Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
I hadn’t known that about Gerty. Why would I? Anyway, Gerty was all in as Nick’s grams and had even colluded with my Nonna to matchmake Nick and Tessa. I shifted uneasily in my chair. As Nick’s attorney, if he kept me with my limited trial experience, I wouldn’t be able to confide in Tessa. Nick would have to do that, and I might need to advise him not to. They weren’t married, so there was no spousal privilege.
Pierce clicked his pen. “It sounds like you might’ve killed your father to save your mom or brothers. Or even yourself. Could be self-defense, Basanelli. If that was the case, please tell me all the details now.”
Leaning forward, I grasped Nick’s arm. “I think we should speak privately.”
Nick didn’t twitch. “The night he left, I went camping with my brothers. It was the middle of summer, and we slept out. Got up early to fish. It was common for us, and at that time, we were more than happy to be away from the house.”
I patted his hand because there was nothing else I could do. Except act like a lawyer, I reminded myself.
“Can anybody corroborate that?” Pierce asked.
“My brothers,” Nick said evenly. “I suppose I should add that we beat the shit out of our dad, packed for him, and then tossed his ass out of the house because he’d just hit our mom.”
I gasped. “Nick—”
“I’m telling the full truth, Anna. Holding back makes me look guilty, and there’s probably DNA on the asshole’s clothing if it survived the last fifteen years. The point is, he left and said he’d never be back. That he and Imogen were meant to be together.”
I kept my cool. Nick was a much more experienced trial attorney than I was, so I had to trust his judgment. “Just a friendly reminder that we’re here voluntarily.”
Pierce didn’t so much as wince, but his eyes hardened. “Did you, at any time that weekend, see or have contact with Imogen Wilson?”
“No,” Nick said.
Pierce made a notation. “It’s my understanding that the Marsh Mansion was a popular party place for teenagers back then, especially in the summer. True?”
“Yes,” Nick said.
Pierce drew a notepad from the file and started taking notes. “Did you ever party there?”
“Of course,” Nick said. “Everybody did during the summer. We all had friends with cabins on Lilac Lake. Most of the kids from Silverville spent summers over here.”
“Even I did,” I hastened to add. My sisters and I attended parties there during the summer, as well. It was very common. “Do you have any more details about the room in which the bodies were found?”
Pierce tugged a picture from the file that showed a square cement room. “Yeah. There was a hidden room in the basement that must have been a place to store canned goods or weapons at one time,” he said. “The excavators didn’t find it last week until they’d taken half the basement out.”
I shivered. I couldn’t believe it. All those times we’d drunk beer and talked about the haunted mansion, wandering through its halls, and there had actually been dead bodies decaying there? “How did they die?”
“Homicide,” Pierce repeated.
I glared at him. Why wasn’t he giving us all the facts?
Nick pressed a finger to the picture and pulled it toward himself. “I believe my attorney just requested the cause of death. Any reason you’re withholding that?”
Pierce watched Nick carefully. “You said you went hunting that weekend.”
“Fishing,” Nick corrected. “Wasn’t hunting season.”
I wondered if Pierce would show us more of the pictures. “Do you have a photo of the bodies?”
Pierce planted a hand on the file folder. “I’m under no obligation to share that at this point, Counselor.”
Fire raced through me. “We’re under no obligation to speak with you, Detective.”
He looked at Nick. “Who do you think could have killed them?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “My dad was a real asshole, and I don’t know much about Imogen, but she didn’t seem to be a very nice person, considering she ran off with the jackass. I’d talk to her husband.”
“Like I said, we’re looking into it. Do you know where your mother was that night?” Pierce asked.
A heat swelled in the room, scalding hot, and I caught my breath.
“My mother would never kill anybody,” Nick ground out. “Don’t even think about going down that road.”
“I’m just doing my job,” Pierce said. “I’ll be talking to her next, as well as to your brothers. Did you like to hunt as a kid as well as fish?”
Nick studied the innocuous blue folder. “Of course. I grew up in northern Idaho,” he returned. “We hunted, we fished, and we did all the outdoor sports you can think of. Why?”
“Did you have a hunting knife?” Pierce asked.
Nick swallowed. “Everybody has a hunting knife in Idaho.”
Awareness ticked through me, prickling the skin on my nape.