Page 38 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
“How do you know that?”
“Like I said, it’s bullshit. Just my kid trying to get revenge because I wouldn’t pay for her college tuition.”
Huh?
I looked at Emmy, and she shrugged. No, she didn’t have any idea what he was yapping on about either.
“You’re going to have to elaborate,” I told him.
“She’s an attention whore, like her momma. If you want to arrest her, go right ahead.”
“Are you saying one of your children is involved in the plot to kidnap Marc di Gregorio?”
“And Serena Carlisle,” Emmy added.
“Look, she’s been a pain in my ass for years. All her momma wanted was money, money, money. And then last summer, Kam shows up out of the blue in my office and begs me to withdraw the development plans, but what did she offer in return? Nothing. When you’re in business, you gotta have a plan, understand? You gotta have leverage.”
Emmy nodded along, playing good cop now, lulling McDonald into a false sense of security. “Yeah, yeah, I get that.”
“So I told her, ‘McDonalds don’t beg; they negotiate. Come back when you can pay me the full value of the land plus, say, twenty years of lost profits, and then we’ll talk.’”
“And she’s associated with the Wild Roots group?”
“Probably. She got into all the environmental stuff just to spite me. It’s Cassandra’s fault—she knows I hate that greenwashing crap.”
“Cassandra is your ex-wife?”
That wasn’t the name we had on file, and he only had three kids listed, twenty-four-year-old twins—one boy, one girl—by his first wife, and a sixteen-year-old son with the current Mrs. McDonald. No “Kam,” although the sixteen-year-old was a real piece of work. He’d already been arrested three times, twice for drug offences and once for sexual assault, but no charges were ever brought.
“Hell, no. Cassie wasn’t the type of woman you marry. She was a six-month mistake, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.”
I was wearing an earpiece so Echo could listen. Emmy had done the same, but her comms were hooked up to Blackwood. The faint sound of keys clicking tickled my ears.
“So, six months and a kid?”
The asshole nodded. “Wouldn’t surprise me if Cassie fucked the asshole who did the DNA test. Kamryn doesn’t even look like me, and she sure didn’t inherit the McDonald IQ.”
If she’d avoided spending time around McDonald, she was smarter than he thought. Arrogant and overbearing, he reminded me of my own father—and I’d ordered him a tombstone that said “In a better place now.” I wasn’t religious, but if there was a hell, I sure hoped he was burning there.
“What’s her full name?” Emmy asked. “Kamryn McDonald? We want to make sure we arrest the right person.”
“No, Kamryn Delacort. Part of the deal was that she took Cassie’s surname.”
The deal? Presumably a payoff had been involved. Go away quietly, and I’ll toss you a few bucks.
“Age?”
“Twenty-three.”
Yikes. He’d screwed around while wifey number one was pregnant? I summed up the scenario. “Just so we’re clear, your daughter by a previous mistress is upset because you want to develop a pristine Indonesian island, and instead of raising an obscene amount of money to buy you out, she decided to kidnap two movie stars so someone else would demand your cooperation in return?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Man, I hated family drama, and this time, it wasn’t even my family. Without Marc’s involvement, I’d probably be on Team Kamryn.
“Super,” Emmy said. “Well, they sent us, so here’s how this is going to work. The Blackwood Foundation will buy the land from you for one dollar, and you’ll record a video apologising for your lack of research when it comes to wildlife and property development and promise to do better in future.”
McDonald snorted, and I took over.
