Chapter 17
GRANT
G rant stared at the pajama-clad man in front of him, his jaw tightening.
His dislike for the man aside, he wasn’t certain he could take any more life-changing news tonight.
After sitting in an interrogation room for hours, then a waiting room as he feared the worst for his wife and butler, his nerves were frayed.
And Alex’s odd personality wasn’t going to make them any better.
“You found something?” Julia asked, her voice weary, but intrigued.
He didn’t know how she managed to tolerate everyone so easily regardless of their personality.
“I did. Come on.” Alex waved for them to follow him up the stairs as he took them two by two.
Julia glanced up at him with a weak smile. “I can go if you prefer not to.”
“No, I want to see this new discovery. This is a nightmare, as usual. Lydia’s parting gift to us, I suppose. And as always, with Lydia, it’s trouble.”
Julia slid an arm around him. “We’ll get through it. At least neither of us is spending a night in a jail cell.”
He pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. “Thank goodness. Julia, don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I just…couldn’t let the police start questioning people and pin this on Sierra.”
“We need to speak with her,” Grant said with a sigh.
Julia offered him a reassuring glance as she squeezed his hand.
“That’s not going to be easy. I really don’t want to do it. I’m not sure if I can stomach hearing that Sierra did this.”
“Sierra did what?” Sierra asked as she pounded down the stairs in her high-heeled slippers.
Grant crinkled his brow as the conversation stared him in the face sooner than he wanted. “Sierra, what are you doing up?”
“Doing up? With Cyber Sitter checking on us every five minutes, who can sleep?” Sierra rolled her eyes. “I mean, we’re not five.”
“Has Alex been taking good care of you?”
Sierra descended the remaining stairs to the foyer. “We had more fun when we were planning Lydia’s demise, but she had to go and be murdered and ruin it for us all.”
Grant sucked in a breath at the words. The casual way his daughter mentioned her mother’s murder twisted his stomach into a knot. “Sierra, we…need to talk about that.”
“Why? They didn’t charge you, obviously. You’re home, right?”
“No, they aren’t charging me. Come into the office.”
“Fine,” she answered, “but make it quick. I’m getting hot chocolate for me and Kyle.”
Julia smiled at her as they stepped inside the dark room. “Still doing siblings things?”
Grant switched on his light, filling the room with a warm glow. Sierra sank into a chair and nodded. “Yes, I’ve got a few more movies on the list, then it’s off to video games.”
After offering drinks to Julia and Sierra, Grant poured himself a bourbon and took a sip, his heart a tumultuous sea.
At least Julia was with him. Her unwavering support had become his anchor through the tempest that Lydia had brought upon their lives.
The thought of confronting Sierra weight heavily on him, a testament to the complex web of love and duty that bound this unconventional family together.
He resigned himself to the fact that he couldn’t put it off any longer. He perched on the corner of the desk, taking another long sip of bourbon to steel his nerves.
“Sierra, ummm…there’s something we need to discuss.”
Sierra crossed her arms and stared up at him. “Yeah, you said. About what? If you still think I’m going to somehow fall apart after Lydia’s timely demise, I’m not. I’m glad she’s gone. She’s tried to rip way too much from this family, including the only person I view as a mother.”
She reached for Julia and took her hand.
“I appreciate that, Sierra,” Julia said, patting her stepdaughter’s hand, “but that’s exactly why we need to ask you a very…difficult question.”
Sierra switched her gaze between Julia and Grant. “What?”
Grant shifted his weight on the desk, his muscles tensing. “Did you have anything to do with Lydia’s death?”
“What?” Sierra asked. “Seriously?”
Julia heaved a sigh. “We know you saw her. Alex found a security video showing a number of people visiting her just before she fell. You were the last one on that video.”
Sierra leapt from her seat and stalked a few steps away, wrapping her arms around herself. “So, you think I did it.”
“We aren’t saying that,” Julia answered as she rose and slid her arm through Grant’s. “But given that you were the last one on that footage, we were afraid the police would go after you.”
“Do they know?” Sierra asked, still refusing to face them. “Is that why you’re home? Are they going to come for me?”
“No,” Julia answered. “Alex made sure the footage went missing. They have no idea who went to Lydia’s tonight.”
“Outside of the people who admitted to it,” Grant added.
Sierra’s features scrunched as she twisted toward them. “Who?”
Grant took another sip of his bourbon before he answered. “Me, Julia, and Worthington.”
“Worthington?”
“Sierra, you weren’t the only one who confronted Lydia before her death.” Julia crossed to her, taking her hands. “Kyle did, your father, me, Worthington, and then you.”
