Page 91 of A Vintage of Regret
“Come on, Grant. Go for the jugular,” Sandy whispered.
“Okay. Then you need to know that when I walk out this door, I go to Sandy with everything I have.”A measured beat.“IP logs. Access times. The signature stamp you used.”
“You have no proof of that,”Elizabeth snapped.
Grant didn’t answer. He let the silence linger, patient as a tide. But seconds turned to minutes, and Elizabeth didn’t bend.
“What’s it going to be?”Grant asked.
Elizabeth’s breath steadied.“Why should I trust you?”
“Because I’m your son, and I’m here offering you myself as the sacrificial lamb just like you trained me to do.”His tone gentled, the way someone would talk to the wounded.“Tell me it was you. Tell me you panicked. Tell me you were scared. Tell me you didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Something clinked—a ring against ceramic, maybe.“If I say those words,”she murmured,“what happens to me?”
“I do what I said. I cover what I can. I keep the kids out of the line of fire.”
“You can’t keep them out,”she said, almost tender.“Not anymore. You’ve let too many people in. You’ve always been soft that way.”
Sandy’s jaw flexed, and Erin whispered, “She’s spiraling.”
Grant sighed.“Last chance, Mom. Or I start talking to people you don’t want me to, and this unravels in ways you can’t recover from—ever. My kids? Gone to you. Erin’s kids? You’ll never see them again.”
“Fine,”Elizabeth said, voice void of any emotion. There was nothing there. No mother. Not even a human. “I signed your name. I moved pennies to cover dollars. And your damn father couldn’t mind his own goddamn business for one day. That’s all I asked of that man. Just one day to talk you into doing exactly this, but no, he had to go and meddle.”A sharp scrape—her chair, turning, maybe. Then heels clicking on the tile floor. “He was always so righteous, always sure he knew best. I’m the one who built a life. I’m the one who kept our name clean. I am not going to let all of that crumble because a man with dirt under his nails decided to play auditor.”
Riley’s throat closed. Erin’s grip on her hand became a vise.
Grant’s voice thinned with hurt.“He raised us. He loved us.”
“He loved the idea of you,” Elizabeth said.“The version he could show those Boones over coffee. He loved his myths.”
“That was you, not Dad,”Grant said, so softly Riley barely heard.“And what about Dad?”
“Not sure what you’re asking,”Elizabeth said.
“You killed him.”
“How dare you.”
“Guess what, Ma. I kept the mug you handed me that morning. Labeled ‘Sean’—in your handwriting. I can walk it straight to Chief Sandy. She can have it tested for whatever you put in it.”
In the van, Sandy didn’t move. Erin’s breath hitched. Riley’s nails bit into her palm.
Inside the house, the quiet turned glacial.
“Are you playing with me? Are you planning on holding that over my head for the rest of my life?
“Holy shit.” Sandy shifted her gaze between Riley, Erin, and the FBI agent. “Did she just confess to killing Sean?”
“Not quite. Give him a little more time,” the FBI agent said.
Grant coughed.“No. I’m not messing with you. And you should know, Dad’s death is being ruled a homicide. That one, I’m not taking the blame for.”
“You ungrateful little shit.”Another breath. The brittle clatter of a spoon.“Do you know what it is to carry a family on your back and be told your spine is unseemly? Do you know what it is to smile at people whose checks have more zeros than morals? Your father never understood what it cost—to be respectable.”Her voice hardened to glass.“So what if I asked you to deliver coffee? I did what was needed, and you’re the one with the mug, not me. You handed your father a death sentence, not me.”
Erin slapped a hand over her mouth as a guttural groan escaped her lips.
Stunned, Riley sat there. Unable to move. Unable to say a word. She couldn’t even breathe.
