Point of Betrayal (27 page)

“Sam, your voice,” Georgie said in a harsh whisper. “This is a
party
. Let’s not discuss such tragic things today.”

His face filled with contempt. “If not now, when, Mother?”

He stalked off and Georgie sighed. “It’s going to take a long time for him to get over this, I’m afraid.”

Ari realized Sam still had no idea that Georgie had known about the pregnancy before Nina’s death. “I don’t know if he’ll ever get over it,” she said. “I have some disturbing news, unfortunately. They’re dropping the murder charge against Bobby Arco this afternoon.”

“They’re what!” Steve shouted. Everyone turned toward him, but he quickly regained his composure.

“How can they do that?” Georgie asked. “He’s a horrible human being.”

“He is,” she agreed, “but like Sam, he didn’t kill Nina. Her killer is still at large.”

A commotion at the front door caught their attention. Scott stood between an angry Sam and Evan, who was pleading for forgiveness. Standing together, she saw the uncanny resemblance between the three of them…and her mistake.

“You have no right to be here!” Sam shouted. “You as much as killed her yourself!”

“Don’t say that, Sam! I loved her too!”

“You son of a bitch!”

Sam went for Evan and several well-dressed men pulled them apart.

“I need to find the bathroom,” she whispered to Jane, who only grunted a response.

Mesmerized by the confrontation between the two brothers, no one noticed her slip down the main hallway. Evan and Sam’s shouting was barely audible as she entered Georgie’s studio. She headed to the closet where Georgie kept the smocks, aprons and old dress shirts, no doubt cast-offs from Steve’s closet. She remembered wearing one of Big Jack’s shirts in kindergarten during art class. It was the cheapest and easiest way to protect her school clothes.

She pulled out the three Oxford-cloth button-downs, only one wasn’t so old, and it was missing a pocket. Whereas the other two were covered in paint and seemed threadbare at the neck and sleeves, the third was perfect except for the missing pocket.

“How did you know?” Steve asked from the doorway.

“I didn’t at first. I thought it was Georgie. She was the one I’d seen wearing the shirt.”

“No, she would never stoop to such levels.” He puffed out his chest and pointed his index finger in the air. “Preserving the family name, Steve,” he said, mimicking her. “It’s all about the family.”

“That’s why Sam dumped Nina.”

“Of course.”

“When I saw Scott, Sam and Evan standing together at the door, I knew you had to know that Scott was their father. How could you not?”

He didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself. She gauged his casual stance. She was safe—at least for the moment.

“So if you thought Georgie was the killer, how did you jump to me?”

“Actually it was something Detective Justice said to me today. Some people might keep a dress shirt that was missing the pocket, if it was their only dress shirt, but you have several. I realized this shirt, though, was too new. I can see you typically give Georgie your old shirts, but this one is fine, and when I saw her wearing it, I noticed it didn’t have any paint on it.”

He chuckled and shut the door behind him, locking it. “You’re more observant than the police. When they came to search the house she was wearing the damn thing under her smock, but no one noticed.”

“Why didn’t you get rid of it? Throw it in a Dumpster or burn it?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t realize the pocket was gone. I was just too shaken up when I got home…
afterward
,” he said slowly. “I just changed and threw it in the hamper. Next thing I knew, Georgie was wearing it two days later. The housekeeper must have decided I wouldn’t want it anymore so she put it there.” He motioned to the closet. “When they searched the house later that day, I couldn’t understand why they kept looking in odd places like the cedar chests and the dryer. It all made sense when I heard Nina had been discovered with something in her hand.”

“But yet, once you figured it out, you still didn’t run up here and take it. Why?”

He stared at her blankly. “I figured the danger was past, and then Bobby Arco was arrested…” He sighed. “I don’t know. Why didn’t Nixon burn the tapes? Maybe I wanted to get caught. I’m not a killer.”

“Yes, you
are
,” she said as gently as she could.

