“No. He’s the one who called me because he wanted to help. I just gave him the vehicle to do it.”
“It’s a good vehicle,” Tori says from where she’s still lounging indolently against the cabinet. But there’s something in her voice, that makes me think she’s a lot more perceptive—and a lot more interested in what Miles had to say—than I was giving her credit for.
“A really good vehicle,” I think Chloe says. It’s hard to tell since her words are muffled against my shirt. And because she’s still crying.
“It’s okay, baby.” I card my fingers through her curls, rub the tips of my fingers against her scalp in the way that usually makes her purr. “Let it out. If anyone deserves a good cry right now, it’s you.”
“You have no idea,” Tori says with a snort.
Before I can even begin to puzzle out what that means, she’s handing me a glass of tequila with a squeeze of lime. “Here. I figure after the day you’ve had, you’ve earned it.”
“I’m not going to disagree.” I take a grateful swallow, savoring the way the liquor burns all the way down my throat.
Chloe spends a couple more minutes pressed against me, but finally manages to pull herself together enough to start plating the roasted asparagus she pulls from the oven while Tori puts the mashed potatoes in a serving bowl. I want to pull Chloe back into my arms, want to hold her so close that nothing can ever hurt her again. But she’s not that kind of woman—she might have been willing to let me take care of things today since I already had the plan in place, but if I try to take over anything else, it’ll probably end with her taking a shot at my balls.
Deciding discretion really is the better part of valor, I start walking toward the bar. “What kind of wine would you ladies like me to open?”
There’s an odd silence, and when I turn back to Chloe her cheeks are flushed and her eyes downcast. “What’s going on?” I start to ask, but I’ve barely got the first word out of my mouth when a breaking news graphic flashes across the TV just as a commercial ends.
One of CNN’s Washington anchors comes on the screen, looking a little confused and a little shocked—like she’s still in the middle of being fed whatever story her producer considers breaking news. But within seconds she gets it together and starts talking, just as a graphic of my brother flashes across the right half of the screen.
“And in a truly bizarre, and tragic, turn of events—in a story that has been filled with bizarre and tragic twists, it’s now being reported that the body of Brandon Jacobs has been found in his house by the FBI team executing a search warrant on his property. I repeat, the body of Brandon Jacobs, best known as the younger half brother of noted philanthropist and tech genius Ethan Frost, as well as a candidate in this year’s election for the US House of Representatives for Massachusetts’s seventh district, has been found in his house by the FBI. We have no other details at this time, but will keep you posted as we learn more.
“As many viewers know—if you’ve been watching our coverage throughout the day—it’s been a bit of a rough afternoon for Brandon Jacobs. He—”
The sound of breaking glass distracts me and I look around, searching for the source. It isn’t until Chloe grabs on to me and guides me to one of the breakfast nook chairs that I realize hazily that the noise came from me. My drink had slipped from my hand, the glass shattering on the hardwood floor.
Chapter 24
Oh shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This isn’t happening. Someone, please, tell me this isn’t happening. But it is. Oh, God, it is.
Ethan hasn’t moved since I got him seated in the breakfast nook. Instead, he’s just sitting, hands clasped, elbows on knees, staring hard at the floor—and the broken glass that is strewn across it.
The TV continues to drone on about Brandon’s life—and the bizarre turns that led to him being found dead. At the moment, there are no other details. No cause of death, no location of the body in the house, nothing like that. Just the confirmation that came from the FBI when the local coroner’s van was dispatched to Brandon’s property.
“Ethan.” No response. I put my hand on his arm, on his cheek. Still no response. “Baby, please, can you look at me?”
He doesn’t so much as blink. He just keeps staring, eyes wide and pupils dilated in what I’m pretty sure is shock.
I can hear Tori moving behind me, her heels clicking on the wood as she crosses the kitchen
. Even though I don’t turn to look, I know where she’s going. Sure enough, the TV snaps off seconds later.
“Take him in the other room,” she tells me and this time I do look at her. She’s crouched down next to the glass Ethan broke, mopping tequila off the floor and gathering up the glass shards. “I’ll take care of this and let myself out.”
“I’m fine,” Ethan says, pushing to his feet.
“Baby, I think—”
“I’m fine,” he reiterates. “Leave the mess, Tori. I made it, I’ll clean it up.”
She ignores him, keeps cleaning, so that his words hang in the air between us. They’re so eerily similar to the ones he’d uttered this morning—Don’t worry, Chloe. I will clean this up—that they give me pause. I can see by his hesitation, by the way he suddenly can’t figure out what to do with his hands, that he recognizes the echo, too.
Ethan had tried to clean up the mess his mother made and now his brother is dead. Whether or not his actions today caused his brother’s death—and I don’t think they did—doesn’t matter. But the fact that he believes he did—and it’s obvious that he does—matters a lot right now.
I stoop down beside him, start to help him pick up the bigger pieces of glass. Except the smell of the tequila turns my stomach so badly that I have to breathe in through my mouth, have to swallow half a dozen times before I can focus on anything but the desperate need to throw up. I force the nausea back down. This isn’t the time or the place for it.
After we’re done cleaning up, Ethan stands. Holds out a hand to help me to my feet. Then turns and walks away without a word. It’s one of the eeriest things I’ve ever seen.