sad face whenever I'd see him waiting for her somewhere. She was the center of the universe and everyone revolved around her. If you think you're going to find some wonderful woman in your grandmother, you're mistaken. If you're smart, you'll drop this."
"Perhaps you should go, Miss Ashton," Sylvia interjected.
"Perhaps I should," she agreed, having had her fill of both of them.
When she got outside, she handed her ticket to the valet, a young man with long, somewhat dirty-looking, brown hair and a nametag that read David. A tingle ran down her spine. This was Sylvia's son, the one who was blackmailing Ryland. He looked nothing like his very put-together mother.
"You're leaving early," David said. "The club gets hot after ten; that's when the old people leave. You should stick around."
"I'll have to do that another time. Could I get my car?"
"Sure thing."
She frowned as he sauntered off. He smelled like weed. It was difficult to believe that Sylvia, who seemed to be such a tight-ass when it came to staff, allowed her son to get high on the job and apparently blackmail people.
When her car arrived, she handed David a five-dollar bill and tried not to recoil when their hands touched. She slid into the car and slammed the door.
As she drove away from the club, she couldn't help thinking that all the men she'd met with tonight had left her feeling unsettled, but each in a different way. David had made her want to take a shower. Constantine had given her a lot to worry about, and Jax had made her crazy with desire.
But maybe she shouldn't be leaving out the women who had also made her uncomfortable: Louisa and Sylvia. Both women saw her as a threat. Louisa wanted to protect her husband, and Sylvia wanted to protect the club.
Her mind rattled around with questions as she drove away. She knew she was using those questions not to think about the information that had bothered her the most—the idea that her dad had been in his mother's car the night she died.
She had to talk to him. But what would she say? She could hardly ask him if he had something to do with his mother's death. He'd flip out.
Maybe she could just come at him with the idea that someone else had been in the car, had ordered the food. That should be enough to get a reaction. She just hoped she was ready to handle whatever that reaction might be.
On her way to her parents' house, Maya stopped at, ironically, the same fast-food restaurant chain that allegedly would have served her grandmother's last meal, if she'd eaten it. After ordering a burger and fries, she sat in a rather long drive-thru line, hoping it would move quickly.
While she was waiting, she thought about the night of Natasha's death. The food inside the bag had been untouched, leading police to conclude that Natasha had decided not to eat anything before taking her fatal dose of drugs.
Or the food had never been for her grandmother.
That theory screamed at her again, Constantine's words ringing through her head.
But Natasha had gone into the restaurant to pick up the food. She'd been seen on a security camera, and a cashier had remembered serving her. In fact, she'd been shocked that the famous Natasha would be buying burgers. So, Natasha had bought the food and gone back to her car. No one else was seen in her car when she left the restaurant. She'd been found dead six hours later.
Her father's fingerprints had been in the vehicle, but her father had said he'd been in the car a few days earlier when his mother had picked him up after school. He'd sworn to the police that he hadn't seen her that night. His presence at home had been verified by the family housekeeper, Miriam Gregg.
Her father had never been considered a suspect. In fact, there hadn't been any real persons of interest beyond the obvious ex-husbands and ex-lovers, but after interviewing everyone, the police had come up with nothing, no evidence of foul play. And then stories had started coming up about Natasha's drug use. Most of those stories had been tabloid rumors, but eventually the smoke had been enough to drown out whatever true spark of fire had actually been there. The police and the private investigator who had been hired by Wallace Jagger had eventually given up.
But she wasn't going to give up. She believed the overdose story even