Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
CADEN
Each headline seems to scream at me.
Murder of Socialite Baffles Police
Tragedy on the North Fork!
Who Killed Marion Everton?
In Cold Blood—Everton Matriarch Shot to Death
So many photographs. So much information. Most of the it the same, repeated over and over. The suspected attempted burglary. The history of our family’s winery. Pictures of my family leaving the funeral—a funeral I didn’t attend. I did my own ceremony for Mom. I found a tiny church in a little town outside Buenos Aires and lit a candle for her. We aren’t a religious family. But the church was on a peak, overlooking the ocean, surrounded by rolling green hills. Mom would have loved it there.
I’ve been making a list of suspects in my phone. The sheriff talked to two employees that Dad fired—they weren’t named but I can guess who they were based on the descriptions of the complaints. Guess the sheriff couldn’t keep it all quiet. One insisted she was fired because she got pregnant. Elsa Lowendale. Dad was going to fire her anyway—it had nothing to do with her pregnancy. She worked in the New York office and was always late with reports. And Carl Fillion. He was fired for trying to embezzle money. He wriggled out of the charges—probably thanks to some lawyer like Von.
I wonder if Fred Norman can help me track them down.
Noah would laugh at me, sounding like some PI from an old movie. I click to the next page and my head starts to spin as I see a new group of headlines. Even though I was expecting them, it’s still shocking.
Could the Son Be Responsible for His Mother’s Death?
Heir to Murder—Eldest Everton Suspected in Slaying
A Family Affair: Son Flees after Socialite’s Murder
There’s a picture of me at an event with Mom and Dad. Dad’s holding a plaque and the two of us are smiling on either side of him. Some stupid fake award he received from a charity Mom supported.
I start to read the article.
Ever since the brutal murder of his mother, Marion Everton, eldest son Caden, heir to the Everton fortune, appears to have fled the country. Is this a sign of grief—or something more sinister?
“Hi,” a quiet voice says from behind me.
I whirl around to find Isla standing there with a tall, preteen girl at her side. The girl studies me with a somber gaze.
“Grace,” I say.
Grace blinks. “You remember me.”
“Of course I do,” I say, standing. “Hey, did you ever get that pig?”
The last thing I heard about Grace was that she wanted to adopt a pig. Isla was trying to find a way to make it happen.
A smile blossoms on Grace’s face. “No but I have a horse now. Well, he lives at Furever Friends. His name is Piglet. He’s a mix of quarter horse and walking pony. He’s thirteen hands, which isn’t very big but a good size for me. He hurt his leg a month ago. He’s better now but I don’t show jump with him anymore. He’s got a blaze that looks like a carrot. Carrots are his favorite food.”
“Not apples?” I say. “The horses where I was working were all about apples.”
“Piglet will eat apples if there aren’t any carrots to be had,” Grace says. “How many horses did you work with?”
“Four,” I say. “I didn’t know you liked riding.”
“I wasn’t very good at show jumping,” Grace admits. “But that’s okay. Piglet is an excellent companion. He listens when I talk about physics.”
“Physics?” I say, impressed.
“Hey Grace, Caden and I need to go over some things for Magnolia Day,” Isla says gently. Isla was always so patient with her precocious sister.
“Right,” Grace says, studying me. “You’re going to build Isla a booth.”
“Yup,” I say.
“You never used to build things before.”
“I didn’t. I guess things change.”
“I know,” she says. “You’re a lot bigger now. And you have tattoos.”
Isla quickly interrupts again.
“Why don’t you find some books to check out, Grace?”
“Okay,” Grace says. “I’m going to ask Mrs. Nowak if they have The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene.”
She wanders off toward the reception desk and Isla smiles as she watches her sister. It’s the sweetest, kindest smile, one that makes you want to be a better person when you look at it. “Grace is really into physics now,” she says.
“Cool.”
I sound like an idiot. Isla and I both stand there awkwardly.
“Sorry she said all that stuff,” Isla says, her cheeks turning a delicate pink that makes my chest throb. “She doesn’t really have a filter.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “I remember.”
There’s another pause. Isla folds her arms across her chest, like she’s protecting herself. Her hair is down today, chestnut waves falling over her shoulders. She wears a green top that matches her eyes.
I drink her in, the high planes of her cheekbones, the slope of her nose, the purse of her lips. I don’t know how many times I’ll get to see her before I leave. I feel a masochistic need to imprint her into my mind.
Her gaze flits over my shoulder. The article blares at us from the screen. “Oh,” she says.
