Chapter Fifty-Two
FIFTY-TWO
A few hours later, Shepherd was walking towards the Kent front door wearing a Shepherd’s Pies branded shirt that was a size too small, coordinating sweatpants that were a size too big, yesterday’s socks, and smelling like both Ginny’s floral shampoo and citrus deodorant because sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
Like taking a needed but unplanned shower at your girlfriend’s place and then making do with unsold stock in the restaurant.
Ginny held his hand, dressed in clothes that fit appropriately and smelling like herself. Like him.
Like them.
His girlfriend. For real, this time.
The lack of police presence was both welcome and surprising inside the Kent home. Bradley Kent met them at the door, hugged his daughter.
“She’s resting upstairs,” he said when he shook Shepherd’s hand. “I’ll take you up to her.”
They walked past the sitting room, and Shepherd glanced over. The elder Kent and his young wife were on the couch, in front of the TV. Financial news. Elwin sat with rapt attention, his wife was fast asleep on his shoulder.
In the kitchen, Vincent and his wife and one of their children were arguing about cookies before dinner.
There was no sign of Bradley’s current wife. She was probably pouting in her bedroom.
Bradley opened his study door and there, sitting on a leather armchair as if it were a throne, was Deandra, with a granddaughter on her lap, and a martini in her hand.
“Mom!” Ginny breathed and hurried over. “I’m so glad you’re all right!”
Deandra sipped her drink, gave Ginny and Shepherd both an assessing once-over. “Virginia, so nice of you to finally join us. I hope my kidnapping didn’t interrupt your plans too badly.”
Ginny collapsed to her knees. “Mom,” she said, “I was so worried about you.”
“Hmm.” Deandra shooed the granddaughter away, who hurried over to Bradley and hid behind his legs.
Deandra touched Ginny’s hair. “Damp,” she declared, her voice dripping with judgment.
“As is your boyfriend’s. Joint shower, perhaps?
Or maybe you two had time this afternoon to do a few laps in the pool?
Your brother tells me you’ve barely been in the family home this entire time. ”
“I’ve been trying to save you!” Ginny said. “Mom, Shepherd and I tried to find you! And when we couldn’t do that, we tried to get the money to pay the ransom!”
Deandra fished an olive out of her drink with her fingernails, popped it in her mouth. “And yet nothing that you claim to have done is why I’m here right now, is it?”
White-hot heat climbed up the back of Shepherd’s neck, crawled along his scalp, and invaded his face. “Excuse me,” he said, instead of swearing, with great effort, “but your daughter was the only one who cared you were missing.”
Deandra stared at him, her ice-blue eyes perfectly blank, before her gaze slid off him and landed on her ex-husband.
Bradley sighed. “He’s not wrong. We took a vote, honey, and only Ginny and I opted to pay the ransom. When that got denied, she went out on her own. Well, with her fiancé here. I don’t know exactly what they did, but Ginny was determined to save you.”
Honey. What a strange thing to call your ex-wife. They were definitely gonna get married. Again. For the third time.
Deandra finished off her drink. She held out her glass to no one in particular, and for whatever asinine reason, Shepherd took it and stood there holding it like an idiot.
“Thank you both,” she said flatly. “Though I do want it stated for the record that nothing you did saved me. Apparently, it was some anonymous tip the FBI received early this morning.”
Ginny sat back on her heels. “Mom, who took you?”
Deandra clicked her tongue. “I don’t know.
Whoever killed Martin”—she shuddered—“was wearing a mask. I didn’t even get a good look at their eyes!
They didn’t say more than a word to me at a time.
It was a man, I think, because of the build, but I couldn’t tell you age or race.
I was blindfolded in the car, and it stayed on until the police rescued me this morning.
Dreadful experience, all the way around.
I had to sleep with my hands tied on a couch, Virginia.
A couch—like some sort of frat boy. And the air conditioning was too strong! ”
Ginny looked at Shepherd, and Shepherd could hear her thoughts. Mostly, they were swear words, but there was a theme of “Is she kidding?” prominent throughout.
Shepherd held up the empty martini glass in answer.
“I think I know who did this,” Ginny said. “I’ve known the whole time, but I wasn’t able to do anything about it. Dad? Can I … will you vouch for me, and let me question my stepsiblings?”
