Page 38 of Mercy (The Sins Trilogy 3)
Chapter Fourteen
Anthony
“Damn, boss. It’s like you never even left,” Wei says, admiring all the documents I’ve finished reviewing.
“I have an incentive.” Those had to be done before I could go home. And home means Ivy.
“Anything else you need from me?”
“Have the police sent any updates about the incident on Saturday?” My blood goes cold just thinking about it.
“The detective in charge sent me an email this morning. I can forward it to you.” Wei taps his tablet.
“How about from Jill’s office?”
I don’t have to hear Wei’s response to know he’s got nothing. He hates disappointing me.
“They’re idiots,” he says tightly. “It’s been two weeks, but they have no clue. All her files are encrypted.”
“So why not decrypt them?”
“They don’t have her password.”
“I suppose it wasn’t something like password123,” I say, frustrated. Jill was too damn good for something like that.
“Nope. They’re afraid to force their way in. The program they use is designed to wipe the hard disk clean if you put in three wrong guesses.”
“Shit.”
I stick my fingers into my hair. Good security is good, but not when it’s between me and what I want.
Which in this case is whatever the hell Jill discovered.
I keep think back on what she said before she died. She mentioned Mother specifically. Asked me to be careful.
But of what? Or whom? Mother?
There’s no way she is involved. I just can’t accept it. Maybe she knew about Sam’s duplicity with Ivy, but it’s not a crime for her to keep quiet about it. She wouldn’t tell me anyway. She hates me that much.
But she visited me out of the blue. She said she wanted to congratulate the bride, but did she really? Mother loathed the fact that Ivy and I were together back in Tempérane, and I don’t think that’s changed. Mother is a very constant woman. Otherwise she wouldn’t have held on to her anger over Katherine’s death for almost two decades.
She won’t forgive me, even on her deathbed. I know that now, and have accepted it even though it hurts to do so.
However, that doesn’t mean she’d go so far as to kill Ivy. The driver in the car was definitely a man, too tall and too wide to be her. The fact that the attempt happened the same day she visited me has to be a coincidence.
There is also more rational explanation, even if I hadn’t seen the driver. Murder would cost her too much. Mother enjoys her status as one of the most important people in Tempérane. Politicians suck up to her, churchgoers praise her for her charity work and law enforcement is exceptionally nice to her for raising money for various programs. Even if she hired someone to do it—a preposterous possibility—how could she be sure he wouldn’t rat her out to the cops if he was caught?
If she was implicated, she’d lose everything. It just wouldn’t be worth it, even assuming she was cruel and depraved enough to commit murder.
A call comes in. I answer immediately, thinking it must be Ivy.
Instead, it’s Elizabeth. “Hello, Tony. Ryder tells me you’re finally back to normal.”
I deflate. Not that I don’t like Elizabeth, but she’s not the person I really want to talk to. “Ryder does enjoy his gossip.”
“Yes. It’s the whole Hollywood thing, I’m sure.”
“So what’s this about?” I say. This is no social call. Elizabeth and I don’t have that sort of relationship.
