Page 46 of Knife in the Back (New Orleans #4)

“I was happy to get an occasional bag of potato chips from the commissary,” Naomi said. “Moisturizer was out of my reach. I was released after five years when my sentence was overturned. I was accused of stealing cocaine that had been taken in a drug bust, but it was just powdered Sheetrock.”

“I remember you now. Or I remember your case. Why are you here?”

“Because John Gaffney approached me last Friday and asked me to distribute drugs for him.”

Amanda went still. Her eyes flicked down to her hand before rising to meet Naomi’s. “And you said?”

“I said no. Then he threatened my son.”

Matthew Cresswell frowned. “With what?”

“With harm,” Amanda said quietly. “Isn’t that right?”

“It is.” Naomi purposely studied Amanda’s prosthetic device before meeting the other woman’s gaze once more. “Did Gaffney threaten you, too?”

Matthew frowned, first at his mother, then at Naomi. “Mom?”

Amanda shook her head. “I can’t talk about that.”

“About what?” Matthew pressed. “I can make them leave. They shouldn’t be here anyway. You can tell me.”

“No, son, I can’t talk about it with anyone. Especially with you.”

“Mom? What is this? Should I call Milly?”

“Milly is the Cresswells’ fifteen-year-old,” Burke murmured in Naomi’s ear.

“Almost the same age as Everett,” Naomi said, not in a murmur. She spoke loudly enough that Amanda was sure to hear.

Amanda was shaking her head. “No, Matthew. Milly doesn’t need to know about any of this.”

Naomi leaned forward. “Ma’am, Mr.Broussard and I met with your husband yesterday.”

“I know,” Amanda said quietly. “Why did you?”

“Because after Gaffney threatened me with harm to my son, someone tried to abduct him. I’d hired Mr.Broussard’s firm to protect him and his bodyguard kept him safe.

Then there were two more attempted abductions of children belonging to Mr.Broussard’s employees.

Another abduction attempt targeted the children of Mr. Broussard’s extended family.

We wanted to know why I was framed and why Gaffney was trying to draw me back in. ”

“Why haven’t you asked Gaffney himself?” Matthew asked, bristling. “Why go to my father when he couldn’t have been involved? He’d been in prison for two and a half years.” He looked at Burke angrily. “Because of you .”

Burke opened his mouth to reply—what he’d have said, he didn’t know.

But Naomi knew what to say. “No, not because of Mr.Broussard. Because your father was a criminal. Which is hard to hear, I know. And we’re not here to argue that point,” she said firmly when Matthew started to do just that.

Burke wondered why she didn’t use this tactic with Everett.

Naomi turned back to Amanda. “Are you aware that your husband hadn’t spoken a single word since his incarceration began?”

“Doesn’t surprise me.” She glanced at her hand again, her focus lingering on the prosthetic. “He didn’t say a word to me the first and only time I visited him there.”

Matthew’s eyes widened. “You visited him? In prison? When?”

“Later,” she said to her son. “Get to the point, Miss Cranston.”

“We asked your husband what he knew. Then Mr.Broussard offered to protect your children if he’d talk to us.

He never said out loud he’d been threatened with the safety of your children, but from his reaction, it seemed certain he had been.

” Naomi gestured to Amanda’s hand. “I don’t mean to be cruel or unfeeling, but did your husband’s associates do that to you? ”

Matthew shook his head. “She lost the finger trying to move one of my father’s power tools. She slipped and it started up and cut off her finger.” Then he looked at his mother, who’d grown pale. “Mom?” Matthew then paled as well. “It was an accident, wasn’t it? Mom? ”

Amanda stared at them all, misery in her eyes. She shook her head mutely.

“Mom?” Matthew whispered, horrified.

She gripped his hand. But she still did not speak.

“We came today to make you the same offer that we gave your husband,” Burke said gently, because both Amanda and her son appeared to be on the verge of a breakdown.

“But with no strings. If you know something, we’d be grateful to hear it, but I can’t let your children be endangered for something their father did.

I suspect our visit triggered your husband’s death, whether by his own hand or someone else’s.

If there’s a chance they could come after your children, too… well, I couldn’t live with myself.”

Matthew was still staring at his mother. “It wasn’t suicide? He was murdered? Mom! Answer me!”

Amanda closed her eyes. “I can’t afford protective services, Mr.Broussard.”

“It’s okay,” Burke said. He’d expected that, courtesy of Antoine’s research into the Cresswell finances. Amanda owned this home and not much else. “I can cover the expense. I can have someone here in less than an hour.”

He’d put Devonte on alert that he might be assigning him here.

