Page 24 of Say Yes to the Death

Rachel and Luke discussed work, and the hostility in the house downgraded by a centimeter. In fact, Rachel seemed to have forgotten that Claire was there at all, and instead turned her full attention to Luke. She barely looked at her chicken marsala and garlic mashed potatoes as she raised a bite to her lips. They discussed Luke’s work and then Rachel’s most recent case, in which she had gotten a corporate embezzler off with just a fine.

“I had a lovely dinner at George and Stella’s last week,” Rachel said, setting her fork down. “Stella made a croquembouche. I adore being her dessert guinea pig.”

Luke stiffened, and Claire couldn’t tell if he was offended by the mention of the couple or the dessert. The names didn’t ring a bell.

“I don’t want to talk about George, Mom.” He abruptly stood up from the island and carried his plate to the dishwasher.

Claire paused with a mushroom on her fork. She looked back and forth from Luke to his mother as if they were in the middle of a tennis match. Claire’s phone buzzed on the counter, signaling an incoming call, but she didn’t reach for it.

“You don’t care about your only brother?” Rachel asked.

“You have a brother?” Claire reeled as though she had been slapped across the face. Luke had outright said he didn’t have a brother several times in the brief period that she had known him.

“You never told her about George?” Rachel asked incredulously.

Claire’s mouth dropped open. Was there no end to the infantry of skeletons in Luke’s closet? What else was he hiding?

“George isn’t part of my life anymore.” He grabbed a butter knife. His knuckles were as pale as the glob of potatoes on his plate.

For the umpteenth time that evening, Claire seethed. She set her fork down before she stabbed it into someone’s neck. Of course there were more secrets, more lies. She had had enough of those for a lifetime.

“Sophia will be five soon,” Rachel said softly. She didn’t seem to notice Claire’s quiet rage. “She hasn’t seen you since her second birthday.”

There was a niece too? If George and Stella had a dog, Claire was going to lose her shit.

“I have some work to do,” Luke said, throwing his chair back. “Good night.”

Luke stomped down the long hallway and closed his office door with a snap. The door popped back open a second later, and he stomped back to the kitchen, taking the cleared plates and putting them in the dishwasher.

“Thank you for dinner. It was delicious. I’ll clean this up tomorrow, and I’ll pick you up in the morning,” he said rigidly, kissing Claire on the cheek before disappearing again.

A ringing silence was left in his wake. Rachel’s pencil-thin eyebrows knitted together.

Claire’s phone buzzed again, and she excused herself, happy to get out of the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Claire, it’s Kyle.”

“Oh, hey. What’s up?”

“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but we need to discuss the hearing. Just to prepare you for what might happen. Any chance you could come over?”

Dread snaked through her like hot lead. After Rachel’s hostilities, she had almost forgotten that Barney’s preliminary hearing trial was happening tomorrow.

“Oh. Yeah, I could do that.” She clutched a wall for support.

“Breathe, Claire. Remember, this is just the hearing. It’ll be short, and you may not even be called into the courtroom. We have more physical evidence for your case than most prosecutors could get in a year’s worth of cases. This is going to be a slam dunk.”

She exhaled noisily. “Okay. I can do this. I’ll be there in like fifteen minutes,” she said. “Oh, wait,” she said, bringing her phone back up to her face so quickly she nearly dropped it.

Claire tiptoed through the living room to the rarely used dining room, hiding from Rachel.

“What do you know about Luke’s brother, George?”

“Ah,” Kyle said, sighing deeply. “Haven’t heard his name in a while. I think that’s a story that Luke had better tell you himself.”

Disappointing, but… “Okay. Bros before hoes, I get it. See you in a minute.”

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