Chapter 8 - Dinner with the AshfordsCatherine Ashford invited Delaney to dinner with a handwritten note on cream paper.
Delaney,
There are matters concerning Grant that should be discussed privately. Come alone.
Catherine
Rocco read it once and said, “No.”
Delaney took the note back. “I wasn’t asking permission.”
“You are not going alone.”
“She wants me afraid.”
“She wants you isolated.”
“Then let her see I can walk into the room without you standing in front of me.”
Rocco’s expression hardened. “You were attacked yesterday.”
“And if I hide today, Piper learns fear chooses the size of our lives.”
That silenced him.
In the end, they compromised.
Delaney went inside alone.
Finn waited two houses away.
Rocco waited in the car with the engine running and enough fury to warm the entire block.
The Ashford mansion looked exactly as Delaney remembered: carved stone, black shutters, gas lanterns and windows glowing gold against the winter dark. It had once intimidated her.
Now it looked like a beautiful cage.
Whitney opened the door.
Her face was thinner than before. Her eyes darted over Delaney’s shoulder.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“Then why did your mother invite me?”
Whitney swallowed. “Because she thinks she can still scare you.”
“Can she?”
A ghost of a smile touched Whitney’s mouth. “Not anymore, I think.”
Catherine waited in the dining room beneath a portrait of Grant’s grandfather. The table was set for three.
No food had been served.
That was intentional. Catherine had always known hunger made people weaker.
Delaney sat anyway.
Catherine studied her. “The Bellandi name suits you less than Monroe did.”
“The Ashford name never suited me at all.”
Catherine’s eyes sharpened.
Whitney sat quietly between them.
Catherine poured wine. Delaney did not touch it.
“I understand you’ve been speaking with Elias Ward,” Catherine said.
“Yes.”
“Old men enjoy feeling important.”
“Widows enjoy justice.”
Catherine smiled. “Justice is expensive.”
“I’m married to Rocco Bellandi.”
“Marriage did not make you rich. It made you useful.”
Delaney leaned back. “To whom?”
Catherine’s smile thinned.
There it was again.
That tiny pause.
Delaney had learned to listen for pauses. Lies often lived there.
Catherine opened a folder. “I am prepared to offer you a settlement.”
She slid a check across the table.
Two million dollars.
Whitney inhaled.
Delaney looked at the number, then at Catherine.
“For my silence?”
“For your peace.”
“My peace was not for sale when I had seventeen dollars. It isn’t for sale now.”
Catherine’s mask cracked.
“You ungrateful little fool. Grant pitied you. That was all. He was sick, lonely and sentimental. You gave him no heir. You gave him nothing.”
Whitney suddenly stood.
“Stop it.”
Catherine turned slowly. “Sit down.”
“No.”
The word shook.
But it stood.
Whitney looked at Delaney, tears shining in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Catherine’s face went white.
Delaney’s heart began pounding.
Whitney reached into her purse and pulled out a small flash drive.
“Grant gave me this before he died,” she said. “He told me to give it to Delaney if Mother moved against her. I was scared.”
Catherine rose. “Whitney.”
“I watched them put her out,” Whitney said, voice breaking. “I watched you freeze her card. I watched you call her interviews. I watched you make everyone believe she was nothing.”
Catherine’s hand struck Whitney across the face.
The sound snapped through the room.
Delaney was on her feet before Catherine lowered her arm.
“Touch her again,” Delaney said softly, “and I stop being polite.”
Catherine laughed, but fear had entered her eyes.
A crash sounded near the back of the house.
Men’s voices.
Whitney panicked. “She called them.”
Delaney grabbed Whitney’s wrist.
They ran.
Not toward the front door.
Too obvious.
Delaney remembered the servants’ stairs from years of being treated like one. They slipped through the pantry as footsteps thundered behind them.
Outside, snow fell hard.
Finn appeared from the alley like a shadow.
“This way.”
They reached the car seconds before two men burst from the side gate.
Rocco stepped out.
He did not raise his voice.
He did not need to.
The men stopped dead.
Delaney pushed Whitney into the car, then climbed in after her.
Rocco looked at Catherine’s men.
“Tell Mrs. Ashford,” he said, “she just made a witness.”
Back at Beacon Hill, Whitney sat in the kitchen shaking while Carmela pressed ice to her cheek.
Delaney inserted the flash drive into Rocco’s secure laptop.
A video opened.
Grant appeared on screen, thinner than Delaney remembered, his eyes tired but clear.
“Laney,” he said.
She covered her mouth.
“If Whitney found the courage to give you this, then my mother has lost control of the story.”
May you like
Grant looked directly into the camera.
“And now you need to know what really ruined our life.”
