Page 58 of Devil's Retribution
“Are you excited to find out what the test says?” I asked him, trying to quash the surge of guilt that was threatening to engulf me. The sooner we were done with all the lies the better.
“Yeah, So I might have cousins? Jose at school has lots of cousins and I want some too.”
I wished I knew. Lucia had always been secretive about her lover. I had never gotten a chance to know him before he was gone. “Maybe. I guess we’ll find out.”
“Did you ever meet my dad?”
I bit my lip, wishing I knew how to answer that without outright lying to him. “I didn’t get the chance. Your mom was really in love with him, but she never wanted to talk about him much. I think he was a man with a lot of secrets.”
“Like Viktor?”
I stopped dead for a moment, then simply smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I guess so.”
***
James Layton showed up at eleven o’clock, technically right on time. I had everything ready, from iced tea on offer, to Nick tucked away in his room playing Legos. When I answered the door, I was a little startled by his appearance, and for a moment wished that Viktor was already back home.
Layton was a tall, blond man with a square jaw, bright blue eyes and a corn-fed military hero look to him. But his left arm was in a sling, surprising me a little.
“Dr. Martinez. It’s been a while. Not sure if you remember me.” He shook hands with me, and I remembered him, the closest thing my uncle had to a private bodyguard, and his local helicopter pilot. I was surprised that Uncle Charles hadn’t taken Layton with him.
“I do, Mr. Layton, though as you said, it has been a while.” He had a lightweight silk jacket on over his t-shirt, and I instantly knew he had a gun on him. Not that surprising for a professional security guy, but I was aware of it in a way I might not have before. “Please, have a seat. I have some iced tea if you’re thirsty.”
He smiled a Hollywood smile at me. “That will be just fine, Doctor. So, I hear you’ve taken over things in your uncle’s absence?”
I smiled, I wasn’t sure how much to tell Mr. Layton about my uncle’s disappearance. If Uncle Charles didn’t want his head security guy to know his plans, then I didn’t want to raise his suspicions. It was clear my bastard uncle was involved in endless shady shit, and I was worried that as acting head of Graves Enterprises it might fall back on me. So, I kept it simple, “Well, until I can locate him, and ask him what he wants to do with everything, I have simply been trying to keep things running. Make sure everyone gets paid, insurance gets its payouts, all of that.”
He nodded, leaning forward and tilting his head. “So, uh… pardon me for asking, but before we get started, I wanted to ask you just one more question. What happened to you in that shootout at your house?”
“One of the bullets went through the window and I got hit.” I knew the whole being comatose in hospital story that Viktor suggested wouldn’t fly with my work colleagues or best friend, but I decided to use it now, rather than get into a conversation where I might have to reveal that my dear uncle was a murdering bastard—before Viktor had a chance to do anything about it.
His eyes widened. “What! You did?”
“Yeah, they had to airlift me to a private hospital over in San Diego. I still don’t know who called it in, or got me to the hospital. I don’t remember a thing, I only recovered enough to come back here very recently.”
He blinked and looked me over, eyes narrowing shrewdly. “Did they say what kind of bullet?”
“High caliber rifle, apparently. Someone started shooting directly at the house, and I was in the way.” I smiled at him very thinly.
His eyes got even wider than before. “A high caliber rifle.”
“Yeah, it nearly killed me outright. And I’m still not sure who any of them were, or what it was about, they think it might have been gang-related and I got caught in the middle.”
He went to pour himself some iced tea, his hand shaking enough to send droplets across the tray. “So, you uh… you’re handling pay in his absence?”
“He’s trained me thoroughly, in case he should become incapacitated for a while. I really do wish I knew where he was, but he’s completely cut me out of the loop on this one. I have no idea why and I’m a bit worried about him. They’re his assets. I’d really like to know how to proceed with them. But in the meantime, I’ll make sure everyone’s properly compensated, and that his businesses keep running.”
And I’ll be keeping the money, too.
He took another sip, his keen eyes flicking around to take in my face, my body language, everything. He reminded me of Viktor when I had first met him, calm but under that, with a hint of threat to him. It made me wary, and I was pleased I’d decided to be economical with the truth.
“Well, that sounds like a good deal to me,” he said in that same measured, pleasant voice. “And you say you’ve got no idea where your uncle has gone?”
“No idea at all, I wish I did. I’m sorry, if you’re looking for him too.” I sighed in what I hoped wasn’t a too over the top manner, and then deliberately dropped some bait, just in case he actually did know where Uncle Charles was hiding out. “Honestly, I’d pay good money to be put in contact with him at this point.”
The smile left his face, and he looked at me seriously, with a greedy interest in his eyes. “How good?”
“My uncle isn’t a well man, and I’m worried about him. To help me safeguard my Uncle Charles’s fortune and make sure he’s okay? Well, I figure that anyone who helped me with that could name his price.”