“Everyone?” Sierra asked, her voice a whisper.
“Everyone. We all went to talk to Lydia,” Julia said with a nod.
Grant set his glass on the desk and rose. “But none of us were the last one to see her. So, please, Sierra, you need to be honest. If we’re going to protect you, we need to know what happened.”
Sierra’s lips tugged into a frown as she flicked her gaze to the floor. “You think I killed her.”
The statement stung him. He didn’t know how to respond. Thankfully, Julia took the lead.
“We don’t think anything, Sierra,” she said. “We only know what we saw on the video. And now we’re asking you to tell us what happened. We just want to know so we can figure out the best way to protect you.”
“I don’t need protection,” Sierra answered, her voice icy.
This conversation was going worse than he’d anticipated. Sierra’s ability to shut down when hurt or upset would make this a battle.
Julia slid a lock of hair over Sierra’s shoulder. “That’s not true. We all need to protect each other. Especially if when you left that room, your mother was alive.”
“Julia’s right. We’re just asking what happened. We need to know. And if your answer is that you were somehow involved in what happened to Lydia, that’s…we’ll handle it, Sierra. Okay?”
“So, if I said I went there, and I killed her…you wouldn’t hate me?” Sierra’s eyes flicked between the two of them.
“I could never hate you, baby,” Grant said as he slid a hand onto her shoulder.
Sierra’s eyebrows knitted as she focused on Julia.
“Me either,” Julia answered.
Grant wrapped an arm around Julia’s shoulders. “She’s telling the truth. Sierra, she went to the police station tonight and told them she was at Lydia’s not just to save me, but to shift any suspicion from you just in case. That’s how much she loves you.”
“You did that for me?” Sierra asked, her voice a squeak as her eyes turned glassy.
“I did. When I saw that video, I reacted. I didn’t want them coming after you.”
Sierra pulled Julia into a hug. “Step-mommy, I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Sierra,” she answered before she pulled back. “And I would do it all again for you. But if the police somehow find out you were the last one at Lydia’s, we need to have a plan in place to protect you.”
“I don’t need protection. I…I didn’t kill her.”
Grant breathed out a sigh of relief at the words. “Thank God.”
Sierra swallowed hard. “I went there…and I wanted to kill her. I really did. I just…wanted her to pay for what she’d done, for all the pain she’d caused. She nearly killed Julia!”
Grant pulled Sierra closer to him in a half-hug and kissed the top of her head. “I know, baby. And I think that’s what made everyone go there.”
“She just…never stops. And I wanted to stop her.”
“But you didn’t,” Julia said.
Sierra shook her head. “No. I…lost my nerve. I’m not as tough as I’d like to pretend.”
“That’s not true. You are very tough, Sierra. You’re just not a killer. And that’s a good thing. You confronted her, but you didn’t stoop to her level.”
Sierra raised her teary eyes to Julia before she pulled her into another hug.
“She said some awful things to me again, but I didn’t care.
I just…I told her I had a mother now. And I didn’t believe anything she said.
She laughed at me. But I said she’d see when you adopted me.
She got mad about that and threw a glass at me. I left after that.”
“Good,” Grant said as he cupped his daughter’s face. “She could have hurt you.”
“Now I can’t stick it to her with those adoptions papers.”
“Another good thing. Your adoption shouldn’t be about sticking it to your mother. It should be about our bond.”
Sierra wiped a tear from her cheek as she offered them a shaky smile. “Yeah. You’re right. Our bond.”
“I love you, Sierra. And I’m really glad you didn’t do anything to Lydia.”
“Well, what’s going to happen to me if the police find out I was the last person who saw her alive, though? They’ll think I did it. Just like you did.”
“You’ll be the most likely suspect,” Grant said with a nod. “But Mitchell can–”
“What? Work a miracle? Evie wasn’t even dead, and you nearly went through a murder trial.” Sierra shifted her weight, chewing her lower lip.
“No one is going to see that tape, Sierra. So if anyone spotted you there, we can cast some doubt on the time they say you were there.” Julia squeezed her hands. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
Sierra nodded and sniffled. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. This could have been any of us in this position, Sierra,” Julia answered. “We all went there to confront Lydia. All of us. This could have happened to any of us.”
Sierra sucked in a breath. “Well, good thing we all stick together.”
Julia pulled her into a hug. “Okay, well, you go do your sibling things with Kyle. I’m going to talk to Alex. He says he found something else. Let’s hope it’ll clear all of us.”