The Lady in Pink - Deadly Ever After 2 (21 page)

I
knocked on the door of the hundred-year-old mansion with apprehension. I shouldn’t be here, I thought again. But it was too late. A maid in a black dress and white apron, like you see in the old movies, opened the door. “Yes?” she asked politely.

“Um . . . hi . . . I’m here to see Mr. Boyer.”

A wrinkle grew on her forehead. “Mr. Boyer isn’t accepting visitors at the moment.”

“Of course,” I said, remembering an article I’d read a few months ago about Clark’s grandfather, the patriarch and CEO of Boyer Industries, who was, by all reports, gravely ill. According to the reporter, there was no clear front-runner for his replacement. I wondered if Clark wanted the job. He seemed like a perfect choice, born and bred to take over the family business. I approved wholeheartedly, mostly so his ass would be out of my blue hair. Then I remembered that I wouldn’t be around after I closed this case. Izzy would need a partner.

Damn it.

I cleared my throat. “I’m here to see the youngest Mr. Boyer. Clark.” Doreen, the bitchy receptionist, had told me Clark would be here. I hoped she wasn’t wrong. I looked forward to searching the city for him nearly as much as I did having to offer up my thanks for his saving my life and then handing my business and my fairy over to him.

The confusion cleared and she gave me a soft smile. “Yes, of course. Please come in while I tell Mr. Clark that you’re here.”

I thanked her, wiped my feet on the doormat, which looked to be plated in gold-leaf lettering—the real stuff—and stepped inside a piece of New Never City history. The Boyer House stood on prime New Never City real estate, with more than twelve bedrooms, the same number of full baths, and enough art and other expensive knickknacks to tempt the most honest of citizens.

One could only imagine how my fingers itched to case the place.

“If you’ll wait in the library,” the maid said, motioning toward a room the size of the entire floor of Reynolds & Davis. It was filled with books bound in Kobe leather and embossed in gold. Books no one in his right mind would dare open, let alone read, for fear of devaluing them. “Mr. Clark will be with you momentarily,” she said, closing the library door behind me.

I swallowed the temptation to shove a few first editions into my jacket as my gaze scanned the wealth and privilege Clark had grown up around. I knew Izzy came from a similar, albeit smaller and winged, background. I wondered if they talked about their wealthy pasts. Told stories about the desperate times they’d had to use a silver rather than a platinum spoon. I shook my head, ridding it of such hateful thoughts.

Clark had no more choice in his lineage than I did in my own or Izzy did in the color of her wings. I needed to stop feeling jealous and thank him for saving me. I owed him that much. Hell, I owed the guy my life.

The library door creaked open. I turned toward the sound, expecting to see Clark standing in the entry. But it wasn’t him. It was another man, an older man with slightly stooped shoulders and wrinkles lining his weathered face. Only a few wisps of blue-grey hair covered his balding head. This had to be Clark’s grandfather.

His yellowed eyes slowly focused on me. “No. It can’t be.”

My head swiveled to the left and then the right. “Sir?”

“My God.” He staggered toward me, his full weight on the cane in his shaking hand. “My son,” he said. “You’ve come home. I knew you would.”

Son? What the hell? “I think there’s been some sort of mistake,” I began, only to be interrupted when the library door opened for a second time. This time the man in the doorway froze, his eyes bouncing from me to the older man and back again.

Clark looked terrified, his eyes wide and a sheen of sweat covering his forehead. “Grandfather,” he said in a high pitch to the older man as he pushed inside the library. “It’s time for your medication.”

My eyes stayed locked on the confused older gentleman as Clark led him from the library. When he disappeared around the corner with a young, very hot nurse, Clark returned to the library, a tight smile on his lips. “You shouldn’t be here, Blue. My grandfather isn’t well.”

Guilt filled me. “Sorry about that ... Doreen told me you’d be here, and I wanted to clear the air sooner rather than later.”

“Clear the air?” he repeated. “How so?”

I took a few steps toward the large marble fireplace. Thanking him for saving my life would be easier if I didn’t have to look at his perfectly straight teeth and overly waxed eyebrows. “About last night. The shooting . . .”

“I thought that might be why you’re here.”

“Yeah, well . . .” I stalled, unable to get the word “thanks” out of my mouth. “I just wanted to . . .” As the words left my lips, a bead of sweat slid down Clark’s forehead. I frowned at the dark-colored perspiration. My mind searched for a variety of diseases and other reasons for the odd color. I paused, studying his face.

“You were saying?” he prompted.

I blinked a few times. A missing piece of the puzzle, the one I’d been trying to solve for the last thirty years, slipped into place as the bead ran down his cheek. “Oh, shit,” I got out before a very heavy and expensive vase slammed into the back of my skull.

“Y
ou should’ve let me kill him last night,” a woman’s voice screeched. I struggled to focus on the speaker, but my eyes refused to cooperate. “Now he’s bleeding all over the carpet . . .”

Clark’s voice drifted from somewhere overhead. “I never thought he’d figure it out. But when I saw him in the library, I knew he knew.”

