“Hosting galas isn’t giving to charity. It’s dressing up and showing off so people can admire you.”

“Ben Northcutt was the cockroach problem you talked about with your father last night?” At the Thraxton house, I’d wondered what they were really discussing. Insects hadn’t seemed likely, especially since Caro had told them to pay out. Suddenly, it made sense.

Juliet nodded. “He’s been hanging around for months. He threatens to write a big exposé about us, but he runs away when he gets some cash. He’s like a squirrel with an acorn.”

“He didn’t look happy when I saw him. No acorn today?”

“No acorn ever again.”

“I lied when I said I didn’t tell him anything,” I said. “Caro sent me a message to read after she died. In it, she said Theo killed his first wife. I talked to your dad, and he basically confirmed it. Did you know?”

“I saw Theo the night it happened,” Juliet said. “My father told me he’d chartered a plane, and I had to take my brother to rehab. I’ve hated Theo with every fiber of my being since that night.”

“Because he killed someone?”

“Because my father didn’t care. He said I shouldn’t blame Theo, that it was an accident. It made me ill. He’s always excused my brother’s bad behavior. I don’t know why. Nothing I did was ever good enough.” She stared at the Anubis statue, as if it could give her the answers she needed.

“I’m the outcast in my family,” I said. “Bet that’s news to you.”

“What a shocker.” She smiled, and it wasn’t even her usual smirk. “Theo left me a message last night, and it’s looping around my brain. My father used to tell me I shouldn’t be so hard on Theo. But the truth is, if anyone screwed him up, it was our parents.”

CHAPTER 40 THEO

CHAPTER 40

THEO

When my flight landed, there was no one I wanted to see more than Teddy, but I headed straight from the taxi into my father’s home. The butler who answered the door gave me a frozen smile and led me inside. The air in that frigid mausoleum of a house crackled as if a storm were rolling in.

There was something reptilian in the stone-cold stillness of my father’s face as I walked into his study.

“The prodigal son has returned,” he said. “How was your trip?”

“I’m here to tell you to go rot in hell.”

“That bad?” He kept his tone light. “I always loved Berlin in the spring. We lived there for a few years while I was setting up the European side of the business. You probably don’t remember.”

It was surreal, listening to his prattle. I was there to confront him, and he was acting as if nothing had changed between us.