Just Between Us (The Kings)

I really, really, do not want to be here.

My palms were damp, and I ran them down my sides. It had been a week since Royal had given me the notebook Bug had been keeping on Russell King. There was a lot of untangling to do and several things that would likely turn out to be nothing, but my gut told me there was something vital within those pages. Royal had finally found a time when everyone could get together, and despite my protest, he insisted I be at his house when he spoke with his family.

Nervous energy had my toe tapping and my heart pumping. I looked around at the faces of Royal’s siblings as they gathered in his kitchen.

MJ was sitting on top of the island, her legs swinging. Abel stood with his arms crossed and a dark, brooding look on his face. Whip yawned and leaned against the island next to MJ. JP’s hands were stuffed into his pockets with a bitchy look on his face. A quiet knock sounded at the front door, and Royal opened it. Sylvie smiled softly and quietly slipped inside.

JP looked at his watch. “About time.”

I scrunched my face at him. What a dick.

“Leave her alone, JP.” MJ shot him a dirty, yet playful, look.

Her palms raised and slapped against the outside of her thighs. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are.” Royal nodded and threw an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a side hug. “Looks like the band’s back together!”

She smiled and affectionately shrugged him off. Her bright eyes turned my way, eyebrows raised. “Plus a new member.”

My shoulders bounced. “Tambourine,” I joked.

Sylvie smiled, and I softened, letting a little bit of the tension dissolve from my neck and shoulders.

“Look, I’ve got somewhere I need to be.” JP glanced at his watch again. “What was so important we had to have a family meeting?” He did air quotes around the words family meeting, and his sisters collectively rolled their eyes.

“It’s about Mom.” Royal’s sudden intensity made JP’s spine straighten, and unease rolled through the room.

Abel shook his head. “The private investigator hasn’t come up with anything new. He’s chasing down every lead, but he’s been up front about the fact that they’re drying up pretty quickly.”

I studied Royal’s face and recognized the indecision gnawing at him. I wanted to cross the room, tuck myself at his side, and provide him a bit of strength. Instead, I clamped my hands in front of me and waited.

“I remembered something . . . from a long time ago.” Royal’s eyes were trained on the hardwood floor in front of him. The air in the room grew thick and quiet. Tense breaths were the only sound as he relayed his experience with Bug’s phone call and the violent scene he’d stepped into. His hand moved beside his head as he tried to explain. “It was like the memory hit me out of nowhere. I don’t really know how, but I’d been there before. I saw him putting his hands on Mom. I felt how scared of him she was, and it definitely didn’t seem like it was the first time something like that had happened. She saw me and silently pleaded for me to leave. But she wasn’t surprised, she was . . . I don’t know.”

MJ’s shoulders shook as quiet tears streamed down her face. Whip put his arm around his sister’s back but stayed silent. My nose stung as emotion swelled in my chest.

Abel’s thick, deep voice broke the silence. “I never saw anything like that. If I had known he was hurting her I might have . . .”

“You were only what? Eleven? And he was careful to keep his violent streak locked away where no one could see it,” Sylvie said, and the siblings nodded in agreement and support.

“He never intended for me to see what I did,” Royal concurred. “That much I do know.”

From the corner of my eye, I watched JP’s hand flex. His face was flat but fiercely angry. Sylvie’s arms were wrapped around her middle, and she looked at Royal.

Each of them was quiet and sullen as they processed the information and what it all might mean—each broken in their own way by their mother’s absence.

“There has to be a way to find her.” MJ’s soft, splintered voice nearly drove me to tears.

“She’s gone.” The harsh finality of JP’s tone was gutting. “If we want to do right by her, there’s only one way to do it—we take everything he’s built and burn it to the ground.”

Hope that my boss wasn’t a total heartless prick sparked to life. JP loved the career he had built, but he seemed willing to sacrifice all he’d worked toward for his family.

I took a tentative step forward. Bug’s notebook hung in my fingertips at my side. “And that’s why I’m here.” My smile wobbled, but I forged ahead. “JP already had me looking into King Equities to see if there was anything unscrupulous going on. So far, everything I have found has been just this side of ethical.” I held up the notebook and lifted my shoulder. “But this might connect a few more dots and show me otherwise.”

Royal cut in and explained how Bug had reacted to Russell’s outburst and how she’d given him the notebook in secret. The group passed it between them, each flipping through the pages and reading a line or two. When it made its way back to me, I tucked it under my arm.

