Broken Rules Page 12

  “Of course, Mr. Reynard,” Adam said, his shoulders subtly squaring and head going up.

  “My dad and I had a fight this evening,” Sterling said. He waved off the look of concern on Adam’s face. “I’m fine. I just… don’t want to be disturbed. Can I trust you to keep anyone from knocking on my door tonight?”

  Guilt flickered over Adam’s expressive face, confirming Sterling’s hunch. “Doesn’t your father own your apartment, Mr. Reynard?”

  Sterling peeled off three hundred-dollar bills from his roll and pressed them into Adam’s hand. “I think you’ll find that the lease is in my name. In the morning, you’ll get the same if I’m not disturbed tonight.”

  Adam bobbed his head. “Yes sir, Mr. Reynard. No one gets up. You’ll have the place to yourself.”

  “I knew I could count on you,” Sterling said. “Buy your little girls something nice.” He turned and headed for the elevator, steps suddenly dragging as the adrenaline of the evening wore off.

  He wanted to sleep for a month.

  Sterling leaned his head against the glass of the elevator, remembering how Sanyam had ridden up with him that night, what felt like forever ago.

  “I fuck everything up.”

  He’d been warning Sanyam, too drunk and exhausted to better articulate what he was trying to say, and in the end, it hadn’t mattered. Sanyam had touched him and Sterling’s resolve had fled like shadows at dawn, fleeting wisps under Sanyam’s gentle hands.

  The elevator dinged, startling Sterling out of his restless doze. He straightened and dragged his keys from his pocket as he stumbled for his apartment. His bed sounded like the best idea in the world.

  He plugged in his phone, set it to silent, and fell face-first across the bed.

  Somewhere around 3:00 a.m., Sterling was jerked out of sleep by a heavy pounding on the door.

  Swearing, he nearly fell off the bed in his haste to get up, and he was halfway through the apartment before he realized he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, rumpled and wrinkled.

  The knocking sounded again, even louder and more insistent.

  “Goddammit, Adam!” Sterling snarled as he jerked the door open.

  Adam was on the other side, wringing his hands, guilt and misery all over his face. Standing behind him were two men in greatcoats.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Reynard,” Adam said. “But they have badges.”

  Sterling stared at the ID that the first man held out. It took him several tries to focus on it. Gulden, it read in small script at the bottom, below Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

  “You don’t have a horse,” Sterling said before his brain caught up.

  Gulden didn’t smile. He was short, barrel-chested, and in his midforties, with a face that had seen its share of sun, judging by the fanning of lines around his eyes.

  “Mr. Sterling Reynard?” he asked. “Detective David Gulden, this is Detective Reece Laplante. May we come in?”

  “If you must,” Sterling said. He stepped aside to let the officers into the apartment but caught Adam’s arm as he tried to slip away and pressed several more bills into his hand.

  When he turned, the officers were facing him, their eyes sober.

  “Sir,” Gulden said. “Have you checked your phone recently?”

  “I’ve been asleep,” Sterling said. A thought struck him, his brain still foggy with sleep-deprivation, and he straightened. “Is this about the thing?”

  Gulden and Laplante exchanged a glance.

  “Thing, sir?” Gulden said.

  “The thing,” Sterling said. “You know, the thing with my father. Is that what this is about?”

  “It is safe to say there is indeed a thing with your father that we need to discuss with you,” Gulden said carefully. “Could you elaborate on what that thing might be?”

  Sterling rubbed his face, still half-asleep. “The… fight. This evening, at work—did Donna call you?”

  “No, sir, Donna didn’t call us,” Gulden said. “What fight are you referring to?”

  Sterling flipped a hand. “It’s not important. If that’s not why you’re here, then why don’t you stop playing games and tell me?”

  Laplante nodded.

  Gulden spoke. “Sir, we are very sorry to report that your father was killed in a car accident this evening. Take all the time you need to process this information—we understand how much of a shock it must be.”

  Sterling’s world tilted on its axis. Gulden’s lips were still moving, but all sound had been replaced by a dull buzzing noise.

