Forgotten in Death(109)

Bolt shot his wife a baffled look. “What are you talking about?”

Eve kept her eyes on Lilith’s. “You don’t say the same about his father, his grandmother.”

Bolton’s face went from puzzled to stunned. “You can’t think—They didn’t know about her. I never told them.”

“Bolton.” Lilith cupped his face in her hands. “Think. Do you really believe your grandmother didn’t keep tabs on you back then? Didn’t know about Johara? Didn’t know everything?”

She rose, but kept a hand on Bolt’s shoulders. “Elinor Singer is a cold, calculating woman.”

“Lil—”

“I will say it,” she snapped. “You know how I feel, and I know you feel the same. Status and reputation are her gods, and she’s ruled this family with an iron fist.”

“Not you,” Bolton muttered.

“No, not me. She thought she could, and so approved of me. She was mistaken, and we coat our dislike for each other in manners. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she’d found some way to pressure or intimidate a girl barely into her twenties, emotional, fragile, to give up her child. But Johara never got the chance to do that, did she?”

Tears spilled out of eyes hot with anger. “She loved, too. You can read it, read her own heartbreak in the letter. She came to New York, that’s what you think, isn’t it? She came here to tell Elinor, to tell J.B. she was keeping the baby, she wanted to make a family with Bolt, she wanted their blessing. For the sake of the child. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

“What I know is she came to New York, and she was shot three times on a site owned and run by Elinor and J. B. Singer, and she was walled up there, left there for thirty-seven years.”

“You can’t possibly think my grandmother, my father would have…” Bolton trailed off. The color drained out of his face again. “Who else?” He whispered it. “Who else could have?”

“She was coming back to you, Bolt.” Lilith dashed tears away from her cheeks. “I’m sure of it. They couldn’t have that, couldn’t allow that. She didn’t meet the standards. I did—a few years later when you’d fallen in line, I did. Or so they thought. A well-educated, well-brought-up young woman from a wealthy, prominent New York family. An all-American family. Marvinia met those standards in her day.”

He dropped his head in his hands. “Oh Jesus, Lil.”

“If she had her way, Kincade will be obliged to select a woman by those standards—because it’s the sons that matter to her.” Lilith’s face went feral. “She’ll never get her way with mine, with ours. It eats at her to know that.”

Then her eyes filled again, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh God, I hate her. I didn’t realize just how much. God, Bolt. Oh God.”

He got up, shakily, but wrapped his arms around her. “We’ll get through it. You’re right, we’ll get through this. Lieutenant Dallas, do you think, do you believe, my grandmother and my father killed Johara and our child?”

“I need to follow through with this information.” She had two people very much on the edge, Eve thought, and needed to be very careful not to tip them over. “We’re going to pursue every avenue to find out who murdered Johara Murr, to bring them to justice. Whoever they are.”

Now Eve got to her feet. “I can’t stress enough how vital it is you have no communication with your family until I tell you otherwise.”

“Do you think I’d warn them?”

“I think you’re upset and angry and confused, and may feel the need to confront them. You need to stay back and let me do my job.”

“We will. Johara deserves that, Bolt. From both of us. I’ll go get the letter.”

“Lil,” Bolt said as she started from the room. “We were so young, and each of us so sure we were right. Not much compromise between us. I can look back and see we probably wouldn’t have made it. We’d have tried for each other, and the child, we’d have tried. But love isn’t enough without understanding, real respect, and a hell of a lot of compromise. We wouldn’t have made it. You and me? We always will.”

“Damn right we will.”

He sat again. “I don’t know what to think, what to feel. If my grandmother did this, if my father … He can’t stand up to her. Few can. I tried, all those years ago. I failed. And I never really tried again until Lilith, until the kids.”

He turned to Roarke with the faintest of smiles. “A strong woman will make a man of you.”

“Truth. We’re fortunate in ours. I’m very sorry, Bolton, for your loss. I’m glad to see you’ve made a family who’ll let you grieve that loss.”

“I only knew her surname. She didn’t like talking about her family, it made her feel guilty. We had some friction about that, too. I know she had a brother—in medical school. In London, I think, but I’m not sure. Her family needs to know. I could hire investigators to find them.”

“Let me use my resources for that,” Eve said.

“If you find them, any of them, I’d like the chance to speak with them, if they’d agree. And if you can’t find them, or something happened to them over the years, Lilith and I would like to—to make the arrangements.”