Amanda nodded, tears slowly sliding down her cheeks. “Matthew, you should go upstairs. I need to talk with Mr.Broussard.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Matthew declared, his voice much smaller than it had been, but no less sure. “I have a right to know. I’m old enough.”

“Nobody’s old enough,” Naomi said wearily. “And no one is out of Gaffney’s reach. He tried to kill my mother when she was appealing my conviction. He is a dangerous man, Matthew. It might be your right to know, but once you do, you need to understand what might happen if you were to tell anyone.”

Matthew looked at his mother’s hand. “I understand.”

Burke sent a text to Devonte, who replied that he was on his way. “One of my employees will be here soon. Like I said, no strings. But if you give us any information, it will help us put this danger to rest and all our children will be safe.”

Amanda sighed. “All right. I’ll tell you what I know. Matthew, go get your sister. I wanted to shelter her, but that time is past. She should hear this, too.”

—

Uptown, New Orleans, Louisiana

Wednesday, February 26, 11:30 a.m.

“I didn’t know what Arthur was doing,” Amanda began. Matthew clutched her hand and Milly sat on the floor at her feet, holding on to her mother’s legs.

The sight of them, clinging together, hurt Naomi’s heart.

Amanda looked exhausted. “Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” Burke said, but Naomi heard the words he’d left unspoken.

For now.

Once other truths were revealed, he might change his mind.

“Thank you. He liked to play the horses. Came home one day with the keys to a new car. Said he’d hit a trifecta, that he’d had a huge payout.

He said the car was mine. I was thrilled.

I’d never had a nice car before. Arthur was a captain by then, but he was still a cop.

Even after the promotion, his salary still wasn’t enough to buy a top-of-the-line Mercedes. But I believed him.”

“Of course you did,” Naomi said, feeling for the woman. She could find compassion in her heart for Amanda Cresswell—unless the woman was lying to them. Then Naomi would see her punished. “He was your husband.”

“He got calls at night and claimed they were from work,” Amanda went on. “But I suspected there was another woman.”

Milly made a wounded noise and Amanda stroked her hair, careful to lift the prosthetic finger out of the way.

“Did you ever discover who that other woman was?” Naomi asked.

“Yes. You’ve met her. Quite recently, in fact.”

Naomi understood. “Winnifred Timms.”

Amanda’s nod was grim. “One night, when he’d gotten a call, I followed him. He went to a condo on Poydras. Stayed there for hours. Finally, around dawn, I gave up and came home.”

“Did you confront your husband?” Naomi asked.

“I did. I parked my car around the block, called in sick to work, and sat down to wait for him. He came in about fifteen minutes after I was supposed to have left for work and I nearly gave him a heart attack when I came out of the kitchen to greet him. I wanted to smell him, to see if he smelled like another woman’s perfume.

He didn’t. He smelled like whiskey and cigarettes. ”

“Did you tell him that you’d followed him?”

“Not that day, but I did a few weeks later when it happened again. He denied an affair. He said he was having a meeting with some undercover cops and that I was endangering them by following him.”

“Gaslighting,” Naomi murmured.

Amanda nodded. “He was good at that, in hindsight.”

Milly made another wounded noise.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Amanda said. “I hate that you have to hear this about your father, but I’d hate it even more if you got hurt because I didn’t prepare you and one of your father’s thugs came after you.”

“He’s dead,” Matthew said, sounding numb. “He can’t have thugs anymore.”

“Gaffney’s continuing his crimes,” Naomi said. “When did you find out about Winnifred?”

“That would have been about six years ago, in December.”

Naomi nodded. “That was the same month that I stopped to help Timms, whose car was wrecked on the side of the road. She was the one who pointed out to the cops that I had drugs in my car. Drugs I did not put there.”

“Which was what sent you to prison,” Amanda said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Unless you were in on it. But Naomi didn’t think Amanda had been. “How did you find out about Winnifred?”

“I started to smell perfume on my husband’s clothing. So the next time he left the house in the night, I followed him again. Made it easier after I put a tracker under his car. He went to the same condo, but this time he met a woman outside and they went up together. That was Winnifred Timms.”

Matthew stared at his mother. “You put a tracker under Dad’s car?”

“I did. Because by then we were making a lot more money and I was worried. Rumors were everywhere. But, to be brutally honest, I liked having the money. We were fine on the day-to-day expenses, but we hadn’t saved a penny for the kids’ college.

That changed. We had savings for the first time in our marriage.

We both drove new cars and we’d bought the house on First Street.

I loved that house,” she added wistfully.