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“But I might have been able to save some of the others.”
“Don’t play the what-if game,” Reid said. “I’m a master at it, and it never changes a damned thing.”
I’d told myself the same thing many times, and Reid was right. I’d made the decision I thought was best at the time.
And it had all led me here.
To this man.
Reid Wolfe.
I was falling hard.
48
Reid
After making sure Zee was comfortable after our evening and subsequent night together, I headed down in the elevator to the meeting Rock had called.
All eyes went wide when our mother walked in.
“What the—” Rock started.
“I invited her,” I said. “She’s promised to help. Right, Mom?”
My mother, looking pale and a little bit green, nodded. “Yes. I know none of you killed your father. I didn’t either.”
“You wouldn’t kill off your gravy train,” Rock said snidely.
Lacey slid him a stink-eye for the comment. No one else said anything.
So I spoke up. “We all have our problems with our mother. We need to put them aside for now, at least until this case is solved. We need to work together to make sure the guilty party is found.”
Riley bit her lower lip. Matt sat next to her, holding her hand.
I stood and made introductions. Mom hadn’t yet met Matt and Charlie. It was awkward, but I got it done in two minutes flat.
“Lace and I have come up with a working theory,” Rock said. “There’s no evidence that anyone other than Dad himself made the phone call to me from Reid’s office, posing as Reid.”
“You do all sound a lot alike,” Mom observed.
“Right, so here’s the theory.” Rock drew in a breath. “Dad was planning to stage his own death implicating all of us, but someone got wind of his plan and actually killed him, knowing they’d get away with it because Dad had put the whole plan in place to implicate us.”
“Interesting,” I said. “Have you—”
“Yes,” Rock said, appearing to read my mind. “The body we cremated was definitely Dad. The body the police found was definitely Dad. He is not alive. We’ve checked it out and gone over and over it with a fine-toothed comb.”
Riley nodded, trembling. “I identified the body in the morgue. It was Dad. I swear to you.”
“Suspects, then,” I said. “Father Jim, of course. Hank Morgan?”
Rock nodded. “Lacey and I believe he is a suspect. Dad had a considerable amount of pull in the NYPD. And then there’s Irene Lucent.”
My eyes shot wide. “You’ve talked to her?”
“No. We haven’t found her yet, if she exists at all.” He turned to Mom. “What do you know about her?”
“Nothing,” Mom said quietly.
“I believe her,” I said. “She wouldn’t have married Dad if she’d known there was someone else who could possibly have split his pie with her.”
“Fair enough,” Rock said. “We need to find her. But would she really be behind Dad’s murder? Why not take care of him years ago?”
“Maybe,” Roy, who was usually quiet, began, “Dad had decided to go back to Irene.”
“Give up his billion-dollar enterprise?” Rock said. “Doesn’t sound like him.”
“Are you kidding?” Roy continued. “He probably planned to live the high life on some Caribbean island while getting reports of the chaos his will had caused. Forcing you to come here and run the company. Watching Reid have to give up what should have been his birthright. Watching us all be implicated. He had all the hoops set up and ready for us to—”
“Oh my God,” Riley broke in.
“What?” Several of us asked in unison.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before,” she said. “Actually, I do know why. I’ve kind of erased it from my mind. Dad has an island. A private island.”
My heart threatened to jump out of my chest. “How do you know?” I asked.
She gazed down at the table. “I’ve been there.”
Silence for what seemed like more than a few seconds. We all knew what Riley had experienced on her trips with Dad. And on a private island? Nothing would have been off limits.
“Do you know where the island is?” Rock asked.
She nodded. “It’s not in the Caribbean. It’s somewhere in the Pacific. We’d fly out of Honolulu. Or take a boat. Honestly I don’t remember how we got there most of the time.”
Why didn’t you tell us this? I wanted to demand.
But I didn’t. I already knew the answer. Riley tried very hard not to think about those times, and none of us could blame her. She honestly hadn’t thought of it until now.
“Records,” Lacey said. “There’d be a record of the purchase somewhere.”
I held back a snorting scoff. Lacey was still new to this family. She didn’t understand that Derek Wolfe could make any record disappear. “He probably covered it up,” I said. “But there would have to be a flight manifest for the jet.” I turned to my sister. “I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you to talk about, but when you went to the island, did you take the jet?”
