.”
They both sit up straighter. “Your brother’s cause of death hasn’t been released to anyone yet.”
“Yes, but you have a leak in your office. One it took my PI about ten minutes to exploit.” Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I reach into my desk and pull out the three folders I put in there this morning. I plop them on the desk between us. “This is information my PI has gathered on Brandon, his connections in Vegas and numerous other ventures he’s been involved with. It also has information on Brandon’s investigation—whatever he’s been able to gather so far. They’re yours if you’d like them.”
“You’re doing your own investigation into your brother’s death?” Merski demands.
“As you’ve said, he is my brother.” I stand then, walk toward the door. Wait for them to do the same.
“We have more questions.”
“And I have an eleven o’clock appointment. If you’d like to speak with me some more, feel free to contact my attorney.” I hand him Johanna’s card.
“We could arrest you right now and sort it out back at the local FBI office,” Merski says, giving me a flat-eyed cop stare.
I meet his look with a bland stare of my own. “You don’t have the jurisdiction, the warrant or the evidence necessary to arrest me. But, again, feel free to make an appointment with my attorney if you’d like to speak with me again.”
Finally, they move toward the door. I see, with some satisfaction, that they take the files with them as they go.
Once they’re gone, I pick up the phone. Dial Tamara’s number. “Tell my eleven o’clock I’m running fifteen minutes late,” I instruct.
“Of course, Mr. Frost.”
I put down the phone, and reach for the button that activates the privacy panels on my windows. Only after they’re in place do I sink down into my desk chair.
Brandon’s dead.
Suspect in his murder.
I hate him.
But he’s dead.
But he’s my brother.
But he raped Chloe.
But I hate him.
I hate him.
I hate him.
I hate him.
But I love him, too.
It’s the last realization that has me resting my head in my hands. And trying to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do now.
Chapter 26
“You aren’t going.”
“I absolutely am going.” Chloe stands across from me, eyes narrowed and hands on her hips. She’s got the stubborn look on her face that normally makes me want to kiss her until she’s all warm and pliant and sexy, so fucking sexy.
Except I don’t have it in me right now to kiss her or fight with her or do any of the other things that she and I are usually so good at. Everything feels awkward between us. Not bad, not awful, just a little bit off. Like we’re tuned to a different frequency and what’s between us is just a little bit fuzzy. Just a little bi
t out of focus.
It’s my fault. Of course it is. Everything about the situation between Chloe and me is my fault. She’s been nothing but supportive, nothing but understanding despite the fact that the incident that has me so fucked up is the death of the man who raped her. Who tortured and bullied and hurt her—and encouraged his friends to do the same—again and again and again.
The fact that he’s dead doesn’t change that. Nor does it make me hate him any less. And still I can barely get out of bed in the morning. Still I’m drowning in guilt. Because I did this. I did this.
It’s been seven days since someone walked into my brother’s house and shot him five times with a Ruger 9 mm. Seven days since I found out he was dead and felt nothing. Seven days since the whole fucking world fell apart around me.
I’ve spent every one of those days on the phone with the FBI, the Secret Service, the PI I originally hired to dig up dirt on Brandon and who I now employ to find out who killed him. The need to know what happened is a sickness inside me, a cancer that grows and grows and grows with each day that passes. I have to know if I’m the reason he’s dead. If what I set in motion all those weeks ago is what killed him or if it was just a matter of his past catching up with him. Or both.
The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach tells me that it’s both. That his past and my insistence on vengeance is why they’re burying my baby brother today. And I don’t have a fucking clue how I feel about that—especially when every time I close my eyes, my mother’s words come back to haunt me.
“I didn’t come all the way to Boston to sit in this hotel room while you go face one of the most difficult experiences of your life alone,” Chloe tells me in a voice that means she’s not budging.
Too bad, because I’m not budging, either. Not on this. Never on this. “I didn’t let you come all the way to Boston with me so that you could attend his funeral. There will be press there, dying to get the scoop. Dying to dig up a little more dirt. They’ll jostle you, hassle you, shout things at you all because they want something to lead the six o’clock news. There’s no way I’m exposing you to that.”
“Just because I let you make decisions about my safety most days—because it puts your mind at ease—doesn’t mean you get to tell me what to do. Fuck the press, fuck the past, fuck everything that isn’t you and me, right now. I’m going to that funeral.”
“He raped you! He hurt you! Why would you even want to go somewhere that demands you pay your respects to him? If I were you, I’d want to dance on his fucking grave.”
“My going to that funeral isn’t about Brandon. My going is about you. And it doesn’t matter what he did to me, doesn’t matter how much I despised him. I love you and I’m going to be there for you.”
“I don’t need you to be there for me,” I grate out. It’s the biggest lie I’ve ever told—I need her like I need air, like I need water, like I need light. I hope she buys it anyway.
“Well, tough luck. There’s this thing between us called a marriage contract. You might have heard of it. It means that I stand by you when things go to shit and you do the same for me. And since I know you have no problem stepping up when I’m the one suffering, I have to tell you it makes me a little uncomfortable—and resentful, too—that you won’t let me extend the same courtesy to you.”
“This isn’t about fucking courtesy.”
“No, it very well fucking isn’t. It’s about the fact that your brother is dead and you’re torn up by that fact and you have every right to be.”
“I’m not torn up because he’s dead,” I tell her.
