Chapter 12 #2
Katrina nodded and sat back in her chair just as her parents returned, followed by the housekeeper carrying a tray with the main course, chicken breast crusted in seasoned breadcrumbs sitting on a bed of vegetables and spicy rice.
The woman smiled at him as she set down a plate in front of Darwin, the sympathetic look on her face making him think she’d overheard the earful Grace had undoubtedly given Jameson in the kitchen.
No one said anything as they ate. Katrina and Jameson looked angry while Grace seemed disappointed. Across from him, Khloe and Asher seemed uncomfortable.
As he speared a piece of chicken with his fork, Darwin found himself thinking about what Katrina said about dating Upton if she cared about money and financial security.
She made it sound like she’d chosen romance and happiness over money and financial security.
But should he be taking it that literally?
Because seriously, seeing the home she’d grown up in, it was hard to imagine she wouldn’t be at least somewhat enticed by the idea of that kind of wealth.
Who wouldn’t be? Darwin couldn’t think of a better example of money and financial security than Upton.
Throw in the fact that Upton already had a history with Katrina––and that her family would clearly prefer him over Darwin––it was easy to think whatever spark had been between them might reignite.
If Upton didn’t turn out to be a murderer, of course.
Darwin frowned at the memory of walking into the resort earlier that day and seeing Katrina with Upton. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been looking forward to that warm, welcoming kiss she’d given him. But right now, he was looking at that kiss in a completely different way.
He hated to even go there, but he couldn’t help wondering if Katrina had been playing him, that the kiss had been more about Upton than him.
Was she trying to make the guy jealous like Simon suggested?
That would make sense if she were interested in the life Upton could offer, right?
His gut told him Katrina wouldn’t do something like that, but at the moment, he wasn’t sure he trusted those instincts.
Darwin cursed silently. He’d always been confident in everything he’d ever done. Why was he so insecure about this one thing?
Placing his knife and fork on his empty plate, Darwin glanced around the dining room. At the head of the table, Jameson had finished dinner, too, and was sitting there with his jaw clenched tight. On the other end, Grace glowered at her husband, obviously still displeased with him.
Across from Darwin, Khloe and Asher were lost in each other’s company without even saying a word.
And beside him, Katrina was staring pensively at her wine glass, her expression unreadable. Was she finally realizing that this thing between them could never work? That her parents would never accept him in her life? And that their acceptance was more important than she wanted to admit?
Darwin was starting to spiral by the time the housekeeper served each of them their own individual chocolate soufflé. As if sensing he was freaking out, Katrina reached under the table for his hand again, squeezing it gently and giving him a smile.
He returned her smile, the tension in his shoulders relaxing. Lennox had been right. He needed to get out of his own head before he completely messed things up with her.
“Mom, I was going to give Darwin a tour of the house, if you don’t mind?” Katrina said, looking at her mother.
Before they’d left the resort, he and Katrina had come up with the ruse as a way to get into her father’s study so they could snoop around.
Grace smiled, setting her coffee cup down on its saucer. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. I could join you, if you’d like?”
Crap. They hadn’t counted on Grace inviting herself along.
Katrina glanced at him, a panicked look on her face.
“Actually, I was hoping you and Dad might have time to sit down with Asher and me, Mom,” Khloe said, coming to the rescue. “We’re hoping you can give us advice on how we should combine and restructure our investment portfolios now that we’re getting married.”
While Grace seemed torn at the idea of missing out on the tour, Jameson looked positively gleeful.
Darwin wasn’t sure if it was at the idea of getting to talk about money or no longer having to be in the same room as him.
Either way, Katrina’s father barely gave them a glance before leaving with Khloe and Asher, suggesting they have after-dinner drinks in the living room.
“I’m so glad you both came to dinner,” Grace said, giving Katrina a hug and then Darwin. “And don’t worry about your father. He’ll come around eventually.”
Darwin honestly doubted that, but bit his tongue and nodded with a smile as Grace left the dining room. Then he turned toward Katrina.
“You ready to do this?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. Taking his hand, she led him out of the dining room. As they walked past the living room, Darwin heard Asher saying something about needing long-term diversification.
“Khloe promised they’d keep my parents occupied for at least thirty minutes,” Katrina whispered. “But we still need to hurry. I have no idea how long it will take to search Dad’s study.”
Jameson’s study reeked of money, with gilded picture frames, lots of polished wood, and real leather that simply had to be hand-sewn Italian.
“So, what are we looking for?” Darwin asked softly, closing the door behind them. “I mean, I don’t think your father has a filing cabinet labeled ‘illegal activities.’”
“Francesca said that Dad has a wall safe where he keeps a ledger of his business dealings. If there’s anything to find, that’s where it’ll be.”
In the movies, safes were always hidden behind paintings, and this one was no exception. It was located behind a landscape painting of the vineyard and swung open silently on invisible hinges, revealing a gray metal door set deep in the wall behind the huge antique desk.
