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THE DRIVEWAY WAS teeming with police cars, red lights flashing brightly in the night. Inside, a forensic team had sealed the living room and were busy gathering evidence as the Medical Examiner zipped James’ body in a black bag. The smell of blood and death permeated the air.
“What’s going on here? What’s happened?”
The uniformed officer blocked Peter from entering the house. “Sorry, buddy, this is a secured murder scene. You’re not allowed in there.”
“Murder? Jesus! I’m Peter Thompson. This is my house. Whose body is in there?” Peter demanded. “Who did this? I want answers.”
“Of course, Mr. Thompson. Mark, you’re needed out here.” The officer called out over the din of first responders. After a brief exchange with the officer, the man in a wrinkled, gray suit, scuffed tan loafers, and brown Fedora waved Peter in.
“Mr. Thompson, I’m Mark Mill, the head detective.” Mark tipped his hat back to expose dark, bushy eyebrows and sharp cop’s eyes.
“What’s happened here?”
“Not sure yet exactly. We’re still trying to piece everything together. What I can tell you is we’ve identified the single male body in the living room as James Templeton III.”
Peter ran fingers through snow-wet hair. “Jesus! James.”
“You know him?” Mark Mill retrieved the notebook and pen from his jacket pocket.
“He’s my son-in-law and an associate at my firm.” Peter drew a deep breath. “Jesus! James? Are you sure? How?”
Mark flipped his pad open, scribbled notes. “ID on him says so. The monogrammed shirt, cufflinks, and tie clip confirm it. The medical examiner’s educated guess is blunt force trauma to the head. The fact we found a bloody, candleholder near the body confirms it. A visual examination of the body tells us your son-in-law was struck several times on the head with it. We’ll know more when the medical examiner files his official report.”
“Jesus Christ.” Peter slanted a look over the detective’s shoulder, watched the plastic bag wheeled out on a stretcher. His stomach turned when he caught sight of the room. There was blood everywhere. Sofas and walls were splattered with it. Pools of it coagulated on the floor.
“You all right, Mr. Thompson?”
Peter nodded. “Fine. Who did this to James? Who killed my son-in-law?”
“We have a suspect in custody, being held in the kitchen.” Mark offered Peter a stick of juicy fruit. “Sometimes, it helps settle the stomach.”
“No, thanks. Why would you be holding them in my kitchen? Shouldn’t you be hauling their ass off to jail?”
Mark unwrapped the stick of gum, folded it, and tossed it into his mouth. The fruity smell instantly painted the air, temporarily masked the smell of death. “We should be, but your daughter says she’s his legal counsel and refused to let us take him in.”
“Christ, Frankie,” Peter murmured, making a mad dash toward the kitchen where he found Missy, Mrs. Richards, and Scott, sitting on one side of the table. On the opposite side, with their backs to Peter, were Francesca and the priest. Two officers guarded the room exits. The coffee-maker on the counter gurgled a fresh pot, its scent painting the air. The somber silence matched the mood in the room. “Are you all right, Frankie?” Peter’s voice drew everyone’s attention.
Gesturing Bear to jump off her lap, Francesca took a shallow breath, and slowly—so as not to trigger more pain from the broken ribs to shoot through her—turned to face Peter.
Peter’s breath staggered when he saw Francesca’s face. Her left eye was swollen shut, and her right was barely open. Her face was black and blue, her nose was taped, and her lips looked twice their size. Her right arm was set in a sling. There were red marks on her neck. Peter didn’t want to venture to guess what they were.
“Jesus, Frankie, what happened?”
“I’m fine, Daddy. I need to talk to you. In private.” Francesca spoke from the left corner of her mouth.
“How did James end up dead, in our home, on our living room floor?” Peter couldn’t imagine any plausible explanation for James’ death, let alone for it to have occurred in his home.
That Peter was more concerned about James than his battered daughter, didn’t surprise Francesca. It should have, but it didn’t. Nothing Peter did surprised Francesca anymore, and she’d stopped letting his self-centered, heartless ways eat away at her long ago. You couldn’t drive sense into someone with tunnel vision, and she needed to take refuge in normality.
She’d felt alone for the longest time, but soon enough realized she had great friends in Missy, Mrs. Richards and Scott, Jennifer, and although thousands of miles away, Lily. The women in her life gave her the support, friendship, strength, and the love she needed—everything her father didn’t.
To Francesca’s surprise, it didn’t take long to accept the direction her life was taking without a father. Not that Peter had been the type of father she’d needed. It had been a long time since she’d turned to Peter for support or love, and eventually, she’d come to accept the notion of going through life fatherless. At least her heart wouldn’t break again, and although it still stung, the wound of Peter choosing James over her wasn’t as raw anymore.
“Daddy, let’s go to the study.” Francesca urged limping toward the door.
