Chapter Thirty-One Stella
Chapter Thirty-One
Stella
Mom walked around in a daze. Arriving at Xavier’s house in time to see the forensic team take away the body bag sent her into
a dead faint. I couldn’t blame her. The display shifted the attention to her but, for once, her shock and agitation hadn’t
grown out of a pulsing need for drama. We’d last walked across that same sacred ground together picking flowers for Xavier’s
service, not knowing we were treading across the bones of missing family.
Watching Hanna dig in the mud, realizing why she’d dropped to her knees, frantic and out of breath, ripped through my resolve
to stay aloof and unaffected by all things Tanner-related. Believing the family was dead and being smacked in the face with
the reality of their loss turned out to be two very different things.
Mom shook her head. “It can’t be.”
I held on to my patience. She deserved to grieve. “Mom, maybe you should get some rest.”
We’d been to the police station. Mom long ago provided samples for a DNA match that never came. Now her body might help provide the connection between the remains and the missing. I doubted Aubrey offered up blood samples to help identify the bones.
While we were out, Lukas came by, as promised, and told the nanny to go home. Everly had been in bed for hours. The urge to
run upstairs and hug her nearly overwhelmed me. Only Mom’s agitation kept me downstairs, trying to hold a civil conversation
and act like the rational grown-up in the room.
“Xavier didn’t hurt his son.” Isabel shook her head. “Patrick shouldn’t be buried at Xavier’s house.”
Xavier hid so much. But his son’s body? Unless he killed Patrick or the bones weren’t Patrick’s. There were too many unknowns.
“There’s nothing we can do tonight.” Lukas’s voice sounded tight. Not tired but controlled. It matched the stiffness in his
body. With his suit jacket off and dress shirt sleeves rolled up, he looked ready to walk back into the office and do a few
more hours of work.
“Aubrey.” Mom finally stopped zipping around the kitchen and plopped down on a breakfast-bar stool. “She can’t be allowed
to stay silent. She knows something.”
Lukas snorted. “Clearly.”
Not a helpful response. I didn’t need two of them, on edge, ready to fire off at Aubrey without more information. Her ongoing
silence both helped me and infuriated me. I waited for the next bit of bad news to slither out, and it would. The police would
be all over her now.
Word was the FBI viewed the case as a priority again, which meant Aubrey lived in a ticking countdown to divulging what she knew. She was exactly the type to throw the spotlight on everyone else to avoid it landing on her.
Time to employ some of that reason I went to school to learn. “We should—”
“Stop.” Mom’s apparent shock exploded in a ball of anger. “How are you so calm?”
“I’m not.” Breaking down would be a relief. Letting go, getting it all out, no matter how damaging, burst the balloon of tension
choking me. But I wasn’t the only one in this mess. The two people I cared most about—the one standing in front of me and
the one asleep upstairs—needed my strength. The blowback on Lukas’s career. The emotional destruction to Everly as her world
imploded. Both weighed on me.
No, the risk was too great, which meant Aubrey needed to be controlled.
“We have Hanna racing around, causing trouble. Aubrey’s sneaking about. No one is answering questions. And now this.” The
air seemed to run out of Mom as she ran down her list. “It’s Patrick. Those . . . he’s been right under our feet all this
time.”
“You don’t know that,” Lukas said.
“I do.” Her sharp defiance bounced around the room.
The resulting silence screeched through me. “Mom? Let’s take a minute and—”
She threw up her hands. “I’m going upstairs. I can’t possibly go to my house all alone. Not and feel safe.”
Great. That meant she planned to be my problem. She’d stay here and spend every spare minute coming up with plans to expose Hanna and run off Aubrey. Mom had already declared she couldn’t be expected to work. She was about to become my full-time
job, and I had no idea how to stop this rolling disaster.
For tonight at least, I gave in. “You can take the guest room.”
“That’s where I’ll be until Hanna hands back my inheritance and Aubrey . . . She should be in prison.” Mom stomped off after
making that pronouncement.
“She’s not wrong about the upheaval.” Lukas sat on the stool Mom just vacated. “We’re all getting sucked into this mess.”
“Okay.” I didn’t ask questions because part of me didn’t want to know more.
“I got a call while you were talking to the detectives with your mom.”
This was bad. Really bad. I knew before he said another word. His clenched body, that expression, shouted defeat.
“The governor’s office.” Lukas linked his fingers, then separated them again. Placed his palms on the counter. Stared at the
backs of his hands. “Our meeting is off tomorrow.”
A crushing blow. To him. To me with my gnawing guilt, which I’d hoped would vanish or at least abate once his life shifted
to the next level. The professional one in line with his dreams.
“There’s too much attention on the Tanner issue—that was the phrase they used. Not the governor. No, she didn’t talk to me. She had her sidekick do it.” Lukas balanced his
elbows against the breakfast bar.
“Lukas.”
“An impressive show of power on her part.” His voice reeked of sarcasm. “The ultimate bow to public opinion.”
The heaviness in my chest made it difficult to breathe. “She can’t give the judicial position to anyone else.”
“She can but, for now, she hasn’t. She’s put the appointment on a temporary pause.” Lukas drew out the word. “If the press gets wrapped up quickly and in a way the governor finds acceptable then, maybe,
the appointment is still alive.”
Acceptable? That seemed like the one word that didn’t apply to this situation.
I had a thousand questions. A bit of practiced pleading for forgiveness. I jumped over all of that and landed on a more pressing
question. “What’s her deadline?”
“Late next week.” Lukas let out a loud exhale. “I was told to push for a quick arrest. Make sure my name is in the mix, so
I get a bit of credit for wrapping it all up neatly.”
A quick resolution to a case that had dragged on for a decade and a half. Sure. No problem. “She’s not asking for much.”
“She’s in charge. She makes the rules, not me.” He started to say something else, then stopped. An obvious verbal pivot. “There
are a lot of qualified people on her list and any one of them could easily jump over me and get the nod.”
For the first time, I noticed how jittery Lukas was. He shifted around in his seat. Wiped his hands together. Scanned the
room from end to end. This mess had his usual calm demeanor spiking.
“I’m sorry.” I could hear the thickness weaving through my words. I’d offered similar words over and over and it had never
been good enough, so I’d stopped. Until now, when I dragged the apology out and threw it between us one more time in a desperate
attempt at absolution.
This situation, your being involved in a demented family cover-up, could ruin me, Stella.
The words he used back then before he told me he was leaving me.
“I need to hit the weakest link. Track down this author. Gabe. Make him tell me what he knows.” Lukas shook his head. “Shift
the focus to someone else.”
That last part . . . not good. “It’s possible Gabe doesn’t know any more than the rest of us.”
“Someone knows, Stella.” Lukas’s body stiffened again. “It’s my job to make them talk.”