Page 13 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

Nella

The police station was just across the road from her office.

The crime scene.

In the dark, the cold blue lights of the police cars made the strip look like it was underwater.

The blue-and-white-checked tape was taut around the walls of her red-brick building and officers in dark blue plastic suits were coming in and out, typing on iPads and nodding and shrugging at each other.

Was it all for show? If they were treating it as a suicide, the forensics team, even though they were trained to look for clues objectively, would have tunnel vision when it came to looking for evidence.

Maybe the pressure from Tom had got to him? Fuck. Tom.

She checked her phone, which she’d turned to Do Not Disturb during the interview. Tom had called seventeen times. Daisy: 9. Pearl: 3. Ian: 1.

She spotted a familiar red car parked across the street but turned her back to it and pressed one of the missed calls randomly.

‘Nel?’

‘Daisy, are you okay?’

The younger woman’s sobs strained down the line.

‘Daisy, you don’t have to talk about—’

‘Nella, it’s so awful!’ she choked out. ‘He was there and now he’s not!

He seemed so nice ...’ She sobbed again.

Her reaction was perfectly normal for someone who’d never really experienced death before.

That had been Nella six months ago, but now, all she felt was numb.

She pressed the phone tighter to her ear, hoping some of Daisy’s emotion would filter through her ear and into her bloodstream.

Not only had she left her employees for six months, but now she’d scarred them for life by bringing in Clarkson for his final hours on earth.

‘The police said Ian found him,’ Nella said.

‘Mmhmm.’ Daisy blew her nose away from the speaker, and when she came back, her voice was thick, but sturdier. ‘We’re all here at Pearl’s now. Ian’s still in shock, I think. He left his gym bag in the backroom, that’s why he went back. I thought he just brought it into the office for show!’

Nella smiled in spite of everything.

‘Anyway, Pearl and I locked up and everything was fine. I checked on Clarkson, asked him if he needed anything, gave him the code to set the alarm like you told me to and then we left.’

‘What time was that?’ Nella bit her lip as the forensic officers all went back inside.

‘Uh ... it must have been about twenty to six.’

Figures. Clarkson probably would have turned his charm on Daisy, keeping her back so he could subtly look down her shirt, no matter how pressing the ‘inconsistency’ he’d found.

Nella’s paralegal was young, with coppery pink hair and tanned skin, that beer-drinking, no make-up, ‘one-of-the-boys’ type guys like Clarkson always had a weak spot for.

Nella had tried to be that girl once, but it never worked out; she was too high maintenance , and beer tasted like acid.

‘I didn’t see Ian.’ Daisy lowered her voice. Nella could hear the others talking loudly in the background. ‘But I’m sure he would have got there when he said he did.’

‘Which was when?’

‘Six.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘I have to tell you ... later ... Clarkson ...’

There was a rustling through the phone and then a voice growing louder. Something clicked and rattled, and a new voice replaced Daisy’s.

‘Nella?’

‘Ian. How are you?’ She tried to swallow the prickle of annoyance. What had Daisy been about to tell her?

‘I found him ... Nella, I ... that was fucked up.’

She wasn’t a therapist. ‘Ian, what happened when you got there?’

‘I went to disarm the security system, but it was weird ... Normally it beeps, but there was no sound.’

‘So the security system wasn’t on?’

‘Nope. I called out “Anyone here?” Lieu’s car was still outside, so I figured it was just him, but still, I had a feeling, you know?

I couldn’t hear anything but he’d been typing and incessantly calling people all afternoon .

.. His door was slightly open, so I figured he would have heard me.

I thought maybe he’d popped out the back. ’

‘That’s what I would have assumed too.’

‘Yeah, so anyway, I didn’t want to disturb him, so I figured I’d just grab my bag and go. But then ... I dunno what it was, Nella, I think I heard something ...’

‘Ian, be specific. What did you hear?’

‘Ah, shit, I dunno, it all happened so fast, but it sounded like the back door.’

‘You heard the back door open?’

‘No, I thought I heard it close – it sounds different when it closes, kind of like a whine. So I went out back and it was unlocked, but that’s not weird – normally the last person out locks it.’

Nella made a mental note to check with Daisy and Pearl if they’d locked the back door or if they’d left it, assuming Clarkson would lock up. ‘Then what happened, Ian?’

‘Well, there was no one in the alley and I called out, just in case, you know, it was some kid mucking around, but there was no answer. So I figured I’d check on Lieu.’ Ian’s voice wavered.

