Page 12 of See You There

“They? Who are they? Do you mean Chris? Or Matt and Trey?” He named Courtney Crawford’s sons.

“Not my son. He’s innocent. I would have taken care of him. So young.” His voice was fading. Keller shook his head harder, dislodging his oxygen tube. He reached up and fumbled with it. “I’m done. I won’t say anything else. I’m sorry David is dead, but I don’t know who or how they did it. We ran tests, nothing was detected.”

“You know who was driving Declan’s car. You said you talked to Dad about the accident. What did you say?” Luke’s voice was thick. Surely, he hadn’t lied to David about that—not seeing how it destroyed the relationship between their father and Declan.

Dr. Keller hung his head. “She said he would ask me questions. She used me to back up the story, but I did it to protect my son. All along, she had another plan in place.”

Luke ground his teeth. “What did you tell him?”

To his credit, the older man met Luke’s angry stare, his eyes glazed. “When David asked me if I knew why Declan’s car was wrecked, I said yes. And then, when he asked if it was true that I’d treated a woman that night, and if I had also treated Declan for a broken arm, I told the truth.

“All those things happened. But they weren’t connected. Declan broke his arm two days before the accident, playing rugby. But my words were the confirmation David needed. Hemust have asked Vincent, too. Vincent handled the scene and getting rid of the witness. He didn’t have a clue he was being used to deceive David.”

Luke surged to his feet. “You told our father his eldest son had killed a woman, injured another, and covered it up! It broke them!” Luke’s fingers bit into his palms, fury and grief rolling through him. “How could you do that to them?”

“I was protecting my son—”

“Chris was driving.” The words were like acid in Luke’s mouth. “For god’s sake, if you were covering it up anyway, not notifying the police, why did you have to blame Dec? My father never needed to know any of it happened!” Nausea swamped him. “That bitch.” Luke sank to the chair again. “It was the leverage she needed to get him to marry her.”

“I didn’t know what she planned. I swear!”

“You could have told him later! He could have divorced her. My father might even still be alive today!”

He looked with impotent rage at the man slumped in the recliner. Luke wanted to tear him apart, but what good would it do? They couldn’t go back in time to fix it. Their father died believing the worst of Declan.

Luke picked up his phone, gripping it so tightly it should have snapped. “I’m going to find a notary, and when your nurse comes back this afternoon, you are going to repeat all of this.”

Keller’s lips trembled. “I won’t implicate my sons.”

“We’ll see.” Luke slammed the door on the way out.

He reached the driveway and bent double. His hands on his hips, he sucked in air, trying to calm his galloping heart. The enormity of Courtney’s depravity was astounding.

Luke had been prepared to hear his father was murdered, the Bloom fortune stolen—but he hadn’t expected the callousness of his stepmother’s actions.

He still felt guilty for not making more of an effort to find out what was behind his father’s uncharacteristic decision to marry Courtney. But Luke’s relationship with his father had always been complicated.

He straightened, lifted his hands to smooth back his hair and forced himself to regain his composure. He looked back at the house. Keller wasn’t going anywhere.

After calling for a car, he called James. “This is so fucked up,” he said when his brother answered.

Luke filled the next two hours locating a notary and a court reporter willing to come to the house with him to take an official statement. However, when they approached Dr. Keller’s street, they found it blocked off with police cars and fire trucks.

He climbed from the car, instructing the driver to wait. Luke didn’t need to ask the crowd gathered what had happened. The house he had left two hours before was now a smoky, blackened mess. A police officer waved his arms, parting the crowd as the medical examiner’s van turned into the driveway.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Cara is goingto murder us for not including her,” James pointed out. After Luke took a late flight, the twins had gathered that night in their conference room to confer with Declan over a video call.

“You want to call your sister on her honeymoon and tell her about this?” Luke asked. “She’ll be home in a couple of days. We can fill her in then.”

“People are dying,” Declan said in an icy voice. “Mrs. Woodson, and now Dr. Keller. If Chris Keller would kill his own father to cover up his crimes, he won’t hesitate to kill one of us.”

“We have to tell her,” James insisted. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“I agree,” Declan said. “But let’s let the world believe she doesn’t know. If she came home early from her trip, it would be obvious. Play the recording again,” Declan commanded.

Luke cued up the recording on his phone. James took notes on a legal pad as the conversation filled the room. When the tape was over, Declan was quiet. He sat, eyes closed, breathing deeply through his nose, twin slashes of red across his cheekbones. Luke and James exchanged a glance.