“So what do we do now?” MJ asked, wiping away her silent tears.

Fire blazed in Sylvie’s eyes. “We do what he’s been doing for years. We manipulate the narrative. We make him think he’s safe and pull the rug out from under him.” Sylvie turned to Whip. “Do you still have that box of Mom’s stuff?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

A wicked grin spread across her face. “Good. We’re going to need it.”

When the King siblings united,they were a dangerous force to be reckoned with. From the outside, it would appear that summer in Outtatowner was rolling along like it had any other season.

Only this time the Kings were plotting.

My role in all of it was to continue sifting through the notebook to see whether any entries aligned with business transactions that appeared off. It was tedious, and I often felt like I was putting pieces of a puzzle together but didn’t know what the final image was supposed to look like.

With my coffee in hand, I marched toward the office. Every day I recognized more faces in town, and it was no longer jarring to see soft smiles and friendly waves as I made my way to work. There was an odd comfort in the simple happiness that a small coastal town in summertime brought to people.

On the street corner, Bootsy was leaning against the traffic pole, waiting to cross. I stepped up next to him. “Morning!” I chirped before taking a sip of my coffee.

“Is it?” His face was in an unusual scowl, and I took a step back.

My lips twisted. Normally Bootsy was among the friendliest of faces in Outtatowner. I saw him nearly every single day on my short walk to work, and he was always first with a greeting and a story. I had to be mindful of the time, because he had an uncanny knack for sucking you into some fanciful tale about the history of his small town and its quirky residents. The names alone were enough to make your head spin.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, I breathed in a lungful of warm coastal air and sighed. “I think you were right—there’s something about the air here that pulls people in. You’ll have to finish your story about the mysterious Sirens of Trawler’s Cove sometime.”

Bootsy’s eyes narrowed as they swooped down my front. Behind his hazy stare, there was a faint lack of recognition.

Odd . . .

His mouth trembled as he fumbled for words. “Oh, right. Yeah . . . I’ll, uh . . . I’ll have to finish that another time.” The light turned, and he started walking away. “Another time then.”

Utterly dismissed by the man, I stood in shock as he looked over his shoulder at me and hustled down Main Street in the direction of the lighthouse. Gone were the fuzzy feelings I had reveled in only moments before. I shook my head, determined to not let the strange interaction ruin the day.

I was on a mission.

JP’s rented corner office had been transformed. He finally moved in a desk for me, and if I wasn’t tangled up in Royal, I was at the office, searching. After an hour of reading and digging, the office door opened and my boss walked in. I didn’t bother looking up.

“What the hell is that?” JP’s voice floated over my shoulder as I stood back, staring at my masterpiece with my hands on my hips.

I smiled at the elaborate board I had constructed. “Timelines. Evidence. Receipts.”

The oversize corkboard took up the majority of the wall space and had to be special ordered. I had considered the overnight shipping cost to be a King Equities justified business expense and refused to feel bad about it.

My work was gloriously color coded with photos, notes, and timelines. I even bought red string to denote things I suspected were connected. Post-it Notes were ruthlessly organized by color and highlighted the bits of information I was still looking into.

It was a beautiful, nerdy masterpiece.

JP stepped up beside me. “It looks like something from a seventies detective thriller.”

The bitchy tone in his voice indicated he likely meant it as an insult, but I only grinned. “Thank you.”

He scanned the board with his hands on his hips and exhaled. “What a fucking mess.”

There was a sad, resigned note to his voice, and I softened toward my grumpy boss. “So, what’s the end game here? Are you really planning to dismantle the entire business?”

His lips formed a hard line. “If I have to.”

I stayed quiet and nodded. I sympathized with the tough position he had found himself in. “I’ll do what I can.”

He looked at me and I knew he understood what I meant. I would do everything in my power to find the information he needed, while protecting the assets of King Equities. In business there were always ways to move money or reestablish connections or rebrand, but if Russell King went down, he’d likely be taking the entire empire down with him.

My heart squeezed for JP and his siblings. I’m sure they never intended to be tangled in their father’s mess, but if things went south, they’d all have to deal with the fallout.

“Where’d you get that?” JP pointed at a picture of his mother—specifically, the ethereal drawing Royal had drawn that hung in his shop.

“Um, Royal gave me that.” I didn’t let my eyes slide to gauge his reaction. “It’s something he drew, so I took a picture of it and printed it out.”

I could feel his stare bore into the side of my face. “You two have been seeing a lot of each other lately.”

