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Ineeded to hurry. Traffic had been a bitch, coming home from the hospital, and checking my wristwatch, the second hand ticked on. I was already three minutes late to my meeting with Barry and counting. I had already annoyed him earlier today by asking him to look into Franco Hopkins, so I certainly did not want to show up to our meeting later than I already was.
I needed to run upstairs, get a shirt on, and meet Barry in my home office. Confirm Franco was nothing to worry about so I could get back to the task at hand: finding my father’s killer.
“Mr. Lockwood,” Maria said when I walked inside from my garage. Wearing a white apron over her plump figure, her hair pinned up in its usual gray bun, she looked at my mismatched outfit—a workout shirt and designer suit pants—with curiosity. “I showed—”
“Barry to my office, who’s waiting for me. Yes, thank you, Maria.”
I walked toward the main staircase.
“Yes, sir, but I was going to say…”
She didn’t need to finish her sentence because when I walked into the next room, I spotted them.
They stood, sipping scotch in the newly decorated great room of my family estate. I had remodeled the entire mansion two years ago, hoping more windows, white trim, and lighter furniture would chase the dark memories that haunted this house since my childhood. Making it look completely different than it had been when I’d been a boy, finding my father reading in this room.
Now, the three-story windows bathed the beige couches, end tables, and glass coffee table in early evening light. An olive tree sat in the far corner, concealing the spot where I’d fallen when I was four and split my chin open. Every time my eyes landed there, I could almost feel the warmth of my father’s gentle touch, and hear the soothing tone of his voice as he bandaged my wound. And how it was only five years later that he’d died.
The window light stretched to the other side of the room, which housed the grand staircase and the upper balcony overlooking it all. From that spot, I used to sneak peeks as a child, watching my father’s eyes dance over the pages, his sighs echoing up to my hiding place.
My dad’s brother—Uncle Alexander—was in his typical polished form today. Wearing a custom-tailored blue suit that accentuated his six-foot frame, he had styled his hair—dark with a few strands of gray—with just enough product to look polished yet sophisticated. I’d admired the elegance he carried himself with since I was a kid—when Uncle Alexander stepped into the role of a father figure, filling the void left in the wake of his brother’s death. And I appreciated how he’d always been there for us four boys and my mother, too—up until the day she passed away from a battle with breast cancer.
Uncle Alexander would always pull us into warm embraces, ruffle our hair, or share stories of our father, creating a bridge to memories lost. But I suspected his constant presence was not due solely to love or family obligation. After the death of his only brother, we became more than just nephews to him—we became the closest thing he had to ever seeing his brother again. In us, he’d see his smile, hear his voice, and he’d grasp on to the echoes of my father.
My uncle was wonderful to our family, but he wasn’t without his faults. As much as he accused me of being trapped in the past, chasing my father’s killer, my uncle was obsessed with his own. Or more specifically with the legacy that my grandfather had built—the legacy of a Fortune 500 company built from the ground up and the name that went with it: Lockwood.
But it wasn’t the sight of my uncle Alexander that made my eyebrows hit my hairline; it was who was standing next to him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Saw the zoo on the news.” My brother Grayson was dressed in black slacks and a fitted black shirt, as if he hadn’t gotten the memo that it was summer. “Were you there?”
Was a courthouse slaying what it took for him to reappear?
“Yeah. Had trial today.”
“You okay?” Uncle Alexander asked.
“I’m fine. But now’s not a good time; I’m late for a meeting.”
Unfortunate timing. Grayson and I hadn’t spoken in weeks.
“With another private investigator,” Uncle said.
Even as a grown man, the disapproval in his voice had this way of grinding against my spine.
“Is that the real reason you’re here?” I couldn’t hide the irritation in my tone. “To try and talk me out of this again?”
“We just wanted to check and see that you’re okay,” my uncle claimed. “It’s not every day you turn on the news and see a murder at the courthouse.”
Yet his shoulders were drawn tight, like they always were when he was about to say something he knew I wouldn’t like.
“You’re both welcome to stay, but I have to get to this meeting.” I pivoted toward the back hall.
“I heard you helped Ms. Payne,” my uncle said, stopping me in my tracks.
“How do you know that?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
