Page 13 of Untouchable

“This isn’t real proof,” she said at last. “It doesn’t mean he had him killed.”

“Of course it’s not real proof. If I had real proof, I would have gotten the police to do something. They wouldn’t believe me now any more than they believed me back then.”

The police had closed the case quickly, calling it a random mugging since her father’s wallet had been taken. Her mother had believed differently from the very beginning and had gone through every avenue available to make the DiMauros pay through the justice system. But no one believed her. With nothing else to do, she’d spent months filling Kelly’s head with bitter hate for the DiMauro family and Reliant Industries, making her listen as her mother scoured her father’s computer records and boxes of files, searching for concrete evidence to implicate the crime family in the murder. Kelly had believed her mother, turning all of them into monsters in her mind.

Even now, their name caused a chill to break through her spine.

But there had never been any proof. No one believed her mother. And finally the woman had just walked out on everyone.

Including Kelly.

“Then why do you think it was Cal?—”

“Because it’s his name on the email. He knew what your father knew, and he knew your father wasn’t going to let it go. He and his father had the most to lose, and he was the one who gained the most from the murder. His entire legacy was at risk. Use your brain! Arthur probably made the final call, but it was Caleb who made it happen.”

Itdidmake sense. Kelly couldn’t imagine circumstances where Caleb, being that involved, wouldn’t have known about the hit.

Her mother handed her a file folder of papers, and Kelly opened it with trembling hands, staring down at it blankly until the words unblurred again. It was a dossier on Caleb. His picture—grinning smugly at the camera—and the details of his birth, his childhood in DC, his education at fancy private schools and then the Ivy League for college on an accelerated track and a joint graduate degree in business and law. He’d climbed the corporate hierarchy quickly and was well respected in both local and international business circles.

Even so, he was indeed a DiMauro, which meant he had only a loose relationship to legalities.

Kelly flipped the pages of the file. Stacks of articles, documents, correspondence. “Where did you get all this?”

“I’ve been working with a private investigator. Read through all that, and you’ll see the lengths he’ll go to get his way. It’s not a pretty picture.”

“The detective hasn’t been able to get any proof about the murder though?”

“Nothing that will make the authorities change their minds.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“How did you get along with Marshall?”

“What do you mean?” Finally Kelly looked up from the file to catch a coldly calculating expression on her mother’s face.

“Did you hit it off?”

Kelly suddenly realized what her mother was asking. “He seemed like a spoiled asshole.”

“That’s what he is, but that wasn’t my question. Did he seem interested in you?”

“Why would he?—”

“Because he likes attractive women in their twenties.”

Somehow Kelly wasn’t surprised she wasn’t the first young woman he’d hit on. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know? You’ve been around the block enough. You’d know if a man was interested.”

Kelly felt a sudden flash of horror, picturing herself coming hard around Caleb’s cock, her skirt hiked up around her hips.

“You screwed him, didn’t you?” her mother asked.

“I didn’t— What?—”

There was absolutely nothing Kelly could say.

“Why bother with embarrassment? I know all about your habits. And this actually works perfectly.”