Following his chat with Mrs. Mecko, Drayco had considered doing some flying as a consolation prize for being denied his relaxing weekend. To get above it all, just him, the plane, and the sky, had seemed so blissfully ideal.
Instead, he’d spent the rest of Sunday making calls, trying to put more of the picture together of his mother and her case. He didn’t touch the piano. Not once. Maybe that’s why he woke up this morning with a headache—piano withdrawal. More likely, it was the first two meetings lined up on his schedule.
After stumbling into the bathroom, he looked at his blood-shot eyes in the mirror. Worse than Nelia’s. “You look like you’ve been on a bender for a week.” His reflection stayed silent.
He forced down coffee and fluffernutter toast—flipping Sarg a mental bird—then got dressed and headed to an office he hadn’t visited in a while, partly out of avoidance, partly out of necessity. Both of those partlys helped keep his blood pressure down, for the silver-haired man who greeted Drayco was better than caffeine for a systolic boost.
Brock was uncharacteristically wired and even greeted Drayco with a big grin. Too bad it didn’t last long. “Heard the news about Edwin Zamorra, Scott. Great work on your part. You bagged a lowlife scumbag. And may have nailed Maura’s partner in the process.”
“Aren’t you celebrating a little too soon?” Not that Brock was the celebratory type since here he was working on President’s Day.
“I need to move on, you need to move on. Bet you haven’t taken on any new clients since this whole thing started.”
“Was Halabi the one who called you about Edwin’s arrest?”
“What? Oh, no, it was Agent Sargosian. He phoned me this morning.”
There went the systolic with a diastolic chaser. Drayco was accustomed to Brock going behind his back, but Sarg?
Brock didn’t seem to notice the gathering clouds on Drayco’s face, adding insult to injury, “Sargosian also told me about that Iago Pryce fellow. I’ve put some feelers out on him.”
Still stung by Sarg’s apparent breach of trust, it took a moment for Drayco to process Brock’s words enough to reply. “Pryce is Maura’s bodyguard. He may be heavy-handed when it comes to taking his duties seriously, but he’s not the main player.”
Brock turned away to look through the window blinds. “Oh? And who would that be?”
“Alistair Brisbane. A high-powered shadow man who happens to be Maura’s twin brother.”
Brock’s ability to hide his reactions had helped make him a successful FBI agent then consultant. But through the years, Drayco had learned to tell when Brock lied by the almost-imperceptible twitch on the left side of his jaw.
“Brisbane? Don’t think I’ve heard of him.” The jaw twitch was as quick as a Nolan Ryan fastball. Blink and you’d miss it.
The extent of Brock’s duplicity enveloped Drayco in a heavy blanket of bitterness—the note from Maura after she was declared legally dead and now this. His father’s tangled web of deception had a lot of threads.
Two quick strides took him face to face with Brock. “When did you find out about Brisbane and Maura and her shady past? Before or after you married her?”
A rare flicker of guilt passed across his father’s face. “I told you the truth when I said I didn’t look into her disappearance. But I did research her background. Anger, curiosity, pride, don’t remember now. Regardless, I couldn’t dwell on it. Not with two small children I suddenly had to raise on my own.”
“Then you knew all along about the note found on her, with BRISBANE on it.”
Brock nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me all this?”
“Would it have mattered? Would you really have wanted to destroy any positive memories you had of your mother?”
“Was this about destroying my memories of her or protecting my memories of you?”
Brock looked briefly at Drayco, then out the window again. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
Drayco pushed further, “Do you know I didn’t even recall she had a scar on her neck? Did she have it when you met her?”
Brock’s shoulders barely nudged an inch, but Drayco took that as a yes. Well, this was getting him nowhere. One way to change that. “I spoke with Alistair Brisbane.”
Brock’s head swung around and his eyes bored into Drayco’s. “When? What did he say?”
“That Maura didn’t kill Jerold Zamorra. And that he was counting on me to prove it.”
“And that’s all?”
“Pretty much, yeah. It was over the phone, not face to face.”
“I’m not surprised he’d think his sister was innocent. Or that he’d try to cover up for her.”
“I wasn’t sure I believed him then. I believe him now.”
Brock scanned his son’s face. What was he looking for, signs of deception? Takes one to know one, Brock?
Brock said, “This man Brisbane. He’s more powerful than a senator and twice as dishonest. His connections are fiercely loyal or fiercely afraid. He’s a master at self-preservation and won’t hesitate to toss you under the bus and happily roll right over you, son.”
“Does he have ties to organized crime?”
“Too independent. He’s an entity unto himself and doesn’t like to be tied down.”
“You should have told me. About him and her both. I had a right to know.”
“Truth works both ways. When exactly were you going to tell me about Pryce and Brisbane if Sarg hadn’t beaten you to it?”
Brock had him, there. Perhaps it was partial payback for Brock hiding the truth about Maura’s “death.”
It was Brock’s turn to sigh. “You know, the main reason I wanted you to drop by today wasn’t to argue. It was to apologize. For my drunken rant the other night. Didn’t want you to see me like that.”
“Maybe if you’d let me see that side of you more often, the ocean between us wouldn’t be so wide.”
Brock’s clenched jaw loosened a fraction. “I think I should have encouraged your piano thing more.”
“Why is that?”
“Angry conductors and audience members are a lot safer than the Brisbanes of this world.”
In his own camouflaged way that was the closest Brock came to admitting he was worried about his son. That he cared.
“I have to see this thing through. You know that.”
“Yeah. You’re as stubborn as ...” Brock shook his head. “I was going to say you’re as stubborn as your mother. But I think you got the stubborn gene from me.”
“Could have been worse. At least, it wasn’t your love for karaoke.”
A sliver of a smile returned to Brock’s face. “Agent Sargosian’s a good man. He’s got your back. But if you’re right and Maura and Edwin aren’t behind Jerold Zamorra’s murder, the killer is still out there. Keep me in the loop.”
Drayco nodded. He could do phone calls. Iago’s words rang in his head, “Family is what we make it. Maybe you should remember that.”