“Easy, baby.” Rock gripped her shoulders. “If you keep making a mess like this, we’re not going to be able to figure out what’s missing.”
Lacey’s lips trembled. “You’re right. You’re right. I just feel so…”
“Violated,” I finished for her softly.
“Yes. Yes, that’s it.” She clasped one hand to her lips. “I’m so sorry, Zee. This is nothing compared to what you’ve been through.”
“You’re entitled to feel the way you feel,” I said.
She smiled weakly and then turned back to a pile of scarves on the floor. “I never wear scarves. Most of these are from Secret Santas at the firm. For some reason, everyone thinks female attorneys want scarves.”
“Anything missing?” Rock asked.
“Yes. One I got from my mentor, Robert Mayes. It was blue.” She gulped. “And monogrammed.”
“I’m seeing a pattern,” Rock said. “Whoever did this was going for monogrammed things that could be easily traced to you.”
“Still circumstantial,” Lacey said dully, not sounding convinced.
“Circumstantial is all they need to tie you to the murder.”
“What the hell is my motive?” she shrieked. “I hardly knew the man!”
“Think,” he said. “Is there something you’re forgetting? Did my asshole father ever come onto you?”
“Of course he did. Derek Wolfe came onto every available female.”
“There’s your motive.”
“No.” She shook her head. “He didn’t push it. I told him no, and that was that.”
“What about the guy who referred my father to you?”
“That was Robert Mayes. My mentor.”
“You trust the guy?”
“Of course I do! He was always good to me.”
“Maybe we should talk to him.”
Lacey sighed. “Another scarf is gone.”
“Monogrammed?”
“No, not this one. Maybe we’re on the wrong track.”
“I don’t think so. It’d look pretty suspicious if someone robbed you and only took monogrammed items.”
“This whole thing already looks suspicious. Who the hell breaks into someone’s place and takes only scarves and handkerchiefs?”
“Someone who doesn’t want a person to realize she’s been robbed,” I said quietly.
“Zee, you’re right on target,” Rock said. “Did you write down blue monogrammed scarf?”
I nodded. “Lacey, can you describe the other scarf that’s missing?”
“I can, only because it’s so ugly I’ll never forget it. It was a gift from one of the senior partners, Blaine Foster. It was brown and olive green paisley. Kind of the color of baby puke.”
I quickly made a note, leaving out the baby puke part. Then I sat, numbly, noting everything Lacey discovered was missing. All items that wouldn’t be missed, but enough to know she hadn’t just misplaced them. Especially things she never used, like scarves and hankies. A few pairs of costume earrings.
“Makes sense,” Rock said. “If they took a piece of expensive jewelry, you’d notice it was gone. And you have a ton of earrings, Lace.”
“This is going to take all night,” Lacey said. “I have to go through everything. Zee should go.”
Rock nodded and took the notepad from me. “Thank you for your help. I’m sorry we didn’t just take you to Reid’s, but I didn’t want to delay getting here any longer than we had to. Now we’re here. I’ll tell my driver to take you to Reid’s. Can you get in?”
“I…don’t know.”
“I have Reid’s key. I’ll take you up,” Rock said. “Will you be okay here for a half hour or so, Lace?”
“I’ll be fine, but get right back, will you? Please? The fact that someone was here has me freaked.”
“I will, baby. Let’s go, Zee.”
I stood. “Where is Reid? Moira said he wasn’t answering his cell phone.”
“I don’t know,” Rock said. “He usually responds. Must be in an important meeting. Come on.”
44
Reid
“Irene Lucent?” My mother’s eyes popped wide. “I’m your father’s first wife.”
“You sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure. Don’t you think I’d know if my husband had been married?”
Her tone sounded almost sincere, but I was so used to her lies I didn’t believe her for a second.
“Nice try, Connie. Maybe if you weren’t such a pathological liar, I might give you some credence.”
“Look, Reid. I have no idea who this Irene is. Your father and I were young when we married. He couldn’t possibly have been married to someone else.”
“I have a marriage certificate that says otherwise,” I said.
“Then it’s a forgery.”
“Could be.”
“It is. Where did you find it?”
“None of your business.”
“Of course it’s my business. What if it’s real? That means…” Her face went white.
“Right you are, Mom. It means your marriage to Dad was never legal, and the four of us are bastards.”
Oh, she wanted to reply to that with some smartass comment. So apparent in her eyes. But I’d give her credit. She let it pass.
“Even if it is legal, he obviously divorced her.”
“Did he?”
She stood. “This is completely ridiculous. I’m done here.”
“Sit, Mother.”
To my surprise, she sat.
“Don’t you think it’s odd,” I said, “that all four of your children are implicated in Dad’s murder but you, his ex-wife, are not?”
“I don’t find it odd at all,” she said. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Neither did I, and neither did Rock, Roy, or Riley.”
“Talk to Rock,” she said with a sly smile.
“We have. He told us everything, Mom. How he caught Dad in Riley’s room and tried to off him with a kitchen knife. How the two of you sent him away to Buffington Military School and how he had to keep from being molested himself.”
Mom kept her face rigid. Good. This got to her.
“Rock has an alibi. I figured it out. You conned him into continuing to pay you off by saying you’d go to the cops with your story of his youth. Too late. We’ve already been to the cops. They know everything, and so much has gone on in such a short time that Rock hasn’t even thought about rescinding his payments to you.”
“You’d see your mother starve?”
“Of course not. But I don’t think my mother needs to be paying for cunnilingus, either.”
“I didn’t pay—”
“Please.” I rolled my eyes. “Let’s not go there again.”
She harrumphed.
“Now, I want the truth. Tell me about Irene Lucent.”
“Reid, I honestly don’t know anything about her.”
“How about if I
