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Rain lashes down, thundering against the roof, tapping wildly at the windows. Bennett pulls the car up through open iron gates, the tires tracking up the long, curved brick driveway.
As the house comes into view, two levels crafted of dark red brick, cross-hatch windows, some sort of vine covering half of it, just bare branches currently, but I’m sure in the warmer months you can hardly see out of the windows.
Bennett stops the car at the bottom of the front steps. The large front door made of dark wood has a circular glass window set with stained glass.
“Everyone knows what to do,” Bennett says as he shuts off the engine, all of us nodding.
I feel sick, knowing what I know now. I wish we’d never hurt her. I wishI’dnever hurt her. I wish I could take it all back, but if I did, maybe we would have lost her. Maybe we wouldn’t be able to save her.
Like she’s saved us.
Flynn works on the door, gets it unlocked and open in no time at all as we all stand around him. Cold rain soaking us rightthrough, but no one objects, all minds focussed on the task at hand.
Flynn and King go in first, Bennett, Rex, me at the back. I click the door closed. Hearing the commotion beyond this hall. I glance down at the hardwoods, think of puddles of red, a woman, too much like Poppy, lying dead in the middle of it.
I blink, passing a large oval mirror, a slim dresser pressed up against one wall, stairs on my right.
They already have Poppy’s father in a chair when I enter a large open room, a living and dining space combined with the kitchen. Glass walls make up the back of the house, all of the furniture wood and expensive fabrics with swirling patterns.
Michael Carrington is a tall, broad, man, thick, brown hair pushed back, white skin, his face extra pale, and I like to think that’s due to our presence. His dark concrete colored eyes narrowed in on my brother, thin lips pursed.
“Like I said,” Bennett says calmly, sitting down opposite him at the table, his fingers lacing together, King holds Poppy’s father in place with his hands on his shoulders. “We’re here about your business with Christopher Matthews.”
He scoffs, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fifteen years ago, you moved money between business accounts, funneling money that wasn’t his, back to your business associate Christopher Matthews. All while making sure it left an overly obvious,false,fraudulent paper trail pointing fingers right at Jason Adams Construction company. Making sure you and Matthews got rich quick, and poor, innocent Adams got sent to jail fortwentyyears, for embezzlement among a long list of other crimes he was innocent of. Correct?” Bennett is eerily calm, the way he spouts off the information like some sort of emotionless computer program.
Michael’s mouth moves, but no words come out and Flynn’s fist connects with his cheek, his head snapping to the side. He spits, sniffing hard, before lifting his head back up.
“But you didn’t agree to work together right away, did you Michael? No,” Bennett laughs caustically, resting one palm down on the table. “There’s a period of time, you supposedly stopped working with the Matthews because you wanted to keep all the money for yourself. And then what happened? Because you did, in the end, start working with him again. That’s what I can't figure out, what did he give you, to convince you? How much money did it take for you toruin my family?” Bennett snarls in Michael’s face, slamming both hands down onto the table as he leans forward.
Snot drips from Michael’s nose, blood dripping from his eyebrow, breath heavy through his mouth.
He brings his eyes up onto Bennett’s, holding his gaze, “Get. Fucked.”
My brother stares at him, and then slowly, his hands slipping back across the wood as he straightens to stand, his dark eyes roll to Flynn. And with a single nod of his head, Flynn smiles.
Flynn strikes Michael across the face, his knuckles a dull thud as his fist connects with bone, King holding him in the chair, hands pinned behind his back.
Flynn beats Poppy’s dad’s face, blood dripping from his mouth, brow, nose, but Flynn keeps going, waiting for Bennett to speak again.
I tune the noise of violence out, peering around the Carrington family home, no pictures, no personal effects. Nothing to indicate a family does or has ever lived here.
“Anything you’d like to divulge yet?” Bennett asks the bloody man, drawing my attention, staring down at his phone as he reads a message on the screen, “I already know everything, Michael, I’d just like to hear it from your mouth.”
“He murdered my wife,” Michael bites out, gnashing his red stained teeth, and I can tell my brother is momentarily stunned, even though he mutes his reaction like a pro. But Michael isn’t done yet, “I had him murder my wife for an extra cut of money,” he shrugs, like it means nothing. “Her parents left her millions and I fucking wanted it. She was always gifting it to charities and bullshit, wasting it, she was standing in the way of my business. So I offered him a partnership and a little slice of her money.”
Bennett stands, his jaw clenched, stare hard.
And it’s me that asks, thinking of Poppy, the way she trembles when anyone mentions her dad, “Why’d you send Poppy to him? Why give her to Chris? What was in it for you?”
Michael stares at me with a snarling, split upper lip, but he rolls his fucking eyes as he says, “She is nothing more than a burden, soft like her mother. I have no use for her, and the Matthews boy wanted to play with her, he’d get her inheritance when they married, after that,” he shrugs. “He could kill her, sell her, do whatever the fuck he wanted.” He shrugs again, spitting blood onto the floor as he props himself up in the chair. “I got fifty-five percent of the inheritance money in advance, that's how desperate he was for her, taking out loans worth more than his life. So why not let him have her.”
It’s as though the room spins, so easily discarding his own flesh and blood, all for the sake of more money he doesn’t need.
I can’t help but laugh, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I don't care what you thugs think,” he snaps back. “I’d have given the bitch away for free. Would have saved me a whole lotta hassle, but that boy doesn’t know how to haggle to save his life. Pathetic little shit.”
