And this time, there would be no insulating her grandson from reality for Cecelia Gardner.
“Get any sleep last night?” Colin asked.
“Not much,” she admitted.
“Me either. What are we going to do about it?”
“Get over it?” she suggested, but without much conviction.
“I wish,” he said dryly. He wasn’t particularly stung by her words, mainly because they were uttered with such acknowledgment of the impossibility of what she’d said.
But doing anything else seemed impossible, too.
“It would never work,” he said.
“Probably not,” she agreed, surprising him; he’d expected her to disagree. “But,” she went on, “I’m curious why you think that.”
“Because you want everything I’m no good at. You’re cut out for marriage, kids, the white picket fence, the whole bit.”
When she answered, her words came slowly, as if she’d chosen them very carefully. “You don’t know what I want, proven by the fact that I don’t like white picket fences. But that aside, why do you say you’re not cut out for the rest?”
“My marriage proved that.”
“Hmm. My marriage failed, too, but all it proved was that we were too young. But you assume yours proved that you were unfit for all time? A little premature, wouldn’t you say?”
He’d never thought of it quite that way before. “Maybe,” he muttered.
“At least you didn’t decide that because you couldn’t trust one woman, you can’t trust any,” she said.
“It was my-” He stopped in the middle of the old refrain, that his fractured marriage was his fault.
I believe an affair is the fault of the person involved. If you want out, get out, but you don’t cheat.
Her words came back to him, and now that he knew her a little better, he knew she meant them. That’s the code she would live by, an honesty he’d thought didn’t exist. If there was a problem in the relationship, the guy wouldn’t get blindsided, because Darien Wilson would come out and say so. He knew that with a bone-deep certainty that surprised him, given the short time he’d known her.
She was quiet the rest of the drive, giving him time to think. He appreciated that she didn’t feel the need to fill each silent moment with chatter. Then again, he was nervous about what he was thinking, so maybe he shouldn’t be so glad she was allowing him time to do it.
When they arrived at the Gardner estate, the only thing they revealed was that they had an update for the family. It was enough to get the butler-or whoever answered the intercom-to open the massive driveway gate for them. And then they got lucky; Darien spotted Stephen Gardner outside the large garage beside the house, apparently directing a chauffeur or servant in how to correctly wax what appeared to be a brand-new European luxury coupe.
“New toy?” Colin wondered aloud.
“Not wasting any time spending daddy’s money, is he?” Darien said.
“So it would seem,” Colin agreed as he halted the city vehicle, which looked derelict in comparison, a few feet from the garage activity.
He looked little like his father, with thick, medium-brown hair and brown eyes. And had none of Franklin Gardner’s reported charisma; Stephen Gardner seemed a bit sulky, almost sullen. And, Colin guessed, more than a little anger was hidden away under that surface.
If I had a son, he wouldn’t end up like this, Colin muttered to himself. And nearly stopped breathing when he realized what he’d thought. And that the child who popped into his head had blond hair.
“Colin?” Darien said, sounding a bit odd, although she never looked away from the younger Gardner.
“What?”
“He’s left-handed.”
Colin leaned forward, in time to see Stephen Gardner writing something on a small piece of yellow paper with his left hand.
“Well, well,” he murmured. “Shall we?”
They got out and headed toward the two men and the fancy coupe.
“Nice car.” Darien caught the young man’s attention with the comment. And kept it with her looks, Colin thought wryly as he watched the young man smile at her. When they’d spoken to him briefly a few days ago, his responses had been short and unhelpful, no doubt as instructed by his grandmother. This was an entirely different young man.
“Yeah, isn’t it?” he said enthusiastically. “I’ve been wanting it for ages, it’s the latest-” He broke off, belatedly recognizing them. “Hey, you’re the cops. The detectives.”
“Yeah, we are,” Colin acknowledged, noticing the unobtrusive man with the car wax quietly departing the scene.
“You have news? Did you catch who killed the old man?”
So much for the respectful “my father” he’d used before, Colin noted. Over the shock? Or just more certain he’s going to get away with it?
“We’re getting very close,” Darien said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Oh? So was it a burglar like Uncle Lyle says, or did somebody finally get ticked off enough to just do him?”
“Think that’s likely, do you, Stephen?” Colin asked.
The young man scowled. “Look, I told you before, the old man and I didn’t get along. I told you if it hadn’t been for him, my mother would still be alive.”
“I looked into that, Stephen, after we spoke,” Darien said. “The official report says accidental overdose.”
The young man’s mouth twisted scornfully. “Of course it does. What would you expect it to say? My father was Franklin Gardner. But he drove her to it. He could drive anyone to it. She wouldn’t even have had those pills around if she hadn’t needed them to get through every day of living with him.”
Colin thought about asking why she hadn’t just divorced him, but he could guess at the reasons and it wasn’t really relevant anyway.
“Did you hate him, Stephen?”
“I’m not going to lie about it. He was a control freak who had to have everything his way. Nothing was good enough for him. Nothing.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me,” the young man said bitterly. “Did I hate him? Yes. Enough to kill him? No. I didn’t want him to think he was that important to me, that he could get to me like he did my mother.”
There was bitterness in the younger Gardner ’s words, but also the ring of stark truth.
Apparently Darien felt the same way because she said, “Do you have any idea who might have done it, then?”
Something flickered in the young man’s eyes, and Colin’s instincts came to alert.
“No,” Stephen said.
“If you have even a guess, we’d like to hear it,” Colin said.
“You’re the cops, it’s your job to figure it out.”
“That,” Darien said softly, “sounds like something your father would have said.”
Good shot, Colin thought as he watched the young man wince.
“My father was always throwing his weight around,” Stephen acknowledged. “But he was bigger on family loyalty.”
Colin’s already alerted instincts spiked higher. But before he could continue, an imperious voice rang out, interrupting the proceedings thoroughly.
“I told you you were not to speak to my grandson without myself or his uncle present!”
They turned to see Cecelia bearing down on them. The chauffeur, he guessed, must have sounded the alarm. Cecelia was followed by Lyle, who looked rather anxious. Colin wondered if that was his normal mien when in the presence of his overbearing mother, or if he was nervous about something else.
“And, ma’am, I told you he is an adult, and we’re not required to allow a relative present while questioning him.”
“Questioning him?” Lyle asked sharply. “You make it sound like he’s a suspect when we know you’ve arrested Desmond!”
“I think we’ve come to an understanding,” Darien said, glancing at Stephen and giving him a smile that made the young man redden.
I know how you feel, kid, Colin thought ruefully. She does the same thing to me.