Justin Denbe, clad in dress jeans, button-up shirt, leather shoes, more clothes suitable for a plane: “Are Ashlyn and Libby all right?”
“Other than terrified? Traumatized? I mean, seriously, who the hell are you to be so concerned about them now? After all you put them through?”
“They were not to be harmed,” he reiterated stubbornly.
Wyatt shoved Kathryn’s cuffed form to the side. “Sixteen years,” he stated. “You embezzled from your own company for sixteen years.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” But he wasn’t looking at them anymore, his gaze once more darting to the open doorway. “Can’t steal from yourself.”
“Oh, you can,” Tessa corrected, grip tightening on her gun. “Because anything you put in your personal accounts you risked owing to your wife, who was bound to figure out about your affairs and demand a divorce. Or you could siphon money into slush funds no one ever knew about. Until sixteen years had passed, and you found yourself with eleven million dollars, a dying business and a jilted wife. Must not have been too hard to make your decision after that. Time to get out, while the getting was good.”
Justin still didn’t say anything. He wasn’t even making eye contact with Kathryn Chapman. Instead, skittishly, he continued to lean toward the open door.
“What time’s your flight?” Tessa asked.
He flinched.
“We got your girlfriend. Gonna travel without her?”
Belatedly, he glanced at Kathryn. Wyatt no longer had his hand over her mouth. She gave an involuntary moan.
“Yep, this is your boyfriend,” Tessa told her. “A man who hired his own kidnappers, faked his own death and abandoned his own family. But, hey, he’s all yours.”
Beside her, Wyatt said, “Mick’s dead. Your wife shot him.”
Justin’s eyes widened. He appeared startled.
“But your daughter has a serious concussion,” Tessa pressed. “She needs you. In fact, your miraculous return from beyond the grave might be exactly the kind of thing that would enable her speedy recovery.”
It was interesting, really, to watch the agonized look that overcame Justin Denbe’s face. The clear internal struggle. Be there for the daughter he adored, but also return to the life of responsibility. Or go. Just go. No commitments, no obligations, a free man with eleven million dollars in his pocket.
He looked at Tessa.
He looked at Kathryn, not even speaking, just making pleading sounds in the base of her throat.
And then…
He ran for the doorway. Leapt through it. Got as far as the deck. Tessa yelled his name, gun coming up, but holding fire as she couldn’t very well shoot a man in the back. Wyatt thrust Kathryn aside, preparing to give chase.
As somewhere in the distance, a rifle cracked. Tessa registered the sound, then dropped instinctively to the floor, Wyatt joining her, as together they watched Justin Denbe’s head explode on the front porch.
Now you see him, now you don’t.
Justin’s body collapsed.
Kathryn started to scream.
There wasn’t a second shot. Or a third. The first round had gotten it done.
After an eternity had passed, Tessa climbed shakily to her feet. Wyatt rose to stand beside her. They took in Justin’s lifeless form.
Wyatt said: “Told you the hired muscle involved a brain or two.”
THEY PHONED SPECIAL AGENT ADAMS. Let the federal agent flex her muscle as neither one of them had legal standing. Plus, it meant she’d inherit the paperwork. Kathryn was led away, still screaming. Most likely would be taken to a local emergency room and treated for shock.
In the meantime, uniformed officers patrolled the neighborhood. Rooftop deck, two houses down and across the street, they recovered a rifle and a single brass cartridge. Serial number filed off the rifle. Fingerprints wiped off the cartridge.
“Professional-grade work,” Nicole said, stating the obvious.
“Dead men tell no tales,” Wyatt intoned.
“One of the kidnappers?”
“You take Justin into custody, he’s bound to talk,” Tessa supplied with a shrug. “Most professional arrangements involve signed confidentiality agreements. Let’s just say, Justin appeared at risk for violating his.”
“You see anything?” she asked.
“No,” they replied honestly.
Nicole sighed, returned to her vehicle to update the APB. Not needed for anything else, Wyatt and Tessa finally departed, Wyatt walking her to her car.
“Think Libby and Ashlyn are now safe?”
