“Dead? What do you mean?” Glenda demanded, looking from Mr. Froble to Savilla. “That boy was the picture of health. Just the other day I saw a photo of him on page six in theNew York Post.”
I narrowed my gaze. Why had Glenda Finch been keeping tabs on Brett Brinkley from prison?
Savilla glanced at the officer for permission before placing a hand on both women’s arms. “Brett passed away last night. At the reunion. He…” Her eyes flickered to me as if to communicate that I should back her up. I felt the first tug of a sisterly connection between us. “He choked. It was so sudden, but I know he would want you to know how much he appreciated everything our family did for him.”
This was a misrepresentation of the events, which I was convinced involved murder, and I had no idea if Brett was grateful to anyone besides himself. I couldn’t back up Savilla, but I wouldn’t interfere at least. I stayed quiet while the women took in the news.
“He was like a son to my husband,” Glenda said, putting a hand over her mouth as though to keep back a cry stuck in throat.
A sick feeling crept into my stomach. Had Mr. Finch spread his seed even farther? Was Brett his son? My half-brother?
“Exactly how close were Brett and your father?” I asked Savilla, trying to steady my voice. “Was he your… or our…” I had no idea how to ask the question in a subtle way.
Savilla tried to understand my meaning. “Was he my… ? Oh, Lord, no.” She pointed at me. “Your face.” She laughed lightly. “Don’t be ludiotic.”
Hmmm… Ludicrous? Idiotic?Either worked.
“Brett waslikea son,” Katie clarified, taking pity on me. “But, I swear, he was not.”
Okay, that was comforting, I guess. Although, no one had known about me until now.
“That’s correct,” Mr. Froble confirmed. “Brett Brinkley had no biological claims to anything as far as Mr. Finch knew.”
“My husband saw himself in Brett,” Glenda said, as she wiped at an eye. “He was such a lovely boy.”
The words were strangely comforting, largely because I trusted Mr. and Mrs. Finch’s judgment of people zero percent. I could see the two of them thinking Brett hung the moon; I could see them pouring time and energy into him, especially if they thought they would get publicity or fame in return.
Glenda turned her focus back to her primary concern—that of her own well-being. “What about the stocks I purchased? Or the paintings I collected?”
“Those purchases were made with Mr. Finch’s family money, and everything goes to Savilla—” Here, Mr. Froble shook his head once as if he didn’t quite believe the piece of paper in front of him either. “And Dakota Green.” He blinked at Glenda as if he wasn’t shattering her world, finishing feebly, “But the crown technically belongs to you and your sister.”
“And we get to share it,” Glenda said with a smirk. “Just like we shared everything else.”
“But he wrote his will in 2001, the year I won…” Katie protested.
“The yearwewon,” Glenda corrected, shooting her sister a look that said too much time in the same penitentiary might not have been good for their relationship.
The reminder was said casually even though it was actually a piece of the mystery I’d solved last summer. Katie Gilman had originally won the Miss 2001 crown, but then fled at Mr. Finch’s threats, passing on the title and perks to the runner-up, which happened to be her sister, Glenda Gilman. Within the year, she was Glenda Finch, the first phase of her revenge plot against her husband.
“I saw him sign the will more than twenty years ago,” Glenda added. “I was here, in this room with him. Why would he cut me out after all our years together?”
The unanswered question lingered in the stale air of the law office, and I didn’t feel like it was the right time to suggest that perhaps Mr. Finch had sensed his wife’s murderous plans.
“He told me I would be provided for,” Glenda said in a low voice that was almost pitiful enough to elicit sympathy, if I didn’t remember his empty eye socket or the trickle of his blood running in a tunnel under the estate.
“You know I’ll take care of both of you when you’re…” Savilla’s hands fluttered as if she were trying to bring the temperature of the room down several degrees.
I knew that Savilla had planned to finish the statement withwhen you’re out of prison, but after conspiring to murder Mr. Frederick Finch for his money—and a smidge of revenge—it was unlikely that the two women would be awarded early parole for good behavior, which meant both had years behind bars in store for them.
“I don’t want you to take care of me,” Glenda replied brusquely. “I want what is owed to me for putting up with that man for more than two decades. I gave him his medicine, I listened to him snore, I had sex with him?—”
Katie cut in, “I bore his child.”
“He’s a monster,” Glenda finished, which I thought pretty ironic, considering who’d killed whom. “And the crown, it can’t be worth any more than… what? A hundred grand?”
Mr. Froble consulted his notes. “A hundred and twenty.”
That’s a lot of ramen and socks from the prison commissary.
