Michael arched an eyebrow. “You don’t say. Maybe I should keep you around.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Hey, fifty-fifty, I could say the same of you,” he said, meaning their joint ownership of Sloan Protection Resources.
“Yeah, I know. Just giving you a hard time.” Michael cast a cursory glance at the pages on his desk. He tapped his index finger against them. “Looks good. I see White Box is getting a full suite of security services. This is the company you met with in San Francisco a few weeks ago, right?”
Ryan nodded. He’d been slated to visit his mom in prison with Shannon at the time, but their mom had gotten the dates wrong, and Shannon wound up going solo. Ryan had been in San Francisco instead, meeting with the head of White Box, a guy named Charlie Stravinsky, and his right-hand man, Curtis. Charlie owned some restaurants, including a once-popular Chinese eatery, but had now converted them to private clubs, the kind that catered to gentleman with big wallets and hearty appetites for both women and bets. That kind of business needed security, and since White Box was expanding from San Francisco to Vegas, the firm had reached out to Ryan and Michael.
“And you said his VP of biz dev is coming in to sign the papers?”
“One p.m. today. Guy named Curtis,” Ryan said, tapping his watch. “He’s local here in Vegas. It’s on you for the final signatures. I worked on that deal all day Saturday and Sunday.”
“Aww, poor baby,” Michael said, breaking out an imaginary violin and running the bow across the strings.
“Whatever,” Ryan said, waving a hand dismissively. “Point being, I’m out of here the rest of the day.”
“You going to see 347-921?”
Michael didn’t even use their mom’s name, just her inmate number. At first it had rankled Ryan, and he’d told his brother as much. Use her name at least, he’d said. Michael never did, and Ryan had learned to let it go. Now, he was used to the way Dora Prince had been reduced to digits.
“I am.”
His brother made a scornful sound as he shook his head. “Why do you waste your time with that?”
“Why? You’re seriously asking why?”
Michael nodded as a guitar riff played through the speakers. Ryan rose, planted his palms on Michael’s desk, and stared at him, wondering if he was crazy. How did his brother not get it? “Because I want to know why the fuck the case is open. Don’t you?”
“She won’t tell you shit.”
Ryan stabbed his index finger against his sternum. “But I’m the only one she might tell something. That’s why I’m going. Because I’m the one who sees her, besides Shan. So if there is something to say, or someone else involved, I’m the one she’s going to talk to.”
Michael softened his tone but still held his ground. “Look, man. I get it. I understand she did some kind of number on you and convinced you she might not be guilty—but she’s so fucking guilty, Ryan. Day is day, and night is night, and our mother had our father killed. Maybe there was someone else involved, maybe Detective Winston is sniffing around for a middleman, or something between her and Stefano, but I guarantee that you’re not going to exonerate inmate number 347-921.”
Ryan gritted his teeth as frustration seared his nervous system, running a wild course through his body. “Here’s the bottom line. Someone knows something about our family that we don’t,” he said through tight lips. “I want to know what that something is, and I’m not going to stop until I find out.”
Michael stood up and clapped Ryan on the shoulder. “You’re a determined bastard. But you’re my determined bastard. So don’t speed like Sanders. We need you squeaky clean here at the company. No tickets, no record, nothing.”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head. I’m never dirty,” he said with a wink.
Michael tugged him in for a quick hug. “Love you, bro.”
“Love you, too,” Ryan grumbled.
This. His brothers and sister. His grandmother. His dog. That was real love to him—the only kind he trusted.
Chapter Eighteen
An elderly woman with curly gray hair opened the faded red door of the ranch-style home and waved goodbye to the man inside. “See you at the recital.”
“You’re going to be great. Your ‘Für Elise’ is fantastic.”
The voice blasted Ryan back in time, like a slingshot to the end of junior high. Luke Carlton, older, grayer, and paunchier, turned to Ryan as the woman ambled down the steps on the way to her car.
“Ryan Sloan,” Luke said and extended a hand. He wasn’t surprised to see Ryan, nor should he be.
Ryan had made an appointment for a piano lesson. He hadn’t used the name he’d had growing up—Ryan Paige-Prince—but Luke clearly knew who he was. He suspected that was a result of the reopened investigation.
Even so, Ryan’s legs felt wobbly and his stomach plummeted. It was as if he was having an out-of-body experience and someone else was grasping the palm of this brown-eyed man in khaki slacks and a sky blue Tommy Bahama shirt.
His mother’s ex-lover.
“Come in,” Luke said, letting go and gesturing to the home he’d lived in for the last five years. Before this meeting, Ryan had run a security check on Luke Carlton. He was only a few years older than Dora Prince, and he’d bought this home with his wife. Ryan didn't know how long Luke had been married, though.
“My kids are at camp,” Luke said as they walked through the living room. Okay, he’d been with her long enough to procreate. “Wife’s out grocery shopping. I take it you’re not really interested in a piano lesson?”
Ryan shrugged a shoulder. “Sometimes I think about taking it up.”
“Lots of adults do. Half my business these days is from adults who decide they’ve always wanted to learn how to play.” He guided Ryan through the kitchen. The sink was stacked with plates. Eggs had been served for breakfast. A loaf of rye bread was on the counter, a twist tie keeping it closed. An odd sense of the surreal descended on him. Everything about Luke’s home was so…normal. From the blinds that hung on the living room windows, to the beige couch with an indentation on it in front of a large TV screen, to scattered pictures of his kids and his wife, many of them on a beach, playing in the sand and surf.
Luke led him to an office area, with a baby grand piano, a couch, a chair, and a writing table.
“We might as well chat here,” Luke said and claimed a spot on the piano bench. He gestured to a wooden chair.
Ryan hardly wanted to sit. He didn’t want to stand. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He stuffed them into the pockets of his pants. He was used to talking to clients, to pitching the need for security services, to giving orders to troops in Europe during his days in the army.
But talking to his mother’s former lover from eighteen years ago gave uncomfortable new meaning. His throat was parched, and his tongue barely worked. But somehow, he found the ability to speak. “My dad’s case was reopened. The detective asked me about you and your relationship with my mom.” Ryan jumped right in, hitting the key points without mincing words.
Luke nodded. “I am aware of that. I met him, too. Winston. Seems sharp.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, simply to say something. “What does he know? Did you tell him how you knew my mom?”
“I told him we were in love, yes. And that it had been a mistake, since she was married,” Luke said, clasping his hands together. “I still ask God every day for forgiveness for having fallen in love with a married woman.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Ryan said, because he wasn’t here to talk about contrition for cheating. “I’m talking about her drug problem. The cocaine. That she got it from Stefano. Do they know?”
This was the first time he’d said those words aloud in nearly twenty years—drugs. Cocaine. That Stefano was her dealer. When he was in seventh grade, a year before the shooting, Ryan came home early from school on a half-day that his mom had forgotten about. He found her cutting lines at her sewing table. With a rolled-up dollar bill, she’d leaned in and inhaled a line of white powder off her Singer machine.