Julian Taylor answered. “Is it done?”
? ? ?
Jack and Alec couldn’t wait to have yet another chat with Charles Kendrick. They were both smiling as they entered the interrogation room. Kendrick was sitting next to his attorney, a forty-year-old man with a sour face and a disposition to match. His posture was that of someone who had been beaten down by disappointments.
“I’m not telling you anything,” Kendrick stated defiantly. “My lawyer here, Mr. Kale, says I don’t even have to talk to you.”
Alec and Jack pulled out chairs and sat facing them. Kendrick’s smug expression was about to change.
Addressing the attorney, Jack said, “We’re going to be adding to the charges.”
“What charges are you adding?” Kendrick demanded before his attorney could say a word.
Alec answered. “We know you came here to kill Cordelia Kane, and we can prove it.”
Kendrick leaned forward. “How?” he asked with self-righteous indignation. “How can you prove it?”
“Glad you asked,” Jack said. “We called the number on your burner and talked to Julian Taylor.”
Kendrick didn’t look so cocky now. “He talked to you? I don’t believe it. He talked to you?” he repeated.
Jack answered. “He didn’t actually talk to us.”
“No, he didn’t,” Alec confirmed.
Jack explained. “He thought he was talking to you. He made the assumption, and we didn’t correct him.”
Kendrick seemed confused. “You’re lying.”
“We’re FBI agents,” Alec stated authoritatively. “We never lie.” He was somewhat surprised he got that out without laughing.
“We recorded the conversation,” Jack told the attorney. “Would you like to hear it?” He put the phone down and pushed the button.
Julian’s voice was loud and clear. “Is it done? Is Cordelia Kane dead? Answer me.”
Static muffled the answer. “No . . . not yet.”
Kendrick’s eyes widened when he heard a response. “You should have told him who you were. You tricked him by not identifying yourself.”
“We sure did,” Jack said. “I guess you could say we’re tricky.”
He pushed the button again to continue the recording.
“You’re not getting the rest of the money until that gold digger is dead. It needs to happen fast. I thought I conveyed the urgency here. They collected my daughter’s glass for her DNA. Get it done.” He repeated the demand in a near shout. “And if you run into that coward Jenkins, tell him he’s fired.”
The conversation ended.
“The static we put in there helped sell it, don’t you think?” Alec asked.
“It will never hold up in court,” Kale blustered. “Never. It’s entrapment.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Alec said. Since they had no intention of using the tape, they didn’t care if it would hold up in court or not. They wanted Kendrick and Jenkins to talk.
“I know the law,” Kale snapped.
“So do we,” Jack replied.
“I’ll file a motion—”
“Go ahead.”
“We also have Arnold Jenkins. He’s giving you up, Charles. He’s answering all our questions. We already played the call for him.”
“He seized the opportunity. You didn’t,” Alec said.
“I think we’re through here.” Jack picked up the phone and stood to leave.
Alec followed him. They walked out into the hallway, and just as the door was closing behind them, they heard Kendrick yell, “Wait a minute.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The news shouldn’t have surprised Cordie, but it did.
“You’re certain it was Julian Taylor on the phone?”
Alec nodded. “Liam confirmed it, and so did a lot of other people. It was Julian.”
“It makes sense,” Aiden said. “With Simone’s shares, Julian now controls fifty-one percent of Merrick stock. He can overrule the board whenever he wants. As soon as twenty percent is transferred to you, Cordelia, his power is gone.”
“But if I weren’t around, he would lose it to Simone’s son when he turned twenty-one,” she pointed out. She walked over to the bar where they were standing and sat down on a stool.
“Simone gave Julian her shares to control, and I’m sure he could get his grandson to do the same thing.”
Both Aiden and Alec were being very calm and matter-of-fact about this latest development. Cordie, on the other hand, wanted to start screaming. She now understood why children had tantrums. It was a thoroughly satisfying way to let out pent-up frustration. She wanted to pick up objects and hurl them across the room. Nature seemed to empathize. The weather complemented her mood. A hard rain was pelting the windows of the suite, and every other minute a clap of thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance. The wind was gathering momentum.
“As soon as Kendrick and Jenkins found out we knew who they were working for, they understood they’d lost their leverage. We can’t get them to stop talking now. They’ve turned on each other and on Julian, both trying to get a deal.”
“They were with Simone when she confronted me at the hotel in Sydney. I assumed they worked for her.”
“They did work for her, but they also reported everything she did to her father. That’s when he found out you were back in the picture. According to Kendrick, Julian has known about you for a very long time.”
“How long?”
“Since you were a baby.”
“What?” She all but fell off the stool. “This just keeps getting creepier and creepier.”
Alec was rummaging through the refrigerator behind the bar. He took out a bottle of Kelly’s root beer and opened it. “There are some real serious trust issues in that family,” he said.
“He spies on his daughter. Why would he do that?” she asked.
“He’s protecting his interest,” Aiden explained.
“Kendrick was more of a confidant than Jenkins was,” Alec said. “He would sit and drink straight vodka shots with Julian a couple of times a month. That’s when Julian would talk about family. One night he told Jenkins that Simone had run away when she was a teenager. It took him some time to find her, and when he did, he got the shock of his life. He couldn’t believe what she had done.”
“Did she know she would inherit stock when she turned twenty-one?” Cordie asked. She looked to Aiden for an answer.
“I’m sure she did.”
“That might be another reason she used the name Natalie Smith,” Alec said. “I don’t think she had any intention of staying with your father. She gave birth, and a short time later she took off.”
“Julian told Kendrick he was about to send a couple of men to drag her back to Australia, but it wasn’t necessary. She came home, apologized for making him worry, and went on with her life. She never mentioned you or your father to anyone.”
“What happens to Julian now?”
“He’s been arrested,” Alec said.
“I wish I had been there to see him taken in,” Aiden said.
Alec agreed. “When the Australian press gets hold of this, they’ll have a heyday. I’ve got a strong feeling Simone won’t win Woman of the Year again.”
“Dear God, I’m genetically linked to those people,” Cordie declared. “I wish I had never started this, but at least it’s over now. Right?”