The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone (252 page)

He nodded and smiled in encouragement as he tapped his knee and I slid across. “You don’t have to answer but, well it’s been something I’ve been fighting with.”

“Go on.” He urged as he took my hand in his and started to trace along the edge of my fingers.

“Why . . . why did you pursue Ava when you knew she was with Mason?”

He sighed and looked to his lap with a troubled expression, “Because I fell in love. It was that simple really. Yes, I was selfish and greedy. I knew she was with Mason but there was something there the night when I first saw her.”

He pulled in a heavy breath and narrowed his eyes as he thought back, “Ava . . . Ava went through some bad shit and Mason wasn’t there for her. She came to stay at mine and to be honest, I was mesmerised by her. She was so beautiful to me; I had never witnessed anything like her.”

I nodded, pleased that he could feel open with me enough to voice his feelings as well as his story.

“I watched her that night as she swam naked in our pool. Kerrie, my wife at the time, and I were on the verge of separation and Ava intrigued me. There’s no excuse I can give you, no reason for our, or my behaviour other than I had fallen in love with her. I needed her; it was like she controlled everything I did. I couldn’t pull away from her and in her defence; she did push me away as hard as she could.”

I nodded and sighed, “And now?”

He smiled tenderly as he cupped my chin and brought my mouth to his for a chaste kiss. “And now I know the meaning of pure beauty. Not just to the eyes but to the soul. Now, Ava feels, as harsh at it sounds, a fill in, a substitute until God granted me you.”

I rolled my lips and nudged him with my elbow, “You cheesy bastard.”

He chuckled and gestured with his chin to the laptop when it pinged and a boatload of files opened on screen. We both leaned in as I started to open them and hunt for anything that would give me a clue on Will’s Mother’s whereabouts.

Kade sniffed loudly then pulled the laptop from my knee before he started to rapidly hit numerous keys with a deep frown on his face.

“What is it?” I asked as he started hissing forcefully between his teeth and punch at the keys more quickly and forcefully.

“I dunno. A wall of some sorts blocking Will’s bank account.”

I reared back and looked at him in puzzlement, “I already have access to Will’s account. He’s in or rather; he was, in debt up to his eyeballs.”

“No,” he said as he screwed up his face and typed more frantically, “This is another account.”

“What?”

I leaned in but all I could see was random data spewing across the screen with Kade’s desperate attempts to penetrate whatever it was he was having trouble getting into.

“Fuck,” he seethed when it repeatedly displayed ‘Access denied.’

He rubbed his forehead and tried again but eventually slammed his fist against the chair arm. “I can’t get in, I have no idea what sort of software is protecting it but it’s solid.”

I sighed and tipped my head in thought. Kade slowly swung his face round to mine and I knew what he wanted before he asked for it. “No.” I shook my head rapidly, denying him any leverage but he quirked an eyebrow at me.

“Sweetheart, there is just you and me. I won’t, and definitely
don’t
want to get involved with a war over a computer chip. We run it and it gives us access, then we put it back in the ground.”

My teeth were massacring my bottom lip, pain jolting through me when I caught them on the split that Will had given me but I sighed and nodded. “Fine, but then we destroy it. It’s taken my family; I won’t let it annihilate us.”

“Okay,” he agreed as he took my hand and pulled me upright. “Let’s go fetch it and finish this shit.”

He stared in bewilderment as I reached under my vest and pulled out my pendant. I took my knife from my boot, which Kade had grumbled at me for carrying around the house, and dug it into the back, prising it open and revealing a tiny blue chip which I then handed to him apprehensively.

“You had it all this time?”

I nodded and smiled guiltily. “Only my Father and I knew where it was. He gave me this pendant for my thirteenth birthday but he didn’t tell me what it contained until the day he gave me the combination to the safe.”

He blew out a breath as he took it from me then dug into his bag for an adapter. He lifted his face and held my eyes securely when he plugged the adapter into the laptop, “Ready?”

I smiled nervously but nodded firmly. “I need to end this bitch. She destroyed not only both of my brothers but my life. I won’t let her take any more from me.”

