Page 91 of Inevitable Secrets

Taylor pointed to the line in the paragraph and looked at Derrick. “Todd?” Derrick whispered.

“Do you think that Todd did this?” she asked, horrified.

“I don’t know,” Derrick said equally ruffled. “I mean he’s a hard guy to read, but all of this…” Derrick said looking at the paragraph again. “I don’t know, Tay,” he repeated.

“He moved the body, he bashed his head in and moved it,” Taylor said in shock.

“We don’t know—”

“God, my father trusted him, my grandfather, too,” Taylor said. “He was invited to holidays,” she rambled on.

“Tay,” Derrick said, but she went on.

“He always hated Cedric, too,” Taylor said nodding. “Probably hated him because he was trying to stand in his way, and then he did all of that horrible stuff to him.”

“Tay, calm down,” Derrick said. “The evidence is damning but sometimes people only see what they want to see. Look at the Tappen thing,” he reminded her. “We know Tappen was not the culprit but it made the police and the public feel better to know the high-profile case was shut. So let’s be cautious and really look at this from all angles.”

Taylor nodded. He was right. Meanwhile Ben was watching them like they were speaking in tongues.

“What do we do?” Taylor asked Ben because she knew that she and Derrick were out of ideas.

“He’s right,” he said, nodding at Derrick. “The police do not want to look like fools, like they pinned the wrong guy with this huge case. You want to set this right? You need evidence,” Ben told them.

“Yeah, no shit, but from where?” Derrick said.

“His office,” Taylor said looking between the two of them. “He must have something there, right? I mean if he wanted to take the company over then he must have something there to implicate him.”

“It’s as good a place to start as any,” Ben agreed. “I will head over there,” he said. “Give me a head start to make sure there is nothing going on there.”

“Why are you helping us?” Derrick finally asked him. “I’m getting a little paranoid about it, to be honest.”

Ben was quiet for a moment, seeming to gather the right words. “Cedric was good to me, he took care of me. And I could tell he really cared for you, Taylor,” he said, looking her way. “It’s not hard to care for you, you’re a good person,” he said, “and you deserve to be happy. Cedric didn’t get his happily ever after, but you should. He wanted you to have it. This is my way of thanking him,” he explained.

Taylor stood rooted where she was. “You think he wanted me to be happy, why?” she asked.

“You don’t pay that much money to find someone and then not want to know where they are in order to cause them harm,” he said. “Wait here, come only after I’ve called you,” he said, and with that he slipped back out the creaking front door.

* * *

Derrick watchedas Taylor shook while her eyes skittered around the room. The visceral effect this place was having on her was heartbreaking.

“Let’s go outside, Tay,” he said, pulling her to the huge door, “we can wait in the car.”

Taylor nodded and wasted no time pulling the door open and leaving her former home.

Derrick looked back over his shoulder in the doorway. Seeing it now, he couldn’t even remember what the place had looked like. It had been amazing, he remembered that, but he couldn’t picture it. The place where so many happy things had happened was destroyed, but it couldn’t destroy their memories.

He pulled the massive door closed and jogged down the stairs to the car, Taylor already waiting inside.

“You okay?” he asked her.

Taylor sat facing forward. “It’s all just so fucked up,” she said softly, shaking her head.

“Yeah,” Derrick said, nodding, “yeah it is.” He tried to think of something to say to distract her. “Where should we start, you know, when we get to Preston Corp?”

Taylor shrugged, “Todd’s office?”

“Do you really think he has stuff in there to implicate him?”

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