Shattered Virtue (19 page)

CHAPTER 30

Trenton

By mutual agreement, Mitch and I drive to his house to figure out arrangements for Madrigal and Madison.

“They can’t stay with you. And they can’t be separated,” I say.

“I know. My house is the first place he’d look.”

“How long until Madison turns eighteen?” I ask.

“A year and a half.”

“Madison can file for emancipated minor status, or Madrigal could file for custody of her sister.”

Mitch shakes his head. “Madrigal won’t get custody of her sister, and no judge would grant Madison emancipated minor status. Holden will fight both, tooth and nail. And he’d win. He has the money and the power to make it happen. While Madrigal will be free of him once she gets access to her trust fund in September, she wouldn’t have Madison. And that old man is ornery enough to keep them apart. So we’ll need to find a place where Madison will be safe until she turns eighteen.”

“Holden will have kidnapping charges filed against you.”

“No, he won’t. He’s too proud to admit something’s wrong. Once the girls are safe, I’ll get him to see reason. As long as we don’t publicly humiliate him by filing for custody or emancipated minor status for Madison, he’ll go along with the plan. And if he tries anything, I have an ace up my sleeve.”

I’m not so sure Holden will give in so easily, but we have to get both sisters out of that house. Holden’s clearly losing his hold on reality. No telling what he’d do.

“You sure you want to be involved in this?” Mitch peers closely at me. “If things head south, you might be risking your career.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” I’m in too deep with Madrigal to walk away.

“What exactly is she to you?”

“I told you. I’m helping her investigate her parents’ murders.”

“You tell yourself what you want to, Trenton. But it’s clear she’s more than a client.”

He’s right, but I’m not about to lay claim to feelings for Madrigal when I can’t even admit them to myself.

“So where should we put them until we settle things with Holden?” Mitch asks.

“I have a plan. One that won’t connect them to either of us. All we need to make is a sizable donation. In cash, of course.”

“Nothing shady, I hope?”

I laugh. “No. As a matter of fact, it’s about as far from shady as you can get.”

A couple of hours later we’ve ironed out the details. I head for my condo to shower and change clothes. Our plan calls for us to meet up at a mall near Holden’s estate and then drive to the mansion together, spring the girls, and hand them off to someone else. To keep anyone from identifying my car, I borrow one from an acquaintance. It’s old and black with tags that can’t be traced. Perfect for our purposes.

As I’m about to leave to pick up the car, my phone rings. Madrigal.

“Steele.” Her voice thrums with emotion.

“What’s wrong?”

“He took her.”

“Who took her?”

“Brad’s father. He took Madison.”

“What?”

“Gramps called him. Brad’s father showed up. Gramps claimed Madison was a danger to herself and to us. He had her committed to the same facility I was in.”

Brad’s father is a doctor and part owner of several medical facilities. Obviously, Holden is in cahoots with him.

“We have to get her out. God only knows what they’ll do to her at that place.”

I have to wonder what they did to Madrigal while she was there.

“Get out of the house. Wait for us outside the gate,” I tell her. “Now. Mitch and I are on our way.”

“I can’t. He locked my door.” Her voice wavers. She’s petrified.

“Son of a bitch. He’s insane.”

“I’m scared to death about Madison.”

She should be, as well as for herself. Holden seems to have lost his sanity. “You remember how I jammed the chair against the motel door the night of the hurricane?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to do the same thing with your desk chair.”

“Okay.” The damn thing won’t do much against someone determined to break into her room, but at least it’d buy her some time.

“Sweetheart. It’ll be all right, I promise. Mitch and I will be there as soon as we can.”

“Hurry. Please.”

I want to laugh at the
please
code word, but I’m too scared for her to do so.

The conversation with Mitch goes as well as can be expected. Going to his house first would take too long, so we drive separate cars to Holden’s estate. We meet at the front gate. Of course it’s locked, but that won’t keep me out. For once I’m grateful for my misspent youth.

“Call Holden,” I tell Mitchell. “Keep him busy talking, threaten him with whatever you have to. Say anything. Just don’t let him off the phone.”

I drive to the side road where the property is surrounded by a six-foot-high brick wall with a wrought-iron spike fence at the top. Might be hard for the common burglar to break in, but not impossible. I’d brought a ninja grappling hook attached to a rope. Praying it doesn’t set off an alarm, I throw it over the fence. When no alarms ring out, I scale the wall to the top. On the other side is the area Madrigal identified as the paddock where the horses are exercised. But before I land there, I have to climb over the wrought-iron spikes. One false step could cause major damage to the family jewels. Treading carefully, I manage to make it to the other side without incident.

After my feet touch the ground, I pause, expecting motion sensor lights or alarms to go off. To my surprise, nothing happens. Either no security system exists, which I seriously doubt, or somebody turned it off. Something rings in the back of my head. The similarity of this situation to the night Madrigal’s parents were killed is not lost on me.

