Chapter Twenty-Eight Hanna
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hanna
Witnesses everywhere. Didn’t care. I would knock her flat on her bony ass.
The thought ran through my head as I watched Aubrey head straight for Jeremy. Head up, shoulders back. Ready for battle.
That made two of us.
“No.” I marched into her path, blocking her line of attack. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Don’t be that way, Hanna.” The ruthless edge to Aubrey’s fake sadness said it all. She thrived on causing trouble. “We’re
related now. We share Jeremy.”
One more step and I would rip her apart with my bare hands. “Turn around and leave.”
Jeremy picked that moment to join me. “What’s going on?”
This is exactly what I didn’t want. He needed to keep being pissed off, to walk away, if only for his own protection. I tried
to make it happen. “Nothing. We’re fine.”
“That’s not entirely true.” Aubrey treated Jeremy to a high-wattage smile. “I wanted to welcome you to the family. As my brother.”
“What are you talking about?” Jeremy managed to keep his tone even.
“You’re a Tanner. Congratulations!” Aubrey shouted the last part.
Everyone watched us now. Aubrey’s real goal. Even if her information was wrong, she had the stage and refused to cede it.
The lead detective stepped closer. Police officers stopped their other duties to wait for the potential wrestling match to
begin.
They all knew the truth about Xavier. About his real relationship to Jeremy. I’d been asked a bunch of questions today. Ones
concerning Xavier’s estate choices led off the informal interrogation when everyone arrived at the house earlier. Not a surprise.
The estate attorney said he’d filled them in, but the police wanted confirmation of Jeremy’s parentage from me as we stood
on the edge of what was likely a Tanner family gravesite.
Xavier. Why . . . ?
“My last name is Sato.” Jeremy stood taller, sounded older, than he had even a day ago.
Aubrey made an annoying tsk-tsk sound. “I don’t blame you for being reluctant. Not many Tanners survive into old age, after all.”
Every twisted word she said invited scrutiny. The press scurried about at what no longer felt like a safe distance. The detectives
had spent hours every day trying to get to her. She’d refused to meet with them and continued that tradition when they cornered
her today. Instead of conceding, she’d called her attorney and put him on the line.
I didn’t care who heard about my time with Xavier. Well, I did, but I really wanted to make one thing very clear. “Jeremy is not your brother.”
“Hanna, hon. Come on.”
The taunting voice. Aubrey had been gifted with it and used it from the time she could talk to twist circumstances to her
advantage. The mouth spewing the crap now came from an older person who’d clearly never grown out of the need to poke and
test.
“He’s here. At what is now his house.” Aubrey’s smile promised more bullshit. “I heard a rumor he slept in the café last night.
Why? There are eight bedrooms in there.”
Jeremy made a strangled sound. “How would you know where I slept?”
Good fucking question.
“I know a lot of things. Like how your mom dropped out of college because she was too busy screwing my dad and forgetting
to use birth control to pass her classes.” Aubrey’s feral gaze turned to me.
So, I was right. She didn’t know yet. She had to be the only one who didn’t. “Not true.”
“There’s no need to lie about you and my dad. I was at the attorney’s office with you. The ‘family’ in family trust means . . .” Aubrey’s voice had taken on a harsher note, then she started laughing. A loud, booming laugh. “Oh my God. Gramps?”
Yeah, she finally got it. A little late but she’d stumbled over the same realization the entire town had been whispering about
all day. The courtroom rumor mill churned out the gossip with amazing speed.
People first assumed they’d received confirmation, because of the family trust bequest, that Patrick was Jeremy’s father.
Then the whispers turned. Xavier’s name crept into the conversations.
Xavier as father, not grandfather. Even Daniela knew when she walked into the café this morning to bake, and she lived fifteen minutes away in Ossining.
Aubrey’s hideous laughter carried over the lawn and through the trees.
The tiny flicker of sympathy, that little piece of me that believed her role was that of victim in her family’s sick tale,
sputtered out. I didn’t know what she’d done or how she’d survived but would bet the café she was guilty of something. “That’s
enough.”
“Does everyone know?” She threw her arms wide and looked around, grabbing the attention of the few people who’d tried to ignore
her. No one pretended not to eavesdrop now. “Did you tell the detectives about your lurid affair?”
For the sake of my sanity, this conversation needed to end. “Now is not the time for your nonsense. This is a serious day.”
“You slept with Xavier. My grandfather. That is priceless. And a little sad.”
