Chapter Thirty-One
Media vans mixed with police cars outside Alex’s complex.
According to Mrs. Steiner, the box had arrived the day before.
Upon inspection, the box hadn’t been mailed. There was no postage and no return address.
A return address would have been too easy.
But that did mean someone had personally dropped it off.
The recording from the camera over the mailboxes had been recovered and was being analyzed.
Fitzpatrick had a team dusting for prints from the front door, to the parking garage, to the mailboxes themselves.
Alex helped Mrs. Steiner pack up several of her things. There was no way she was going to let the older woman stay there after this.
Stevie approached Hawk in the hallway.
“I just heard from my contact. None of the guns you found were registered. So far, no matches on unsolved crimes.”
Hawk ran a hand over his jaw. “Innocent men don’t have unregistered weapons.”
Stevie shrugged. “You know how the database is. Things get missed.”
True. As much as the government wanted to pledge that every weapon legitimately purchased through the proper channels was recorded in the “database,” as with any computer, files got corrupted.
“Did Stone have any registered weapons?”
“One. A .40 Glock.”
“We haven’t found one of those.”
Alex walked into the hall, looked one way, then the other.
Seeing Hawk, she walked over. “They said we can go. Mrs. Steiner is getting tired.”
“Give me a minute,” he said, his voice soft.
She walked back into the apartment.
“She’s taking all this really well,” Stevie said.
“Seems the more that happens, the higher that shield goes up.” The fact that Alex could even be in the same room with him after he’d leveled a gun in her face was remarkable.
“You really care about her.”
Hawk pulled his attention away from the door Alex had slipped behind. “She deserves someone who isn’t damaged.”
“Fuck that. Everyone around you sees how you look at each other.”
“Still flawed.”
Stevie paused. “You don’t trust yourself.”
Her words were too close to the truth. “I need to get her home.”
Stevie grabbed his arm to keep him from walking away. “You know, Hawk, sometimes the fastest way to get past the fire is walking directly through it. It’s gonna hurt, but it’s worth it on the other side.”
He blinked several times. “I gotta go.”
The sound of Stevie clicking her tongue followed him down the hall.
Mrs. Steiner didn’t linger on the contents of the box in her possession. She’d shown concern for Alex and insisted that she didn’t need to go with her to the estate, but she ultimately gave in.
Now she was in heaven.
She said the estate was “better than the fanciest hotel I have ever stayed in.”
But the biggest joy . . .
Hailey.
She latched onto Alex’s niece, and instant love took over.
Kit hugged Mrs. Steiner’s side with a watchful eye but eased into her presence rather quickly. The dog knew which people to trust better than any human around. Alex was convinced of it.
When Piper put Hailey down for bed, Mrs. Steiner finally retired to her room. “I haven’t had this much excitement since I marched on Washington during the Vietnam War.”
In the end, Alex was pleased with her decision to bring Mrs. Steiner to the estate until it was truly safe to go home.
After showering off the taste of the day, Alex joined Chase, Piper, and Hawk in the kitchen.
“How are you doing?” Piper asked when Alex relaxed into a chair.
Chase poured her a glass of wine, which she accepted with a tired smile.
“I’m okay,” Alex said. Except for the never-ending headache and constant fatigue. Both of which could be attributed to the context of her daily life.
“You need to move out of that building,” Chase said.
Alex didn’t bother fighting him. “I know.”
Chase stared at her with disbelieving eyes.
“I’ll call a moving service. Put my things in storage until I find a better situation.” She lifted the wineglass to her lips and put it back down before drinking any of it.
“That was too easy,” Chase said.
Alex looked up, saw everyone watching her. “What?”
Piper patted Alex’s hand.
“Max called,” Chase began. “He didn’t find a lot in London. A small amount of British pounds and euros, along with a nearly empty flat and a few of Dad’s things. The caretakers said that no one has been there since last year.”
“Before Dad died?” she asked.
“Yeah. Italy wasn’t the same story. Max found a safe in the back of a wine cellar.”
“And?” she asked.
“He thinks someone got to it. There wasn’t any money, nothing of obvious value. He found a shotgun, ammunition, and more documents,” Chase said.
“Was there evidence of a break-in?” Hawk asked.
“Not according to Max. The top five shelves of the safe were completely empty.”
“Like someone cleaned it out,” Hawk observed.
“That’s how it sounded. He did find one piece of information that I wasn’t expecting.”
