His feet easily followed the path they walked many times before to bring him to the door to the attic. Unlike many houses, there was no trapdoor or dangling string to reveal folding stairs and an unstable railing. A door that looked like it could lead to any bedroom opened up to a sturdy wooden staircase that led into the attic. It was large by the standards of the house, finished with a stable floor and walls rather than the exposed beams and insulation of most attics.
He climbed the stairs but found nothing. He hoped Emma would have brought the contents of the storage unit back to the house and tucked them away up here. It would be easier for him to go through, but there was nothing there. Giving a last fleeting look to the open space, he climbed back down the steps and roamed the rest of the house. He should have been more cautious. Emma could get back home any minute with the sheriff in tow, and he should have searched out what he wanted and left.
But he was drawn into the house, captivated by the damage of daily life buffed out of the floors, the layers of paint sealing time into the walls, the pictures no longer hanging there. He moved along the hallway slowly, taking it in. He searched through her room, running his fingers along the edge of her dresser and breathing in the smell of her clinging to her bedding.
By the time he made it into the living room, he hadn't found anything that looked like it came from the storage unit. She must have left it all there. It was frustrating, but just before he walked back out of the house, he noticed something sitting on the coffee table. A manila envelope sitting on a stack of papers, with a familiar return address. Moving the envelope aside, he sifted through the papers. A smile curled his lips.
"What are you up to, Emma?" he whispered.
Some of his humor faded when he found the certificate of live birth from the midwife. He stared at it for several long seconds before folding it in half, slipping it into his jacket, and rushing away.
Chapter Eighteen
“So, what did you think?” Sam asks after Michael leaves.
“What do you mean?”
“About him. What do you think about him? I know you well enough to know you formed an opinion.”
I pop the rest of a french fry into my mouth and take the opportunity of chewing to glare across the table at him.
“I feel like I should be offended right now,” I tell him.
“Yet you're not,” he points out. “Because you know it's true as much as I do. I saw you watching him from the moment he sat down with us. You weren’t just having a conversation with him. You were evaluating him. So, tell me. What's the verdict? What did you think about him?”
“I don't know, I admit. He's so... even. I don't really know how else to describe it.”
“Emotionless?” Sam asks.
“No. Not emotionless. He definitely showed something. But it was subdued like he has a lot of practice tightly controlling everything he thinks and feels and shows.”
“Someone as wealthy and powerful as him probably does,” Sam nods. “He spends his entire life interacting with other people who all have expectations of him. His money isn't old. Not that his family was ever wanting for much, but Michael Blair created Michael Blair. Everybody knows that and has very strong opinions on what that means and what it should look like.”
“I guess that explains why his brother lives in the in-law suite rather than his own place,” I muse. “Riding his brother’s coattails a bit?”
“Michael and Daniel have always been close. Ever since Michael took his inheritance and started nurturing it into a business empire, he made sure to bring his brother along with him. He's kept him in a good job, taken care of him.”
“And the way Daniel thanks him is to openly hate his brother's fiancée?” I ask. “That doesn't sound particularly loving to me.”
“Daniel has always wanted to take care of Michael the way he's taking care of him. He doesn't do it in the same way; he always keeps an eye out for him. He watches over him and wants what's best for him. That's always been screening clients and managing aspects of the business so Michael could concentrate on the parts of that he was passionate about. But when he met Everly, things changed. To hear it from Daniel, he immediately pegged her as nothing but a gold digger. She wanted the type of life Michael could give her because it's not something that she ever could have had any other way.”
“How did he know that?” I ask.
“Everly didn't lie about where she came from or her family. Some women try to hide their pasts or come up with personas to slip into society and snag a wealthy man. But not her. She didn't mind talking about her parents, or that she was from an immigrant family. She came from meager beginnings and was working hard to find her way in life. Apparently, she didn't really have much of an option but to tell him that. They met in a restaurant, but she was the waitress, not another patron.”
“Did he have this kind of problem with Payton?”
“Not that anybody's mentioned. He didn't express any distaste toward her, either. According to him, they all got along,” Sam shrugs.
“That doesn't make any sense. Payton didn't come from money and isn't exactly the kind of woman I would think of as sophisticated. Nothing against her personally, of course, I’m just not going to eagerly anticipate seeing her name in the society pages. And she had Michael’s baby,” I point out.
“Who Daniel absolutely adored. He didn't come right out and talk about it, but I think he had the same type of opinion about their relationship as Michael and Payton did. He didn't see anything serious or lasting between them. It didn't really matter who she was as long as she made him happy for the time and then went along her way. That was the difference with Everly. She caught Michael's attention in a completely different way. She was young and beautiful, bold and vivacious, but also playful and sweet. She was everything Michael ever wanted in a wife and a mother figure for Peter. He had his biological mother, of course, and she was very involved. But Michael saw Everly being in the home with them and making a huge difference in both their lives. In Daniel's mind, it was all an act on her part. She saw his vulnerability as a single father and took advantage of it to position herself to rake in a continuous stream of money for as long as their marriage lasted.”
“You sound like you agree with him,” I note.
Sam takes a sip of his drink and shakes his head as he swallows.
“No. It's not that I agree with him. I can just see his perspective. I've dealt with plenty of men scorned by pretty women who manipulate their way into the men's lives, drain them, then leave them broke and tattered. And I've known the family and friends around those men who always say they wish they'd known the type of person the woman was, or they would have said something if they did have suspicions. There's always regret not warning the person earlier or trying to convince them to leave the woman alone. With Daniel, he wasn't willing to have that regret if he could help it. He wanted to make sure his brother knew he didn't think Everly was good enough for him. He thought she was just warming up for a life as a pampered trophy wife. He's made a few statements suggesting he thinks that's why Everly killed Peter. Pretending to fawn all over him was getting to her, and she didn't want anyone standing in the way of her time with Michael.”
“So, he didn't like Everly because he didn't think she was good enough to be in their family, and because his brother actually found someone he wanted to marry? And he blamed her for a child’s death because he thought she was just trying to get rid of him so she could have Michael and his money all to himself?”