Page 53 of The Rainbow Recipe
“The women are good,but they can’t do what we can,” Jax asserted, holding a cue at a pool table in the man cave where the men gathered after supper.
Studying the ancient Pac-Man machine as if it were an artifact, Dante was exhausted enough to accept that statement. He wasn’t entirely certain he believed it though.
Maneuvering his crutch down cellar stairs had left his leg and shoulder complaining. He hadn’t wanted to tell his host that he wasn’t supposed to use stairs. Pris had been in one of her moods and probably hadn’t even noticed he’d left, or she would have thrown a stink. He hadn’t tucked the twins into bed because he was avoiding stairs. And the twins.
She had a right to fling daggers at him. He was a horrible excuse for a father. Well, his father hadn’t been much better. Dante had survived the neglect—because he’d had a mother to raise him.
“Ariel is tracing the shell company deposits.” The Cajun hacker, Roark, had joined them after dinner. “But they’re being transferred from the Italian bank to inaccessible offshore accounts in the same corporate name.”
Of course they were. Money wasn’t the problem here. The Gladwells had none. Unless the company was making fortunes, they must be stealing from investors. Investigating their shareholders might be more profitable, but Dante wasn’t interested in that either.
“Is there any chance that Lucia is siphoning Bella while living on some Caribbean island?” Dante threw that out there just to change the course of the conversation. The Lucia he knew wouldn’t do any such thing.
Of course, the Lucia he knew wouldn’t have lingered in the bright lights of the city or abandoned her children. Or never call or write anything but generic holiday cards. So what did he know?
But the violence he’d sensed in that household troubled him.
“Anything is possible,” Reuben the engineering professor agreed. “Probableis a different matter. Why would anyone drain a potentially profitable company is a better question.”
“Have arson investigators made any progress?” Jax had abandoned the pool table to study a storyboard on the concrete block wall, but it was light on clues and suspects.
As professional hacker, Roark answered that one. “Fire started in a stack of pallets stored in the kitchen area. They’re uncertain how long they smoldered, but there are indicators accelerant was added later, presumably when the fire didn’t catch fast enough.”
Jax tapped a photo on the wall with his pool cue. “Rhonda Tart, sales clerk, investor, possibly Vincent’s mistress, was present and had access to the kitchen.” He stretched a string to another photo. “Jane Lawson, previous fire victim, blogger, had access only because Roark picked the lock. But she’d been invited, so she expected Rhonda to let her in at some point.”
“Neither has any good motive for starting a fire,” Reuben noted.
“Is there any proof the fire and KK’s death are related?” Dante asked. “Without physical evidence, what do you have?” He sank into a gaming chair and stretched out his aching leg. He’d been operating nearly forty-eight hours without sleep. That might be a new record for him.
Jax slapped another photo. “Nicholas Gladwell, juvie record for auto theft, had access to the café. He’s also an investor, appeared romantically attached to Katherine Gladwell, who was only a kissing cousin at best. He’s on the company’s board of directors. We have no idea why except he’s family and does their marketing.”
“Which means he worked with Lucia,” Dante reminded them. His tired mind wondered what Evie thought of Nick’s aura or if Pris had probed the man’s mind. Probably not. He hadn’t used his psychometric abilities either, because they were mostly worthless. Or painful. He really wasn’t interested in people’s dirty secrets—except for the long dead.
“And finally, Matthew Gladwell.” Jax tapped the last photo. “KK’s brother, Vincent’s only son. He might have motive for murder and arson if KK and Lucia stood in the way of his controlling the company. Or if he’s siphoning funds and they caught him.”
“But he wasn’t in the vicinity of the fire,” Dante pointed out, sipping warm beer.
“Right.” Jax made a note under the photo. “You said he was with Vincent in Italy. But maybe he hired someone.”
“Then Matt’s not final. We have to add Vincent,” Dante corrected. “He could hire minions and is probably in a better position to set up the Italy trip as an alibi.”
“And that’s still assuming there’s some connection between the fire and KK,” Roark noted. “You’re assuming someone knew the bank deposits had been uncovered and that was the reason for the fire?”
“No assumptions,” Reuben argued. “Jane could have just gone bananas. She’s on a power trip to drive Larraine out of office. Larraine supported La Bella, hence, La Bella has to die.”
“And KK, as figurehead?” Jax suggested.
“In other words, we have nothing,” Dante said in exhaustion. “I have Pris’s belief that Vincent means harm to my children. I have my own theory that Lucia is out of the picture for reasons unknown. I just want to know if it’s safe to take the twins home.”
Jax held up his phone. “Séance is over. Evie thinks KK wants to kill Matt, but all she’s getting is sadness.” He read a new text coming through. His silence was telling.
Paging through his computer, not noticing Jax’s sudden stillness, Reuben spoke idly. “Has the ghost finally decided Matt killed her? As far as we can tell, Matthew Gladwell is a gormless turd who does as he’s told and parties with male models. Is that enough for KK to want to off him?”
“Perhaps if Vincent favored his son over his daughter?” Dante shoved out of his chair and crossed to where Jax sat. “If you don’t mind, it’s been a long day. Jax, before I go up, what else did the women say?” he asked quietly, not fooled by his distant cousin’s sudden silence.
Jax rubbed his bristly jaw and studied Dante a moment before holding up his phone.
Evie’s text read:lucias spirit reached out to the twins
