Page 3 of A Play for Love

“What!”

“I’ll explain everything later. How are Ella and Nicholas?”

“They’re fine. Ella wants to know where you are.”

“Tell her I’m out with her uncles and cousins. Don’t let her know I’m down at Simon’s.”

“I won’t. I love you.”

“I love you too, babe. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

I walked back into the house, where Simon poured himself and Aunt Barb a scotch. Slamming it down on the table, his face was mere inches from hers.

“Talk!” he said.

“For God’s sake, Simon. Get out of my face,” Aunt Barb said.

“Sit down, bro,” Sam told him. “Mom, tell us what happened.”

“Henry isn’t who he says he is.” She picked up her drink. “He goes by many different names, charms rich women into falling in love with him, marries them, and then inherits their money and collects their life insurance after he murders them.”

“How do you know all this?” Simon asked. “I checked the guy out myself, and he’s squeaky clean!”

“Of course he is. ‘Henry Thorne’ hasn’t done anything bad yet. But if you check into his alias names, you’ll find four deceased rich wives. I was to be number five.”

“Again. How do you know all this?” Simon asked.

“Well, first of all, you know I have trust issues thanks to your father. He wanted to move our relationship very fast. While we were in Cabo, we were passing by a jeweler, and he stopped and looked at the wedding rings in the window, asking me what I liked. He told me that he already knew he wanted to marry me and hadn’t felt like this with anyone since his wife passed. Then he went on to say how he didn’t believe in soulmates, but since meeting me, he became a believer. He was smooth, charming, and frankly, too good to be true. That’s when my woman’s intuition kicked in. So, I went along with it because I wanted to see what his motives were. We had just had sex at his place shortly after returning from our trip.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Simon shook his head.

“We don’t need those details, Mom,” Sam said.

She rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Anyway, I went into the bathroom to wash my face, leaving the door open halfway so I could see him through the mirror. He climbed out of bed and walked over to a picture that hung on the wall directly across from the bathroom. He moved it, and behind it was a safe. He asked me how much longer I was going to be. So, I told him a few more minutes. Grabbing my phone, I zoomed in and took a video of him opening the safe, getting the combination. When I told him that I was done and coming back into the room, he quickly shut the safe and replaced the picture. I asked him why he was out of bed, and he said he was going to get us some wine. The following morning when he went out for a run, I opened the safe and found his gun and a few passports with different names. I also found the paperwork from a life insurance company based in Florida with a woman’s name on it—a name he had never mentioned before. So, I did some digging. That printer shop he supposedly owned and sold wasn’t his. It was the business his deceased wife inherited when her husband died. So, I went to Florida.”

“Why didn’t you come to me with all of this?” Simon asked.

“Because I didn’t need your gloating. Besides, I can handle things myself. Where do you think your detective instincts came from?” Her brow arched. “When I was in Florida, I tracked down where he and his wife lived, spoke to the neighbors, and showed them Henry’s picture. They knew him as James Frankel. He and his wife, Deanna, were married for one year before she died from a massive heart attack. Which by the way, he told me his wife’s name was Laura, and she passed away from cancer. After she died, he inherited her estate, the printing shop, and the life insurance in the sum of two million dollars.”

“Did you tell him you were going to Florida?” Stefan asked.

“No. I told him I was going to see my best friend in North Carolina because she wasn’t feeling well.”

“You don’t have a best friend in North Carolina, Mom,” Sebastian said.

“He doesn’t know that. After discovering the truth in Florida, I hired a private investigator to check out the other names on the passports. After all of his wives died within a year of marriage, all from massive heart attacks, he would leave the state after playing the wounded widower and collecting the life insurance money. He’d been doing this for years.”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t come to us with this!” Simon shouted as he pushed himself up from the table.

“Calm down. You know what, Simon? You really remind me of your father.”

He turned and looked at her with a scowl on his face.

“How dare you!” He pointed at her.

“Bro.” Shaun gripped his shoulders. “Calm down, sit down, and shut the fuck up. Let her talk. Go ahead, Barb.”

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