“I’m saying that someone obviously hates Stearns. Still hates him. If they knew something about you and him, about Marie-Laure...if someone loved her even more than I did, and blamed Stearns for her death…”
Christian needed to say no more. The motive that had eluded Kingsley all summer, since he’d discovered his pack of rottweilers drugged and Eleanor’s file gone…suddenly all became clear.
Søren’s first lover had been his own sister Elizabeth.
His second lover had been Kingsley, a student when he’d been a teacher. Forbidden fruit in so many ways.
And his Eleanor, his true wife so much more than Marie-Laure, had been only fifteen when Søren and she had fallen in love. Fifteen and a member of his congregation.
“Christian, you might be right. Someone might have loved Marie-Laure, loved her enough to seek vengeance against Father Stearns even after all this time. You were friends with everyone at school. Who else was in love with her?”
Christian sighed heavily. He walked over to a small rolltop desk and opened the middle drawer. From it he pulled out a framed photo and carried it to Kingsley.
Kingsley took the photo from Christian and stared at it.
His breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t quite swallow.
A girl barely twenty years old stared at him from inside the frame. Nothing but clichés could describe her beauty—silken russet hair, copper eyes framed by infinite lashes, a laughing smile that didn’t quite meet those unearthy eyes of hers. She had a dancer’s graceful neck and hands, and an olive complexion just like her brother’s.
“Ma soeur…” Kingsley touched the glass with his fingertip. He wrenched his gaze from the photograph to Christian.
“Who was in love her?” Christian repeated. “Kingsley…we all were.”
SOUTH
As soon as they entered the guesthouse, Nora got on her laptop and on her phone. For some reason, Kingsley wasn’t answering his private line. She tried calling his assistant and got nothing but the cryptic runaround. Kingsley—he was just the man she needed for this job.
“Nora, let it go,” Wesley said as she tried Kingsley’s hotline again.
“He’s going to answer.” Nora hit the number on her cell phone again. “It’s the hotline. He always answers the hotline. I’ve heard that man f**king so many times, I’ve lost count, because no matter what he’s doing or who he’s doing, he always answers his hotline.”
“Stop calling him. If Spanks for Nothing died from electrocution or something, the investigators will figure it out and fine whoever needs to be fined.”
“But that’s Talel’s horse.” Nora turned to Wesley, who sat on the corner of his bed, watching her where she sat on the floor. “I know Talel. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less electrocute a horse.”
Wesley got off the bed and stood in front of her.
“Look, Nora, I know he’s a friend of yours and that’s great. But horse racing’s a rough business. It’s not all silks and Millionaires’ Row. It’s brutal and dangerous and messy.”
“But Talel…” Nora started scrolling through her cell files. Surely she had Talel’s number in here somewhere. She had to talk to him about today. She knew him. Biblically, even. He wanted to be hurt—that was his kink. But to hurt another? Never. She refused to believe that.
“Talel’s a millionaire horse owner and a kinky freak like the rest of your friends. He’s not a saint, okay? You know how you can tell if a Thoroughbred mare has been bred?”
Nora heard the barely restrained anger in Wesley’s voice.
“No. How?”
“Because the mare has scar tissue and visible stitching under her vagina. Yeah. Fact. They cut the mare open so it can take more stallion. Then she gets stitched up. Then cut again for the next breeding. Then stitched up. Then cut again. Over and over.”
Nora clamped a hand over her mouth in disgust. “You’ve got to be—”
“Kidding? No. I’ve seen it myself. That’s just part of the shit that goes on in this Sport of Kings. Your best buddy Spanks for Nothing could have lived thirty years or more. But either someone wanted some insurance money off him, or wanted him to have a few more wins to get those stud fees up there. You saw a horse, a pet. Talel and every other horse owner sees a dollar sign. Lots of dollar signs. Horses are just like race cars to these people. You crash the car, you call the insurance company and get a check. I don’t like it, either, but that’s how it is.”
Nora’s stomach tightened into a hard fist of guilt. “Race cars aren’t alive. They can’t feel pain. They…”
“Now you know why I’m not all into the family business.”
“Yeah, I can see that. I’m sorry, Wes. It’s just, Talel and I go way back and he’s a good—”
“You slept with him, didn’t you?”
Wesley asked the question without a hint of malice in his voice, and no accusation, either. Only sadness. She would rather he’d called her a whore to her face like his father had.
“Yes, I did. A few years ago. He gave me my Aston Martin.”
For a moment Wesley didn’t speak. Nora only stared at him as he seemed to search for words. She’d rarely seem him so somber and so silent. Back when they’d lived together, he’d joked with her constantly, teased her constantly. And she’d gloried in his young male attention. But Wesley wasn’t a teenage boy with a hard-on for an older woman anymore. He’d admitted he loved her, still loved her after fifteen months apart. And he’d had his chance to have sex with his beautiful older girlfriend and hadn’t taken it. No schoolboy crush this—Wesley loved her. And she’d left Søren, left her collar, for Wesley. For how long, she didn’t know. But Søren had forbidden her to run from him, and the second she’d been out of his sight she’d kicked off her high heels and raced as if the world depended on her getting to Wesley in record time. She loved him, too.