Page 22 of Overkill

She swung her back to us with her phone held up in front of her, and to my absolute fucking horror, her front camera pointed right at us.

“These handsome fellas are going to help us figure out what happened to my beloved brother-in-law and”—she paused, reading a comment then turning to us over her shoulder with a mischievous look—“are you boys single?”

If we had been drinking the toy-sized cups of tea in front of us, it would have gone out of my nose. What the fuck?

“Oh, Britney, I can’t believe you would say that!” She laughed into her camera. “Young man, they wanna know what your name is.”

She pointed a manicured and bejeweled finger at me.

“They’re guessing it’s Rex, or Thor, or…” She looked at the screen and giggled. “Perhaps a Rip, or a Wayne? They wanna know if you ride horses. Do you?”

I had no idea what to say.

“Uhm, ma’am, I’d rather not.” I lifted my left hand to cover my face from her live stream, but that only made her squeal.

“See that, ladies? No wedding ring.” Then she shushed her audience. “Alright, I’ll stop tormenting the little heartthrob and sign off. Maybe I’ll convince him to come online with me sometime.”

She blew more kisses, then gave another finger wave. “Have a great day, y’all!”

She cut the feed, put her phone face down on the counter, unplugged her ring light, then turned to us. Her smile was gone. Her shimmer was gone. Her accent was gone.

“Jane, get us three coffees. What the hell is this nonsense?” She waved at the tea set.

Jane got up from her computer station and cleared the tea before coming back with three healthy mugs of steaming, black-as-tar coffee.

Valerie took a seat in a chair catty-corner to us, crossed her long legs, and steepled her fingers under her chin.

“So, what are we here to talk about?” She lifted a brow and looked at us with cold, calculating blue eyes as light as an iceberg; stunning in the sense that they were unexpected and rare. Like an arctic wolf.

It took me a minute to get my glitching brain back online as I struggled with the whiplash of her transformation.

“Ma’am,” Braun started, just as flustered as I was—he must have a better poker face than I did. “We’ve been hired by your in-laws to figure out—”

“They want to frame Mellie Gray for murder.” She interrupted. “And we can drop the aw shucks, ma’am bullshit, okay? We’re not on camera right now.”

She beckoned her assistant over, and Jane put forward two pieces of paper and two pens on the coffee table in front of us.

“Nondisclosure agreements, gentlemen,” Valerie said. “I’ll answer what you want to know, but this conversation remains absolutely confidential.”

I scanned it and signed. Braun took longer, reading every single line before also putting his sloppy signature across the entire line, and then some. That was a real John Hancock signature.

“And I should also warn you that I take my NDAs seriously. I’m fueled by only two things: A love of my children and spite.”

She sounded like any ol’ New England broad, with a knife-sharpness to her that could cut.

“You say they want to frame her,” I said, leaning forward in my seat, elbows on my knees. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, sweet Mellie Gray from the wrong side of the tracks—as far as my in-laws are concerned—is the subject of many ill-fated and boring-as-hell dinners.” She flipped her brown hair over her shoulder. “Her mother, Mallory, was just a nurse. Not good enough for the Gray name—bunch of snobs they are—and they’re always pretending this poor woman and her daughter were gold diggers, even though she’s never asked for a single penny in all this time. Not even after Luke disappeared.”

“You…don’t approve of your in-laws?” Braun said.

“Let’s be blunt.” She reached down and grabbed a coffee, bringing it to her lips. “I don’t approve of my own husband, much less the rest of his family.”

“So…why are you married to him?” This had all the makings of a society marriage, and it was too similar to what Griff and his ex-wife, Kristin, had. An arranged marriage that was about merging family empires instead of love.

“I’m going to guess that your accents are real,” she said, pointing between me and Braun on the couch. “Me? I’m from Brooklyn.”

She seamlessly transitioned into her city accent before pulling it back to the slower, almost country drawl.