Chapter 2 #2
“Your father taught you to be decent,” Cheryl replied, the first crack of anger audible beneath her control. “And somewhere along the line you decided that wasn’t enough.”
He leaned back, chains rasping as the cuffs shifted.
“Decency doesn’t keep an empire upright.
Fear does. Information does. Which is why I took what I needed before Father could use it against my grandparents.
” Cheryl gasped. “Oh, yes I know all about your plans. But don’t worry I made sure nothing would touch them. ”
Cheryl’s shoulders stiffened. “How?”
Peter said easily. “By moving what mattered. By making sure anything the government found would have holes and point right back at you and father.”
Carrie glanced around the room, and the tension could be cut with a knife; it was so thick.
Matt and Alisha stood watching the scene with her close to her father.
Paula scribbled a note, her pen scratching quickly.
Trent watched Peter with the flat, steady expression he reserved for people he had already decided were dangerous.
“Katy is dead,” Cheryl said. “And Dick is in a hospital fighting for his life. Was that your idea of closing the holes?”
Something flickered across Peter’s face—annoyance, or perhaps the memory of something that had gone out of his control. “Katy got in the way,” he said at last. “She was going to ruin everything.”
“By telling the truth?” Cheryl pressed.
“By helping Father betray the family,” he snapped.
“By pretending that a lifetime of business could be washed away because some small-town princess didn’t like how the papers were filed.
” He leaned forward, his voice low and hot.
“I was done being the errand boy. Granddad put me in charge. I ran with it.”
“You ran over people,” Cheryl said, the tremor gone from her voice. “People you loved.”
Peter’s smile thinned. “You keep using that word as if it should stop me.”
Cheryl let out a long, unsteady breath and folded her hands. “Did you mean to kill her?” she asked.
Peter hesitated. His gaze slid to the corner as if he were calculating.
“No, I just wanted to hurt her and intimidate her,” he said finally, his tone flat.
“Katy was supposed to be a message to Father. But she fought, and I pushed too hard.” He shrugged, a practiced gesture pretending to be casual. “It ended the problem either way.”
Alisha made a small, stricken sound. Matt’s jaw clenched, and his hands curled into fists at his sides. Carrie felt the same surge of heat and grief, but she forced herself to keep breathing evenly. This was the part where control mattered.
“And Dick?” Cheryl asked. “What did you do to him?”
“I left him with time to consider his choices,” Peter said. “The room was cold. The drug was clean.” He lifted a shoulder again, as if they were discussing the weather. “For the life of me, I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t finish it. Call that a flaw if you want.”
Cheryl closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and sat taller.
“Peter,” she said quietly, “I’m going to say this once, and I hope it lands.
Your grandparents were never your family in the way you might have imagined.
They used you. They used your father. They tried to use me until I stopped them.
You think I turned on them? No. They never stood with us to begin with. ”
Peter laughed softly. “And now you want me to believe you’ve always been the hero.” He nodded toward the glass, where he knew the observers stood. “This is where you perform your redemption for the audience.”
Cheryl didn’t look away. “I am not performing. I am choosing. And I am choosing to tell you the truth before I leave this room.” She leaned in, her voice steady.
“Your grandparents are done. The government has them. The ‘evidence’ you found in my shop was a plant to flush leaks, and you walked right into it. You have no empire to inherit. All that is left is what you do now.”
The words hit. They hit hard. Peter stood so fast his chair skidded backward and smacked the wall. The cuffs snapped him up short, and he glared at Cheryl with a fury that made the hair rise on Carrie’s arms.
“You traitor,” he spat. “You think they’re safe? You think you’re safe?”
Trent moved before the second echo of the chair faded. He was through the side door and into the room with two agents close behind him. “That’s enough,” Trent said, his voice dropping into that command tone Carrie had heard only a few times in his life. “Officer, take him back.”
Peter jerked against the cuffs. “You won’t keep me forever.”
Trent didn’t react. He motioned to the guard, who secured Peter’s arm and guided him to the door. “We’ll see you later,” Trent said evenly.
Peter’s breath sawed as he wrestled against the escort. He twisted once more to look at Cheryl. “You picked the wrong side,” he said, and then the door pulled him away.
The room beyond the glass emptied of his anger, and in its wake came a strange quiet. Cheryl remained seated, hands folded, eyes on the metal. Carrie found herself exhaling without realizing she had been holding her breath.
Paula clicked off the audio, and they left the room, where she turned to Trent. “Get him processed,” she said. “I want a full transcript of this conversation on my desk in a couple of hours.”
Trent nodded. “On it.”
Alisha turned toward Carrie, outrage and sorrow chasing each other across her face. “At least we have it in his words,” she said. “He killed Katy. He left Dick to die.”
Matt’s voice came low. “And he used our grandkids to try to pry open a box he didn’t even understand.”
Paula set her pen down and faced them. “He went after Maggie and Cody because he believed Ian had the cache Trevor put together and that Carrie and Matt were the quickest way to force a hand.”