I make a beeline for the stable. A noise nearby has me ducking for cover next to the horse trailer that must have brought Marigold home. The stable itself sits about fifty yards from the house, next to the garage. Earlier, I’d spotted a ladder in the garage. Since I can’t very well knock on the front door and ask nicely if Madrigal can come out and play, I’ll use it to get her out. I text her to let her know I’m here. She flickers the lights in her room. Message read and acknowledged. Her room’s located on the far end of the house. About twenty feet up. The ladder should reach that high. It’s child’s play to break the lock on the side door to the garage. Given the value of some of the luxury cars inside, I expect alarms to ring, but again I hear nothing. I grab the ladder off the hook. The damn thing isn’t heavy, but it’s cumbersome to carry. I trip over something in the grass—a sprinkler?—and my knee hits the ground.

And the shot that would have killed me blasts a hole in my shoulder instead.

The excruciating pain cuts off my breath. I drop the ladder and grab my shoulder. Even in the weak light of the moon, I can see my hand is red. Son of a bitch. My only thought is for her. Madrigal.

Her window flies open and she screams my name. “Steele!”

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I yell one word. “Hide!” Changing direction, I race toward the front door; my only thought is to get her.

When another shot rings out, I duck. But then I realize this one came from somewhere inside the house. Looking up, I spot a dark figure running out the front door. From this distance I can’t tell height or sex. Before I can react, the figure climbs the fence with my rope and is gone. Nimble bastard. I run into the house, up the steps. Madrigal’s pounding on her door from inside her room. I kick the damn thing in, and she flies into my arms. “Trenton. Oh, my God. You’re hurt.”

Figures. The first time she voluntarily says my name, I’m bleeding like a stuck pig. “Yes.”

Now that I see she’s safe and sound, my heart slows down, and I manage to take a full breath. “You’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“Thank God.” I wrap her in my arms, kiss the top of her head. I don’t know what I would have done if she’d been hurt.

“Madrigal?” More pounding on a door several rooms down from Madrigal’s.

“Olivia? He must have locked her in too.”

I kick down that door as well, and a fortysomething woman, her brown hair every which way, barrels out.

“Madrigal! Are you okay?”

“Yes, I am, but Steele’s not. He’s bleeding.”

“I heard two shots.”

Pandemonium’s beginning to reign downstairs. More than likely servants rushing in from somewhere, dressed in pajamas, robes. Someone screams. A female. “Oh, my God.”

“Where’s Gramps?” Madrigal asks, but I don’t have the answer to that question.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

She breaks free from my embrace and takes off down the stairs into Holden’s study. I follow her as fast as I can. But not fast enough. When I arrive in the study, she’s standing in the center of the room, a look of horror on her face. No wonder. Holden Gardiner is no more. He’s facedown, half his head blown off, his brains strewn over the antique desk he’d pounded a few hours ago.

“God, no.”

I turn her face away from what’s left of Holden Gardiner. “Don’t look, Madrigal.” Taking her hand, I lead her away.

Outside the study, that same mahogany table I first saw the day of the picnic fills the vestibule; a vase of fresh flowers rests on it. Such a normal sight for such a horrible night. A servant dressed in pajamas runs in holding a shotgun.

“Hartley,” Madrigal says. “Gramps. He’s . . . dead.”

Mitch bursts in through the front door behind Hartley. “What the hell happened? I heard shots.”

“Holden. He killed himself. We need to call the police.”

Ignoring my request, he rushes into the study as if he has to find out for himself. Thirty seconds later he walks out, his face deathly white. “There’s no note.”

“You didn’t touch anything, did you?”

“No. Of course not. You’re hurt.” By this time Hartley and Olivia are attending to me. Somebody fetched a first aid kit, and they’re doing their best to patch me up.

“Not to worry. I’m a skillful healer, sir,” Hartley says.

Yeah, of horses. But I can the snark. One rule of thumb I’ve lived by: you don’t snap back at someone trying to help you. “I can tell. Thank you.”

I’m much more concerned about Madrigal. She’s gasping for breath. Her skin’s clammy and the shade of a ghost. “Olivia.” I touch her arm as gently as I can. Her lost look tells me she has to be experiencing some trauma herself.

“Yes?”

“Can you get Madrigal a glass of whiskey and a blanket? She’s going into shock.”

“Yes, of course.” She turns from me and directs one of the servants to bring her what she needs. When she tries to give her the glass, Madrigal won’t take it. “No.”

I take it from Olivia’s hand, and with my good arm, the one not bandaged by Hartley, I bring the glass to her lips. “Darling, drink this.”

“I don’t like the taste of whiskey.”

“Sweetheart, please. For me.”

She studies me for a second or two before she nods. “Okay.” After she takes a sip, she coughs, but I give her more until she’s consumed the last drop.