  Sterling shook his head, trying to clear it.

  “That’s—that’s impossible. I saw him a few hours ago.”

  Gulden glanced at Laplante again and inclined his head a fraction. “Yes, sir, so we have been led to understand. If I may, where were you this evening between the hours of seven and midnight?”

  Sterling reeled, catching himself on the mantelpiece. “You think I—you think I had something to do with it? But—wasn’t it an accident?”

  “There were several things about the scene that raised… questions. We just need your whereabouts so we can remove you from suspicion,” Gulden said smoothly.

  Sterling tightened his grip on the mantelpiece, until his knuckles protested the strain. “I was—I was here. I worked late. I came straight home.”

  “And can anyone corroborate that?”

  “Adam—” Sterling pried his fingers free and sank into the nearby chair. He looked up. “Adam saw me when I came in. I talked to him.”

  “And before you left the office?” Gulden asked, settling on the couch opposite and resting his elbows on his knees. His hands dangled between his legs, big and strong and square, and Sterling suddenly missed Sanyam with a desperation that bordered on a physical ache.

  He struggled to marshal his thoughts. “I—we fought. At the office.”

  Gulden’s face told him this wasn’t news. “Perhaps it’s time to tell us what you fought about, sir.”

  “Money,” Sterling whispered, his lips numb. “He was stealing it. Embezzling from the company. Millions of dollars over time, in fractions of percentages, that no one would ever miss, apparently, unless they knew what they were looking for.”

  “And how did you know?” Gulden asked.

  Sterling shrugged helplessly. “Donna gave me client databases. Said to familiarize myself with them, learn the numbers, get comfortable with them. She said something about… looking for patterns. I didn’t know what she meant, but I’ve known her all my life. She knows I like puzzles; I figured she was just trying to keep me engaged.” He glanced up. “Why are you asking me about this now? Do you think this was more than an accident?”

  “What happened to your hand, sir?” Gulden asked.

  Reminded, Sterling glanced down. His knuckles were bruised, he realized with faint surprise. “I—punched my dashboard.”

  “Do that a lot, do you?” Laplante asked. “Lash out in anger, I mean.”

  “Only on days I find out my father’s an embezzling bastard,” Sterling snapped. He pushed himself upright and stumbled for the bedroom. His phone was on the charger, still set to silent. He’d missed twelve calls and several dozen texts, he realized, his stomach sinking.

  Cricket had called at least five times, leaving three messages. Dorian had called twice and left one. His mother had only called once. No messages from her.

  Sterling couldn’t seem to make his legs work properly, but somehow he made it back to the living room, where Gulden and Laplante were waiting.

  “How did it happen?” Sterling asked. He couldn’t feel his fingers. He wiggled them experimentally.

  “We don’t have all the details yet,” Gulden said.

  Sterling made an impatient motion. “Tell me what you do know, then.”

  “He was driving on the freeway,” Laplante said, his voice matter-of-fact. There was no sympathy in his tone, and Sterling was dimly grateful for that.

  Laplante continued. “From what we can g
ather, he lost control or his brakes failed. Either way, the end result was the same. He was involved in a collision at approximately 95 kilometers per hour, although we’ll know more when the troopers finish processing the scene.”

  The scene. The scene where my father died, crushed in a mangled heap of bloody, twisted steel.

  Sterling’s knees buckled, and Gulden lunged, guiding him to the chair.

  “Easy, son,” he said. “Head down, deep breaths.”

  “I want to see him,” Sterling managed.

  “Your mother identified the body,” Laplante said. “I would recommend you wait a day. If you still want to see him before he’s interred, we can arrange that.”

  “Mom,” Sterling whispered. “I need—where is she? I have to see her.”

  “She’s… sedated,” Gulden said.

  “Cricket,” Sterling said. “And Dorian—are they okay?”

  “They’re understandably very shaken,” Laplante said. “We can take you to the house if you would like.”

  Sterling nodded and stood, pausing as a thought hit him. “Am I a suspect?”

  Laplante and Gulden shared a glance, silent communication passing between them in the lift of Gulden’s eyebrow and the tiny shake of Laplante’s head.

