A Feast of You (31 page)

In front of us, George and Anthony stared hard at the growing traffic on the downtown streets. In the backseat, William pressed a cold bottle of water into my hands. “Drink.”

I sipped the water. I wasn’t really thirsty, but I understood William wanted me to sober up. His look back in the studio—fury mixed with panic—killed my buzz faster than any water would. But I sipped anyway, my gaze on William.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“My office.” He didn’t look at me, just stared out the window.

“What’s this about? The thing at Beckett’s party?”

William nodded and my heart sank. This was not good.

The car pulled to the front of William’s building, and he ushered me inside. His warm hand on my back gave me some comfort, but all of the secrecy made me jumpy. When George, William, and I stepped into the private elevator, I started at the quiet ping it made when George pressed the button to close the doors.

He took a key from his pocket, inserted it into the panel, and pushed a button labeled
S
.
S floor?

“Where are we going?”

I might as well have been speaking to myself. No one answered me. The elevator slid downward silently.

I hadn’t spent a lot of time at William’s office or in his private elevator. I did have fond memories of the first time I’d ridden in it—the way William had kissed me until I was breathless. There was none of that warmth in here now. My belly was a cold lump of fear. I’d only ridden the elevator a half dozen times, but I didn’t remember ever seeing an S floor. I’d never taken the elevator down either. I’d always gone up to the top floor of the building.

Was this a basement level? What could the S stand for?

Secret?

I almost giggled, but it wasn’t the champagne this time. It was nervous laughter. Finally, the door slid open revealing a large open area. The walls and floor were the silvery grey of metal and the ceilings were low, making the place feel like a bunker.

Maybe that’s what it was. Video screens displayed images from cameras all around the building. Some screens even showed the exterior and interior of William’s residential building. The video feed flickered in the dim light and several laptops sat around a center circular pillar, their screens lit by a scroll of numbers and letters that made no sense to me.

The soft hum of voices silenced as soon as we stepped into the room. I looked away from the cameras and the computers and blinked in surprise at Charles Smith.

“Mr. Smith.” I sort of waved then lowered my hand, feeling awkward. What was William’s uncle doing here? George moved to stand beside Asa, who was next to one of the large screens projecting a view of the lobby. People filed in and out, unaware they were being watched from below.

Charles gave me a wan smile. “Hello, Catherine.”

He looked tired. They all did. William’s hand still rested in the small of my back, and I was grateful for the reassuring contact. His expression was granite—nothing reassuring about that.

Behind me, the elevator whooshed again, and Anthony stepped off.

“That’s everyone,” George said curtly. “Secure the elevator.”

“Yes, sir.” Anthony punched a code into the panel and the hum of the elevator ceased. The room was silent except for the whir of the machines.

I knew what the S on the elevator panel meant now.
Security
. This was William’s security room. George was in charge here. He cleared his throat and addressed the gathering. “As some of you know, the authorities finally apprehended the man who broke into Catherine’s condo.”

“What?” I gasped. “When?”

George ignored me, as usual. He looked at the tablet he held in his hand, consulting notes. “His name is Lance Reilly. He’s a known perp.” He nodded to Asa, who tapped the screen of one of the laptops. An image of a guy in his early thirties popped up. He had dark hair and light blue eyes, a handsome face marred by a cocky smile.

“Is this the man you saw enter your building, posing as a plumber, Miss Kelly?” George asked.

“I...yes. I think so.” I took a step closer. I remembered that the guy had reminded me of William, and this man had the same dark hair, light eyes, and handsome features. I tried to picture him with a baseball cap. “That might be him.”

“He has a record.” George consulted his tablet again. “Minor infractions, mostly—petty theft, breaking and entering, vandalism. Enough for him to see some jail time when we press charges. We offered to go easy on him if he gave us information.”

“What sort of information?” Charles asked. I was glad I wasn’t the only one who didn’t have all the facts.

“We wanted to know who hired him.”

“And did he tell you?”