“Olivia, could you get her to lie down? Put her feet up higher than her head.”

“I’m not leaving you. You’re hurt,” Madrigal protests.

“Hartley patched me up. See?”

Sirens sound in the distance. Before too long, this house will be filled with police, crime scene investigators, medical examiner’s reps.

“Madrigal, you really shouldn’t be here for what’s coming. Go with Olivia, love. I’ll come up as soon as we deal with . . . things.”

“Promise?”

“Yes. Of course I promise.”

Once she disappears up the steps with Olivia, I turn to Mitch, who’s been quietly observing the whole thing.

“When I warned you off her before? I was wrong. You’re exactly what she needs.”

“A mutt from the wrong side of the tracks?”

“A decent, caring man who’s in love with her.”

I’ve tried hard to cover up my feelings for Madrigal, but after tonight there’s no doubt. He’s right. I’m in love with her. Something about her calls to me. I want to protect her, love her, cuddle next to her by the fire on a cold winter’s night. I scrub my face. “We’ve got other things to worry about, Mitch, than the state of my love life.”

“Why do you think he shot himself?” Mitch asks.

“Who knows? Maybe he thought he couldn’t stop the truth from coming out.”

“What is the truth?”

“I don’t know.” But I’ll find out if it’s the last thing I do.

The next couple of hours pass in a blur. The police arrive and with them a Detective Broynihan. They secure the crime scene and set about the task of interviewing the servants, Mitch, me. Mitch fetches Madrigal, and they take her to the kitchen to interview her.

After she’s questioned, I accompany her back to her room. She doesn’t need to see her grandfather’s body being carted off. I ask Olivia to give us a minute so that we can talk.

“Feeling better?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“What do you want to do? Tonight, I mean? Do you want to stay or come home with me?”

She burrows into my arms. “I should stay, shouldn’t I? Everyone will look to me now.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand if you don’t want to be here at least for tonight.”

“We’ll need to get Madison back,” Madrigal says.

“We will. In the morning.”

“We’ll need another place to live. Madison doesn’t want to stay here, and frankly, neither do I. But I’ll need to figure out things first. The servants, the estate.”

“There are plenty of other places for you to live. Mitch’s for one.” Mine for another.

“No. Not Mitch’s. Somewhere far away from all this.”

I know it’s just the tragedy talking, but I can’t help but shiver at the meaning behind her words. Because “somewhere far away from all this” includes me.

CHAPTER 31

Madrigal

In the morning, Mitch, Trenton, and I drive to the Meadowlark mental health facility to release Madison. I don’t wait for us to get back home to tell her what happened to Gramps. After we grab some takeout from one of her favorite places, we stop at a roadside stand with picnic tables, and I explain what happened the night before after we eat.

“He’s not still there, is he?”

“No, sweetheart. They took him away,” I say.

“There will be a funeral,” Madison says.

“They’ll need to do an autopsy first to determine the cause of death, Madison, and then, yes, we’ll have the funeral,” Mitch says.

Looking down, Madison wrings her hands. “Everyone will know how he died.”

Madrigal squeezes her sister’s hands. “You’re right. We can’t keep that information from coming out.”

“He would have hated that.”

“Yes, he would have.”

Looking off into the distance, Madison wipes a tear from her face. “So what happens now?”

“We’ll need to start fresh. You and I. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for much of the time you were growing up. First it was college and then law school. We’ll need to reconnect.” That much I’ve learned in the past few weeks. I should have made more of an effort to talk to her, but I’d been so busy with my own life, I hadn’t bothered with much more than a hi and bye every time I came home. But that’s all going to change.

“Where will we live? Not in Gramps’s house.” Madison shivers.

“No. Not there. Somewhere else.”

“Where? I’ll want Marigold to live with us.”

Steele laughs. “Marigold is a horse.”

She shoots him a scathing glance. “Yes, I know. But she’s been part of my life since I was ten. I won’t leave her. If I can’t go horseback riding, I’ll go stir-crazy.”

“What about your stint at the
Washington Courier
?” I ask. “Do you still want to work there for the summer?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know. All I want to do is go home. Except I don’t know where home is.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I’ll be your home. You can count on me.” I wrap her in my arms, and together we climb into the car behind Mitch and Trenton.

The medical examiner’s office doesn’t release Gramps’s body for a week. During that time, friends and staff from the law firm call to offer their condolences. I depend on Trenton and Joss to head off any potential visitors. Last thing any of us want is to upset Madison. Gramps’s death has hit her hard, harder than me. Maybe it’s because I’m older and spent less time with him. She may have had a discordant relationship with our grandfather, but I think she loved him more than she knew. After Gramps’s funeral we’ll sit down and discuss our next steps. For now, Madison takes off in the morning and goes riding, comes home for lunch, and spends the afternoon holed up in her room.