He nodded and then hit ‘Enter’ on the keyboard as we both took a deep breath.

“I’m not even sure it works.” I revealed as I watched a series of files open almost instantly until we were staring at a bank account in Will’s name.

We both studied it intensely and Kade ran his finger across a sequence of outgoings that deposited thousands into another nameless account.

“Looks like he had yet another account” I said but Kade shook his head as he opened a new window and started to trace the account the deposits were made into.

“No,” he answered as he peered raptly at another bank account. “They aren’t made to an account in his name but to an Evelyn Francis.”

I frowned and inclined back so I could see the whole of his face. He gazed back at me expectantly as my heartbeat started to flutter dangerously. “I gather that isn’t the name of Will’s Mother?” he asked when he saw my expression.

“Well . . . yes, but . . .”

I felt the shock began to coil my stomach as I stared at the computer screen. “I need a visual on Evelyn just to make sure.”

He nodded, “I can do that. Give me two minutes.”

My hands started to shake as I watched him start to hack into files that would hopefully lead us to something with an image ID. I repeatedly swallowed back the bile as he worked, my blood pressure was reaching an alarming rate as my brain tried to dissect what information couldn’t possibly be real and my eyes remained fixed and unblinking with the revelation.

“Okay, there you are.” He said as he leaned back so I could see.

“No. . . .” My head shook with the rest of my body as my heartbeat finally peaked and everything swam before my eyes as I looked at a picture of Evelyn Francis.

“Wait a minute,” Kade said as he peered closer at the image on the screen. His eyes widened when he turned to me with incredibility, “Holy Shit, Grace.”

I nodded slowly as goose bumps erupted over my body and my mind refused to believe what was in front of me.

“Is that . . . ?” he stared at me with his mouth wide open.

I nodded in return as my expression mirrored his, “Evelyn Francis Iona Beaumont—my Mother.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Kade

THE DOUBLE DOORS swung back and nearly slammed me in the face when Grace bounded through them. Each head in the department turned to investigate the loud bang as I scurried after her, trying to catch up with her and calm her down but she flung herself through Liam’s door.

He looked up at her, initially frowned then closed his eyes and groaned.

“You knew, you fucking knew . . .”

“Calm down.” He tried but she was too fired up to back down.

“What the fuck is going on?” she barked as she palmed his desk and leaned towards him angrily.

“Well firstly,” He turned to me with a pointed glare “I placed superior security on that file, so would you like to tell me how you got through it?”

I shook my head as he narrowed his eyes on me, “Not really no, but you know anyway so why bother to ask?”

“Oh Grace, why didn’t you tell me you had it?” He sighed as he turned back to her with a sad expression.

She snorted loudly and pressed further towards him, “The same reason you didn’t tell me it wasn’t my Mother who died with my Father.”

“Sit down.” He sighed and tipped his head when neither Grace nor I bowed to his request. “Fine, don’t sit down.”

He reached into a drawer beside him and pulled out a file then passed it to Grace. “The dental records from the two corpses recovered at your house.”

She swallowed heavily and I shifted quickly beside her when she opened the folder then dropped into the chair he had originally offered. “As you are aware, the bodies you found were beaten unrecognisable. Did you never think it funny why, Grace?”

“Well no,” she opened her hands with a slight shrug. “I just found them both. Marcus was crying and I had more things to think about than studying their bloody bodies.”

Liam nodded then rolled his lips, “And you never thought it strange that Will just . . . disappeared?”

She snorted, “No, Will was Will. He always thought of himself and I didn’t question the fact that he did a runner so he wouldn’t have to take custody of me and Marcus.”

She looked down at the file then looked back at Liam and frowned, “The female body was Will’s real Mother.”

Liam nodded and sighed, “Yes. When she discovered Will’s whereabouts and got in touch with him, she also found out about the software program your Father was working on. From what I can gather, she became a liability to both your Mother and Will. You know about your Mother and Will’s affair?”

Grace nodded and I settled into the chair beside her and took her hand, giving it a small squeeze of support.

“Basically, Will and Iona staged her death. They presumed that all Robert’s fortune would be passed to Will with him being the eldest.”