Rage crossed his face and she saw a different man. The affable city councilman with a smart, sensitive nature vanished. “Only because I had to! I’ve put up with my coward of a wife loving another man for our entire marriage and never having the decency to come clean about it. How many holidays and barbeques have I sat through with
our good family friend
or, as the boys call him, Uncle Scott? Would you like to take a guess? And those pretend weekend trips to San Diego to check out the inventory,” he said sarcastically. “I know what inventory she’s checking on. Our whole marriage is a sham! And then when Nina got pregnant the thought of having to stare at Scott’s grandchild while everyone congratulated me and called me
Pops
?”

She couldn’t believe it. “Georgie still thinks you don’t know? She’s spent your marriage letting you think youwere Sam and Evan’s biological father? How can that be? Anyone who looks at them has to know.”

He laughed out loud. “Oh, Ms. Adams, you are naïve and obviously not wealthy. Let me explain everything to you.” He strolled to a patio door that opened onto a small balcony. “Money smothers common sense, and you will believe
anything
if it protects your status, your home and your career.”

“So essentially she blackmailed you. You said nothing and got to keep all this.”

“And a spot on the city council,” he added. “Don’t forget that. Politics is all about money.” He flung the door open and the sea breeze wafted into the studio. “I’m not a fool, Ms. Adams. I know my limitations. We needed each other. Georgie’s powerful father never would have tolerated her loving the lowly pool boy, who was underage, by the way. But she got to have it all by marrying a hardworking Yale graduate
and
shtupping the pool boy on the side. It worked out for both of us. If we hadn’t married, I’d be some mid-level manager for a mediocre company having a turkey on rye for lunch and planning Saturday barbeques. Yale can’t change a man’s personality. I’m not what you would call executive material.” He paused and added, “My only regret is that we never had another child. Georgie always said two was enough.” He gestured to the open door and the small balcony. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d join me out here? The view is lovely. Georgie calls it ‘inspirational
.
’”

“I don’t think so.”

“I guess my reputation precedes me,” he said with a crazy laugh. He raked his hand through his hair and paced nervously.

“Does Scott know?”

He snorted. “I’m sure he does now. Back then he was just a kid. Young people notice so little.”

“But Nina’s pregnancy was about to ruin everything and expose your family secret,” she said. “I spoke to her doctor this morning. She was Rh negative and there was a concern about incompatibility if Sam was Rh positive. It could be dangerous to the baby. She found out through the tests that the baby was type A, and Sam had told her he was type O, like her. It was a complete impossibility for her baby to be type A if both of them were O.”

He offered her a little round of applause. “Give the lady a prize. I’m type O, as is Georgie, but good old Uncle Scott is AB positive.” He grew wide-eyed and blurted, “Do you know how freakin’ rare that is? He’s like the blood bank’s wet dream! Only something like nine percent of all white men are AB positive. He’s a damn rock star! No wonder Georgie’s always wanted him so bad.”

She could tell he was starting to lose it. She backed up closer to the door, and he took three giant steps toward her and belly laughed. Her heart pounded and she tried to picture the doorknob behind her. If she turned and ran, he’d grab her for sure and pitch her over the railing, regardless of the consequences.

“So you killed her before the secret got out. If everyone learned that Scott was Sam and Evan’s father, you’d be disgraced.”

“Worse,” he argued. “I never would’ve been appointed to the governor’s task force. Under the law, Georgie raped Scott all those years ago, which is as far from the truth as it could be.
He
actually seduced her, but that doesn’t matter. She was the adult. There was no way the governor would appoint the husband of a statutory rapist.”

She heard voices coming down the hall—
Jane
.

“We’re in here!” she called, hoping they could hear through the locked door.

“Ari?”

“Jane! Get the door open!”

She ran to her right and managed to put Georgie’s worktable between her and Steve as the pounding and shouting increased. He cocked his head like a dog deep in thought, listening to the commotion outside. Suddenly a childish grin spread across his face.

“They’re coming,” he said in a sing-song voice. He darted to a cupboard and pulled a small handgun off the shelf. She instinctively ducked behind the worktable. “Georgie insisted on protection,” he said, facing the door, the gun at his side.

“Gun!” she shouted as loud as she could, unsure if anyone could hear her over the screech of the wooden door splintering away from the lock.