“Okay,” she tells me. There’s no judgment in the word, no disbelief, just simple acceptance and understanding. Which is why it makes no sense that that one word makes me want to claw my fucking eyes out.
“Don’t you get it?” I demand. “It’s going to be a fucking shit show and I don’t want you to have any fucking part of it. I need to keep you safe.”
“And I need to keep you safe! When are you going to understand that this is a two-way street we’re on. You protect me, I protect you. Things will only work between us if you learn how to bend, how to let me help you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She looks confused. “What’s what supposed to mean?”
“Are you going to leave me if I don’t let you come to the funeral?”
Now she’s looking at me like I’m insane. Maybe I am. God knows most days it feels like I’ve totally lost my grip on the world around me.
“Are we seriously back to that?” She grabs me by the tie, pulls my mouth down to hers and kisses me thoroughly. “Because the sad fact that you are going to have to get through your thick skull one way or another is that I’m not going to leave you at all. Not now, not ever. We stood in that chapel and promised each other that this is forever. I’m not changing the rules now and you don’t get to, either.”
“Everything is just so fucked up.” It slips out even though I don’t mean it to.
Chloe melts in front of me as the words register. I watch as the fight drains out of her only to be replaced by the compassion that is so much a part of who she is. “I know it is, baby. I know it is.”
She wraps her arms around my neck, pulls my head down to rest against her shoulder. And then she just holds me for long seconds as I try to regain my composure. I reach for the ice, for the frozen, unyielding stoicism that has been so much a part of me this last week.
It doesn’t come. In its place is a weakness I just can’t shake, a frailty of mind and spirit that makes it hard for me to speak, to think, to breathe.
When I can’t take it anymore, I lift my head, pull away. And say the one thing—the only thing—guaranteed to keep her here, where she belongs. Here, where I need her to be. “I don’t want you there, Chloe.”
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t say anything.
“I mean, yes, partially it’s about protecting you and keeping you safe from the throngs of people who are going to want to make you bleed just because they can. But the truth is, I don’t want you there because it’s going to make things harder. Going to make things more of a mess than they are already. The narrative is already so fucked up. If you come to his funeral, the whole thing is going to end up being about you. And that’s not what I want.
“He was a fucked-up son of a bitch. A bastard, an asshole, a monster. But this is still his funeral and—good or bad—it needs to be about him.”
“Okay.”
“Wait? What did you say?”
“I said okay.” She looks pale, but resolved. “If that’s why you don’t want me to come, then I’ll accept that.”
“You will?”
“Of course I will. I want to make things easier for you, not more difficult. But know that I’m here and will continue to be here for you whenever you need me. If you change your mind, you call me, okay? Do you promise?”
I’ve already changed my mind, already need her. The thought of walking into that funeral all alone makes my skin crawl—hell, who am I kidding? The thought of going to that funeral, alone or with Chloe or with a contingent of my closest friends, makes me crazy. Makes me ill. All I want is for it to be over. And for me to be back here, in Chloe’s arms, like the whole nightmare never happened.
“You should go,” she says, straightening my tie a little, brushing some nonexistent lint off my suit jacket. It’s her way of fussing over me, of giving me the reassurance of her touch without making a big deal of it. So I stand there and allow it, even as I wish that I could take her in my arms. Even as I wish that things could go back to normal when it was so easy to hold her, so easy to love her.
Walking out of that hotel room, walking away from her when all I want to do is stay, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I still think it’s the right thing to do—she doesn’t need to deal with the three-ring circus this is sure to turn into. But just because it’s the right thing, doesn’t mean it’s the easy one.
—
I almost make it to the end of the funeral before I lose my shit completely. I make it through the throng of reporters waiting outside the church, hoping for some juicy tidbit they can use on their evening broadcast. I make it through all the people—friends and business acquaintances of my stepfather and myself—who want to tell me how sorry they are for my loss, even when it’s apparent to anyone with half a brain how fucked-up this whole thing is. I even make it past my mother, who doesn’t say anything but an icy hello to me, but whose eyes tell me everything she won’t say out loud.
She still blames me for what happened. Still swears that I’m the reason her beloved son is dead. And with the FBI report—courtesy of James—weighing heavily in my pocket, it’s not like I can dispute it. The current investigation by the FBI establishes, with pretty good clarity, that Brandon’s murder was a professional hit. Not a robbery gone wrong, not a suicide, not anything but a hired gun walking into his house and shooting him five times at point-blank range.
Definitely a professional hit, and one that’s the mark of the mafia. Which mafia, they don’t know yet. The Italians, the Armenians—either way, I don’t think it matters. He was doing fine with both of them until I stuck my nose in. I’m the one who turned the Italians on him, who made him so desperate for campaign funds that he must have begged them for money even after he was cut off.
I think about the phone call from Sebastian right before they found the body, saying that the Italians in Vegas wanted to know what to do with him now that he was making a nuisance of himself. I was furious and frustrated and I told him that I didn’t care. I meant that I didn’t care if he got back in with the mafia—that I had done everything I could to get him out of it, once and for all. Sure, it was to send him to jail, but I was still getting him out of the latest mess that he’d made.
But that was before this…before I realized just how serious they’d been. If I’d told them to leave him alone, to have nothing to do with him at all, would they have listened? Would Brandon still be alive, about to be indicted for rape and any number of other crimes? Or would he have pushed and pushed and pushed until he eventually ended up dead anyway?