Her voice vibrated through me like nails on a chalkboard. “Stop talking.”
“An old man and a really mean one.” Aubrey shook her head as if she couldn’t believe the words rolling out of her mouth. “How
old was he back then? Still old. I mean, could he even get it up and—”
“What’s wrong with you?” Jeremy asked.
My only solace. Aubrey didn’t know her audience.
Her dramatics didn’t play well with Jeremy.
He didn’t like public humiliation. He wasn’t perfect.
He’d brooded his way through ninth grade.
He once stole vodka from the cabinet in the kitchen.
He and a friend drank it until they threw up all over the family room couch.
That had been a joy to wake up to. Dealing with the other kid’s angry mother hadn’t been a picnic either.
Jeremy tested and disobeyed. Fought taking a shower all year when he was fourteen, then I couldn’t get him out of there once
he turned sixteen. All things I now knew were fairly usual teen boy things. But he didn’t like mean, and Aubrey wallowed in
meanness.
“You’re new to the family. I get it.” She shrugged. “You’ll learn. This is what we do.”
This bitch. “Is there a point to your scene? I’m assuming you want attention. Just like you did as a kid. Are you satisfied yet?”
A dangerous move but shifting the spotlight to me was the one way to keep it off Jeremy. Totally worth it if it worked.
The amusement faded from Aubrey’s expression. “Your mom used to flit around, half dressed, trying to get my dad’s attention
even after she got kicked out of school. Did you know that? I guess Gramps fell for the virgin act. I’m surprised my dad showed
some restraint. He didn’t usually.”
Jeremy took a step in her direction. “None of that is—”
“It’s okay.” No way was I letting him tangle with her. I didn’t trust her. Not back then and not know. As a kid, she’d pit
her parents against each other, lying to both and reveling in the friction she caused. Causing trouble appeared to be her
entire personality now.
Aubrey snorted. “Always the peacemaker.”
She wasn’t wrong. I’d played that role more than once when Victoria insisted I was flirting with Patrick and Patrick refused to hit back. Let her stew. That’s what he used to say, not caring that he hurt her or that I was the one she targeted during her rages.
He’d been a weak man, more interested in dropping his pants for any pretty woman who walked by than salvaging his family.
The first time I met Xavier he told me to stay away from Patrick. Said his son was easily distracted and lacked a backbone.
I appreciated the warning . . . until I learned that Xavier viewed me as a prize he could lord over Patrick.
The whole damn family was sick.
“Everyone said your mom and my dad had an affair. All those times they’d lock themselves in his office.”
Aubrey would not stop.
“That never happened. I didn’t get kicked out of school. I never thought of your dad as anything but a boss.” I hadn’t. I
needed the paycheck. I saw how Patrick operated. How he collected women, no matter the age so long as they were legal. Even
barely. Attraction never entered into the equation for me.
“I was there,” Aubrey shot back.
No doubt she’d seen some terrible shit in that house, but none of it included me. “You were a kid. In school.”
My argument sounded firm but stood on shaky ground. When the family disappeared, Aubrey had been on the verge of her senior
year of high school. She’d been a kid in years but not brainpower, so she skipped grades as she fought being sent away to
boarding school.
Not a nerd. Not a geek. A slick, quiet, always-watching genius immune to the bullying whispers of other kids and smart enough not to leave evidence when more than one of those kids experienced an “accident” in a classroom.
Like when one suffered a severe burn in the science lab.
The class that met in the same room, right after Aubrey’s independent study.
Patrick liked to point out that no one could prove Aubrey did anything to her school nemesis.
Aubrey hummed now like she did back then. Pretended to think about whatever scheme brewed in her head. “I guess we’ll see
very soon whose memory—mine or yours—is more accurate.”
She didn’t have to be specific. She meant about the fatal day fifteen years ago.
Gauntlet thrown.
“See you soon.” Aubrey took a step, then turned back to Jeremy. “Wait, what do I call you now? My uncle?”
Oh, shit.
“I can hardly wait to trade family stories.” Then she flitted away.
She didn’t get far. A detective stopped her. Whatever he said to her in a low voice that no one else could hear wiped the
smirk right off her face.
Jeremy shook his head. “Does that trust you told me about mean we can kick her off the property?”
Look at Jeremy finding the one benefit of this Xavier-created mess. “It’s tempting but do you want her as an enemy?”
Jeremy shot me a knowing look. “Mom, it’s too late for her to be anything else.”