Bradley nodded, looking incredibly dignified for a man who had a five-year-old sitting on his shoe. “Yes, Ginny. I will call a meeting, and I will vouch for you.”
“What?” Shepherd asked. “What fresh hell is this? Vouch for you? God, Ginny. I thought the voting was weird enough! There’s some sort of vouching process now? For God’s sake. When does this nightmare end?”
Deandra smiled, and it was so bright and lovely that it reminded him, terrifyingly, of Ginny. She reached out and patted his hand. “Not until you’re dead, darling. Not until you’re dead.”
Shepherd wondered if that was what she said to her two husbands who died under mysterious circumstances, and if he’d just been threatened or welcomed into the family.
In this family, it was probably both.
It was Bradley who sat behind the desk in the office this time, not Elwin, who instead stood behind his son with an expression on his face that would cause lesser men to poop their pants.
Shepherd, however, remained clean and dry.
He was so sick of the Kents that they no longer made him nervous.
Even the stepmoms, who sat together on the couch whispering, glaring at Deandra and Ginny, didn’t strike the same amount of fear as they used to.
They were just as much outsiders as he was, even if they didn’t realize it.
Vincent’s wife and children were gone, but he was there, leaning against a wall and scrolling on his phone.
The step-siblings—what the hell were their names again, Cersei and Jaime?
—sat in the two leather armchairs before the desk.
And Ginny paced the room, shoulders back, head held high, looking magnificent in a bright green shirt that said Shepherd’s Pies in red letters over her chest.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she announced, “thank you all for being here on such short notice. Dior, Dion.” Ginny stopped pacing and stood before the stepkids, a smile on her face that was anything but friendly.
Shepherd had never been more proud of her.
“I want to thank you both for coming. I know it must be difficult for you, being in the same room with my mother, safe and sound.”
The twins exchanged looks. “Darling,” Dior said, “we are delighted that Mummy Deandra was returned to us unharmed.” She turned in her seat to smile at the woman in question. “You had us all so very worried, dear.”
“Mom didn’t call this to order,” Ginny said. “I did. Speak to me and only to me.” She sounded so much like her mom, and yet so much like herself—brave and terrifying all at once. Shepherd suppressed a shudder that was part fear and part attraction.
Boy, was he in trouble!
“I thought it strange that the original ransom ask was the exact amount that Mom inherited when your father tragically passed. May he rest in peace.”
“May he rest in peace,” the twins repeated.
Ginny crossed her arms. “But then the kidnapper mentioned a debt in front of Mom.”
Well, that was an outright lie. Shepherd kept his mouth shut, of course, fascinated with watching lawyer Ginny work.
“How curious!” She continued, “What debt could Mom owe that was so similar to her inheritance?”
Dior chuckled. “Mummy Deandra is too smart to owe anyone money, Virginia. Everyone knows that.”
“Exactly.” Ginny smiled, and it was not kind. “Which means it was someone else’s debt. Someone else who knew exactly how much Mom inherited when your father passed. That narrows it down to only a handful of the people in this room.”
Dion gripped his armrests until his knuckles went white. Dior reached over and grabbed his wrist.
“Just what,” Dion managed, sweat beading across his usually perfect face, which was now covered in rapidly growing red blotches, “are you suggesting?”
Ginny stared at him down her nose like a librarian dealing with a bratty child. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m saying that, once again, your poker debt got you into trouble. Isn’t that right?”
The room had been near silent before, but this was a different kind of silence—the kind where everyone was collectively holding their breath, collectively on the verge of freaking out.
Ginny was amazing. Fierce, commanding, gorgeous. So scary. Completely his.
Dion opened his mouth. Shut it. His entire body shook. When he managed to get his mouth open again, he couldn’t stop the confession from tumbling out. “He wasn’t supposed to hurt anybody! He was just supposed to grab her, put her somewhere nice, get the money!”
“Dion!” Dior hissed. “Shut up!”
“He said she’d be home the same night, I swear! And it wasn’t even her money! It was my money! Dior’s money! Dad should’ve left it to us, anyway!”
Dior slapped a hand over his mouth. “You stupid idiot, stop talking!”