“He gave us a description of the woman.”

“Woman?” I looked at William. His expression told me nothing. I had no idea if this information was new or if he’d heard it a hundred times before.

“He didn’t know her name, but he gave a detailed description. She’s in her late twenties or early thirties, petite, brown hair.” George looked up at me. “Those weren’t the exact words he used, but that’s what we put together.”

I shook my head. Why would a woman hire someone to break into my condo? The description didn’t sound like anyone I knew. For some strange reason, the moment George had said it was a woman, an image of Jace’s mother popped into my head. She was the only woman I could think of who hated me.
Ridiculous
. She was in California and probably glad to have nothing to do with me.

And the description didn’t match Mrs. Ryder’s.

“We also obtained this footage from The Webster.” George nodded at Asa, who brought a grainy black-and-white film onto the screen beside the picture of Lance Reilly. I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out what I was seeing. Finally, I saw a man in a white shirt and black pants step into the shot. He reached into his pocket, took out his phone, and scrolled through it. Behind him were stacks of boxes and something...a wine rack?

“Move ahead to the incident,” George said.

Asa tapped the laptop and the video seemed to fast-forward.

“This is footage of a storage room behind the bar,” George explained. “It’s staff-only. You can see the boxes of beer and spirits and the wine selection.”

“And that waiter?” Charles asked.

“Just taking a break to check his phone,” George said. “He wasn’t supposed to be back there, but he leaves without incident. What we’re interested in is the AV set-up.”

“It’s in that room,” William said. It was the first time he’d spoken, and I wasn’t certain it was a question. George nodded.

“Yes, that’s where the video and music are piped in. It’s not hard to gain access to, if you know where it is. Initially, we suspected that one of the staff was responsible for the incident Saturday night. But then we saw this.” He nodded to Asa, who slowed the video back down to normal speed.

I stared at the grainy image of the empty room. A woman stepped into the frame. She looked over her shoulder, then moved to the far edge of the shot. She bent and seemed to be working on something.

“That’s the media interface.” George pointed to an area just out of the camera’s range. “Note the time.” He tapped the screen. In the corner it read 10:32:27.

“At exactly 10:32:33, the music changes and the unauthorized images and video appear.”

I stared at the screen, watching as the seconds advanced. At 10:32:33, the woman stood straight and nodded to herself. Then she turned and left the room.

“And this is the same woman who paid to have Catherine’s condo broken into?” Charles asked.

“We believe so. She matches the description,” George said.

I hadn’t been able to see her very well in the grainy footage, but I’d made out that she was probably in the age range.

“I think it will become clear when Asa cleans up the feed.” George nodded to Asa.

Asa pressed another button and we had the image of the woman leaving the room again. He paused the video right when she passed directly in front of the camera. He tapped the screen, and a square appeared around the grainy image of her face. The square enlarged until it was just her face on the screen. Asa tapped again, refining the image. Another tap.

I gasped.

The final tap and the image was crystal clear.

The woman was Elin Erickson.

* * *

F
or a few minutes I didn’t hear anything anyone said. I had an impression that the room erupted into angry shouts, but I was too confused to process it. One thought cycled through my mind:
Why?

Why would Elin Erickson do that to me? Why would she want to hurt me?

And she did want to hurt me. If she was the mastermind behind all of this, she hadn’t just made these videos or paid a man to break into my condo—she’d had me photographed, locked in my darkroom, and served that unappetizing plate at the Botanical Society dinner.

Why?

I’d never done anything to her. I hadn’t even
known
her until a few weeks ago.

“—been taken into custody.”

George’s words caught my attention. “She’s being held for questioning, and we will press charges.”

This was crazy. Elin had been a friend of William’s since they were kids. Was this some sort of crush gone wrong? Had William not told me the truth about their relationship?

“What the hell is going on here?” William’s voice startled me. I could feel the tension reverberating through his entire body. Everyone turned to look at him, but he glared at Charles, his gaze never wavering.