  “Not at this time,” Gulden said finally. “It appears to have been an accident. But you understand we have to rule out all other possibilities.”

  “Let’s go,” Sterling said. “I want to see my family.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  One month later

  “WHAT DO you mean, it’s all gone?” Alice said, her voice shrill. She was all in black, a handkerchief held to her face and the tip of her nose pink from crying.

  Noble Whittier squirmed in his seat. They were in the Reynard library, gathered to hear the reading of the will. Sterling was sitting on the couch beside Cricket with Dorian on her other side, unable to quite believe what he was hearing.

  “Your husband siphoned millions of dollars from hundreds of investors, Alice. They all want their money back. In addition, he left behind staggering amounts of debt that must be paid.”

  Alice waved the handkerchief. “So sell some of the antiques. They’re worth a fortune.”

  “Believe me, they’ll have to be sold,” Noble said. He was a stuffy man, short and stocky, with square fingers and a pugnacious jaw. “As will the house, the vehicles, the yacht, and Sterling’s apartment. From my calculations, if you liquidate 95 percent of your physical assets, you’ll be able to pay off the debts.”

  Cricket gasped, and Dorian swore viciously under his breath. Sterling didn’t move, frozen to his seat. This couldn’t be happening. Bad enough he’d killed his father. Now this? He stared at Noble, whose lips were still moving, but Sterling couldn’t hear over the buzzing in his ears.

  Alice was openly weeping into her dainty linen handkerchief. “There has to be something you can do!”

  Noble shifted his weight again. “I’m doing everything I can, Alice. I promise. But you need to start making arrangements to sell your valuables and contact a Realtor to put the house on the market.”

  “What about the trust funds?” Alice asked, lifting her head. “Couldn’t we use those?”

  “The trust funds are tied up in so much red tape that they’re basically untouchable,” Noble said. “I suppose it’s possible that once they’re freed, you could use the balances to pay off the bulk of the debts, but that’ll be years, Alice, there’s no telling how long it will take.”

  Dorian patted Cricket’s knee. “You can stay with me and Tatum. It’s a one-bedroom, but if you don’t mind sleeping on the couch, it’ll work.”

  Sterling stood up, and everyone turned to look at him. “I have to—I can’t—” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I have to go.”

  “Good,” Alice said, the sudden venom in her voice shocking. “This is your fault anyway. I can’t believe you did this. We were doing fine, and you went and rocked the boat. How could you?”

  “Mom!” Cricket protested, reaching for Sterling’s hand, but he pulled away.

  “She’s right,” he said. “I fucked it all up.” He hesitated, looking at his mother, her slim shoulders bowed and shaking as she wept. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  Alice didn’t answer, and after a moment, Sterling nodded and left.

  In his Lamborghini, he called Colby.

  “Hey, man!” Colby’s voice was too loud, overly cheerful in that way he had when he knew his friends weren’t. “Been too long! How you holding up?”

  “Can I sleep on your couch for a couple of weeks?” Sterling asked abruptly.

  Colby hesitated. “You losing your apartment?”

  “Have to sell it to pay Dad’s debts,” Sterling said. “Can I?”

  “Maybe for a week or so,” Colby said, doubt in his voice. “But you know how my girlfriend is, man. She—”

  “She doesn’t like me, I know,” Sterling said. I don’t much like her either. “A week would be fine. I’ll be there tonight, okay?”

  “Sure, sure,” Colby said, clearly relieved that Sterling wasn’t going to make it difficult. “I’ll throw some steaks on the grill. We can have some beer; be like college again!”

  “Sounds good,” Sterling said. “Thanks, Col, you’re a good guy.”

  “Hey, I just wish I could let you stay longer. But get your skinny ass over here. Let’s get shitfaced!”

  Sterling hung up and dropped the phone on the passenger’s seat. He smoothed a reverent hand over the rich red leather. He’d had the Lamborghini almost exactly a year, a twenty-third birthday present from his father. It felt like a lifetime, but not long enough, either.

