“Papa? Are you listening?”
Antonio turns from the window and looks at his only surviving son. Jason sits on the other side of the car, in Jeffrey’s form, with Jeffrey’s eyes. “What did you say?”
Jason covers the mouthpiece of the cell phone. “It’s a lawyer from the firm. She wants to know if you’re willing to put up bail for Erin.”
Antonio shifts his gaze back to the window, watching as the driver steers around a creeping city bus.
Put up money for the woman who killed the light of his life? He’d sooner cut off his right hand. Erin can rot in jail, for all he cares. Better yet, she can die on a gurney. Or even in the electric chair, if Illinois officials can be convinced to use it again.
Jason murmurs a response into the phone, but Antonio turns his thoughts inward. These days, he’s finding it hard to care about anything—his work, his daughters, even his remaining son. Jason is a good man, dependable and solid, but he will always be a beta animal. He lacks Jeffrey’s intelligence and strength of will. He lacks charisma.
He smiles, remembering the dark-headed twosome who shared a bedroom until they left home for college. As babies, the twins were as alike as two halves of an apple, a perfect binary star, but Jeffrey walked first, establishing himself as the controlling body in their small system. Brighter than Jason, and more naturally inquisitive, Jeffrey delighted his nannies, his teachers, and his girlfriends with his cheerful demeanor and classic good looks. Jason was a pleasant lad, but when standing next to Jeffrey, he always seemed like a faded copy of the original: attractive enough at first glance, but definitely less sharp.
Before the boys turned sixteen, Antonio knew Jeffrey would be the one to lead the family to greatness. Jason would always be a reliable assistant for his brother, an RFK to a future JFK. One brother destined to forge a path, the other to follow and reinforce it. And that’s what they did, rising to positions of leadership in student government, college athletics, and the property development business. Three years ago, Jeffrey ran for a senate seat in the Illinois General Assembly and Jason served as his campaign manager. They held their linked hands high at the victory party, two men closer to each other than either could ever be to a wife…for nothing could compete with the intimacy of twins. Antonio understood their relationship and respected it. He often thought his boys could read each other’s mind. If that kind of closeness gave them an advantage, so be it.
Outside the car, a cacophony yammers for Antonio’s attention—a jackhammer shredding a sidewalk, a traffic cop blowing his whistle, the whine of an approaching ambulance—but none of those things interest him. He lets his head fall back as his concentration dissipates in a wave of fatigue. A cocoon of anguish has enveloped him ever since hearing the awful news, and this morning’s announcement has only deepened his grief. Erin’s fingerprints were on the insulin bottle, the police said, and also on the syringe.
The sweet, helpless girl he welcomed into his family has murdered his beautiful boy.
He closes his eyes and studies the memory of the last night he spent with his son. He had gone upstairs to see if Jeffrey and Erin were ready to come down, but after letting himself into the hotel suite he heard angry voices. The two of them stood in the living room, both of them dressed in formal wear, but tears streaked a flaming handprint on Erin’s cheek. Jeffrey wore a hard look of frustration, an expression Antonio had seen many times.
“What’s going on here?” Antonio glanced from his son to his daughter-in-law, waiting for an answer. “Jeffrey?”
“It’s a private matter.” Jeff tore his gaze from his wife’s stricken face. “Is everything ready downstairs?”
Antonio looked at Erin, silently inviting her to give her side of the story, but she lowered her head and refused to meet his gaze. “Everything’s ready,” he finally answered, slipping his hands into his pockets. He moved toward the sofa table as Erin swiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand. He offered a handkerchief. “You okay?”
She sniffed and waved away his help.
“Why don’t you go fix your face.” He jerked his thumb toward the bedroom. “I need to talk to our boy.”
His daughter-in-law bowed her head and moved to the other room, her long skirt swishing in the silence. When the door clicked behind her, Antonio rounded on his son. “What are you doing?”
Jeffrey’s brows slanted in a frown. “What?”
“You are ten minutes from one of the most important nights of your life, and you’ve made your wife cry.”
A wall appeared behind Jeff’s eyes. “Leave it alone, Papa.”
“How can I? Someone has to correct you.”
Jeffrey moved to the mirror and adjusted his tie. “She’s my wife,” he said, his voice as cool as an assassin’s. “A man’s allowed to control his wife.”
“In private, sure. But in public, you watch yourself, because people notice every little thing. Everyone knows politics is a dirty business and couples have disagreements during a campaign. But when you are minutes away from a public appearance, you control yourself. You tamp down your irritation, you wait to put your wife back in line. When you’re in front of strangers, you treat that girl like a priceless porcelain doll.”
Jeff smoothed the pleats on his starched shirt. “You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be married to a spineless woman.”
“Erin may not be as weak as you think. And yes, your mama was strong, but only after I taught her what strength is.”
Jeffrey turned away from the mirror. “Erin’s about as strong as tissue paper. If I don’t keep her on a tight leash, she’s going to do something to bring our entire operation crashing down.”
Antonio stared, tongue-tied, as the bedroom door opened. Erin appeared in the doorway, her face clean and powdered, her hair shining, her eyes modestly cast down. She looked like a princess—or, better yet, a future First Lady.
“That’s more like it.” He beamed at his daughter-in-law and hurried to draw her into his arms. After giving her a hug and planting a kiss on her velvet cheek, he stepped back. “You look perfect, my dear, and tonight people are going to stand in line to shake your hand. And Jeffrey is going to treat you with kindness and respect, aren’t you, son?”
Beside him, Jeffrey rolled his eyes in bored acquiescence. “You don’t have to worry.” He flicked a piece of lint from the shoulder of his tuxedo, then stepped around to grip Erin’s free hand. “I’m sure we’ll look like the perfect couple.”
“Yes,” Erin added, her voice oddly flat. “We have to knock them dead.”
A shiver spreads over Antonio as the memory edges his teeth. Had her words been a warning he’d been too blind to see?