“What’s going to happen to Cheryl?” Carrie asked.
“As I know you protected Arno, I’m sure you understand that you’d do anything for your kid.
I hope you keep that in mind with Cheryl.
” She felt the key in her pocket. “Whom I’m sure will give you all the evidence she has on the Stansteads in order to cut a deal for her and Dick, who were trying to right his parents’ wrongs. ”
Paula’s gaze moved to Cheryl, who still had not looked up from the table. “It depends on what she gives us,” Paula said. “And on what Ian Marshall, Lori Carlton, and Mr. Parker want to do.”
Matt rubbed a hand over his jaw, the anger in him cooling into a practical resolve. “If the cove mess can be untangled and I don’t lose my shirt, my house, or my sanity, I won’t push for more pain.”
“Lori won’t either, not if she hears the full story,” Carrie added. “And I think Ian deserves the chance to say so himself.”
Paula nodded once. “We’ll take that under advisement.”
Trent reappeared at the door, his expression settling back into that focused calm. “Peter’s secure,” he said. “Medical is updating us on Dick Stanstead’s condition. He’s alive, and they’re cautiously optimistic. The tox screen is consistent with a sedative, not a lethal dose.”
Alisha let out a breath. “Good. For Katy’s sake. For Ian’s.”
Paula motioned toward the corridor. “Come on. Let’s get Cheryl into debrief. After that, we’ll talk about the next steps.”
“Thank you,” Cheryl murmured, stepping beside Carrie. “For pushing them to let me talk to him.”
“I pushed because you made sense,” Carrie said, keeping her voice quiet. “Now, keep making sense. Help us clean up the land mess at the cove.”
“I will,” Cheryl said. Her mouth trembled, then firmed. “It’s the only way any of this pays back what’s been broken. I just need to find my half-sister.”
An agent stepped to the doorway, ready to guide Carrie and Matt down the hall for the formal identification.
“We need to take your formal statements,” the agent said to them.
Carrie nodded as she was about to turn with Matt, and she caught Paula’s eye, who was standing beside Cheryl, giving instructions to Trent.
A realization struck her like a lightning bolt as she suddenly realized why she’d thought she’d known Cheryl when the woman appeared on her doorstep, and a question popped into Carrie’s head.
“Paula,” Carrie said carefully. “This is personal, and maybe out of bounds. But… how old are you? And where were you born?”
The room stilled. Paula blinked, startled by the pivot. “I’m fifty-four,” she said after a beat. “I was born at home. The same house I currently live in. My father told me our neighbor, just out of nursing school, delivered me.”
Carrie’s heart gave a single hard beat. She glanced at Matt and then at Alisha, who both looked back at her, sensing the current she felt rising in the air.
“Did your father ever tell you anything about your mother?” Carrie asked, her voice gentler now.
“No,” Paula said. “Only that she left me with him the day I was born. I promised him that I’d never look for her, as apparently it was the condition of his getting sole custody of me. He made me promise to never look for her, and I didn’t.”
Carrie held her gaze a moment longer before glancing at Cheryl and then at Paula, their profiles oddly mirrored in the fluorescent light.
“Cheryl, the first time I met you, I thought I knew you from somewhere. But it wasn’t from your wedding business ads,” Carrie told her, seeing the curious look on Cheryl’s face. “It’s because you reminded me of someone.” She pointed. “You reminded me of Paula!”
Paula’s brows drew in. “What are you saying?”
“That you’re the missing Winter’s heir!” Peter’s voice had them all turning to where he was being transferred to holding. “The police chief is right. All you two ever had to do to figure it out was stand looking in a mirror together.”
“Is this true, Peter?” Cheryl snapped her voice, brooking no argument.
“Yes.” Peter’s lip curled nastily. “The woman you’ve always despised because your mommy favored her… well, now you know why she did.”
The guard tightened his grip and pulled him along. Peter laughed once, the sound echoing off the painted cinder block, and then he was gone around the bend.
In the doorway, the room behind Carrie went very still. Cheryl’s eyes had lifted to Paula as if pulled by a thread. Paula’s hand had closed into tight balls as if she needed the anchor.
“I think, Cheryl, you should give this to Paula,” Carrie said retrieving the key that Cheryl gave her earlier. “Whatever is in there… I think Paula will be able to help you with it better than I can, considering everything we’ve learned.”
Cheryl nodded and took the key back from Carrie.
Carrie felt Matt’s hand brush the small of her back in a quiet, steadying touch. She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. The mystery was solved, and hopefully so would this land deal mess be now.
“Come on, let’s give them some space they have a lot to talk about,” Carrie said softly to Matt. “Let’s do what we came to do and get this over with so we can get back to our grandkids, who must be driving Andy nuts by now.”
They followed the agent down the hall, the air cool and bright and full of too many truths arriving at once, but at least they were all finally out, and maybe Carrie would be able to salvage a bit of her summer holiday.