I quickly turn the screen off. “I was just doing some research.” I lower my voice so no one overhears. “Noah told me they kept your name out of the papers.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad. I really appreciate—I mean I wouldn’t—I didn’t intend to make…things…hard for you.” When did I get so bad at talking?
Isla makes a sound in the back of her throat, somewhere between a snort and a scoff. “Right.”
Guilt tightens around my heart like a vise.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I say. “I had to leave.”
Isla stares at me for a moment. “Why?” she asks.
The words feel stuck in my throat like a pebble. I swallow and it hurts. Nothing I can say will change anything. My eyes rest on the diamond that sparkles on her left ring finger.
“So, what does Luke think about you having your own booth?” I say, in the worst subject change in the history of conversations.
“He’s happy for me,” she says, with a slight jut of her chin.
I want to ask if he knows I’m making it. I want to know if he knows about us, period. He must, right? Surely they had the whole “rehash our exes” talk that every relationship goes through.
Though we were only together for a matter of hours. So maybe Isla doesn’t see it the same way I do. Maybe it didn’t mean as much to her.
“Well,” Isla says. “Shall we?”
She sits at the computer desk next to mine and takes out her phone. I sit as well. Our knees are almost touching. I catch a whiff of her scent as she sweeps her hair behind her shoulder and shows me her screen. It’s hard to focus with her so close. The soft curve of her collarbone peeps out from beneath the V neck of her blouse. I want to trace that curve with my fingertips. I want to probe the supple round of her shoulder, nuzzle the delicate dent at the base of her throat.
A stirring rises deep inside me and I shift on the chair. I can’t think like this. I force my eyes to the screen, where she’s brought up Pinterest.
“I thought the front could look a little like the entrance to the Thorn,” she says. “With white shingled panels around the space for the door. And then we could use some of the old furniture in the Thorn’s basement, repurpose that for showcasing the pastries. I want it to feel homey, you know? I want it to feel like you’ve gone to your eccentric aunt’s house.”
I take the phone and study the photos. It’s a good idea. It’s very Isla.
“I can make the panels at Reggie’s,” I say. “Probably get the furniture in shape there too. I’ll rent a truck this week.”
“You can use Dad’s truck,” she says.
I raise an eyebrow. “You sure it’s up to the task?”
She grimaces. “It is for now. There’s a whole laundry list of things to fix at the Thorn. The sink keeps leaking. The shutters could use fresh paint. And the back patio needs new stonework.”
“I can fix the sink,” I offer.
Her brow furrows. “What?”
“I can fix the sink for you. For the Thorn,” I clarify.
“First you’re building chicken coops and now you’re fixing sinks?” she says wryly. “Who are you and what have you done with Caden Everton?”
I can’t help grinning at her. “I’m still me. Just with a few new skills.”
“I’ll say.”
“I like making thing with my hands,” I tell her. “I feel…useful. Plus, I hated all the starched shirts and pressed slacks Dad made me wear.”
“Yes, you’ve certainly adopted a new look,” Isla says, eyeing my clothes. “It’s very Grunge-chic.”
“Damn, I was going for Boho-Handyman.”
Isla laughs and it lights me up inside, brighter than a Christmas tree.
Then her expression turns sad and my stomach drops. When she speaks again, her voice is soft, barely a whisper.
“Will you please tell me what you were doing?” she asks. “I have five years of questions circling around in my head.”
Her lips are slightly parted, her face plaintive. How can I refuse her? I owe her my freedom. I only got to have those five years because she stood up for me.
“The morning after Mom died,” I begin. “I went to JFK and bought a ticket to Buenos Aires.”
“Why Buenos Aires?” she asks.
“It was the first flight I could reasonably make.” My chest tightens as I think about that day. Breaking down on the plane. Arriving in the cool climate, the bustling city so unfamiliar. No one cared who I was or where I’d come from. “I didn’t want my father to be able to track me using my credit cards, so I took out a bunch of cash. Kept it in a bag in a locker in the train station and used Buenos Aires as home base. I would take small amounts at a time, only what I needed, storing the cash in my shoe or in a secret pocket in my jacket. Stuff like that. For the first year, I just wandered around the country. I went to La Plata and Salta and San Miguel de Tucamán. I got robbed just outside Cordóba.”
That was not a pleasant experience. I still have the scar on my side. Twelve stiches.