Ginny’s expression didn’t change, standing before them with her father and grandfather behind her, looking like the heir to an iron throne. “So you did tip the kidnapper off. You sold out my mother to pay off your debt.”
Shepherd sat back, heart pounding in his ears. And there it was. The confession. Ginny had gutted them without ever raising her voice.
She spun around, arms wide. “Gentlemen,” she said to her ancestors, “the floor is yours.”
Bradley pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes clenched shut, face pulled into an uncomfortable grimace. Behind him, Elwin’s gaze was blazing fire, his hands fists at his sides.
“You admit it,” Bradley said, his voice low and oddly soft, but no less dangerous. “You conspired with a criminal to have your stepmother kidnapped.”
“She’s fine!” Dior snapped, trembling hands pointing blindly at the woman in question. “She’s home, she’s drinking martinis—she’s not even traumatized!”
“Excuse me?” Deandra asked, breaking protocol by speaking when not spoken to. “I am very traumatized! I had to use a bathroom blindfolded, Dior! Do you know how difficult that is? And also, my gentleman friend was killed!”
“She was kidnapped!” Elwin thundered. “Our family name—”
“—cannot afford a scandal,” Bradley finished.
He glanced at Vincent, who didn’t bother to look up from his phone, then at the stepmothers, whose whispers had turned sharp and urgent.
“If this comes out, it won’t just ruin Dion.
It will destroy your brother’s campaign.
Everything we’ve built will go up in smoke. ”
Ginny’s mouth fell open. She laughed, once, although it was more of a cackle, before getting into her father’s face. “You’re not serious. They confessed! They fed Mom to the mob as a debt collection!”
Bradley didn’t flinch. “Virginia, think this through. The FBI already believe this was random. We leave it like that so we can control the narrative.”
Dior grasped Dion’s hand and held tight, forcing a wobbly and wet smile. “Mr. Kent is right,” she said, her voice full of false warmth. “Bringing in the police would only make things worse for all of us. Why should the whole family suffer for one little mistake?”
“One little—” Ginny sputtered, but Elwin’s fist came down on the desk, silencing the room.
“We’ll vote,” he declared.
Of course they would. Shepherd slumped lower in his chair, every bone in his body screaming that this family was hell incarnate. If they started handing out ballots, he was walking straight into the ocean and praying for a shark attack.
Ginny stood frozen except for her jaw, grinding back and forth over her molars, as the people she shared blood with calmly began deciding whether to bury a crime.
She looked at Shepherd. Shepherd looked back.
He could almost hear all the creative swear words swirling between her ears at that very moment.
Bradley rubbed his fingers counterclockwise on his temples as he asked, “All in favor?”
Vincent had the decency to put his phone away as he raised his hand.
One of the stepmothers was next, and then she was whispering to the other until she, too, raised her hand.
Dior raised both her own and Dion’s joined hands, like a mother helping a child across the street.
Bradley was next, seemingly exhausted by the effort. The last hand raised was Elwin’s.
Ginny went, “Uh, come on!”
“All opposed?” her father asked, reclining heavily in his seat.
Ginny’s hand shot up so fast Shepherd worried it would fly off. He raised his, even though he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to vote or not this time. Deandra raised her hand, and said, “They could at least bring me a few more martinis for the trouble.”
“The motion passes,” Bradley said, knocking his knuckles against the table instead of a gavel. “The police are not told. Dior and Dion are to apologize to their stepmother and spend the next twenty-four hours being her personal bartenders.”
Ginny cried out to the ceiling. “Fine!” she shouted. “I am leaving this family, and I am never coming back! Good luck, Vincent! Go to hell, the rest of you!”
The stepmother that was married to Bradley—what was her name? Oh, right, Brandy—laughed, sharp and piercing. “That’s what you said last time. Look, I still have it on film.” She reached for her phone, but Ginny slapped it out of her hands.
“Mark my words, Brandy, you’ll be a Kent for another six months tops. Come on, Shepherd. Let’s go.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He hadn’t jumped out of a chair that fast since his twenties.
“Good luck to all of you,” he said, stopping in the doorway.
“You’re all terrible. But you did a good job with Ginny, and I’ll …
well, I guess I’ll see you at the next wedding.
Whoever that might be. Maybe mine!” He winked at Deandra. “Maybe not.”