I hummed in vague acknowledgment but didn’t offer any additional details. I wasn’t ashamed of my relationship with Royal, even if I had hoped it would stay private. I had come to the conclusion that there was no use hiding it when we spent nearly every waking hour of our off time together.

JP harrumphed but didn’t press, and I exhaled a tiny breath of relief. He moved to his desk and shoved his shirtsleeves to his elbows before he hunched over his computer and began working.

I looked over my corkboard one last time.

I understood my role was to examine the business side of things, but no one had to know the lavender string was denoted for anything I could connect with the disappearance of Maryann King.

I pulled my rolling chair out from my desk and continued working. The beginning was the logical starting point, and it had been surprising to note that Bug had started documenting Russell’s meetings around the time of Maryann’s disappearance. I wondered whether that meant something or if Maryann leaving had spurred Bug to keep a closer eye on her brother.

Did she also suspect he had something to do with her disappearance?

Bug King was far too closed off to divulge anything to me, but I made a mental note to mention it to Royal.

By the afternoon, my eyes were bleary and my shoulders ached. Ink stained my fingertips, and my body needed a break. I stood, stretching my back and staring down at the mess I had made of my desk. The notebook was cracked open—I’d made a bookmark out of a discarded piece of printer paper—and it was tabbed with various colored Post-it Notes.

Timelines were running together, and the web Russell King had woven made less sense the longer I stared at it. “I’ll figure out how you did it,” I grumbled to the corkboard. “I just need the key.”

“What was that?” JP asked.

“Nothing.” I sighed. “It’s just that every time I think I’m on to something, I uncover the crafty way that he covered his ass. I’ll tell you one thing . . . your dad knew what he was doing. If there was a way around a rule, your dad found it. It’s certainly an education.” I flipped through the pages of the notebook, hoping something might jump out at me. “Creative accounting, deceptive marketing, unfair competition, employee manipulation . . . it’s all there and it’s all annoyingly legal.” I growled and tossed the notebook back onto my desk with a thud. “Ugh, I’m just frustrated.”

JP flipped his pen onto the desk. “Why don’t you call it a night? It’s payday. Take your hush money and have a little fun.”

Hush money.

My mind raced. “Wait . . . what did you say?” My fingers were already flipping through the pages and pages of notes.

He frowned. “I was joking. Why?”

I landed on one of several entries with familiar names. “Shit . . .”

JP stepped beside me as I swiveled toward the corkboard. “What is it?” he asked.

I scribbled dates onto a Post-it Note and slapped it on the board. I then stretched the lavender string between the dates connecting Maryann’s disappearance, the attempted purchase of Wabash Lake, and several exchanges of money between the Sinclair twins.

Still, something was missing.

I pointed at the board. “What do you know about Bootsy and Bowlegs Sinclair?”

JP leaned back onto his heels. “Bowlegs has been dead for a while now. Bootsy is his twin brother. They’ve always lived on the fringes . . . I know Dad uses his money and influence to persuade them to gather information—keep their eyes and ears open—that kind of thing.”

My recent unsettling interaction with Bootsy scratched at my brain. What if his odd reaction to me was because he actually didn’t recognize me?

I flipped forward and then backward in the notebook. Over and over Bug noted meetings and exchanges of money between one or both of the Sinclair twins. I moved onto an entry that I had flagged.

“Look at this.” I pointed to my notes. “Back when Bowlegs died, King Equities paid a large sum of money to Beauden Funeral Home, specifically the funeral director and owner. At the same time, he also provided a healthy donation to the Sinclair twins.”

JP nodded. “Dad paid for the funeral services . . . gave Bootsy a little extra money too. It was a good look for him.”

I scoffed. “Benevolent, sure. But what funeral do you know costs fifty thousand dollars?”

JP’s brows cinched down as he leaned over the desk and slid the paper closer to look for himself. “What?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Your father paid the funeral home fifty thousand dollars. That’s an awful lot of money for a simple funeral service, wouldn’t you say?”

He looked at me and at the board again with a scowl. “What are you insinuating exactly?”

Nerves tittered under my skin, and I rubbed my hands together. “What I’m questioning—and I know it sounds absolutely batshit crazy—but . . . are you sure your father didn’t pay the funeral home that kind of money to keep quiet about something? At the same time he doled out money to the Sinclairs? What if it really was hush money.” My eyes narrowed, knowing how wild my theory sounded. “Are you absolutely certain that Bowlegs isn’t still alive and walking among us?”