The Last Invitation (75)

Liam didn’t move. “I was there. I know how much financial security meant to him. To both of us.”

But he didn’t. For Liam, the need and determination remained healthy. His competitive nature had never tipped over into a can-never-have-enough pounding need.

She tried to make the disclosure clear. “Our marriage, which was already built more on nostalgic love and deep friendship than romantic love, began to falter.”

“I don’t get what this has to do with Natalie,” Liam said.

One had grown out of the other, but he wouldn’t understand until she’d guided him through all the steps. “He became obsessed with having enough money to start the business with you. You were both working at other places. Baines struggled because he wanted to be in charge and could be belligerent to those who were. We didn’t have any money back then. Neither did you. Then your aunt died, and the impossible became possible.”

Liam nodded. “She left us enough to buy our first warehouse and some land. Enough to get us started in a business of our own. And?”

She could tell Liam was running out of patience, so she tried to speed up without missing the important pieces. “You two got starter money. A lot went to charity. And the remainder, including ongoing royalties from the children’s series she’d written, went into a trust for your sister.”

Liam shrugged. “She needed extra help.”

Gabby knew the truth. The family lived on the edge of danger. Their father’s antics had bankrupted them. They’d lost a house and friends. The constant uncertainty had impacted Natalie the most. She’d grown up scared and wary. With absent, uninvolved parents, Natalie hadn’t gotten the services and help she needed, even though so much would have been provided by the state if her parents had reached out.

The learning issues compounded Natalie’s tendency for self-isolation, and the unraveling sped up the older she got. Her increasingly cloistered life and crippling anxieties demanded intervention. The money helped because it paid for a house and services. For therapy that Natalie used only on and off because her paranoia would flare and she’d block everyone, except her brothers, out of her life.

Here was the hard part. The unforgivable part. “But if anything happened to Natalie, the money from the trust went to you and Baines.”

Liam shook his head. “No.”

“No?” She knew she had those facts right because she’d sat in on meeting after meeting about the estate and about Natalie’s care.

“He didn’t kill her for money.” Liam stepped back, continuing to shake his head. “We took care of her. We were her guardians, but more than that, her protectors. For her whole life.”

The Fielding brothers. One of the reasons Gabby loved them both so much was because she’d seen them with Natalie. No one could make fun of her or hurt her. But Baines eventually broke her trust in the worst way possible.

“Baines started to . . . blame Natalie. She called him a lot. Took up a lot of his time.”

“We didn’t care about that.” Liam practically shouted the denial.

“You didn’t. You saw Natalie as a loving sister and accepted the responsibility. Baines began to think of her as a drain. I saw the toll her demands took on him. Natalie, fatherhood, work, me. It was a lot for him to handle. So, I tried to be the one Natalie went to, to be the go-between, but after so many years of leaning on the two of you, especially Baines, she couldn’t switch gears. Not fast enough to suit Baines.”

“You make him sound like a fucking monster.”

She didn’t say the obvious response. When it came to Natalie, at the end, he had been.

“A man started coming to our house. Baines would go outside with him, into that little shed we had at the back of the place we rented in Bethesda during the construction on our house.” She’d never seen Liam so pale, almost listing, as he stood there. “The guy was creepy. The kind of man who looked right through you, and you realized he was nothing but an empty, evil shell. No empathy or feelings.”

Liam still didn’t move. She wanted him to sit or lean against something. To prepare him for the blow she’d only partially landed so far.

“One day I followed them. Listened outside.” The memory ran in Gabby’s head. She could see it and tried to blink it out, but it shouted at her, demanding her attention. “Baines talked about how Natalie was running through the money too fast. How the royalties weren’t what they’d once been. How there wouldn’t be enough.”

Liam went back to shaking his head, as if he could physically stop the words from penetrating his mind.

“The other man said something about spreading a rumor. About how if people thought Natalie had money in the house she might get robbed. She could be the victim of a home invasion, and that would solve ‘the problem.’”

“You’re wrong,” Liam said. “She didn’t keep money there. Not more than a few dollars. She didn’t need to carry money because she didn’t go anywhere.”

He sounded so rational. She needed him to understand this was anything but. “We know that, but this was a story. Subterfuge to explain what happened next. They were talking about your sister and not being able to get access to her money, and ‘problem’ was the word they used. One week later, Natalie’s furnace malfunctioned. All the fire alarms also malfunctioned.”