“And you won’t intervene?”
“No.”
“But you got the charges dropped for Natasha.”
“That’s because you were convinced she was being set up. That’s a different situation.”
Maude continued to stare at Edmund. “If I live to be a thousand years old,” she said again, “I’ll never understand your sister.Or you,” she added.
That offended him. “I was a kid myself when I had those children. What do you want from me? I did all I could for my son, but he decided to follow Tasha. He even told me to stay out of his life. So I did.” Then his brows furrowed. “He made his bed. He has to lay in it.”
If she ever got pregnant by him, would he be that way with their children too? It was very concerning to Maude. There was a lot about him that was concerning to Maude. And he never even bothered to mention his own children? Even more concerning. She was grateful she was back on the Pill.
Edmund could feel her anxiety. So much so that he reached over and pulled her on top of him. Then he held her in his arms. “I’m not a bad man, Maude,” he said to her. “I’m really not.”
It wasn’t lost on him that she had nothing to say in return.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The next morning, as they sat on the sofa in the small living room, Edmund couldn’t stop staring at Maude. He was leaned back, with his legs crossed, but Maude was on the edge of her seat, leaned over her phone, reviewing what she said were her notes concerning Ross Hampton’s corruption. She was fired, thanks to him, and she seemed determined to bring him down.
Don had gotten a call that he had to take, and they were waiting for him to conclude his conversation. Once he did, he came back into Maude’s apartment, sat back down in the chair that flanked the sofa, and got down to business. “We found it,” he said, “but it was empty.”
Edmund shook his head. “The safe deposit box was empty. Why am I not surprised?”
“Why would she create that list and put it in code on top of that?” Maude asked. “Why would she do that? To what end?”
“Maybe it was just her own twisted satisfaction,” Don said. “Natasha could be odd like that.”
But Maude was shaking her head. “That’s too easy for the Natasha I knew. A woman who would have me asking all those people to help her when she knew they all would turn me down flat, and she knew her brother wouldn’t bother to respond to my calls and text messages, forcing me to have to go to Baltimore, isn’t twisted. She knows what she’s doing.”
Edmund was nodding. “I agree with Maude,” he said.
“Okay, well, we got nothing on that front. We don’t even know who was in that SUV,” Don said, “because they were incinerated inside that vehicle. But we did trace that BMW that Natasha got away in.”
“You traced it to whom?” asked Edmund.
“Ross Hampton?” asked Maude.
Don pointed at Maude. “Bingo.”
Edmund exhaled. At least now they knew for certain. “So he is behind it after all?”
“Has to be,” Don said.
But Maude didn’t seem quite as certain. Edmund noticed it. “What is it?” he asked her.
“That’s not like him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why would he allow the getaway car to be registered in his name? That’s so sloppy.”
Edmund and Don looked at each other. Because it was sloppy. They couldn’t disagree.
Then Maude’s phone began ringing. She pulled it out and looked at the Caller ID. Her already large eyes stretched.
“Who is it?” Edmund asked.
