Page 32 of Deadly Little Scandals
Gutierrez.”
There was something in his tone and posture that reminded me that he’d grown up with Lillian, in a town where my grandmother claimed that people had to fight to survive.
I wasn’t deterred. “His granddaughter was the teenage girl your adult son knocked up.” I rested my forearms on the railing and took in the way a muscle in his jaw had just ticced. “So it isn’t just business,” I said, reading into the tell. “Your dealings with Victor Gutierrez—and his with you—arepersonal.”
“What they are,” he emphasized, “is none of your concern.”
“You told me that you took care of the situation with Ana,” I said, studying the lines of his face, looking for another tell. “I assumed that meant you paid her off.”
That seemed to be the go-to move in the Ames family playbook. Davis had helped to cover for the accident that had put Nick’s brother in a coma, back when he’d thought that Walker was the one driving.
He’d paid Nick off once the truth about the senator’s involvement had come out.
“I believe,” Davis said, “that I’ve had enough fresh air.” He started back for the ballroom.
“Campbell thinks Ana is the body that’s been sitting at the bottom of Regal Lake for two decades.” I dropped that bomb, stopping him in his tracks. “She thinks someone in your family killed her.”
Davis Ames turned back to face me, his expression inscrutable, his posture impossible to read. “And why the hell would she think that?”
I kept expecting someone to open the door and join us on the deck, to interrupt this conversation, but no one did. It was just the two of us, out here, alone. “Campbell doesn’t have the highest opinion of your son,” I said. “Or her mama. Ana’s pregnancy was awfully inconvenient, and as far as Campbell and I have been able to tell, neither Ana’s family nor anyone hereabouts has heard from her in twenty years.” I held his gaze. “It doesn’t look good.”
He stared at me for a moment, then let out a huff. “Too much like your grandmother for your own damn good,” he muttered, before getting down to business. “How much have you told Campbell?”
“I didn’t tell her that youhandledAna,” I said, “if that’s what you mean.”
“I didn’t kill the girl,” Davis said, “and you damn well know that.” He shook his head. “I spoke to her about her situation just once. I told her she had options.”
“Options,” I repeated, making no attempt to downplay the skepticism in my voice. Davis Ames did not strike me as someone who sat back and let other people make their choices, completely free of input and coercion.
“Yes, options. Alternatives. Choices. And I suggested that she’d have a hell of a lot more of them with money.”
Of course he had. “You bought her off.”
Davis Ames didn’t seem insulted by that statement in the least. “I scared the hell out of that girl, and then I offered her a way out. Money up front, and more once the baby was born.”
The latter half of that statement surprised me. “Once the baby was…”
He gave me a look. “I have a reputation for being a real bastard—well earned, I might add—but if there’s one thing I care about, it’s my own flesh and blood. Yes, I wanted to protect my son, but that child was my blood, too. I had hopes that once Ana realized her parents weren’t going to support her, she’d see her way to an adoption.”
I stared at him for a moment. This was a man who made decisions, a man who liked control. “You probably had adoptive parents all picked out.”
Davis didn’t deny it. “That’s neither here nor there. Ana took my money, Sawyer. She left town. And I never heard from her again.”
ithin moments of reentering the ballroom, I was waylaid by Campbell.
“What just happened?” she asked. “And don’t tell me that you and my grandfather were simply overcome with a need for fresh air and chitchat.”
“He didn’t want me asking about his interaction with Victor Gutierrez in public.” I let that sink in, then imparted the other piece of information I’d gained. “Your grandfather admitted to paying Ana off. He was trying to bribe her into an adoption. A quiet one.”
“You should have let me come with you,” Campbell insisted. “I could have gotten him to tell us more.”
“There might not be any more to tell,” I replied. “If Ana took his money, if she was keeping the pregnancy quiet…what motive would anyone have had to hurt her?”
Campbell didn’t have an immediate response. I glanced around the room, looking for the others, and realized that Sadie-Grace and Boone were on the dance floor.
“Where’s Nick?” I asked Campbell. I had a sinking feeling about what she was going to say before she replied.
“He said to tell you that you suck at favors, and then he left.” She made a tsking sound. “Don’t look so disappointed. Nick’s not a boy you rely on, Sawyer.” She gave the faux sympathy a rest and offered me a wicked smile. “But heisan awful lot of fun.”