  “I’ll miss you,” he said aloud, touching the dent he’d put in the dashboard. Sighing, he put the car in gear and headed for his apartment.

  Halfway there, he changed directions and went to the office instead. He’d left several things there that he wanted, if they hadn’t been seized as evidence.

  He was startled to see Donna at her desk when he walked in.

  Donna’s eyes welled with tears, and she dashed around the desk to hug him.

  “I’m so sorry,” she wept into his neck. “I’m so sorry, Fox, so sorry. If I’d known, I never would have—”

  Sterling froze in the act of patting her gingerly on the back. “What?”

  Donna pulled away, her face blotchy and nose running. “When I gave you those files,” she said through her sniffles. “I didn’t know—”

  “What are you talking about?” Sterling demanded. “Gave me the files?”

  Donna nodded, plucking a tissue from the box on her desk and wiping her nose. “I suspected,” she said, her voice muffled. “I thought—I mean, I didn’t have any evidence, but I had this feeling… like maybe your father wasn’t playing by the rules, you know? And when he told me to give you some client files so you could get comfortable with the database, I thought—”

  “You thought maybe I’d figure it out,” Sterling whispered, blood running cold.

  “I swear, if it had been anything more than a gut instinct, I would have said something!” Donna cried. “I just thought, if there was something there and you found it, then well and good, and if you didn’t, then no harm done, right?”

  Her eyes beseeched him to understand, but Sterling couldn’t move, couldn’t reassure her that it was okay. He didn’t blame her. All he could see were the photos someone had leaked to the press of his father’s mangled car, the lurid headline that screamed Yates Reynard Dead After Embezzling Millions.

  “I have to… I was just picking up some stuff,” he managed.

  Donna nodded again, more tears running down her face, and Sterling fought through the shock to reach out, grab her, and pull her into a hug.

  She clutched at his shirt as another sob shook her slim frame.

  “It’s not your fault,” Sterling said, blinking back his own tears.

  “Not going to s-stop me from b-blaming myself,” Donna managed, hiccupp
ing.

  “I know,” Sterling said. He patted her on the back and let her go. “You’ll come to the funeral, right?”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want me there,” Donna said.

  “You’re practically family,” Sterling told her. “Of course we want you there.”

  “Okay,” Donna whispered, giving him a watery smile. “I’ll come, then.”

  WHEN STERLING got back to the apartment, he packed everything he couldn’t live without. It made a depressingly small pile, he realized, staring at his two suitcases filled with clothes and very little else. He rolled them to the door, wrote a note explaining the situation for Astrid and a letter of recommendation for future employers, and went back for the box of broken glass.

  Finally he took one last look around the spotless apartment. He’d eaten curry at the table with Sanyam, fallen asleep on the couch beside him, slept with his face pressed to Sanyam’s hip after the second sub drop—Sterling shook himself. Maybe someday he’d examine why his only real memories of the place were when Sanyam was with him, but his cab was waiting for him. He left the keys in the bowl and closed the door behind him.

  Colby bounded outside when Sterling’s cab pulled up. He lived in a Spanish-style villa, stucco roof glowing in the setting sun. His girlfriend, Annaliese, stood in the door as Colby helped him haul the suitcases up the sidewalk.

  Sterling smiled at Annaliese, unable to shake her hand with his arms full of Cricket’s glass. “Thanks for having me.”

  Annaliese shrugged, unsmiling, a tall, slim girl with blue eyes too big for her face and brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. “It’s Colby’s house.” She stepped aside and let them enter.

  Sterling hid his flinch and followed Colby down the dark hall to the guest bedroom, where Colby set the suitcases down and took the box of glass fragments from him.

  “What’s in here?” he asked curiously as it clinked.

  “Broken glass,” Sterling said. “Is staying here going to be a problem?”

  Colby waved his question away. “Nah, man. Liese’ll come around. She just likes to have me to herself. Honeymoon phase, or whatever they call it when you’re not actually married.” He grinned and flopped onto the bed, his blond hair a bright contrast to the purple-and-blue quilt spread out under him.