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  “I believe it,” Gabe said. Trevor would have suggested waiting during the Chicago Fire because the flames were sure to die down on their own.

  “I didn’t want her dead,” Trevor said again. “And about a month later, he called me. He said Margie had gone to her mother’s and now was the time, that if I called her there and kept her on the phone, he could take care of Helena in the next half hour. I told him absolutely not. He said if we waited anymore, we’d lose everything. Then he hung up.”

  “So you rushed right over to warn Helena,” Gabe said. “You called the police.”

  “The police?” Trevor looked aghast. “You’re joking. No, I called Helena and Margie answered. She said Helena was acting strangely and she asked me to come over, but I knew I’d be too late. I told her to take Helena to the hospital right away, that I’d meet her there, and she said, no, that if I just came over—” Trevor closed his eyes. “While we were arguing, she heard the shot. And then I went over.”

  “Was Stewart there?”

  “No,” Trevor said, his voice flat. “Margie had found her mother and she was hysterical, so I put a blanket over Helena and called the paramedics.” He took a deep breath. “And then I went upstairs and found Helena’s suicide notes. Three of them. She’d been practicing.” His face flushed and he sounded angry. “She’d been planning on killing herself all along. If Stewart had just waited.…”

  So much for Trevor not wanting Helena dead.

  “He was a fool,” Trevor said. “I should never have let Margie marry him.”

  You shouldn’t have let him shoot your wife, either, Gabe thought, but he said, “She was shot with your gun.”

  “He’d taken it earlier,” Trevor said. “Jack had everything planned.”

  Gabe leaned against the liquor cabinet. He’d buy that Stewart hadn’t planned the murder, but the accusation against Jack was fishy, coming as it did on the heels of the Quarterly Report. And that “he’d taken it earlier” bit had been rushed. “I’m still not seeing Patrick in this.”

  “Margie had told me that her mother had on her good jewelry. When I saw the body, Helena had on her rings and her pin, but the rest was gone.”

  “Stewart had taken it,” Gabe said, playing along.

  “Just the pieces he could grab before he ran,” Trevor said, distaste making his voice curdle, and Gabe began to believe him. “The pin would take too long to unlatch and the rings were embedded in her fingers because she’d put on so much weight. I knew he’d do something stupid with the other pieces, he was a stupid man, so I called Patrick.”

  “And still nobody tells the police,” Gabe said.

  “The scandal would have ruined us,” Trevor said.

  “Your daughter was married to her mother’s murderer,” Gabe said.

  “Exactly,” Trevor said. “Imagine what that would do to her if she ever found out.”

  Gabe stared at him, Margie’s maybe-they’ll-never-know mantra made flesh.

  “Your father was magnificent as always,” Trevor said. “He followed Stewart for days until he went into a pawnshop. Then he took most of the agency’s capital and bought the diamonds back.”

  “And he told my mother and she left him,” Gabe said, thinking, What fools the two of you were.

  “Of course not,” Trevor said. “Lia wouldn’t have understood. But she didn’t understand anyway, didn’t understand what had happened to the money and didn’t understand why he wouldn’t tell her. She wasn’t a good wife, Gabe. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true. Not trusting at all.”

  Gabe looked at him and thought, You must be from Mars.

  “And Patrick wasn’t the kind of man to let himself be run by a woman,” Trevor went on.

  “I’m sure that kept him warm at night after she left,” Gabe said.

  “I didn’t have the capital to pay Patrick back in full,” Trevor said, ignoring him, “so I gave him the Porsche. I knew he liked it, and it was my second car.”

  “Jesus,” Gabe said.

  “And then we did dummy invoices for the balance of the money, billing the law firm for fake background checks. I’d paid him back for all of it by the end of the year. Your mother was gone by then and your aunt was keeping the books. Nobody noticed.”

  “But he kept the diamonds,” Gabe said.

  “Well, I couldn’t take them,” Trevor said. “I was living with Audrey by then and I couldn’t risk her finding them. I’d told everyone they were buried with Helena. If Margie had found out I had them, she’d have gotten the entirely wrong idea.”

  No, she wouldn’t have. “So they were just going to stay in the couch?” Gabe said.

  “No. We were going to wait five years and then break the stones out of the settings and sell them. But then—”

  “Dad had a heart attack without telling you where they were,” Gabe finished.

  Trevor nodded. “And then Stewart embezzled and left, and it was all over. So we went on with our lives until Nell started to tear up your agency. You should have hired a lazy secretary, my boy.” He tried to chuckle, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it. “I tried to hire her away before she found the jewelry but…” He sighed. “And now it’s all over.”

  Gabe shook his head in disbelief. “All over? Trevor, it is not all over. Stewart is still alive and, let’s not forget, guilty of murder. And he didn’t leave for fifteen years. Jesus, the holidays must have been fun with him across the table from you.”

  “There’s a lot you could learn from your father,” Trevor said gravely. “He was never judgmental.”

  “Which explains this entire mess,” Gabe said. “If he’d dragged you off to the police—”

  “Gabriel, the police were not then and are not now a possibility.” Trevor’s voice took on the strength of his youth, and for once he was impressive. “Without my testimony, you can’t prove anything, but you can hurt my daughter and my business, so I’m asking you, as the son of my dearest friend, to let this go. It was twenty years ago—”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “—and nothing can be gained by dredging this up. Even if the police believed you, they can’t find Stewart. He’s been gone seven years. Margie’s going to have him declared legally dead. It’s over. Let it go.”

  Gabe stood up. “Trevor, I’m not the only one who knows.”

  “Nell will do what you tell her,” Trevor said.

  “Obviously, you don’t know Nell,” Gabe said. Trevor looked at him with contempt, and Gabe flushed. “And I wouldn’t tell her to keep quiet even if she did listen to me.”

  Trevor shook his head, clearly disappointed in him and his way with women.

  Gabe tried a new tack. “So where does Lynnie fit in all of this?”

  “Who?” Trevor said, looking legitimately mystified.

  “Lynnie Mason. Our former secretary. The one who turned up in a freezer a week ago.”

  Trevor blinked at him. “She doesn’t. Wasn’t she quite young?”

  “Early thirties,” Gabe said, not following.

  Trevor spread his hands. “She’d have been ten when Helena died.”

  “She didn’t have to be there,” Gabe said. “People talk. What did the woman who was blackmailing you really accuse you of?”

  “I told you,” Trevor said, his voice sharpening. “Adultery. It was a prank. Whoever it was never called back. I don’t understand you, Gabriel. You keep trying to make this personal, about your family and your business. It wasn’t. It was my family.”

  “But my family took the hit for it, too. This is why my mother left, isn’t it?”

  “Your mother,” Trevor said, his voice quelling, “left regularly. Why your father always took her back is beyond me.”

  “He loved her,” Gabe said. “And she loved him, that’s why she kept coming back, even though he pulled stuff like this.”

  “Don’t judge your father harshly,” Trevor said as Gabe turned to go. “He was a good friend. You’d do the same for your cousin.”

  “N