“I don’t understand what ancient family history has to do with this.”

“Aubrey Sutton-Braithwaite wants us to file charges against you for what you did to him yesterday,” Villaverde said. “We’ve tried to explain you’re under a lot of stress, and—”

“Aubrey?” I was incredulous. “He attacked me.”

“You’re sitting in front of us, and you look fine,” Gorey said. “Meanwhile, he’s got two fractured ribs and a concussion.”

“He deserved all of it,” I muttered darkly. I doubted that his injuries were really that bad. He was probably faking the head trauma.

“What was that?”

It was so tempting to give in to white-hot fury. I wanted to turn the table over, run out of there, hunt down Aubrey, and crack his skull like an egg. But the memory of my mother stopped me.

“Why don’t we call my lawyer?” I said. “His name is Hugo Laraya. He’s with Casper Peters McNally.”

“We know the name,” Gorey said. “You can’t afford someone like that.”

“Yet again, you are wrong,” I said. “Where’s your phone?”

CHAPTER 27 DEIRDRE

CHAPTER 27

DEIRDRE

I’m not sure what I expected Theodore Thraxton’s high-powered lawyer to be like, but it sure wasn’t the guy who walked into the interview room. Hugo Laraya looked as if he’d been pulled from a Great Gatsby–themed game of lawn croquet. He was dressed in immaculate white from his pointy leather wingtips to his trilby hat. The detectives stared at him as if he were a storybook character who’d stepped off the page.

“Hi, I’m Deirdre,” I said.

“My favorite new client,” Laraya said with a smile.

“We were just—” Gorey started to say, but the lawyer put out one hand.

“I know what you were up to,” he said pointedly, staring them down. “I’ve already spoken to an outcry witness to whom Ms. Crawley here described her sexual assault by Aubrey Sutton-Braithwaite.”

I blushed at that. Thinking of myself as a victim made me about as comfortable as if fire ants were burrowing under my skin.

“Outcry witness?” Villaverde asked.

“Theodore Thraxton,” Laraya said. “The senior one, to be clear.” He took a seat next to me. “I spent all of ten minutes researching this Aubrey character, and do you know what I found? Multiple DUIs. A couple of assault charges. Plus, several accusations of sexual assault or rape. Yet here you are, treating one of his victims as if she were the criminal. What are you doing, gentlemen? Where are your heads?”

“Aubrey’s dad called the ADA,” Gorey said. “He sent over the hospital report. That’s how it got to us.”

“We knew Deirdre was in mourning for her sister. We wanted to help,” Villaverde added.

“Ah, so you were helping her by treating her like a perp,” Laraya said. “And you wonder why people don’t trust the police.” He glanced at me. “Let’s go, Deirdre.”