Worried, Olivia asks me if she should force the issue of having Madison communicate, but I tell her to leave her alone. When she’s ready to talk, she’ll come to us.

The day of the funeral dawns bright and hot and sunny, a picture-perfect summer day, but then it’s early July. Gramps is buried in the family vault in Loudoun County Cemetery.

After the funeral, we return to the house for a feast. The servants have gone all out, especially our cook. “Thank you, Helga. You did a magnificent job with the food.”

“Danke.”
Helga’s roly-poly smile shines from her face.

Steele draws me aside and asks, “Helga?” He and Mitch have been with Madison and me the entire day, accompanying us to the church service and the grave site. When we returned home, Madison insisted Mitch accompany her to the stables so that she could show off a new foal. But Steele remained with me.

“Yes. Our cook.”

“Is her last name Carlsson by any chance?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

A shadow darkens his face. “Helga Carlsson was a key witness in your parents’ case. Was she the cook in your parents’ home?”

“Yes. Gramps gave her and her husband jobs here afterward.”

“We need to talk to her.”

“Now?”

“No time like the present.”

I catch Helga’s attention and ask her to accompany us to the kitchen, where she has a private office to plan our meals and talk to her staff.

“Anything wrong?” She twists her hands, glancing between Steele and me.

“No. Everything is wonderful. The food is superb. We just need to talk to you about something that happened twelve years ago.”

“When I was working in your parents’ house?”

“Yes, that’s right. I asked Mr. Steele to look into my parents’ murders.”

Her face loses color as she collapses on her seat. “
Mein
Gott.” Her reaction tells me she suspects what we want to know.

I don’t want to make her more uncomfortable than she already is. I’m not that tall, but Steele looms over her with his height. I take a seat across from her and prompt Steele to do the same. “We just want to know the truth, Helga. That’s all. Can you help us with that?” I ask.

She blinks. “
Ja
, of course.”

“Now, Mrs. Carlsson. Should I call you Mrs. Carlsson or do you prefer Helga?” Steele’s smile is a thing of beauty, nonthreatening, charming. He’s probably honed it over numerous years of questioning witnesses on the stand right before he leads them into a trap.

“I’m Mrs. Carlsson to the staff, but to the family, I’m Helga.”

“So which am I, Mrs. Carlsson?” He winks at her.

Her gaze bounces between Steele and me. “Family.”

“Very well. Helga it is.”

She smiles. Unbelievably, in a few choice words, he’s helped her relax. He truly is gifted at interrogating people.

“Now, Helga, twelve years ago, you told the detective in charge of the case that you’d overheard the two handymen talking about breaking into the house, but then later, on the stand, you denied it.” He reaches over, squeezes the hand that’s kneaded bread for my family for years.

“
Ja
. I did.”

“Did you in fact overhear them planning the theft?”

She nods.

“Then why did you take it back at the trial?”

She looks away before her troubled gaze finds me again. “We loved you and the little one. Our hearts broke when your mother and father were . . .” Tears run down her face. She wipes them off with her apron. “He came to me and told me to lie when I went up to testify.”

“Who told you to lie, Helga?” Steele’s so very good at this. His voice is soft as honey. No one would guess by his tone how very important the response is.

“Mr. Gardiner.”

I hiss in a breath. Even before she said it, I knew what the answer would be. Only my grandfather would have the power to direct her to lie.

“Do you know why?” I ask.

“He didn’t say. He said it would be best if I said the detective got confused by my words. That it would help you and Madison. So I did as he asked. Hans and I aren’t going to lose our jobs, are we?”

“Of course not, Helga. You’ll always have a job with me. As long as you wish.” I have no idea where I’ll be living, but wherever it is, I’ll need a cook. And we can always find something for Hans to do, even if we move into a house that doesn’t have a large garden.

“Thank you, Miss Madrigal.”

After we leave the kitchen, Steele and I head for the only room where we can be private—my bedroom. Some of the mourners see us going up the stairs. Tongues will wag, but right now I don’t give a damn.

When we reach the room, I lock the door behind us. “What do you think?”

“Recanting her testimony got the case against Billy Johnson and Mike Haynes dismissed. And double jeopardy would preclude the state from charging them again for the murders.”

I wrap my arms around my middle to keep from unraveling. “You can’t be tried twice for the same crime.”

Stepping into me, he embraces me, drops his head on top of mine. It might be illogical, but I feel nothing can harm me as long as he’s by my side.

When my teeth start chattering, he holds me even tighter. “That’s right.”

“My g-grandfather knew the handymen hadn’t k-killed my parents, so he manipulated Helga. He asked her to say she hadn’t heard them talking about breaking in.”

“Yes.”

“But how could he know they hadn’t killed them?”

His voice is beyond kindness itself. “Because he knew who did.”