I could remember her perfume. As a teenager I thought it was the sweetest, most intoxicating scent in the world. The bottle stayed on her bedroom dresser for years after her death and I’d sneak in there to smell it. That’s how I identified the flower—freesia.
Thinking about Dea meant thinking about Isabel and how she needed the victim spotlight shining solely on her at all times. Mom never said the words probably because even she recognized they were appalling but she begrudged Dea becoming the main topic of conversation in Sleepy Hollow’s social circles for years.
“Isabel will flip when she hears people are talking about Dea’s murder again,” I said.
“Your mom was Xavier’s alibi.” Lukas nodded. “As were you.”
“Not that I remember much since I was fourteen at the time and more concerned about what some bitchy girl did or said at school than Xavier’s whereabouts one weekend.” But that was a lie or at least an understatement. We were with Xavier when his wife died. Mom had anepisodethat weekend. I’d called Xavier in a panic and he’d slept over, handling Mom by shutting her off in her room. The police arrived at our house the next morning with the shocking news about Dea’s murder.
I couldn’t shake the fact that our lives—the lives of everyone related to the Tanners in any way—went round and round in nauseating circles, spinning toward what looked like a horrifying end. “Not to state the obvious but the police cleared Xavier, here and in Tortola.”
“Some say Cam buried the investigation on this end.”
Interesting how Lukas slipped that fact in there. “You gotta admit, over time and piece by piece, the Tanner family single-handedly destroyed Cam’s career. That side of the family. Not me.”
“Or Cam caused his own destruction. He botched the investigation into the Tanner disappearances. He was a new detective when he handled the original allegations against Xavier concerning his wife thirty-two years ago.”
Ever since I was a kid stress led to debilitating headaches. Today was not any different. The banging in my head refused to abate. “Dea.”
Lukas frowned. “What?”
“No one ever says her name. Patrick’s mother’s name was Dea.” The poor woman deserved her own identity in death. Especially since being raped and stabbed in another country andbleeding out on her flower-print sofa was the only way for her to steal the headlines from her self-made-millionaire husband.
Xavier and his backroom deals. He’d gone from a regular businessman to a kingpin in commercial transportation up and down the East Coast. The money rolled in, and the family’s unrelenting string of personal bad luck kicked off. If he’d bargained with the devil in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery for his success and financial security, as some people insisted, then Dea was the one who’d paid the price.
“Right.” Lukas said the word, blowing right past the point about Dea’s right to be known as more than someone’s wife or mother. “Now Cam is Xavier’s executor. Could be they had a deal of some sort.”
About what?“Oh, come on.”
“Look at the facts. Dea went to their property in Tortola for a few weeks. Xavier backed out of the trip at the last second. Cam declared it all a coincidence.”
“Xavier was a busy man. He ran an empire.” And needed to control everything around him.
“You’re forgetting Dea’s friends said they’d fought and Xavier basically threw her out of the house here. Those same friends insisted that’s what touched off the trip. His people, namely Cam and your mother, said he had a legitimate business emergency and was upset about being delayed in going to the beach with Dea. Despite him not being a vacation type at all.”
The crashing in my head drowned out the noise Everly made on the floor. “You seem to know a lot about a case that happened when you were twelve and didn’t even live here.”
Lukas smiled. “You think I didn’t look into all of this before we married?”
Of course he did. Because he was a political beast even back then. Marrying someone with a stained past would have derailed the future career he and his clout-chasing parents fought for. The Tanner money and the non-murdery part of the Tanner legacy likely convinced him to overlook the rest.
“The so-called home invasion burglary where Dea was killed was questionable. The Tortola police thought they were dealing with a murder for hire.” Lukas said out loud the part most people only whispered in private.
“That always felt like a stretch.” But did it? I never let my mind wander too far in that direction because then I would have to think about what my mom knew and when she knew it and, worst of all, if she dragged me into the middle of the plot as cover. That seemed like a step too far even for Isabel Clarke.
“I’ve seen the crime scene photos.” Lukas had the grace to wince after that. “The Tortola police’s theory about the room looking staged isn’t wrong. The official line is the scene had the feel of a planned massacre. Only a few things were stolen, and the most expensive items left behind, including a thousand dollars in the open safe. The safe that usually held at least ten thousand dollars. Where did the other nine go?”
I hated when he made arguments like this. The type that made me reconsider what I thought I knew. “You sound like a prosecutor.”
He smiled. “There’s a reason for that.”
All of my mom-related tension officially vanished. It was thetwo of us. Me and Lukas. Back and forth. Talking and sharing without posturing to win an argument.
I had no idea why I felt the need to ruin the good mood. “What was he thanking you for?”
Lukas frowned. “What?”
No, he knew. I met Lukas while he was in law school and saw how he operated even before he passed the bar. His feigned confusion made my semi-innocent question feel much more important. “The car. Xavier gave you his fancy Mercedes sedan.”
