He grinned. “How very kind of her.”
Laura climbed in, scowling at us both. “Indeed. I should probably get nominated for sainthood for this.”
“Noted. Immediately following your wedding, I will send a request to the Pope.”
Franck chuckled and returned to his seat.
Twisting in my seat to face my sister, I asked, “Speaking of the wedding, how’s the seating chart coming?”
“Good. Mom finished it off last night. Since Mayor Kinlan’s family won’t be able to attend, she invited the Cowleys.”
“I can’t believe the drama going down with the Kinlans. I’m too busy to follow the gossip, but I’ve seen the headlines. Everyone must feelsoscandalized.” I rolled my eyes to show her exactly how I felt about Seattle’s ex-Mayor Kinlan and his son, Noah, who had recently been convicted of all sorts of crimes ranging from tax evasion to sex trafficking. Everyone knew the top one-percent skirted the law, but the sex trafficking had been a surprise. That was taking influence and privilege a bit too far. Still, it would be strange not seeing them at the wedding. There were two things you could count on during any high society social event. My great aunt, Martha, would get plastered and flirt with the young, attractive male servers, and Mayor Kinlan would be schmoozing his loyal followers and fishing for campaign contributions.
“Scandalized,” she asked, eyeing me like I had said something wrong. “Don’t you think you’re being a little heartless?”
I blinked. “No?”
“The Kinlans are dead, Julia.”
Certain I must have misheard her, I asked, “What?”
“You haven’t heard?” she asked.
“No. Last I’d heard they were on trial and the evidence was mounting against them. I haven’t picked up a paper in a few days.”
“Yesterday morning they were found hanging in their jail cells.”
“Like some sort of double suicide? They don’t seem like the type.” I’d already tugged my phone from my purse and was thumbing it on to see what I could find.
A picture of Emily Stafford popped up. She was the attorney who’d taken the case defending the biker accused of beating the shit out of Noah. I’d met Emily Stafford at charity dinners, and she tried to speak to me once while we were waiting for our coats. I was a card-carrying entitled bitch at the time, and she wasn’t the type of person I wanted to be seen with, so I ignored her and walked off while she was mid-sentence. Not my best moment. Not my worst, either.
I kept scanning articles until I found information on the hangings. “Says here they used their pants to create the ropes to hang themselves.”
“To hangthemselves?” Laura’s eyes widened as she glanced toward the front of the car and leaned toward me, lowering her voice. “I’m not supposed to talk about it, but everyone is saying they were murdered.”
Murdered sounded a lot more realistic than some sort of father-son suicide pact, but… “In jail?” I asked, still skeptical.
She nodded.
Our parents rarely encouraged Laura to discuss anything related to the community’s power plays. My sister wasn’t stupid, but she was innocent and naïve, and sometimes she stumbled across truths she couldn’t handle. Truths that could get her in trouble if she voiced them in front of the wrong person. Thankfully, she usually came to me with her ideas, and I’d gotten great at derailing them before she sped into dangerous territory. Laura was the kind of person to be protected, shielded, not involved. I held up a hand, preparing to once again lead her to a safer path. “This sounds like another one of your crazy conspiracy theories.”
Hurt flashed across her eyes, making me feel like a total bitch. “There are rumors that they were talking about a deal. About rolling over on someone to get their sentences reduced.”
“That usually happens before the trial,” I pointed out.
She sighed, frowning. “I know you don’t care about the gossip anymore, but you should keep reading.” She gestured at the phone in my lap. “There’s a lot of shady stuff going on.”
I couldn’t care less about the lives of my old peers, but their deaths… and Laura’s insistence that foul play was involved… that interested me. Besides, the side-eye look she was giving me promised she wouldn’t let up until I complied. Rolling my eyes like it was a bother, I continued to scan the articles. My gaze stopped when it landed on a head shot of the biker who’d attacked Noah. Dark skin, short dark hair, dark intelligent eyes, slight smirk gracing his plump lips, thick neck promising a muscular build. He was the exact opposite of my pale-skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed, slender ex-husband, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
Hello, handsome.
“Hottie, isn’t he?” Laura asked, leaning over my shoulder to see what had caught my attention.
I nodded, although ‘hottie’ didn’t do him justice. More like sexy-as-hell. That slight smirk of his made the kind of promises that heated my blood and made my stomach flutter. My gaze dropped down to his name. Marcus “Havoc” Wilson.
“Think I just found a date for your wedding,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “A biker? One ofthe bikerswho helped with the Kinlan conviction? I bet Mom would justlovethat.”
