Once Upon a Marriage

* * *

TARNISHED TRUTH’S THEORY made it onto two internet news sources Friday morning. Elliott had had to search three levels deep, but he’d found the proclamation that Liam and his father had concocted the entire rift in their relationship in an attempt to distance Liam—not to protect him. Liam was completely innocent, as Walter had publically confessed when he’d admitted to his own duplicity in hiding the Ponzi scheme he’d discovered in his company. He’d intended to protect his son from any kind of accountability so that he could take over his father’s business, keep it in the family, in the event that Walter ended up serving any kind of prison term for obstruction of justice. But Liam had not been in collusion with him.

Walter’s plea deal, which included no prison time, had already been accepted and recorded. Either Tarnished hadn’t done his homework, or he simply hadn’t cared, as the ultimate sentence couldn’t have been known at the time that Walter and Liam would have made the plan.

Didn’t really matter at that point. With the news out there, Elliott was bound right where he was. Working for Liam and using the job as a cover for watching over Marie Bustamante. He’d been bound anyway.

He’d known that. Until the Connelly case was settled, tensions around the family were going to be running high with a lot of angry people trying to recover from financial ruin.

They’d get their money back. Walter was seeing to that—paying them out of arms of his company that were legitimate and fluid. But for some the return would be too late in terms of lost credit and homes.

Which inevitably led to some broken relationships, substance abuse, lost jobs, lost hope...

All things that made people desperate.

And that was where he came in. Protecting his clients from desperate people.

He’d been sitting outside Marie’s coffee shop just after nine on Friday, having dropped off Liam and Gabrielle at their respective places of work, watching for any replay of the reporter fiasco they’d had two months before the Connelly investment news first hit the airwaves, when his phone rang. A past client of his—an esteemed doctor who’d been threatened by the family of a man who’d died under his care.

He answered on the first ring.

And by the time a second could have pealed, he had hung up again. To quickly dial the security guard positioned by Marie’s front door, warning him that he was going to be gone for a bit.

There was an alleged gunman at the doctor’s son’s elementary school. The place was on lockdown. He wanted Elliott there, to do anything he could to assist in saving the lives of the endangered children. The sum he’d offered was astronomical.

But having his services hired allowed Elliott to be at the scene.

He’d worry about money later.

* * *

MARIE WAS IN her office with Grace, her eighty-year-old baker, having lunch, when Edith Larkin, a seventy-year-old widow who lived on the fifth floor, came off the elevator. “Do you have your television on?” she asked, clearly agitated as she wiped her hands on the apron she seemed to wear from morning until night.

The small flat-screen in the corner was off. Grace, who was closest, grabbed the remote and turned it on.

Certain that she was going to see something to do with Gabi and Liam—or at the very least Liam—Marie braced herself. She’d had the news on in the shop all morning, just in case, so she could warn her friends, but all morning there hadn’t even been a Connelly mention.

Leave it to fate to blast news during the half hour she took to enjoy a broccoli and cucumber sandwich.

“There,” Edith proclaimed as soon as Grace had turned to the local channel. “Isn’t that our head security guy?” the woman asked, pointing to the screen.

Heart pounding, Marie had already noticed Elliott on the screen. But was confused by all the flashing lights coming from the cars and trucks and ambulances surrounding the scene. Where was he?

“...don’t know any more yet, but stay tuned. We’re on the scene and...” The female announcer’s voice-over could be heard loud and clear.

“Where are they?” Marie asked. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a gunman at Heathrow Elementary,” Edith told her. “Why is our security man there?”

Marie had no idea.

Jumping up from her seat, she moved closer to the screen, scared to death.

CHAPTER SIX

THE FBI HAD been called to the school and was in charge. Police were working the scene with them. Because of the credentials he showed and the fact that his client’s child was inside the building, Elliott was permitted to remain at the scene.

And do little else. So far no shots had been fired. No injuries reported. Because he had to be of use, Elliott made himself a media guard, keeping reporters at bay so that those who were trying to save lives could do their jobs unimpeded. He didn’t have the authority to move everyone back. Or to stand guard over them, but he did it and they responded.