They’d made it to the door when Peter whirled around. “Why’s the priest here?” he asked, recalling the detective’s statement: Your daughter says she’s his legal counsel. The priest was the only man in the kitchen. Peter flicked eyes to the table, watched Missy, Mrs. Richards, and Scott’s gaze drop to their folded hands. “Did the priest kill James? He did, didn’t he? You did this to my daughter. Who the hell are you?”
“Daddy, please. I need to talk to you. Stay here with Missy, Bear,” Francesca told Bear when he refused to leave her side.
“Your father’s going to find out sooner or later, Francesca. I may as well confess now.” Tommy rose, turned to face Peter. “Yes, Mr. Thompson, it was me who killed James.”
The shock caused the breath to back up in Peter’s lungs. His eyes fixed wide in disbelief. For a long time, Peter stared at the man in the cassock. The shock of dark hair, the determined glint in the steel-blue eyes, were Tommy Scott’s.
The night couldn’t get any stranger, Peter thought, falling into a chair and looking up to meet Tommy’s eyes. “How? When? You’re supposed to be dead.”
“MIA.” Tommy corrected.
Peter’s eyes turned from Tommy to Francesca. “How long have you known?”
“You’re my family, and you deserve to hear this,” Francesca told Missy, Mrs. Richards, and Scott when they rose to leave the kitchen. To the policemen, Francesca said, “Can you give us a few minutes? We need some privacy.” Francesca waited until they left the room to say, “Tommy’s been back in my life a few months.”
“I see.” Peter gave Tommy a long, hard look then turned to Francesca. “Only a few months and your husband is viciously bludgeoned to death. Once a criminal, always a criminal, even if he is dressed in priests clothing. Will you never learn, Frankie? Missy, get me a drink?”
“Stop, Dad, before you embarrass yourself. Look at me, Dad. Look at me.” Francesca pressed until Peter flicked eyes to her. “James, the man you chose over me, did this to me, and it wasn’t the first time. He raped me, Dad. Your golden boy, with the pedigree and name you so admire, viciously raped me on our honeymoon. When he found out I’d taken the Mulligan case, he beat me, threatened to kill me if I won.”
“That’s not possible. You never said anything until he,” Peter’s head spun to Tommy, “Came into the picture. And James is a Templeton.”
“Do you hear yourself, Dad? How could I tell you anything when this is the reaction I get when it comes to James? You believe what you want, Dad. I’m not going to make an effort to change the way you think because it would be wasted on you.” Francesca stood next to Tommy. “I will tell you that were it not for Tommy, James would have killed me tonight. If it weren’t for Tommy, I’d be the one being carried out in the body bag instead of James.”
Mrs. Richards turned to Mrs. Scott. “Why does she keep calling Father Matthew, Tommy?”
“Shhh, I’ll tell you later. It’s a long story.”
“I want to hear it too,” Missy whispered after handing Peter the tumbler of whiskey and the bottle she figured he was going to need.
“How is the fact that he’s been in the picture all this time, only coming out now?” Peter took the whiskey too quickly for pleasure, then poured himself a double shot. “I forbid you to represent the man who killed your husband.”
The anger Francesca hadn’t let herself feel for her father flared hot in her now. “Listen to you, Dad. Your snobbery makes you such a narrow-minded fool with such limited vision you can’t see what I look like right now or accept that my husband, your golden boy, did this to me. Most days, I’ve wondered what mom saw in you. I’d never want the man I spend the rest of my life to be anything like you. Tommy is twice the man you could ever be. I’m not done.” She winced in pain when she held a finger up to Peter to silence him when he started to speak.
“Tommy has no memory of his past. Until tonight, he didn’t know who I was. He didn’t recognize this house or Mrs. Scott. Until tonight he didn’t know what we once meant to each other.” Francesca reached for Tommy’s hand. The gesture made eyes go wide and sent minds racing. “He doesn’t know that had it not been for your interference in our lives, your insistence on keeping us apart, our lives would be very different today. I’ll never forgive you for that, Dad. Mom wouldn’t either. You coerced me into a marriage with an abuser because he suited your purpose and because his name would help your business. I want nothing to do with you anymore. I will be representing Tommy, and you can consider yourself out of my life.” She tugged at Tommy’s hand. “Let’s go talk to Detective Mill. We need to tell him what happened here tonight. Then I need to get to the hospital.” She turned on her heel and headed out of the kitchen.
“By the way.” Francesca stopped at the kitchen door, turned to her father. “James was sleeping with Tiffani since the night of our wedding reception—that I know of. He slept with her hours before we consummated our marriage. I have a witness, but I know you won’t believe me unless you see proof. You’ll find all the proof you need in the manila envelope in the safe.” Francesca slammed the door behind her.
