Page 28

Hunting Valley, Ohio

THE FOLLOWING DAY brEE Stone sat outside the funeral home in the small SUV she’d rented at the airport. She had the engine running, the defroster blasting, and the wipers slapping against a sleet-and-snow mix coming off Lake Erie that had rendered midmorning on December 23 truly miserable in the greater Cleveland area.

The first cars were starting to arrive for Ryan Malcomb’s private memorial. A black Mercedes town car went around to the rear of the funeral home.

A big Polynesian man in a dark suit exited the driver’s side and retrieved an umbrella from the trunk. Bree recognized him from her earlier visit to Hunting Valley. His name was Arthur, and he was apparently Theresa May Alcott’s driver, gardener, and bodyguard. Arthur opened an umbrella and the right rear door and helped out the heir to a soap fortune. Tall, rail-thin, and dressed in a black pantsuit, high heels, and a hat with a dark lace veil, Mrs. Alcott said something to Arthur, and they moved quickly inside.

Bree waited until fifteen more cars had arrived and she’d watched many well-heeled mourners disappear inside, including one she knew immediately: Steven Vance, the CEO of Paladin.

Bree buttoned up her overcoat and retrieved her umbrella, at which point her phone buzzed, alerting her to a new email. She ignored it and put the phone on Do Not Disturb. She got out, opened her umbrella, and shivered at the dank cold as she hurried to the funeral home, trying to avoid the puddles of slush forming. She dropped her umbrella on the porch and went inside.

An older man built like a question mark stood in the lobby. He looked at her with well-rehearsed concern. “Family?”

“Friend,” she said.

He stood aside and gestured toward a set of double doors. Bree entered and was glad to find herself at the rear of a chapel where roughly forty mourners sat. There was a green marble urn on a table up front next to a large, close-up photograph of Ryan Malcomb.

She slid into one of the empty pews at the back and then over to the far side, ignoring the few glances she got from other attendees.

I’m the only Black woman in the place. How did I think I was going to pull this off?

She had no time to fret. A silver-haired minister wearing a white collar went to the lectern. He spoke briefly, said Ryan was “an inspiration,” then called up Steve Vance. He talked about Malcomb’s mind, his humor despite his disease, and what the loss of his corporate vision meant to Paladin. He also talked about Malcomb’s outlook near what turned out to be the end of his life.

Vance said Ryan had been figuring out “his next adventure” when he went out west looking for a ranch. “I’ve never been there, but the ranch he was visiting when he passed sounded like exactly what he was searching for. I hope the prospect of owning it made him very happy as he drove down that mountain road for the last time.”

Theresa May Alcott got up before Vance could introduce her. The billionaire’s hands, in black gloves, trembled as she went to the lectern with a few pieces of paper.

Mrs. Alcott tried to speak but trembled more. She put her fist to her lips.

“Sorry,” she said at last. “This is going to be hard.”

After taking a deep breath, the billionaire referred in vague terms to the tragedy that had brought Ryan to live with her. She talked about his grief over the loss of his parents and the resiliency he’d showed throughout his life. She talked about his restless mind and his belief that technology could better lives. She never once mentioned his twin brother, Sean.

“They say the greatest pain is the loss of a child,” Mrs. Alcott said, choking and then looking out at the mourners. “I can tell you, it’s true.”

She returned stoically to her seat.

Bree shifted in the pew, wondering if she’d made a mistake coming here, if she’d made a colossal blunder in thinking Malcomb was M, the brains behind the vigilante group Maestro. She decided that she should slip out.

The minister stood up again and said there would be a luncheon at a local country club and then asked those assembled to stand and recite the Lord’s Prayer in Malcomb’s memory. Bree started sliding toward the other end of her pew.

She was halfway there when the mourners said, “Amen.” She was at the end of the pew when Malcomb’s aunt got up and walked down the aisle on Arthur’s massive arm.

The billionaire’s veiled face pivoted as she nodded to various grievers, touching a few on the forearms as she came closer and closer. She paused to stare in puzzlement at Bree for a moment, then she nodded to her and left the chapel.

Bree waited until the last mourner had left before exiting. She hoped Alcott would have departed for the country club, but no such luck.

Arthur was waiting for her in the lobby. “Mrs. Alcott would like a word, please.”

In her mind, Bree heard Alex warning her about coming to the funeral uninvited. She closed her eyes a moment and then followed the big Polynesian into a small room, where the heir to the Alcott soap fortune sat alone, veil off, looking imperious.

“Why are you here, Chief Stone?” she demanded.

“Paying my respects.”

“I didn’t know you knew Ryan.”

“We never met, but my husband knew him, used Paladin’s services. He thought I should be here to represent all the law enforcement officers his algorithms helped in the past few years.”

Alcott wasn’t buying it. “And how did you know this service was for my nephew?”

“An article I read in the Idaho Statesman about his parents’ murders,” Bree said. “Your sister’s maiden name was May. Her married name was Wheeler. I figured it out.”

“Hmm,” Mrs. Alcott said. “And you came all the way here.”

“Actually, I was in Cleveland on business.”

“With?”

“A private client,” Bree said. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

Mrs. Alcott gazed at Bree for several long moments, her face unreadable. “I don’t believe you. What do you wish to know about my nephew?”

Bree cleared her throat. “Why didn’t he keep the last name Wheeler? Why change it to Malcomb and not Alcott?”

The billionaire shrugged. “He was told in his late teens that he was not my sister’s biological son, that he had been adopted from someone named Malcomb. For whatever reason, Ryan decided to use Malcomb as his last name before he went to MIT. So he’d have a completely new start where no one would know he came from a rich family, he said.”

“He ever try to see if it was true? Try to track his real parents down?”

“I honestly have no idea,” she said, looking annoyed. “He was a grown man. He didn’t tell me everything. Anything else, Chief Stone?”

Bree figured she had nothing to lose, so she hit Alcott with a question she knew was bound to elicit a heated response. “There are some people out in Elko I’ve spoken to who aren’t sure it was your nephew in the van. What with all the burning.”

The billionaire’s nostrils flared. “Some people in Elko?”

Bree said nothing. Mrs. Alcott looked more than a little disgusted. She gestured to her phone. “Arthur set a Google Alert that notifies me anytime something is published or released about Ryan’s case.”

Bree tried not to react, as she had done the same thing. “Okay?”

“While we were waiting for the service to begin, I got an alert,” she said. “The Elko County medical examiner released the results of the DNA tests they did, confirming that it was indeed my nephew’s body in that van.”

Remembering the alert that she’d ignored before coming into the funeral home, Bree wanted to shrink off somewhere and hide.

“Please leave, Ms. Stone,” Alcott said. “You have no more business here.”

“Just one more question. Whatever happened to Sean? Ryan’s twin brother.”

At that, the billionaire’s stoicism cracked, and Bree saw deep and genuine pain flood through. “Sean had a long history of mental illness. He blamed me, my husband, and his brother for it. When Sean was eighteen, he took his inheritance, told us he never wanted to see us again, and left.”

“No contact since then?”

“We tried several times in the first year, but after that, he was in the wind as far as we were concerned.”

“So you’ve really lost two children.”

Tears formed in Mrs. Alcott’s eyes and dripped down her cheeks as she nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Bree said as she got to her feet. “I truly am sorry for your losses.”