“The guy who is after Mandy wants to be paid; that’s what this is all about.”
“I’m seriously sorry, but I can’t answer that.” He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her toward the edge of the seat. “You need to go soak in a hot tub awhile-you’re still cold, and I need to make some calls. Then you and I are going to go out for a long drive and push this back a ways.”
Her hands tightened hard around his. “You can’t tell Mandy. Connor, if you tell her someone got through to touch me, she’ll disappear and I’ll never see her again. You know she will; she’ll run to try and take the trouble with her. You know that is what she’s going to do.”
“Easy. Amy’s not going to run.”
“Please. Spin it any way you have to, but you can’t tell Mandy what really happened. A robbery attempt, anything else. Silence about this is the only thing that I can offer to help her right now.”
“I’ll talk to the chief,” Connor reassured. “That’s the best I can promise.”
She bit her lip again and nodded. “I am awfully cold. If you’ll take those clothes away and the towel, I’ll take a hot shower. I want to wash my hair again.”
“I’ll go do that now.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry, Marie. That I wasn’t here. That we didn’t stop it.”
She leaned against him and hugged him back. “I’m okay.”
When he had dealt with the clothes she had left for him, she stepped under the hottest shower she thought she could handle and let herself cry.
Connor paced Marie’s kitchen, waiting for Marsh to find some privacy. He wasn’t about to let Tracey overhear this conversation.
“I’m alone.”
“He sent his message through Marie, angry, ticked-he grabbed her in the back alley and put a knife to her throat.”
“Where are you, at the hospital?” Marsh asked sharply.
“Her place. Bryce was on it within seconds, and Marie walked away from it badly shaken. She’d stepped outside to take out the trash of all things.” Connor felt his words breaking at the anger of that.
“Don’t bash your hand against one of those brick walls right now; remember she’s in one piece. Start talking. I need the details.”
Connor took a deep breath and nodded. He read the quote from his notes to get the message exact. “Marie said a little taller than herself, thin, and young. She’s pretty certain about the fact he was young. This isn’t our New York hitter; she didn’t describe a fifty-year-old guy with an accent. Marsh, what was your working idea?”
“That there was a third kid out there of Henry Benton, a son.”
Connor sat down on the nearest chair.
“This trouble comes rolling in coincident to the will, and who would know about a boy Henry fathered but the chauffeur who probably drove him to where he was seeing the mother and the bookkeeper who probably paid off the lady just like Henry did with Marie and Tracey’s mom. The killings could be that of a very angry man who didn’t get recognized in that will and wants his cut of the money too.”
“What triggered the idea?”
“Your comment that stabbings are very personal crimes. The message claiming a family secret. If the guy is young, impulsive, very angry-I could see a knife attack on the two retired guys who knew the truth and never came forward to state the fact a son also existed.”
“And it explains why he might be let into their homes; they knew him,” Connor realized.
“Henry kept track of the girls-you don’t think he might keep track of a boy? He knew enough not to want to claim him, but to instead leave Daniel as his major heir. Connor, I may just be chasing a phantom that doesn’t exist. Nothing yet says there is a son out there, let alone one that would commit two murders like this and attack Marie.”
“But it explains why you’ve been going back through the phone calls the sisters have received, the mail-looking for signs he made contact with them after that press conference.”
“For what it’s worth, Sam doesn’t see it as likely. He investigated everyone else in Henry’s past over the years, including keeping track of the two sisters, and Sam can’t imagine Henry having a son that he didn’t get asked to check out and keep tabs on too. As far as Sam knows Marie and Tracey are Henry’s only children.”
“Which takes us back to theory one-‘I know the family secret’ is the fact Amy is alive, and ‘pay me to go away’ is Richard Wise laying down the marker for how ugly this is going to get if he’s not fully paid off.”
“There is evidence our New York shooter is in town; we’ve got his car, and Sam’s place got searched,” Marsh reminded him.
“And opposite of that theory two-Henry has another kid out there not recognized in the will, and he wants money from the family to go away. He killed the two people who could identify him as a way to deliver his demand. Whoever grabbed Marie tonight was thin, young, and did not have a New York accent. He was definitely angry he hadn’t been paid. And we both know that while the reporters are clamoring for that second message, they don’t have it yet. This guy tonight knew something that only the killer would know.”
“I don’t know, Connor. If all the pieces were fitting in place, we’d have this solved. We need fingerprints, blood work, trace evidence from one of the crime scenes-something to help sort this out. It keeps coming back to not enough facts. If there is a son out there, we have next to nothing right now to point us in a direction to search to even confirm he exists.”
Connor heard Marie shut off the water. “I’ll pick you up first thing tomorrow morning and bring whatever Bryce can add to this. We’re going back to those crime scenes to canvas neighbors again.”
“I’ll be expecting you. Tell Marie from me that I’m very grateful she’s okay.”
“You’ll have Tracey prepped not to push for details tonight?”
“She’ll handle it smart.”
“Thanks, Marsh.”
Connor closed the phone and knew he needed to call the chief. But first he just forced himself to take a couple more deep breaths and get past the last half hour. Bryce’s call had shaken him harder than any message he’d ever answered, and the reality of that was going to take some time to absorb. Marie would come through this okay even if he had to stand and take a bullet for her; he couldn’t handle her getting hurt any more by this.
He stepped toward the hallway door and pushed in numbers. One thing at a time. The first was just to survive tonight.
“Chief? It’s Connor. There’s been trouble at the gallery.”
“You can’t pay him,” Luke said, watching Daniel prowl around Henry’s former home office like a caged cat. His call had caught Daniel just getting ready to leave for the night, and Luke had come over to deliver the news in person. Daniel had been talking to Marie less than half an hour before the attack; that had made this reaction all the more intense, and Luke was hoping he could defuse it.
“Two former employees dead, Marie terrorized, don’t tell me what I can’t do with the money, Luke. Frankly right now I’d like to light a bonfire and use it as kindling.”
Luke held up his hand and offered reality. “If this is a young guy thinking the family owes him money, he’s already disturbed enough to do two brutal murders. Handing him money and having him disappear would be to set up someone else to be dead in the future. A guy doesn’t kill twice in one night and become a saint for the rest of his life.
“Second-if it’s our guy from New York who did the killings, then he’s after Amy, and regardless of whether Richard Wise gets his money the hatred has gone on too long-he’ll stay on it until he has Amy dead, and if he goes through her sisters to make that happen he won’t care. I’m not going to be surprised to find our New York shooter has co-opted some local talent to help him out, maybe even to do the killings for him. Getting into Sam’s place, following the sisters, killing the two employees, dumping his car, staying out of sight of the local cops who have a fairly recent photo of him-that is a lot of ground for one person to manage in a city he doesn’t know well. So he’s probably arranged local help. He wants Amy; that is the job he’ll sit back to handle himself. The rest is just details.”
Daniel finally sat back down. “How do you sleep at night?”
“I don’t,” Luke replied. “I need to know if Henry Benton had another child, and I need to know that by any