“But that’s the thing; surely my Mother would’ve been next in line when anything happened to my Father?”

Liam smirked and then smiled, “You Father was far from stupid, Grace. He found out about their affair and changed his will, that’s when you remember all the arguments they had. They both presumed that it would go straight to Will when something happened to them both. Hence Robert’s death and Iona’s staged death.”

Grace sighed and held her face in her hands. I admit even I was gobsmacked and confused with it all, so I couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going through Grace’s head.

“But surely,” she pondered after a moments silence. “Surely the coroner picked up on the dental records in the autopsy?”

Liam nodded but then shook his head, “Yes they would have and that’s why I currently have a team investigating the Doctor who performed the autopsy, but I know it’s going to lead to either a whole load of nothing or a huge pay-out.”

Grace stood and started to pace the room agitatedly before she paused in front of the huge window and stared out over London. “But Will was unaware that Marcus was his son.”

Liam shrugged, “That is something I can’t figure out either. Why Iona led him to believe all these years that Marcus was still his brother is beyond me.”

She remained quiet and pensive as all of us delved our imaginations and tried to find an answer.

“Because he actually was my Father’s” Grace choked out as she palmed the window for support.

“What?” I asked, even more confused with every minute this conversation progressed.

She turned around and the fury on her face stilled the beat of my heart, “My Dad said on the video he left me that I wasn’t to worry about Marcus, he wasn’t involved with all this.” She said to me and I nodded in agreement.

“Well this was all made to look like Marcus was the reason behind all of this. The arguments they suffered was because my Mother had an affair but she didn’t expect to be excluded from the will. Through it all, she knew my Father loved her and thought she would still be the main beneficiary. Yet, imagine her fury when she found out he had excluded her completely and left his assets to me and . . .”

“Marcus.” I finished for her as it all started to sink in. “She named Will as the Father, therefore removing Marcus as a recipient in the line for the estate.”

“Oh God,” Liam sighed on a deep breath as he pressed his fingers to his temples.

Grace was silent and I went to her and pulled her against me, holding her close to give support to both of us. She sighed and wrapped her arms around my waist but then turned back to Liam. “I have to find her.”

“No.” Liam said immediately, “This goes too deep for me to cover up, Beaumont. You end her then I can’t cover it up and you will go down for it.”

She stared at him and I frowned when her face softened and she pleaded with the whole of her soul, “Not if you give me chance to be out of the country before you report it.”

“What the hell? No, just no.”

“I have to do this Liam. I have to finish it, for my Father and for Marcus.”

He closed his eyes and I stared in shock between the two of them, “Are you fucking crazy?”

She looked up at me and the pain in her eyes twisted my soul and made it bleed. “Probably,” she whispered. “But I want you with me.”

My eyes widened when her words hit my brain with force and I stuttered slightly. “You . . . you want me to run with you?”

She nodded, “Yes, I want you with me Kade. If you say no then I’ll understand but I want you.”

“Yes.” It came out of its own accord. There was no thought to put into it really. I wanted her, I wanted all of her and if that meant skipping the country and relocating, then I was all for it.

“A fresh start.” She smiled and I was amazed by how wide my grin was.

“God, yes. Just you and me.”

She nodded and then cupped my face gently, “But I need you to let me do this, Kade.”

“But, what if . . .”

She shook her head firmly, “Don’t even go there. I do this then I return. I promise I won’t leave you alone.”

I was terrified. Scared that something would go wrong and she wouldn’t come back to me . . . alive anyway, and I took her hand in mine and brought it to my mouth. “Then I promise you that if you don’t return to me . . . then I will follow you. Do you understand?”

She frowned but then nodded, “I understand.”

We both nodded and then she turned to Liam. “I need that address.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Grace

KADE HELD THE side of my face and rested his forehead against mine. “Please don’t take any chances.”

I nodded and smiled softly, “I promise.”

I pulled away and checked all my kit out as I fought against the emotion that was swelling in my gut. I knew my Mother would be expecting me, she would be waiting for me and the possibility of things going wrong was huge, but I needed to end this; my Mother or not.