“I was running out of money. My Spanish was decent by that point. I got a job in Mendoza hauling boxes at a warehouse. Then I helped make deliveries. One night, I was at a bar and that’s where I met Sebastian. I knew he worked for a sustainable winery—I’d made deliveries to Catarina Azul, but we’d never spoken. He knew me though. Gringos working manual labor jobs aren’t common in Mendoza. Ninety-nine percent of the Americans in that area are tourists. Sebastian bought me a drink and we started talking. There’s something about him that just invites confidence.”
A smile tugs at my lips, thinking of my friend. His easy laugh, the warmth he radiates out to everyone in his sphere. His unconditional kindness.
“I spilled my guts,” I say. “About Everton. About Mom.”
I want to say about you , but that feels inappropriate, given Isla’s current relationship status. Her body has curved toward me as I tell the story. I clear my throat.
“Anyway, he told me to come work for him. He said he’d show me how sustainable wineries were run. He’d been working for the Gonzalez family who owns Azul for three years at that point. They were like his second family. I became close with them too. And with Sebastian’s little girl, Esme. I learned how to do everything at Catarina Azul—every single job there was to do at the winery, Sebastian made me do it. From picking grapes to working the tasting room. And I get it now. I understand what it takes to make a winery run the way I’d always wanted.”
Isla’s expression softens, her face turning even more beautiful. “Wow.”
God, it hurts. It hurts to know I had a chance to be with her yet allowed it to pass me by. For what? For my father? Because he forbade me to see her ever again? I wasn’t a child. Why did I allow him to treat me like one?
But I know the answer. There was no other way. I was still tied up like a marionette—Dad controlled the money, the business…he held my future in the palm of his hand. I needed to reject it all in order to be free. And that meant Isla too.
“Not what you imagined?” I ask.
“Not even close.” She leans back in her chair, her face guarded again. “So now that you know all about running a sustainable winery, are you going to try to implement those ideas at Everton, like you always wanted?”
It hurts how happy I am that she remembers that dream.
I shake my head. “I’m not inheriting the estate anymore,” I say. “Noah says I’ve got until the end of the summer to make a break in Mom’s case. Then I’ll go back to Argentina.”
The slight hunch of her shoulders is her only reaction to this news. She rubs her neck with one hand, and I can’t help the way my gaze snags on her collarbone again.
“Right,” she murmurs.
We sit in silence for a moment. I feel the air around us expand and contract. My pulse thrums a desperate beat. Being so close yet not able to touch her, that fucking ring on her finger…
“It’s a shame,” she says. “Your mom would have loved the idea.”
Something sharp wrenches inside me. She shifts in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. I yearn to cup her thigh in my palm, to fold her into me and beg for forgiveness. To bury my nose in her hair. To stroke the tender skin of her waist.
“Why did you leave, Caden?” she asks.
Her eyes are guileless. As clear and green as a field in summer. I can see her chest rising and falling gently as she breathes. Her teeth press into her bottom lip as she waits for my response and an ache blooms in the pit of my stomach. The air between us crackles with tension.
“I…” My voice trails off, my eyes falling to her mouth. Leaving didn’t change anything. I still crave her. The taste of her. The sweetness of her lips. I hear her breath catch in her throat. When I meet her gaze again, her eyes burn with emerald fire. I should tell her everything. I should confess it all, right here and now.
“I found my book,” Grace says, coming up and startling us both. Isla leaps up from her chair like she’s been stuck by a pin.
“Great,” she says, her cheeks going rosy. “We should probably get home.”
I don’t want her to leave. I don’t want to be away from her. I feel panicked, irrational, edgy.
“I can fix your sink now,” I blurt out.
Isla blinks, confused.
“I mean…” I make a halfhearted sweeping motion with one hand. “I don’t have any other pressing plans.”
“Don’t you have detective work to do?” Isla says.
“Are you a detective?” Grace asks.
“I’m trying to be,” I say, standing. “I can look at all these articles at home later. You don’t want to let a leaky sink go unfixed. It can open the door for mold and rot.”
“Mold and rot,” Isla repeats. I can’t tell if she likes this new me or not.
“If you want to solve a crime, the first place you should start is victimology,” Grace says.
“Huh?” I ask.
“It’s a subset of criminology,” Grace explains. “It focuses on objectively studying all aspects of a victim’s life to better understand how they came to be victimized.”
“Where did you learn about that?” I ask.
“I read,” Grace says.
“I thought you were into physics,” I say, glancing at the book in her hand.
Grace shrugs. “I read about a lot of things.” She cocks her head. “Can you teach me how to fix a sink?”
“Sure,” I say. “If it’s okay with your sister.”
Isla looks at me, her expression torn. I hold my breath.
“Fine,” she says. “You can pick up the furniture while you’re there.”