“Touché,” Jack said, and tried one. “Mmm, quite tasty,” he added, and chased it with a sip of the wine.
Blake entered with Charles on his heels.
Justin strode in with his usual “don’t mess with me” attitude and poured his own wine before claiming his favorite chair.
Fiona straggled in last, muttering something about the condition of her hair and how it needed a cut, and the sacrifices that had to be made being stranded in this town and left to the services of people who barely knew how to wash and dry a client’s hair. After delivering that gripe, she went straight to the bar and demanded a drink.
Nita frowned.
“Really, Fee. Andrew is our guest, not a servant.”
“Sorry,” Fiona said, and took her wine without bothering to look at him, then sauntered toward Nita, leaned down and whispered in her ear, “It was an innocent mistake, since I had two solid hours of hearing you being serviced by our guest.”
“You should have joined us,” Nita snapped, relishing the dull flush of red that moved up her sister’s neck and cheeks.
Fiona’s eyes narrowed. “It is times like this when I am grateful for the fact that we live our own lives in New York.”
Nita glared.
Fiona’s lips pursed in disapproval as she headed for the lavishly upholstered chair their mother used to favor. The fabric, huge red poppies on a snow-white background, was still as pristine as the day the chair had been delivered to this house. Rarely did anyone sit in it. It stood mostly as an homage to the mother they’d lost so young, but Fiona felt a little rebellion of her own was long past due and sat down with a defiant glare.
It was noticed by all but remarked upon by none, which made the gesture anticlimactic, so she settled for lowering the wine level in her glass instead.
The next thirty minutes spent in familial proximity and booze had the same effect as always. They were already poking at each other to see who would have the most drastic reaction to some snide remark, which was what passed for conversation between them, until Jack put a stop to it.
“I believe it’s time we moved to the dining room,” he said. He had turned to set his wineglass on the bar when the doorbell rang. “Are we expecting more company?”
When no one spoke up, he frowned. “I’m going to tell Frances to turn whoever it is away. This is the height of rudeness.” Then he left the room in a huff.
Blake popped the last piece of bruschetta into his mouth and was still chewing when he heard shouting in the foyer. Everyone except Justin and Fiona ran out into the hall to see what was happening.
“I’m sick of all this,” Fiona muttered.
Justin shrugged.
When the noise from the foyer began coming closer and Justin could hear Uncle Jack shouting at Blake to call their lawyer, he stood. It was a gut reaction, an attempt to avoid being in a vulnerable position should trouble come through the door. And come it did, in the guise of the county constable and the local chief of police, followed by a pair of deputies. He saw the looks on their faces and knew he had nowhere to run.
As he feared, the two deputies headed for him without hesitation.
“What the hell are you doing?” Justin yelled.
Riordan began reading him his Miranda Rights as the deputies cuffed him.
“Justin Wayne, you are under arrest for the attempted murders of Bowie Youngblood and Talia Champion. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided to you. You—”
Justin’s ears began to roar. His family was looking at him as if they’d never seen him before, and he was wondering what the hell he’d missed this morning that had led to this happening.
In the middle of it all, Jack started shouting again.
“I demand to know what insanity prompted this!”
“He tampered with the brakes on vehicles belonging to both Bowie Youngblood and Talia Champion.”
Jack threw up his arms in disgust.
“This is just a witch hunt, isn’t it, Riordan? You don’t have anyone to arrest for murder, so you cook up this pathetic charge to—”
“No!” Chief Clayton interrupted. He knew he was putting his own job in jeopardy, but he also knew this was one more nail in the incident that would eventually bury this family, and he wanted to disassociate himself from them before that happened. “This is not a trumped-up charge, and there’s nothing ‘pathetic’ about attempted murder. It was only providence that kept Bowie’s truck from going off the road and down a cliff as he drove home earlier today. Unfortunately, Miss Champion was not so lucky. Her brakes went out on that same mountain road about thirty minutes later, and she did go over the cliff. She’s in the hospital as we speak, with an assortment of injuries. We recovered security footage from a neighbor that clearly showed Justin Wayne in the act of vandalizing both vehicles.”
Jack’s face paled.
“Oh my God,” Nita muttered.
Blake recoiled as if he’d been slapped, and Charles staggered backward to the nearest chair.