“Well, think about it. If Justin was here when Mick attacked his family…”
Wyatt nodded. “Kind of thinking the same thing. One of the hired guns, maybe the leader, took out his own guy.”
“Interesting profession. Very strict rules of employment. But said guy also left Libby and Ashlyn alone afterward. So, yeah, hopefully dust will now settle and they can start rebuilding their lives.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked.
She answered him as honestly as she could: “Some days better than others.”
They’d arrived at her Lexus.
“So,” he said.
“So,” she answered.
“This is the awkward part. ’Cause technically you’re buying dinner, and yet I’m dying to ask you out.”
“Can’t meet my daughter,” she warned seriously. “Not for a bit.”
“Wouldn’t expect it.”
“I got space issues.”
“Noticed that. I got a thing for wood. Sometimes, I have to build things. Just do.”
She nodded. “I look really good in heels,” she said at last.
“Really? Because I’m told I’m damn hot in a jacket and tie.”
“No tie. Just the jacket.”
His gaze warmed. “Still the heels?”
“Still the heels.”
“Friday night?”
“Next Friday. I need to spend some time with Sophie.”
“Fair enough.”
Wyatt leaned forward. Caught her off guard with a low whisper to her ear. “And wear your hair down.”
Then he turned, already sauntering down the street. Tessa remained standing there a moment longer, a slow smile spreading across her face. She thought of families, old and new, and survivors, then and now.
Then, she got into her Lexus and drove home to her daughter.
Chapter 44
THIS IS WHAT I KNOW:
My husband started siphoning funds from his own company sixteen years ago. Not just a slush fund, but an Exit in Case of Emergency fund. The federal financial wizards believe he accrued a little over thirteen million dollars by setting up dozens of fake vendors in his own company books, then vouching for their authenticity.
According to e-mails recovered from his computer, he began to make his exit plans back in June, approximately five days after I discovered his affair. By the time Ruth Chan caught wind of the embezzlement in August, it hardly mattered. Justin’s escape strategy was well under way. No doubt he sent her to the Bahamas simply to get her out of town for the big event. Certainly, he’d already purchased a forged passport, later found on his body, for the name Tristan Johnson. He’d also used that name to purchase a plane ticket for the Dominican Republic, as well as open a new bank account, where he most likely planned on transferring the bulk of his illicit gains.
Those funds have yet to be tracked down, maybe still sitting in another bank under a different alias; the forensic accountants are working on it.
Finally, the Great Escape: My husband hired three professionals to kidnap his own family. He gave them a security code to enter our home (the date I’d discovered Kathryn Chapman’s texts on Justin’s
cell phone; Paulie, Justin’s top security guru, discovered it when auditing the system). Justin then prepped the men with all the information they would need to successfully ambush us in our own home, while also providing a secure location for our incarceration.
He gave them guidelines: They could not harm his wife or his daughter. And apparently, he granted them permission to Tase and beat the shit out of him. After all, the kidnapping needed to appear genuine in order for his death to appear genuine, not to mention he needed the insurance company to cough up nine million dollars in ransom. It’s not like Denbe Construction had that kind of money, and heaven forbid Justin should dip into his own cash reserves.
Z and his team performed their job admirably. But I think, in hindsight, Z became increasingly disgruntled about working for a man whose master plan involved, at the very least, terrorizing his unsuspecting wife and daughter. Hence the expressions of frank hatred I caught so many times on his face.
Was that why Z and/or Radar assassinated my husband? I doubt it. I think if Z had truly wanted Justin dead, he would’ve taken care of it up close and personal during those final moments at the prison. Plus, Z always struck me as a professional; the kind of guy to get the job done whether he approved of his client or not. I think Radar was probably assigned the job of tailing Justin, to make sure he got safely out of town, just as Z took on the job of tracking Mick. Tying up loose ends, so to speak. When Mick attacked me, Z took the necessary steps to eliminate an untrustworthy associate. And when Justin was collared by the police, Radar took the necessary steps to eliminate an untrustworthy client. As Justin had said, they had nine million reasons to make a clean getaway, which they did.
