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“Not quite,” Reid said. “Terrence has set up Father Jim to do a memorial service.”
Father Jim. The man who’d done my first communion. The man who…
Not going there. Can’t. Not yet. The blurred images knocked on the door of my mind. Knocked loudly this time.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.
“Okay,” Rock said. “When? Let’s get this bullshit over with as soon as possible. We have real problems to deal with.”
“Agreed,” Reid said. “Terrence is getting the word out. It’ll be next week. Wednesday at two p.m. at St. Andrews.”
“Because Dad was such a good churchgoer,” Rock scoffed.
“Dad donated a shit ton of money to that parish,” Reid said. “Father Jim owes us. Plus, having it at a church will make it look better to the public.”
“And a wake afterward, I suppose?” I said.
“Of course. Derek Wolfe style.”
“A fuck ton of cash,” Rock complained.
“We have it. We won’t even notice it’s gone,” Reid said.
“Still…”
I agreed with my older brother. Money wasted as far as I was concerned. As far as we all were concerned. I was ready for this conversation to end.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“I think so,” Rock said, an edge to his voice I hadn’t heard before.
“Okay. Bye then.” I ended the call.
I turned to Charlie.
She was sex on a stick in that robe, her hair freshly washed and wet. Normally I’d be all over her.
But something niggled at me.
Rock had been keeping a secret.
Something about Riley.
He wasn’t the only one with a secret.
Those undefined images whirled in my mind. I hadn’t let myself see them in so long.
But if Rock was going to show us what he’d been hiding…
I should do the same.
I hadn’t let myself think about that time clearly in over a decade.
For so long, I’d kept it a blur, let it fuck with my mind but stay out of my life.
Oh, it came out. It came out in my art, particularly in the abstract in the lobby of the Wolfe building—the painting that had brought me to Charlie.
The painting that had tortured my soul to complete, but that, to this day, was my best work.
I’d had offers in the seven figures for it, offers I’d never had before for anything I’d painted.
I’d turned down every single one of them.
Every. Single. One.
That painting was too personal. Locked inside it was a truth I couldn’t yet acknowledge.
And I didn’t paint a key.25CharlieBack at the office the next day, I dived into my work. Anything to get my mind off Roy Wolfe.
Oddly, he hadn’t balked when I refused to sleep with him last night. I’d expected a fight. Honestly, I’d expected I’d give in.
Even though I knew it was for the best until I knew him better, I was disappointed he’d acquiesced so easily.
Something was bothering him.
Lacey asked me to help Terrence put the memorial service for Derek Wolfe together. We had five days to plan a first-class service that showed the world how much the Wolfe siblings missed their father.
Big problem number one—one of said siblings had disappeared.
Big problem number two—the other three hated him.
Money was no object, I’d been told. Plan the most elaborate service and hang the costs.
So I would.
Roy would be in the office later. The siblings and Lacey were meeting to discuss what Rock had to tell them about Riley. I hadn’t been included in that, which was just as well. First, I wasn’t family. Second, I didn’t particularly want to see Roy.
We’d both be better off away from each other until I figured him out a little better and he stopped hiding whatever he was hiding.
Leta Romero also never left my mind. Someone had made that phone call to her sister an hour before Derek was actually murdered.
Was it possible the cops got the time of the murder wrong? Not likely.
I sighed. Better not to dwell on Leta or anything else. I had work to do.
Terrence had given me a bunch of numbers to call for catering for the wake after the service. The wake would be held at the Waldorf Astoria, with limos transporting guests from St. Andrew’s.
The Wolfes were spending a crazy amount of money.
A crazy amount of money to make it look like they were mourning their bastard father.
Of course, it was pennies to them.
I shook my head. I couldn’t even comprehend the amount of money in the Wolfe coffers. When you got into billions, did numbers even matter anymore?
Damn.
My phone buzzed.
“Charlie Waters,” I said into my Bluetooth.
“Charlie, hello.”
Blaine Foster. I could tell by his voice, of course, but more so how he said “hello.” It came out more like “hell-oo.”
“Blaine, what can I do for you?”
“Just checking in. How’s the new job?”
“It’s good, thank you.”
“And Lacey?”
“She’s fine. Doing well.”
“It’s not every day a lawyer becomes personal counsel to the CEO of a billion-dollar enterprise. And so quickly too.”
“You know as well as I do how she got the position, Blaine.”