Alex looked at her brother and made a rolling motion with her hand. “Which is?”
“Another passport. This one from the United Arab Emirates. With Floyd’s name and Dad’s face.”
“What?”
“It had one stamp coming into the US with a visa from San Francisco.”
“No exiting stamp?” Alex asked.
“Those aren’t issued. All that would be required is a return plane ticket or a ticket showing the passport holder was moving on in their travel,” Hawk explained. “What was the date of the stamp of entry?”
“Six years ago.”
“The same time Dad started collecting these CIMs,” Alex said.
“Does your dad have any personal property in the UAE?” Hawk asked.
“No,” Alex said. “We do have hotels in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.”
“Any idea when Dad last visited there?” Chase asked Piper.
“He was constantly out of the office. The one that could answer that the quickest is Carson. The flight records are more accurate than a hotel reservation. Obviously, the company hotels accommodate everyone on the list, but there is no guarantee that the room isn’t filed under ‘Company Comp.’”
Alex rubbed her forehead. “If we are working with the assumption that the safe in Italy was packed the way the other two safes were, then who knew about it? Who took the money?”
“Aaron could have cleared it out,” Hawk suggested.
“If he did, wouldn’t he have taken everything from it? The safe was in the back of a cellar?” Alex asked.
“Yes.”
“Not as hidden as the others,” she said. “No secret rooms?”
Chase shook his head.
Alex remembered the look of anger on Melissa’s face at the reading of the will. “Didn’t Melissa believe that the Italy property was a gift to her and therefore belonged to her?” she asked Chase.
“Yeah.” Chase’s eyes started to spark.
Alex glanced at Piper. “And didn’t you say that Melissa was all about Italy while Dad spent his off time in Colorado?”
“Yes,” Piper said.
A light bulb went off in Alex’s aching head. “We’ve been wondering where Melissa came up with the money to buy Yarros’s shares of Stone Enterprises.”
Surprise stared back at Alex from her brother.
“You think she stole it,” Hawk said.
“Do you have a better idea? We know she snuck into this house after she had been locked out.”
Piper cringed. “I remember that day.”
Melissa had cornered Piper and nearly had her ass handed to her by Kit for her efforts.
“Maybe she knew all about these safes. We know she stole a few of Dad’s watches.”
“What’s so great about a watch?” Hawk asked.
“Watches worth a small fortune,” Piper answered.
“Did you file charges?”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Why bother? We didn’t want them, and we didn’t really care that she took them.
At that point, we were still reeling from inheriting everything.
” Alex paused. “Let’s assume she flew to Italy and walked away with two .
.. three million. That combined with the value of the watches, plus what was in her prenuptial—”
“How much was that?” Hawk asked.
“Five million. That still doesn’t quite make up for what Yarros would want for our stock.”
“But it might be enough for him to slide in and buy Starfield hotels. Who knows what kind of arrangement Melissa and Yarros have,” Chase said.
“I think we need to have a chat with our step-mommy.” Just saying that made Alex cringe.
“I’ll contact Carson in the morning and have him confirm who was in the air at the time of this time stamp in the fake passport,” Piper said.
“Have him pull everything six months before and six months after,” Hawk said. “Something happened in that time frame. We need to find out what.”
Alex leaned forward on her elbows and sighed like she was a woman twice her age. “I think it’s time to mend fences with Melissa.”
“What?” Chase’s question was as sharp as the look coming from Piper.
“Hear me out. What motivates her?”
“Money.”
Alex pointed at Piper. “Exactly. She married Dad for his ...”
“Money,” Chase finished.
Alex nodded. “She didn’t care that everyone watching thought she was a gold digger.
She wore that like a badge of honor, just as Dad wore her as the trophy wife she was.
She didn’t need loyalty. Hell, Dad’s infidelity probably took her off the sexual hook more often than not.
Melissa probably introduced Dad to his mistresses. ”
Chase and Piper nodded but stayed silent.
“What does every gold digger long for? Marry a rich old man with one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave. Only Dad wasn’t that old or that frail. But he was a workaholic, and from the looks of everything we’re finding, he was living a double life.”
“One that required fake passports and a whole lot of cash,” Hawk finished.
Alex appreciated how Hawk’s thoughts ran right alongside hers. “That equals stress. Stress and a bad lifestyle are easily linked to an early grave.”
“So is dealing with people that are in that double life,” Hawk said.