Mick’s fingerprints ID’d him as Michael Beardsley, a former marine, dishonorably discharged five years ago, and with a reputation for working the “private sector.” For a while, the FBI visited Ashlyn and me nearly daily with photos of Mick’s known associates, hoping
we could pick out Z or Radar from the photo array. So far, we haven’t recognized any of the men in the pictures. And so far, the police haven’t been able to find any trace of e-mails or other means of contact between Justin and Z.
No doubt, Z took many precautions on that front. Given that, in the end, he saved my life, I haven’t gone out of my way to provide information that could aid with his capture. Ashlyn knows what happened that night, and shares my opinion. So we do our thing, and let the cops do theirs. I doubt they’ll ever catch Z or Radar. But I also doubt they’ll ever bother us again. Job over, they’ve moved on. Maybe, someday, we will, too.
I miss my husband. Maybe that’s perverse of me. But you don’t love a man for nearly twenty years and not feel his absence. Yes, I had signed a prenup forfeiting all claims to Denbe Construction, in return for half of all our personal assets. And, yes, Justin ran all our personal possessions through the business, so that had I decided to divorce him, I would’ve been entitled to nothing at all.
He cheated on me. Physically, emotionally, even financially. And in that regard, I still can’t feel special because it turned out he cheated on everyone. Stole from his own company, denied assets to his own employees. In his own way, he tried to compensate by giving out generous bonuses during the boom years, but still… He drained thirteen million dollars from the company coffers, denied even his closest and most loyal employees the chance to buy into the firm, all while presenting himself as a great guy and considerate boss.
In the end, I think there were two Justins. The one I cherished as my husband. The one Ashlyn loved as her father. The one his guys respected as their leader.
Then, there was the one who stole from all of us, while constructing an elaborate ruse in order to leave us forever. Because thirteen million dollars apparently mattered more to him than the love of his family and the admiration of his firm.
I don’t understand that Justin. I can’t picture what would make someone already so successful value money over his family and friends. All I can guess is that he really wanted his freedom. No more responsibility, no more decisions, no more obligations. Though ironically enough, we would’ve helped him with that, too. He could’ve sold the firm to his management team. He could have run away to Bora-Bora with Ashlyn and me. We would’ve gone. We loved him that much. Or thought we did.
This is the part both Ashlyn and I struggle with. The Justin we knew had strong values, rigidly upheld expectations of himself and others. Whereas the kind of man who betrays his whole family, going to the extreme length of kidnapping and terrorizing his own wife and daughter just so he can make a clever getaway…
Would he have ever looked back? Missed us? Mourned us at all?
Because we mourn him. We can’t help ourselves. We mourn the man we thought we knew, the father who taught Ashlyn how to use a cordless drill, the man who used to hold me at night. The man we thought we watched die for us.
Because we’d believed in that man. And we miss him still.
The DA brought charges against Chris Lopez. He pleaded guilty to all counts, sparing my daughter the trauma of a trial. I wonder if that makes him feel noble. He seduced a vulnerable fifteen-year-old girl, but this one act somehow makes it right.
I haven’t spoken to him. Frankly, I have nothing to say.
I am working on myself these days. Whether my husband was a liar or not, I’m trying to make good on the promise I made: to quit prescription painkillers and be there for my daughter. I am working with a detox specialist now, having gone from hydrocodone to methadone and now weaning off the methadone. I made Ashlyn go with me through the entire house. I showed her all my little hidey-holes, and one by one, we emptied out the pills, then handed them over to my doctor.
I can’t say it’s been easy. I dream of oranges all the time. I wake up tasting birthday cake and I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt. I had wanted to save my family. Even after discovering Justin’s affair, even after popping that first pill, I still thought we’d somehow make it. We’d get our acts together, forgive, forget, carry on. Justin, Ashlyn and me against the world.
I work with an excellent therapist now, who likes to ask me questions. Such as, Why? Why should our family have survived intact? Because we were so happy? So loving? So nurturing of one another?
Justin wasn’t the only one with problems. I’d become an addict and my fifteen-year-old daughter was sleeping with a forty-year-old man. Maybe, just maybe, the three of us together wasn’t working out so well.
And maybe now, the two of us surviving can do better.