Sins, Lies & Spies (Black Brothers #2)(62)

“No.” She glanced out the window. “Probably not. The name is pretty generic. Can I look at the file?”

“Sure.” I pulled into the parking spot across the street from her townhome. “There’s not much to see. I did a pretty basic background check on her. Nothing too invasive. Apparently, she worked in the Benton household for six months when she was eighteen. They terminated her employment and paid her twenty thousand dollars. I couldn’t find much else about her after that.” I squeezed her hand. “I thought she might know what Miles was using to blackmail Derrick Benton.”

“I guess you were right.” Her fingers closed around the door handle. “Did you ever find any traces of her?”

“She hasn’t used her social security number in over a decade. She’s never popped up on social media.” I rubbed my hand down the side of my face. “Honestly, I didn’t spend much time researching her because I concluded she was dead within minutes of scanning her background check. It seemed like a waste of time and resources.”

She blanched, and a lungful of air wheezed between her lips. Tears brimmed in her eyes, overflowing down her cheeks. “My uncle thinks she’s dead, too.” She swallowed as if she was searching for courage. “He came to visit me this morning. That’s why I went to Miles’s house. I thought I could get him to tell me everything.”

I reached across the console and pulled her into my arms. “It sounds like you did, but you shouldn’t have confronted him alone.”

Her chest heaved. “Not really. He told me about the trust and my brother, but I didn’t get anything to help you find out who hired Miles.”

“Shh.” I smoothed my hand up and down the back of her hair. “One thing at a time. First, we’ll deal with your brother. Then we can worry about Miles.”





CHAPTER





THIRTY-FIVE


Darcey Benton


I sat in a small artsy wine bar with exposed brick walls, round heating ducts spanning the length of the ceiling and wooden tables without tablecloths. I wore a black, blunt cut wig and a long black jacket with the collar popped. Luckily, I was able to secure a seat next to the window, which gave me a prime view of Trinity Jones’s townhome.

Apparently, on Wednesday nights, the bar hosted aspiring musicians. A steady flow of melodramatic idiots with less than mediocre voices stood on a small stage, singing about hurt feelings, broken hearts and a bunch of other nonsense. The sheer silliness of it almost prompted me to abandon my plan, but I didn’t have a choice.

Tomorrow would be too late. Derrick had caved to that opportunistic bitch’s plans. So instead, I concentrated on the clogged traffic on the street and the river of people pouring in and out of the front door.

I should’ve eliminated my husband’s bastard child long ago. Forcing Trinity’s mother out of the house with a twenty thousand dollar check without making her take a pregnancy test was the biggest miscalculation I’d ever made. At the time, I thought I’d got off cheap. I would’ve paid ten times that amount to make my husband’s child mistress disappear.

By the time I found out about the pregnancy, it was too late. For nearly ten years, Anna Jones drifted around the country, never staying anywhere for more than six months at a time. Finally, she settled down in that godforsaken town in Texas, and I lured her to her death with the promise of a huge monetary settlement in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement. I thought killing Anna Jones would be the end of the story.

Instead, my piece of shit husband suddenly found God when he became sick, and begged his son to find Trinity and bring her into the fold. My spineless son did exactly that. Fortunately, my husband’s health deteriorated quickly, and I succeeded in persuading Derrick to keep the details of the trust private. He appeased his guilt by tossing money in Trinity’s direction on occasion and renting a townhome owned by a Benton subsidiary to her at a reduced rate. Until recently, I was satisfied knowing that the money-grubbing whore’s daughter would never get access to the Benton Family Trust.

I had earned every penny of that money with blood, sweat, and tears. I overlooked my husband’s repeated indiscretions, ill-treatment, and forty years of all around hell. I’d never willingly hand over half of the Benton family fortune to some no name bastard without an ounce of class or breeding. That money belonged to my son and my grandkids. Everything would’ve been perfect if Trinity Jones heeded my warnings, and kept her mouth closed, but she hadn’t.

So I waited, watching for the lights to turn off inside Trinity’s townhome. By the end of the night, I’d finally be rid of her once and for all. I’d kill her just like I did her mother. I couldn’t hire someone else to do my dirty work. It was too big of a risk.

Derrick would go into a rage when he found I’d killed Trinity. He was a sentimentalist, and for some unknown reason, he had a soft spot for Trinity. This time tomorrow, Derrick would be having a tantrum rivaling that of a spoiled child, but I didn’t care. I was doing this for him. Sooner or later, he’d understand that.

At ten o’clock in the evening, the lights in Trinity’s townhome dimmed. I lingered for another two hours, ordering enough drinks not to raise any flags or trigger anyone’s memory. For the tenth time that night, I checked the syringe in my pocket loaded with potassium chloride. Within minutes of injecting her, Trinity’s heart would beat out of control and then stop functioning altogether. The coroner would rule sudden cardiac arrest as the cause of her death. And the nightmare that started over twenty-five years ago would finally be over.