Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(104)

Hudson put his phone on speaker so he could scroll through the pictures Ellie had forwarded to him yesterday. “How long has she been bedridden?”

“I don’t know. A couple of weeks or more. Pancreatic cancer is serious shit.”

Hudson knew that. But how could they be talking about the same woman? He had a copy of the video that was taken yesterday morning, which showed Julia striking a guy who was probably her boyfriend, given what she was shrieking about another woman.

“Hudson? You still there?”

Hudson scratched his head as he swiped through Julia’s pics yet again. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“I have good news on the DNA tests, too,” Jones told him. “I’m going to deliver the kits to a lab here in Phoenix for testing. They’ve promised they’ll put them first in line. We should have an answer by tomorrow.”

Hudson pinched the bridge of his nose. Either his private investigator or Ellie’s had to be wrong—and he had a sneaking suspicion that he knew which one was lying. “Sounds good,” he said. “Call me as soon as you get word.”

“I will, but...there is a bit of bad news.”

Although he was still in his car, Hudson straightened his leg so he could shove his keys in his pocket. “What’s the bad news?”

“Matisson’s demanding $2 million now.”

Hudson remained silent for so long, Jones cleared his throat.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, right? You’ve got the money.”

Although Hudson felt his muscles tighten, he tried not to let his anger leak into his voice. “Yeah, I’ve got the money.”

“Great. I’ll email you wiring instructions. Once you receive the proof, you’ll have twenty-four hours to move the money into Matisson’s account. Understand?”

Hudson stared out across the parking lot, but he wasn’t really seeing anything. He was remembering how much it had bothered him that Jones would be stupid enough to hand Matisson his card. “I understand.”

“You’ll have everything sometime tomorrow, so be ready with the money,” Jones reiterated and disconnected.

Hudson sat still for several seconds. Then he called Ellie.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. She was obviously surprised to hear from him, since he’d just left her.

“Jones is in on it,” he said.

“On what?”

“The blackmail. I believe he’s the one who’s behind it.”

“Are you serious?”

He told her what Jones had said about Julia being in the hospital.

“He’s lying. He’s got to be lying. He’s probably not even in Arizona.”

“I’m guessing once he figured out who Matisson was, he realized how badly I wouldn’t want that information to come out and decided to take me for more than his usual fee.”

“So he set it all up with Matisson—they’re in it together.”

“Have to be. Can you imagine a guy like Matisson—someone who doesn’t blink at sleeping with his own daughter and tossing her child away like trash—turning down the chance to make an easy mil?” Or two? Remembering how coolly Jones had raised the price made Hudson’s blood boil. “I bet he’s the one who gave Matisson my address in the first place. Not some poor local.”

“Wow,” she said on a long exhalation.

“He might even be the one who made up that part about Julia being on her deathbed as a way to twist my arm.”

“But he has to know it wouldn’t be all that difficult for you to check...”

“I’m sure he was banking on the fact that if I asked anyone to verify Matisson’s claims, it would be him. He’s a PI, after all. His plan might’ve worked if you hadn’t hired Shelly Gomez. He didn’t see that coming.”

“Thank God for her.”

“Thank God for you.” A final glance at his watch told him he had to go or he’d be late.

“You would’ve found out,” Ellie said.

“Probably not in time.”

“So what kind of proof are they going to offer?” she asked.

He got out and hurried toward the entrance. “We’ll see soon enough.”

“Falsifying records—convincingly—wouldn’t be easy for a low-level crook like Matisson,” she said.

“But it wouldn’t be hard for Jones.”

“True. That means whatever they send will say there’s a match whether you’re related to him or not.”

“I know—but because you found that cigarette butt, we’ve got our own test.”

“If that butt really belonged to Matisson. We don’t have any guarantees there.”

None of his gardeners smoked. He’d never seen another butt around his house. But if the tests weren’t consistent, they’d have to take a third one. “So we’ll get the police involved and force an in-person test to determine, once and for all, if there’s any relation between us.”

“You do that, and this thing will go public for sure.”

“Then they won’t have anything to blackmail me with.”

“You’ll still have to deal with the humiliation you’ve been trying to avoid.”