Nella clutched the phone tighter as if it was his wrist.

‘I ...’ He took a shuddery breath. ‘I called out, asked if everything was okay. There was no response, so I ... I pushed open the door ...’

‘It’s all right, pet.’ Nella heard Pearl’s voice muffled through the phone. ‘You’re all right.’

When Ian’s voice came back it was thick and throaty. ‘He was on the ground. Belt ... belt around his neck ... must have fallen ... The fan was still ... swinging.’

Nella squeezed her eyes against the image Ian’s words conjured.

Clarkson, face pale, neck angled, legs hanging in his expensive suit like it was drying on a washing line.

Clarkson, who she’d laughed with, kissed, had a small crush on; Clarkson, who was going to save her family from the La Marca lawsuit.

Dead.

‘Ian, I know this is hard, and I know you’ve probably already told the cops this, but is there anything else, anything you were worried about saying to the police, anything you thought they wouldn’t care about or you thought was insignificant?

You can tell me. I’ll protect you, I promise. I won’t let anything bad happen.’

Empty words from a boss who’d kicked him into the deep end after he finished his final year of law school, thinking he was moving all the way to Bindi Bindi Cove to learn from the rising legal star that was Antonella Barbarani.

‘I’ve told you everything I told them, Nella.’

‘You said there was a belt around his neck? What colour was it?’

‘I don’t know ... Brown, I think.’

‘You said Clarkson made phone calls earlier. Did you hear who he was talking to? What he was saying?’

‘It was all muffled.’

‘What about the name Abby . Does that ring a bell?’

‘I’m sorry, Nella ...’

‘Ma’am?’ One of the forensic officers was making a beeline towards her. ‘This is still an active crime scene.’

‘Ian, I’ll talk to you guys later.’ Nella hung up on his heavy breaths and turned to the forensics woman.

‘This is my office. And you need to make up your mind if you’re treating this as a suicide or murder.

If it’s the former, then you need to get out.

If it’s murder, you need to re-do every search you’ve just done. ’

‘ You need to leave, Ms Barbarani. I don’t care who your family are.’

‘Well, you should care who I am. See that door – whose name is that? Or are basic literacy skills not a prerequisite for entry into the police force?’

‘Nella.’ Jett’s voice came from behind her, not from the car, where he should be. ‘Let them do their job, c’mon.’

‘They’re doing it wrong,’ she snapped, loud enough for the forensic techs to hear, but she allowed him to pull her towards Bessy.

‘They think he did it to himself,’ she said as Jett shut the driver’s door. Exhaustion pressed Nella’s bones into the leather as Bessy sighed under their weight.

‘Grey said as much. But wait for the coroner to determine the official cause of death. At least they’re treating it as a crime scene.’

Jett’s face looked older, somehow, his scar deeper, darker.

Nella had always wondered what it would feel like if she traced it with her finger.

She’d always felt like she could stare at his face forever and still find something she hadn’t seen before, like even his face was deliberately keeping secrets from her.

She shook her head. ‘I knew him. He wouldn’t do that. This has to be the La Marcas. Maybe Forrest again.’

‘Nel.’ Jett pinched the bridge of his nose and her stomach tightened; he always did that when he thought she was being unreasonable. Bratty. ‘I really don’t think this was the La Marcas. Sometimes there are no signs.’

Her breath caught. She knew Jett well enough to realise he wasn’t just regurgitating mental health awareness month catch phrases. ‘Who?’ she asked gently.

‘My brother.’ Jett’s jaw was tight. ‘Well, foster brother. Ray.’

‘How old were you?’ Should she put a hand on his shoulder? No, they didn’t touch each other like that. But that’s what she’d do if it was Grey or Ian, so why couldn’t she do it with Jett?

‘Eleven.’ He frowned out the window, the lights from the cop cars casting his face in blue. ‘He was sixteen.’

Her heart petrified. ‘I’m sorry, Jett.’

‘My point is, he was the happiest, loudest, most confident person I knew. Sometimes there are just no signs.’

‘But now that you know, surely you can look back and notice things that were there?’

Jett’s lip twitched. She wanted to take it back.

‘We’re not talking about Ray anymore, are we?’ He watched her carefully.

She had been talking about Ray. But Jett had always been like a fucking submarine when it came to her underlying meaning.

He dove right down and could somehow see what was beneath her snarky comments.

Maybe on some level she’d been talking about six months ago.

How she hadn’t seen the signs. Hadn’t been able to save her father. Her sister.

She should have known it was coming.