The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,30
this. It has my cell phone on it. If you continue to live with him, you’re going to be calling me again, and we might as well cut out the middleman answering service.”
“I don’t live with him,” she said softly. “I work here.”
“My apologies for the assumption.” Dr. Qalbi glanced at Edward. “You can call me, too. And no—you don’t need to bother. I know you’ll say you won’t.”
The cottage door shut and a car drove off a moment later. And in the silence, Edward looked at his foot, which was now in the correct position and not angled out to the side. For some reason, he thought about the trip over here from the stables, him leaning on Shelby, his battered flesh draped over her lithe body like the deadweight he was.
As the phone began to ring again, Shelby glanced at it. “Would you like me to—”
“I’m sorry,” he said roughly. “You’re catching me at a time in my life when I’m just like your father was.”
“You’re not asking me to take care of you.”
“Then why are you?”
“Someone has to.”
“Not really. And you might want to ask yourself if you should leave.”
“I need this job—”
He met her eyes, and something in his expression shut her up. “Shelby. I’ve got to be honest with you. Things … are only going to get worse from here. Harder.”
“So don’t drink as much. Or stop.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Well, wasn’t he a gentleman. Trying to save her life as his went to hell. And damn it, he wished that ringing would stop.
“Edward, you’re drunk—”
As the phone finally went silent, all he could do was shake his head. “There are things that have happened with my family. Things … that are going to come out. It’s not going to get better than it is right now.”
A problem with his ankle was going to be the least of the issues.
As a car pulled up outside, he rolled his eyes. “Qalbi must have forgotten his bedside manner.”
Shelby went over to the door and opened it. “It’s someone else.”
“If it’s a long black limo with a pink Chanel suit in back, tell them to—”
“It’s a man.”
Edward smiled coldly. “At least I know it’s not my father coming to see me. That little headache has been well taken care of.”
When Edward looked over to the open doorway, he frowned as he saw who it was out front. “Shelby. Will you excuse us for a moment? Thank you.”
TEN
Out in the sunshine at Easterly, Lane ended the call to Metro Police and looked at Samuel T., who’d come back out the grand front door.
“Okay, Counselor,” Lane said. “We’ve got fifteen, twenty minutes before the homicide team arrives. At this point I’m on a first-name basis with them.”
“So we’ve got enough time to hide evidence in case you did it.” As Lizzie and Greta pulled a gasp-and-stare, Samuel T. rolled his eyes. “Relax. It was a joke—”
At that moment, Jeff Stern came pile driving out of the mansion. Lane’s old college roommate and U.Va. fraternity brother looked about as relaxed and well slept as anybody who’d been up for too many nights straight, living on coffee and microscoping financial spreadsheets.
An extra from The Walking Dead had a better chance with GQ.
“We got a problem,” Jeff said as he stumbled across the lawn.
Under different circumstances, he was actually a handsome guy, a self-professed anti-WASP with his proud Jewish heritage and New Jersey accent. He’d stood out at U.Va. for a lot of reasons, mostly because of his math skills, and had subsequently gone on to Wall Street to make sick money as an investment banker.
Lane had spent the last two years on the bastard’s couch up in the Big Apple. And he’d repaid the favor by begging Jeff to take a “vacation” and figure out what the hell his father had done with all that money.
“Can it wait?” Lane said. “I need to—”
“No.” Jeff glanced at Lizzie and Greta. “We need to talk.”
“Well, we have fifteen minutes before the police get here.”
“So you know? What the hell? Why didn’t you tell me—”
“Know what?”
Jeff looked at the two women again, but Lane cut that off. “Anything you have to say to me can be done in front of them.”
“You sure about that?” The guy put his palms up and cut off any argument. “Fine. Someone’s embezzling from the company, too. It’s not just whatever happened to your household accounts. There’s a river of money leaving Bradford Bourbon, and if you want to