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“Gimme a fuckin’ break, Auz. She’d be faithful otherwise? Not too fuckin’ likely.”
Austin shrugs, downs his drink and signals the waitress to bring another.
“I walked in on her,” I announce.
His face goes sour, like he’s smelled something foul.
“Discreet. Right,” I add.
“In our house?” He clips, looking tweaked, like it’d be a whole other level if it was in my father’s house.
I shake my head. “Garden shed.”
“She was fuckin’ someone in the garden shed?”
I lift my hand in what some would see as a peace sign.
“Twice?” Austin asks.
The waitress comes back with two fresh drinks and takes our glasses away.
“No,” I say. “Not twice. Two men. At once.”
My brother’s eyes go fiery mad.
“Not pretty,” I mumble.
He’s glaring. His chest is rising and falling fast.
“She saw me. She chased me down. She then threatened me and tried to blackmail me into keeping quiet. All sorts of ugly threats. Don’t tell Dad. Don’t tell you or our sister.”
He’s watching, listening, and I can see his temperature rising.
“So that was when I hired Jude.”
Austin knows Jude is a buddy. We’ve been out for drinks and run into him a couple times together. He didn’t know before now that how I’d met Jude was because I’d hired him to investigate Audra.
“I had him dig. She’s spending Dad’s money like it’s goin’ outta style. Money hidden. A few days ago, Jude found out she recently got two new life insurance policies on dad. A while back though, I found out …” I wince.
He jerks his chin up, urging me to continue.
“That my and your paternity might be a question mark.”
His shoulders slump and he swallows.
“She had an affair with Uncle Mitchell. It may have started around the time she got pregnant with you. It might’ve even started before I was born so…”
I put my hand into my inside pocket and pull out the envelope and drop it on the table but keep my hand on it.
“I had paternity tests done. Over a year ago. For both of us. I haven’t opened them. I don’t know what it says. I’ve been sitting on all this, but after talking to you today, after she stormed into my office tryin’ to exert her authority, I knew I had to get in front of this. Bridge the gap with us before she pulls something. If he’s been having medical problems for ten years only, there wouldn’t be a question of our paternity. If it’d only been ten years? Uncle Mitch died just over ten years ago. She might’ve even been fuckin’ him when she married Dad, according to some of Jude’s digging.”
Austin’s eyes are on the envelope.
Uncle Mitch committed suicide. So, if he’s his father, my father, or both, it’s not like we’ll have to start calling him Dad. I told Jude I might want Uncle Mitch’s suicide investigated, too. I haven’t decided on that yet.
“I left these envelopes in my safety deposit box here in San Diego and that was another reason I liked being in New York. Far away from these envelopes.”
He says nothing. He’s just staring at it.