Clay Justice and two uniformed officers trained their weapons on him. She saw Jane, Georgie, Evan and Sam behind them.

“Ari, are you okay?” Jane cried.

“I’m fine.”

“Mr. Garritson, put down the gun,” Justice said.

He ignored him and looked toward Georgie. “Honey?” he bellowed.

“Mr. Garritson, put down the gun. Then you can talk to your wife.”

“
You
are not in charge here, detective! I’m calling the shots, so to speak.” Realizing his own play on words, he giggled. “Honey? Answer me!”

“For God’s sake, Steve,” Georgie cried from the hallway, “put down the gun. What’s going on? What are you doing?”

“What am I doing? What am
I
doing? For the first time in my miserable life I’m doing something for
me.
It’s finally all about me. Instead of perpetuating your lies, licking your ungodly ugly pointed pumps or cleaning up after you, I’m doing something for myself, and this is all on you, baby.”

“Mr. Garritson, put down your weapon,” Justice repeated in a firm, even voice.

“I will not,” he said in a child-like voice, and a vision of the PEZ dispensers floated through Ari’s mind. He cleared his throat and in a deep, manly tone said, “Boys, your mother has something to tell you.”

Then he raised the gun.

Biz was the type who hated the last day of vacation. She wanted to savor every minute of her life away from
her life
, which was usually full of darkness and problems. If she was flying to a destination, she always booked the earliest flight to start her trip and the latest one for the return. She maximized her time away and the journey home was always bittersweet and somewhat sad.

Such was not the case coming back to Phoenix from Laguna. She’d pushed the speedometer to ninety during the long stretch across the desert, knowing it was highly unlikely a highway patrolman would stop her. She had to get back as fast as possible and check out her apartment. The idea of Molly snooping through her things enraged her, but she’d managed to sound cool and calculating on the answering machine even though she wanted to scream.

At first glance everything seemed to be in its place. She rushed to the bedroom closet and dropped to her knees in front of the safe. How careless she’d been! She couldn’t believe she’d left it open, but she’d never killed anyone before. Her mind had stopped the moment Wanda gasped and fell through the air. The slice of time between her death and nearly toppling her bike outside Quartzite didn’t exist.

She surveyed the rest of the apartment. Nothing was missing and she wasn’t surprised. Molly wasn’t a thief.
She just wants to see you arrested for murdering the woman who ruined her career. YOU ruined her career.
She returned to the kitchen and poured a shot of tequila. She needed to calm down.

So what if Molly knew everything? She couldn’t prove it. Even if she’d taken photos with her camera phone, they wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, and Biz would press charges for breaking and entering. Molly had as much to lose.

She pulled the receipt from her wallet—her insurance policy. She wasn’t in Arizona when Wanda was murdered. She was at a mini-mart in California. It was flimsy, but it was enough proof to get any charges against her dropped unless they found something else at the crime scene, another mistake she couldn’t remember. The tequila went down her throat slowly as she contemplated the idea of Jack Adams finding a clue.

Her cell rang and Ari’s number popped up. “What? No FaceTime?” she asked when she answered, her mood already shifting. “I like to see you when we talk.”

“I’m not really interested in seeing you right now,” she said coolly. “I’m pretty upset, actually.”

“Why?”

“We caught the real murderer, Steve Garritson. The police are dropping Bobby Arco’s murder charge.”

She poured another shot, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable. “Steve? Really? I thought it might be Georgie or Evan.”

“No,” she said flatly. “It was Steve. He’s dead. The police killed him after he pointed a gun at them.”

“What?” She couldn’t believe any of it. “Are you okay, honey? You sound funny.”

“I’m fine. It’s been a rough afternoon.”

“I still can’t believe it was Steve.”

“No, you
knew
it was Bobby,” she said tersely. “Remember? Open-and-shut case?”

“Yeah,” she said weakly.

“But you’re the one who shut it. Somehow you found out about the dress shirt and you put a matching one in his closet so he’d be charged with murder in addition to child pornography.”

“He deserved it.”

“That doesn’t matter! It’s not right. You can’t manipulate justice. You can’t be a vigilante.”