Sadly I didn’t know shit. Other than Clark and his lady friend had bashed my head in. Oh, and that Clark and I shared similar DNA. Cousins, I guessed, as I lay gazing up at the portrait above the fireplace. A portrait of the original Boyer clan. Two blue-haired brothers—my father, for whom I was a dead ringer, and his brother, who could have been Clark’s twin—sat next to their smiling wives.

Add in the fact that Grandfather Boyer had thought I was his son.

A long-lost son.

A blue-haired one.

The very same color Clark was trying desperately to hide from the world. I knew from personal experience what black shoe polish looked like when applied to cover up blue hair.

The pieces fell into place. I’d been so stupid. All along Clark had been right there. PI rule number one: The most obvious answer was usually the right one. Or was it something about getting drunk and naked with an ogre was bound to turn out poorly? Either way, the truth had been staring me in the face for weeks. Or rather had been in the office down the hall.

Somehow Clark had arranged for James to join Reynolds & Davis; then he himself had come aboard. When James failed to kill me, Clark had turned to arson to keep his family secrets. I shook my head, causing it to ache even more.

That wasn’t right.

Two things bothered me about the scenario. First, Clark had an air-tight alibi for the night that Izzy’s brownstone burned to the ground. Me. I’d carried his drunken ass home. Unless he had wings, and big ones at that, he couldn’t have made it across town in time to torch the brownstone. And second, why would Clark care enough to hide something that happened almost thirty years ago?

I was missing something. Something important. But for the life of me, literally, I couldn’t figure out what it was. I let out a small groan as the pounding in my brain intensified.

“Welcome back,” the feminine voice whispered. “I was worried I’d hit you a little too hard.”

My gaze started to focus on the blonde standing over me, broken shards of vase in her manicured hands. “Doreen,” I said through clenched teeth. Hell, I should’ve known she was in on it from day one. She’d been hired first, a few weeks before James. And more to the point, she had never quite appreciated my wit or electrical charm.

I wiped the back of my head, and my hand came away bright red with blood. Not a great sign. I glanced at Doreen and frowned. “Can’t say I’m real happy to see you.”

She let out a calculated laugh. “Clark worried you knew the truth. But I told him he was wrong. You don’t know anything.”

Given my current predicament, she wasn’t far off. Not that I’d admit it. I’d die first, which, seeing the cold look in her eyes, was much more than a slight possibility. I decided to go on the offensive, attacking the weakest link—Clark. “Attempting to kill your own cousin, your own flesh and blood,” I said to him. “That’s gotta be worth a few eons in hell.”

He frowned. “I told you he knew he was a Boyer.”

“Clark,” Doreen said. “Don’t be a fool. He’s fishing.”

I laughed, slowly staggering to my feet. Doreen reached into her jacket, pulling out a snub-nosed .38. I patted my own pocket. My snub-nosed .38. Son of a bitch. “You plan to shoot me with my own gun? What kind of person does that?”

“A smart one,” she sneered. “Everyone knows how depressed you’ve been since your darling Isabella started dating Clark . . . Add in your heavy drinking, and no one will be that surprised . . .”

“Faking a suicide? Really?” I stifled a yawn. “Whose brilliant idea is that?” Clark flinched, and my eyes narrowed on his face. I took a leap of faith. “Ah, dear cousin, can’t say I’m surprised. No imagination.”

His lips thinned. “I have plenty of imagination. I planned all of this, and you never suspected a thing.”

Bastard had a point. “Why?” I asked. “What do you care if Boyer blood runs in my veins? It’s not like I’m the next in line for the Boyer fortune.” Even as I said it, I knew I’d made a grave mistake. I was the heir. The prodigal cousin Clark had talked about. That was why he wanted me out of the picture, to keep the fortune for himself. A part of me felt relieved. Greed I understood. It made people do things they normally wouldn’t.

Clark grabbed the gun from Doreen and took aim at my chest. “I didn’t want it to come to this. But I have no choice.” His finger tightened on the trigger. “Now, tell me, how much does Isabella know?”

“So you can decide whether or not to kill her?” I shook my head. “Well, forget it. She has no idea about you.” Which I suspected was less than true. I thought back to the night at Izzy’s brownstone, listening in on her and Clark’s “date.” At the time I’d thought she was merely interested in Clark, but now I wondered if there wasn’t more to it. She’d asked him question after question about his childhood. About the Boyer clan.

Had Izzy suspected I was a Boyer all along? Was that why she’d hired Clark in the first place? As the pieces slid into place, my anger ignited, sending a jolt of electricity through me. How dare she lie to me. Again.

“You better not be lying,” he said, waving the gun in my direction. “I’d hate to have to hurt one feather on Isabella.”

The rage burning inside me at Izzy’s betrayal shifted to another target. One with similar DNA. “Don’t even think about touching her,” I warned.

“Kind of hard not to touch the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.” He paused, finger tensing on the trigger. “So sorry you won’t be around for the wedding ... or the wedding night.”