Considering the Webers were so wealthy, Darwin expected some kind of high-tech digital keypad to allow entry into the safe, or maybe even a thumb print register, or optical scanner.
Instead, there was nothing but an old-school mechanical dial lock positioned beside a polished brass handle.
He hoped Katrina had the combination, or they were screwed.
“Any idea what the combination is?” he asked.
“Francesca is pretty sure Dad uses Mom’s birthday,” Katrina said. “Unfortunately, I have no idea what sequence the numbers are in.”
As Katrina got to work trying the various possible combinations, Darwin wandered around the room before coming to a stop in front of a group of photos on the wall.
A few of them were pictures of Jameson with other obviously rich and powerful people.
But most of them were of him with Grace, Rhett, Khloe, and Katrina, some when they were kids and a couple when they were teens.
In them, Jameson looked remarkably happy, and Darwin couldn’t help wondering if the man regretted the gulf that existed between him and Katrina now.
“Got it,” Katrina said from the other side of the room.
Darwin turned to see her twisting the brass handle and swinging the heavy door of the safe open. From where he stood, he could see there was a lot of stuff to look through.
“Let me check the hallway,” he said, moving over to crack the door to the study, listening for movement outside. From the low murmur of voices coming from the living room, they were still deep in conversation.
“We’re clear,” he said, carefully closing the door and moving to join her at the safe. “Let’s be quick. We’ve already been in here for ten minutes.”
She nodded in agreement before turning her attention back to the safe.
Inside, there were two shelves. The top one was loaded with stacks of cash, each with a neat little yellow strip of paper around it. Each of them worth ten grand easy.
Under the shelf on the left was a stack of velvet-lined jewelry trays, holding mostly unmounted gemstones. Something told Darwin this wasn’t Grace’s stash of personal jewelry. He knew less than zero when it came to gems, but there had to be hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth there–maybe more.
But as stunning as the cash and gems were, it was the items under the shelf on the right that caught Darwin’s attention. A black leather-bound journal, just as Francesca had described it, with a stainless-steel revolver sitting atop it.
“We need to memorize the way everything looks in the safe,” Darwin said as he reached out to carefully remove the revolver first, setting it on the desk.
He had so many questions, but decided to keep them to himself for the moment, for the sake of time if nothing else.
“We don’t want your father to know we were snooping around. ”
Katrina nodded, ignoring the cash and jewelry as she reached for the journal.
Turning, she placed it on the desk, then opened it and flipped through the pages.
Darwin frowned. Well, this was anticlimactic.
It wasn’t like he expected to see photos of Jameson standing over Arthur’s body, but it didn’t look like there was anything here.
As far as he could tell, the pages were filled with nothing but names and dollar figures. Here and there were a few notes about what he assumed were specific agreements made between the parties, but nothing jumped out at him. Certainly, nothing like ten thousand dollars paid to murder Arthur Davis.
“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” Darwin admitted as Katrina flipped a few more pages. “Does any of this look like it’s related to Arthur?”
“Everything in here is organized around the company or project name,” Katrina murmured, scanning each entry quickly. “Without knowing which company or project Arthur was involved in, I don’t know where to even start looking.”
“We don’t have time to randomly flip pages hoping to stumble over something,” Darwin pointed out, throwing a look toward the office door. “Head toward the back pages. Hopefully, whatever Arthur was shot for is something more recent.”
She nodded, quickly flipping through the pages.
“Stop,” Darwin said, a word catching his attention. “Go back.”
Katrina went back two pages until he saw the word again.
Genesis.
Yeah, there was no chance in hell that was a coincidence.
Scanning the page, he saw names he was very familiar with–Silas Forbes, Harold Thompson, and Arthur Davis.
He scanned the rest of that page and the ones that followed, but couldn’t find Upton’s name anywhere.
He didn’t see Seth Stevens, the Navy Program Manager, either.
In fact, he didn’t see anyone from the Navy program office at all.
This must be a list of people who’d put money into the Genesis Project, not the people running the program itself.
Suddenly, things started making a lot more sense.
“What is it?” Katrina asked, looking over at Darwin in between glances at the door. “The word Genesis clearly means something to you. What is it and what does it have to do with a man being dead?”
Darwin glanced at the door, too. “We don’t have time to talk about it now, but it’s big. Let’s take pictures of the pages associated with the Genesis Project. We’ll send them to Kyla and see what she can dig up.”
He appreciated that Katrina didn’t push for more info as he took out his phone and started snapping pictures.
Less than a minute later, she put the journal back in the safe while he wiped his prints off the revolver before placing it back on top of the book.
Closing the safe, he swung the painting back into place.
“The moment I get you alone, we’re having a serious conversation about what the heck is going on,” Katrina whispered to him as they left the room, closing the door behind them.
Darwin nodded, looking forward to the conversation. It seemed like the clues were starting to come together.