least when it came to Candace, who had orchestrated the “friendship.” Her twin had been extremely jealous of their stepsister. Silver, who was the same age as they were, had been born beautiful. With her mother’s support, she had become a singing sensation by the time she turned sixteen. This after bringing the modeling world to its knees.
Silver, Natalie had always felt, could have become anything she wanted to be.
Looking around the room at the various members of her extended—or was that distended?—family, Natalie viewed them all with a disparaging eye and now just shook her head.
Talk about dysfunctional families. Hers would probably be up for some kind of prize—if there were prizes given for something like this.
His temper on edge because Rebecca Lynn had usurped his authority to discipline their son—again—Harold Rothchild looked at the latecomer with no attempt to hide his displeasure.
“So you’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence.”
“Yup, finally,” Natalie echoed in the same tone her father had just used.
So far, it’d been one hell of a day, and the rest of it wasn’t shaping up to be any better. Making her way over to a chair that was near Silver, Natalie sat down. Her stepsister slanted a glance in her direction and nodded a silent greeting.
“All right,” Natalie said, bracing herself for anything. “Let’s get on with it.”
Chapter 9
After Natalie took her seat, Harold didn’t begin speaking immediately. Instead, he moved restlessly about the wide, cathedral-ceilinged living room like a caged man desperately searching for the way out and only coming up against dead ends.
Finally, his back to the baby grand piano his wife insisted on getting for their son, he said, “By now, you’ve all heard the news. Candace is dead.”
“Is that why you called us here, to make sure we all knew?” Silver asked incredulously, raising her voice to be heard over her stepbrother’s high-pitched whining. “There’s been nothing else all over the news all morning,” she pointed out.
“No, I called you together because we need to make funeral arrangements.” His intense blue eyes shifted toward his wife.
Rebecca Lynn took immediate offense. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’ve never handled things like that.” A disdainful expression crossed her face. “Funerals give me the creeps.”
Anything that required work gave the woman the creeps, Natalie thought. “Eloquently put,” she murmured under her breath.
The general tone, since the words were not audible, earned her a dirty look from her stepmother. Bored and frustrated, Ricky’s whining went up a notch. It was a little like walking into an insane asylum, Natalie realized.
Her father shifted his attention to her. “Natalie, exactly when can we expect to have your sister’s body released?”
Her father was a reasonably intelligent man. He should have known the answer to that. And then it occurred to her that he expected her to have some kind of special pull at the coroner’s office. The system didn’t work like that.
“As soon as the ME finishes the autopsy and determines the cause of death,” she replied patiently.
Horror registered on Silver’s face. “You mean they’re gutting her like some kind of fish?” she asked, not bothering to stifle a shiver.
“We know the cause of death,” Jenna insisted. When Natalie looked at her, waiting, her younger sister declared, “Someone killed her.”
Was everyone being deliberately obtuse, or had the fuse on her temper been shortened by Matt’s sudden reappearance into her life?
“That’s not the cause, that’s the effect,” Natalie explained, trying to at least sound patient. “If we know how, we might know who.”
“What good is that going to do us?” Jenna asked sullenly. “She’ll still be dead.”
“No, Natalie’s right,” Harold cut in. “If we know who, then we’ll know if killing Candace was personal—or personal.” Was his daughter killed by a jealous lover, or someone who had it in for the family, for him, and this was their way of striking out?
A loud, exasperated sound escaped from Rebecca Lynn’s lips. The other women in the room all looked in her direction. “Okay, you’ve officially gone off the deep end,” she told her husband nastily.
“Don’t go declaring him mentally incompetent just yet, Rebecca Lynn, although I’m sure that the thought is near and dear to your heart,” Natalie said, a deliberately fake smile on her lips. Turning to her father, her “smile” vanished. “Just what do you mean by that?” she wanted to know.
Before Harold could say anything, Rebecca Lynn presented herself to him, her hands fisted at her waist. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” she demanded.
“Why not?” Silver interjected. “You talk to him like that all the time.”
Whatever heated words Rebecca Lynn retorted to her stepdaughter were drowned out by Ricky’s screams because no one was paying any attention to him. The next moment, he was scrambling up onto the piano bench and banging on the keys, adding yet another layer of dissonance to the cacophony.
Jenna’s voice was almost shrill as she demanded, “Will someone please shut that kid up?”
Harold looked as if he was down to his very last nerve as he implored his wife, “Rebecca, please, take him out of here.”
Rebecca Lynn crossed her arms before her, a portrait of immovable stubbornness. Everyone in the room knew that there was nothing she hated more than to appear as if she was being ordered around. “Why don’t you? He’s your son, too.”
Though she wanted nothing more than to just withdraw and go home, Natalie found herself coming to her father’s rescue.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, Dad’s the one who called the meeting.” Rebecca Lynn patently ignored her and picked up her all but empty second glass of gin and tonic. She’d raised it to her lips when Natalie added, “But I’ll be happy to take my little brother out of here.”
A look of alarm descended over Rebecca Lynn’s face. Swallowing a curse, she set her glass down hard on the coffee table and quickly rose to her feet. Striding across the room, she grabbed her son by the hand and yanked him off the piano bench. The boy’s screams only swelled in volume. Glaring at Natalie, Rebecca Lynn dragged her son from the room.
Ricky was heard kicking and screaming all the way up the stairs to his room.
If she knew Rebecca Lynn, Ricky was quickly going to become the housekeeper’s problem, Natalie thought, feeling sorry for the older woman.
Harold took advantage of Rebecca Lynn’s absence. His young wife had a way of intimidating him that neither Anna, nor June—the late, lamented love of his life—ever had. “Can’t you put some pressure on this ME of yours?” he asked Natalie. “I want to get Candace buried and put this whole nasty business behind us as soon as possible.”