“I
zzy will never marry you,” I yelled as Clark started to squeeze the trigger. His finger stilled, much to my delight. Not that I had a follow-up to my statement. Hell, for all I knew, she would be the next Mrs. Boyer. The very thought sent another bolt of electricity through me.

“Shoot him already,” Doreen said. “He’s stalling.”

“Am not,” I lied, trying to think of a way to do just that. Keeping Clark talking seemed like my best bet, so I went with it. “I’m just curious as to how Clark put this all together. Murdering me before I could learn the truth behind my birth in order to keep the Boyer money all to himself wasn’t a bad plan at all.”

“You think this is about the money?” He laughed and lowered the gun.

“It’s not?” Then why had he tried to kill me? Hell, we didn’t know each other that well. Usually it took a few weeks before someone wanted me dead. Okay, a few days. But those were strictly business days.

He shook his head. “Do you know what it’s like to live in the shadow of someone else?”

From the way he was looking at me, I guessed he wanted my sympathy. Sort of hard to feel with a gun aimed at your nuts, but I gave it a valiant effort. An effort that fell short when I let out a small scoff. The gun in Clark’s hand rose back to my chest. I swallowed another snort of disdain, motioning for him to continue. “Go on with your whining,” I said, unable to stop myself.

The gun steadied in his hand.

I closed my eyes, blowing out a harsh breath. “Please.”

My plea had the desired effect, for the gun lowered a few inches. “All my life I’d heard stories about my long-lost cousin. The blue-haired boy who would be king.” His gaze rolled over me, burning with hate. “Until a few months ago I thought you were dead like your mother and father. Then I saw a newspaper article on this up-and-coming PI blessed with the very power I’d spent my life longing for. And I knew—”

“Blessed?” I let out a bark of bitter laughter. “You’re kidding, right? This”—I rubbed my fingers together, generating sparks—“is not a blessing. It’s a curse.”

He shook his head sadly. “Only a few Boyer men have had the power. No one knows when or why they get it. But when they do get it, all too often they squander it like you have. Keeping it under lock and key rather than taking their rightful place among the gods.” He paused to lick his lips. I could see the excitement building in his gaze as he talked about my curse like it was some sort of gift. Hell, if I could, I would have traded places with him. The Boyer curse had destroyed so many lives. But to Clark the price exceeded the cost.

“Your father failed to live up to his potential too, and it also cost him his life,” he said, when I didn’t comment on his god complex.

“Like father, like son. Is that it?” I took a step toward Clark, daring him to fire. “I squandered my power, as you call it, so I should die like my father before me?”

His lips twisted with humor. “More than you know, for both of us.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Are you saying my father was murdered by yours?” How was that possible? From all accounts, my father had hanged himself in his prison cell, unable to live with the horrific murder of his beloved wife at his electrified hands.

Clark shrugged. “Not in the physical sense, though my father, God rest his soul, would’ve liked nothing more. But your dear old daddy took the chance away when he wrapped his bed sheet around his throat, dying alone in his cell five years to the day after your mother died.”

I pictured a similar fate. Not death by my own hands, but dying alone, lying in a pool of blood as my final breath leaked out of my lungs. I didn’t want to die. And I sure as hell didn’t want to die today, at the hands of my own kin.

“My father hated his brother for never understanding the true power he possessed.” The gun wavered in Clark’s hand as he continued his tale. “Like you, he considered the power a curse, especially after your mother’s death.” His eyes took on a faraway glow. “If it helps, it was an accident. Your mother’s death, I mean. He never meant to kill her.”

I bit my lip, drawing blood.

Clark waved a hand toward the fireplace, the same place I’d stood moments before Doreen had tried to bash my head in. “She died right there. No one even heard her cries. The maid found her the next morning, but you and your father were already gone. No one knew what happened to you. They captured your father a few hours later, but you weren’t with him. We believed you were dead, killed by your father’s hands, until a few months ago, when I saw the article about you after you solved the missing-jeweled-mittens case. I guess your father left you on the steps of the orphanage before his capture.”

I frowned. If what Clark said was true, why had my father bothered to leave me anywhere? Traveling with a screaming infant was hard enough. Why add the complication of a kid after you’d just murdered your wife and a hundred cops were on your tail? Unless he’d feared what would happen if he didn’t take me with him.

Clark let out a loud sigh. “If only you would have forgotten about your past, none of this would be necessary. But from the moment I first met you, I knew you would never let it go. Which left me with one choice.”

“Kill me outright before dear old granddad found out the truth?” I shook my head. “But not before you tied up one last loose end.” A cold smile grew on Clark’s face and I knew I’d guessed right. He hadn’t saved me from Doreen’s bullet last night due to some misplaced sense of family loyalty. Instead, he’d stopped her from killing me in order to find out how much Izzy knew. Clark wasn’t as dumb as I’d first thought. He knew killing me would bring down my partner’s wrath.

“Isabella can live or die.” He paused, eyes intent on mine. An electrical current beyond any I’d ever felt grew inside me. Burning hotter and deeper until I thought I would explode. But Clark wasn’t finished. “The choice is yours.”