Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead(Finlay Donovan #2)(102)

When I came out of the kitchen, the children were sitting on the floor, tearing into their presents. Delia jumped up and down, holding a shiny box of checkers to her chest. Zach abandoned his gift, distracted by the sparkly red ribbon it had been wrapped in.

My father sat down at the head of the table. My mother took the chair at the opposite end, pulling out a chair beside her for Delia. I sat at my mother’s left beside Vero and snapped Zach in his high chair between us. Georgia helped Nick into the chair across from me, setting his crutch against the wall and claiming the seat beside him. My sister made funny faces at Delia behind Nick’s back as my mother led us through a quick grace. She crossed herself, darting sharp looks at Georgia as she reached for the open bottle of wine. She poured herself a generous helping, grimacing as she knocked back a deep swallow while the rest of us began to pass plates and serve. Georgia and I locked eyes across the table. Our mother rarely ever drank, and when she did, it was never more than a sip or two from our father’s glass.

“Go easy there, Ma,” Georgia teased. “You won’t last through dinner. And I already bragged to Nick about your pecan pie.”

“Don’t mind your mother. She’s just upset,” my father grumbled.

“Why’s Ma upset?” Georgia asked.

“It’s nothing,” our mother said curtly.

Our father dropped a mountain of potatoes on his plate. “She’s been in a mood for weeks. She got tangled up in some online scam, and now she’s got people sending her photos and harassing her for money.”

“No one’s harassing me,” she said, stabbing her ham. “Not anymore. It’s over.”

“See?” my father said. “I’m not the only one who fell for something I saw on the internet.”

“They’re asking for money?” Nick asked.

“It was probably one of those online pyramid schemes I’ve been hearing so much about. They prey on people like us.”

“You mean old people,” Georgia said.

“Watch it,” Dad warned her.

“It wasn’t a pyramid scheme,” my mother argued. “It was just someone’s idea of a practical joke.”

Nick set down his fork and dotted his mouth with his napkin. “Online harassment is actually a crime. If someone’s bothering you, I can ask the cyber guys at work to look into it.”

“It’s fine,” my mother insisted. “It was only one picture. No one has bothered me since.”

“Since when?” I heard myself ask. A sick, dark feeling was settling in my stomach as my mother tossed back another gulp of her wine.

“Two weeks ago,” my father answered.

“What kind of picture?” Georgia asked.

Our father shrugged. “She won’t tell me.”

“Because it’s nobody’s business,” my mother snapped, ending the discussion. Her jaw was tight as she cut into her ham.

“So, Nick,” my dad said. “How’d you injure yourself?”

Nick’s attention swung to my father. “Took a couple of slugs on the job.”

My father’s eyebrows shot up. “No kidding. I bet that’s quite a story.”

Nick’s gaze slid to me. I shook my head in warning. “I’m surprised Finn didn’t mention it, considering she was there.”

My mother’s head snapped up. “What? Finlay, you didn’t tell us anything about this!” She looked to my sister. Georgia held up her hands, using her full mouth as an excuse not to answer.

“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Nick got there just in time.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have made it out of there without your help.” His eyes caught mine across the table and held them.

“Mommy’s a hero?” Delia asked, pushing brussels around her plate.

“Yeah, she is,” Nick said in a low voice that felt like it was just for me.

Vero fanned herself with her napkin. “Is it a little warm in here? It feels a little warm in here.”

“What on earth were you doing in the middle of a shoot-out?” my mother cried, dragging my attention from Nick.

“It’s a long story. Not one for the table,” I said, clearing a lump from my throat. “Delia, honey, if you’ve finished your dinner, you can be excused to play with your toys.” Delia leapt from her seat and raced off to the living room, leaving Zach behind to rub au gratin in his hair.

My sister talked around a mouthful of ham. “So that whole internet-forum-hit-job thing turned out to be real after all?”

My mother’s fork paused halfway to her mouth.

“As far as we can tell,” Nick said. “But the investigation is deadlocked. The website disappeared before we could get anything useful out of it.”

“What website is that?” my father asked, dragging his roll over the last of the sauce on his plate.

“We think a local arm of the Russian mafia was using a women’s chat room as a front for organized crime.”

My mother’s fork dropped with a clatter.

I felt Vero go still beside me.

I set down my glass, unable to hold it as my fingers went numb. I turned to my mother.

The arsonist who’d started the fire at the trailer, the clever cover-up of Carl’s murder, the identity of the person who’d hired a contract killer to murder my ex-husband … Up until a moment ago, they had all seemed like entirely separate mysteries, their motives completely disconnected from one another. But what if they were, at their very core, connected by one common, unbreakable bond—by the most powerful motive of all—the one I hadn’t stopped to consider when Vero and I were sitting on the floor over a box of Crayola markers, struggling to sleuth it all out?