Charles shook his head. A sign of confusion or an unwillingness to say what he knew?

“Don’t shake your fucking head at me. You know something. You have to.”

“William—” Charles didn’t need to finish the thought. His expression gave everything away. The lines in his face grew deeper with regret and pain flickered in his eyes.

“Tell me what you know,” William demanded.

Charles gave a deep sigh. “Maybe we should discuss this in private.”

“There’s nowhere more private than this,” William said. “And as soon as the media gets wind of her arrest, everyone is going to know.”

I reached for William’s hand, but he drew it away. He didn’t want my comfort right now, and I could tell from Charles’s defeated expression that he wasn’t going to give William comfort either.

“You know that Elin’s father, Jack, worked for your father at WML Capital Management for several years. Your parents were close with the Ericksons, to Jack and his wife, Lisa,” Charles began. “They socialized together, traveled together. You remember summers with them in Lake Geneva, I’m sure. Perhaps...” He looked directly into William’s face, his eyes full of pain. “Perhaps your father became too close to Lisa Erickson.”

William didn’t move. I wasn’t even certain he’d heard.

“He had a...relationship with Lisa. And there was a child born from that relationship.”

The room was quiet except for the sound of William roughly exhaling now and again. His eyes—a cold, icy blue—were locked on Charles’s face.

Charles broke away first, his gaze dropping to William’s hands, which were clenched together, the knuckles white with rage.

“Lisa had a son, William. His name was Wesley, and he was your half-brother.”

The silence hung around us. William clenched his jaw again and again and a vein pulsed at the side of his neck, but his stare never wavered. “Go on,” he finally said.

“That last spring, Jack found out about Lisa’s affair with your father, and all hell broke loose. Jack left WML Capital Management and he and Lisa separated shortly after that. Relationships were damaged, friendships lost, business affected. It was not an easy time and your father struggled a great deal with all of it.”

“And so later, those letters from the woman who claimed to be my father’s mistress,” William said, his voice cold. “Those were legitimate, weren’t they?”

“You were still just a child. You were never supposed to know. But yes, the letters were from Lisa.”

“She did have a son with my father?”

Charles nodded, his throat working. “But your father never knew. He never even knew she was pregnant. The accident happened and...” Charles’s voice trailed off. There was no need to say more. William’s father had died in plane crash later that summer.

“But her story wasn’t discredited, was it? And then she died in a car accident. That really happened, right?”

“Lisa’s drinking got out of hand. She was killed in a car accident in which she was clearly at fault. Her blood alcohol level was off the charts.” Charles closed his eyes. “Wesley was with Lisa and was also killed. She slid off the road into a retention pond. Wesley was strapped in his car seat in the back. He was just a toddler and never had a chance.”

The story was tragic and gruesome and so incredibly sad. William didn’t seem to move or breathe for a long moment. I wanted to go to him, to put my arms around him, but I didn’t. I could see the anguish on his face, and imagined the turmoil inside him must have been a thousand times worse.

He idolized his father, and now his father had fallen from grace. Fallen hard.

“How long have you known?” William asked. “Elin grew up with us. She and Lauren played Barbies together.” Though he tried to keep his voice even, I could tell William was close to losing it.

Charles couldn’t seem to bring himself to look William in the eye. He looked at the floor, his hands, William’s shoes. “I’ve always known,” he said finally. “I knew when the relationship began. I didn’t know about Wesley’s paternity until the letters. No one really did. Jack maybe...and maybe Elin knew.”

“My mother...” William’s voice broke on the words. He slammed his hand down on the table in front of him and I jumped. So did Charles. “Did she know about his affair?” William asked quietly, the anger building in his voice.

Charles covered his eyes with his hand. “I don’t see how she couldn’t have, William. She loved your father, but I suspect she stayed with him for you and for Wyatt.”

There was a long pause, then William gave a curt nod. “It’s over now.”

He abruptly turned and tapped the elevator panel. The doors slid open. Without another word, he stepped inside.