“What are you doing?” Simon Walton marched toward me, fire in his eyes and cats on his pajama pants.
I looked away, not wanting to see the judgment in the eyes of the man I’d come to think of as a surrogate father. But it wasn’t me his ire was directed at. He stepped between me and the chief of police and drilled a finger into Ogden’s flabby chest.
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing, Wylie?”
“I’m arresting this punk prick for trying to cut his parents to ribbons with a chef’s knife,” the chief said loud enough for the neighbors to hear.
“That’s not what happened!” The crowd parted, or my vision cleared long enough to bring Sloane into focus.
I looked away quickly, but not before seeing her tear-streaked face. The horror. The guilt. She was still holding the cordless phone.
It was her. She’d called them. She was the reason my life was over. The reason my mother was unprotected. My mother, who had remained silent when my father told the cops I’d attacked them unprovoked.
A wave of nausea rolled through me.
“Sloane, I’ll handle this,” Mr. Walton insisted. “Uncuff him now, Wylie, or we’re going to have an issue.”
“I don’t take orders from some namby-pamby ambulance chaser,” Ogden said, giving me a hard shove forward. My knees buckled, and I went down on them hard on the sidewalk.
Sloane cried out, but I refused to look up.
“Officer Winslow, will you please take care of Lucian while I talk to Chief Ogden?” Mr. Walton said through clenched teeth.
Another cop and an EMT each took an arm and helped me up.
“Hang in there, buddy,” the officer said to me quietly as they guided me toward the ambulance.
“Don’t bother patching him up. Let him bleed on the way to jail. See how he likes it,” Ogden called after them.
I thought I heard the EMT mutter “fucker” under his breath, but I wasn’t sure.
The cop eased me into the back of the patrol car, where I collapsed against the seat.
“I’ll get you some water, and we’ll clean you up down at the station,” he promised.
I nodded but didn’t open my eyes. There was no point. There was nothing left for me here. This life was over.
“Lucian.”
I managed to open my eyes and found Mr. Walton leaning in the open door. “Listen to me. I’ll be right behind you. Okay? Don’t talk to anyone. If they try to question you, tell them you won’t speak unless your lawyer is present.”
His tone was calm, soothing.
“What…” My voice sounded rusty, and I cleared my throat. “What about my mom?” I rasped.
“They’re taking her to the hospital to get her checked out,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“Lucian.” Sloane’s panicked face appeared next to her father’s earnest one.
I turned away, not wanting to see her. Not wanting to face the betrayal…or the shadows my family had put in those green eyes.
“Go,” I said.
“What?” Mr. Walton asked, leaning closer.
“Get her out of here! Please.”
“Lucian, I’m sorry—” Sloane began.
“Go stand with your mother, Sloane,” Mr. Walton said using his lawyer voice.
My father was standing guard at the back of the ambulance watching me. I knew what he was really doing. Reminding my mother what happened to wives who didn’t know their loyalty lay with their husbands instead of their sons.
I didn’t blame her. I didn’t even know if I blamed Sloane. I just knew that everything I’d fought for for so long was now over. It was all for nothing. I was going to jail. My father would kill my mother. Then he’d either go to jail or drink himself to death. No matter which way the dice landed, this was the end of the Rollins family.
“But, Dad, you can’t let them take him. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Lucian’s fault. Mr. Rollins—”
If he heard her, if he even had an inkling that she knew… I wouldn’t be there to stop him. I felt sick.
“Enough!” I barked sharply. I still couldn’t look at her. She needed to get away from me.
“Lucian.” Sloane’s whisper was broken.
“Go wait with your mother,” Mr. Walton ordered briskly.
I sensed her leaving. A wave of hopelessness crashed over me. “You don’t want to get involved in this, Mr. Walton. It’s not safe.”
He reached in the car and put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re not abandoning you, Lucian. You’re a good kid on your way to being a good man. I’m going to fix this.”
On the way to the police station, I found myself wondering why some people dedicated their lives to fixing things while others set out only to break them. Not that it mattered anymore. I was one of the broken.
20
No One Else Can Have Her
Lucian
Maureen Fitzgerald crossed her long legs at the ankles and smiled her enigmatic smile at me.
“What’s so important that you insisted I cut my Parisian shopping spree short?” Her tone was well-modulated. Her posture and diction served to remind her audience of private boarding schools and summers in Europe. Not a single chestnut hair dared escape from the classic twist. Her jewelry was expensive yet tasteful, and her tailored pantsuit exuded both style and money.
But I knew better. The real Maureen was more impressive than some daddy’s girl with an inheritance. Like me, she’d created herself out of the nothing she’d been given. Also like me, she’d built a safety net of money, power, and favors.
In her fifties, she managed to turn more heads walking into a room than most of her employees. Which was quite the statement, given the fact that she was in charge of a bevy of beautiful sex workers who kept the wealthy Washington, DC, elite satisfied.
I handed her an espresso on a delicate saucer and took a seat on the edge of the desk I’d commandeered. The hotel manager was outside, probably nervously pacing and wondering why the man who owned this place and signed her paycheck was using her office to meet with the most notorious madam on the East Coast.
“I need information,” I said.
“Don’t be greedy, Lucian. It’s unbecoming.”
“Don’t pretend you feed me out of the generosity of your heart, Maureen. I’ve made your life easier in a number of ways.”
It was a symbiotic relationship we shared. She divulged information on any problematic clients her workers encountered, and I used the information to make sure there were no further problems. Depending on the individual in question, my tools ran the gamut from blackmail to sometimes more creative means.
“Sooner or later, someone could draw a connection between us, and then where will we be?” she asked before taking a delicate sip of espresso.
“We’re both too cagey for that.”
“Hmm. How very optimistic of you. But people get distracted. They get sloppy.”
“Is that why your name came up in connection to Felix Metzer’s untimely demise?” I asked, dropping the information like a dead body at her feet.
Her face remained perfectly impassive, but I didn’t miss the rattle of china when she set her cup down.
“Who have you been talking to?”
“Someone you’re lucky enough is too stupid to connect any dots. He assumed Felix was a client.”
“What a limited imagination your little birdie has,” Maureen said, patting her hair.
“Why were you seen having lunch with a man who was—by all accounts—a likable, networking, criminal middleman until his body was fished out of the Potomac?”
She sighed. “First tell me why you’re involved.”
“Felix sold a list with my friend’s name on it to Anthony Hugo. Hugo made it known that every name on the list needed to be eliminated.”
“You have friends?” She arched an eyebrow, her brown eyes sparkling.
“More like family,” I said.
“Then you already understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Felix is…or was family. We were cousins in what feels like a past life. We grew up together. I went my way, he went his. But we stayed in touch, met up on occasion. Never anywhere that someone would recognize me, of course. I have a reputation to uphold.”
Except someone had recognized her, and now Maureen was my only lead.
“Did Felix ever talk to you about work?”