My phone buzzes with a text and I grab it to read a message from Blake: The computer system at the hospital was updated to read heart attack on your father’s chart. The early drug testing is clear. Only it wasn’t a heart attack. It was poison. Just like I doubt Richard really died from a car accident. I consider my mother’s suicide. That was real. She made that decision, but a Kingston might as well have been holding the gun. They did everything they could to keep me out of this family and ironically, I believe Gigi really did think that I was the only way to save it. She’s a fool. The only saving I’m going to do is of Harper.
I reach down and stroke her cheek. She blinks awake and catches my hand. “Eric.”
“Yeah, baby.”
“Any luck?”
“A few leads. It’s late.” I glance at my watch to read midnight. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Bed with you sounds pretty perfect,” she murmurs groggily.
“Good. Because bed with you is always perfect.” I scoop her up and start carrying her toward my room, our room now. The room we’re going to share in the kind of peace that comes only one way: with the end of the Kingston family. Because people in the Kingston world tend to end up dead, with suspicious circumstances that happen at just the right time to save the Kingston name. They took my mother. Harper almost ended up dead. They will not take her.
No matter what I have to do to protect her.
This game is not a game. It’s the end of times for the Kingstons and that’s how I’m going to approach the new day when it gets here. Like the end of times.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Eric
I sleep three hours and lay in the bed holding Harper for another hour, finding the numbers in my head easier to control when she’s with me. Almost as if she’s my Rubik’s cube, which I’m fairly certain would sound ridiculous to anyone but me. Or Harper. I don’t think it would be ridiculous to Harper. She seems to understand me in ways no one else, not even Grayson, has ever understood me. I inhale the sweet scent of her, motivation to solve the puzzle I can feel my mind on the verge of solving.
I grab my cellphone, read an hour-old text message from Blake: Isaac is not only in the city, he’s holed up in a room at the same hotel where your father was poisoned. Some people might be scared of that hotel. Not him. Interesting.
Interesting is right, I think. He’s stupid enough to think that staying at the hotel makes it look like he’s not guilty. He’s wrong. The police are going to see this just like I do. Isaac isn’t scared because he set-up that hit.
He wants the money and that tells me the will doesn’t include me. It never did, but why the fuck did he need to get rid of me, aside from fear that I’d take the company once it was his? No, he didn’t want me in Denver. He wasn’t a part of getting me there. He said I’d mess something up, piss someone off, and yes, that could have been the mob, most likely it was the mob. That means killing Harper, and setting Harper up was part of his plan, but me, I wasn’t. Maybe he didn’t expect me to come back for her at all. My mind starts swimming in all those possibilities, and I know I need to decode that first message.
By sunrise, I’ve showered and despite it being a work day, I dress in jeans and a shirt, simply because I’m not sure what Harper has in those bags Mia brought her. We’ll have to go shopping today. I exit the bedroom with Harper still completely knocked out. On one hand, I’m pleased that she feels safe here, but on the other, I worry that when she wakes, the adrenaline rush of her attack is going to hit her. Eventually, it will, and I want nothing more than to hold her and help her ride the wave to get through it. A luxury we can’t afford right now. Not with what feels like a ticking clock to a bomb about to go off. Not with Isaac here in New York City, but at least he’s a means to an end. The end of times.
I’ve just finished brewing a second pot of coffee when my cellphone rings with an unfamiliar number. I answer it on the first ring. “Eric Mitchell.”
“Mr. Mitchell. This is Detective Rider. I thought you’d like to know that your father had a heart attack.”
“I’m aware of the fact that my father had a heart attack.”
“I’m fairly certain that you, like myself, believed he was poisoned. Walker Security showed us the man on the security footage that entered your father’s room.”
“Did you find him?”
“No.”
“Was my father poisoned?” I press.
“You tell me. We’re waiting for additional testing. Perhaps we can chat today. Should I come to you? Because I can’t seem to find you at the hospital.”
“The same reason we don’t want my stepmother there. I want Harper where she can be protected. Until you find that man—”
“Who is the man?”
“You want me to do your job? Wait. Yes. You do. And I expected that, which is why I hired Walker Security. We’ll be by the hospital later today. You want to talk to me, find me when I get there.”
“Which will be when?”
“When I get there.” I hang up and dial Blake. “Do you know a Detective Rider?”
“I met that prick last night. He’s chasing a promotion and thinks taking down one of the Kingston family, considering the car empire, is his ticket.”