Had Rebecca Lynn been in there? Jenna shot a hard look at her inebriated stepmother. Rebecca grinned lopsidedly, held up her glass in cheers and sauntered out into the hallway, listing like a drunken sailor.
Whatever had possessed her father to marry that 34-year-old witch was beyond Jenna. She waited until she heard Rebecca Lynn’s heels on the marble stairs, then Jenna went to her dad’s office.
She clicked on the tiny desk light, worried that if her father returned, he’d see a brighter light from the bottom of the driveway.
She pulled the top drawer open wider. Wind lashed outside suddenly, drumming rain against the window in waves. The palm trees swished eerily against glass panes and the curtain billowed. Jenna tensed, her heart racing.
She was feeling spooked, guilty for being in here at all.
Quickly, she removed an unmarked yellow file folder from the drawer, opened it and stared in shock.
The folder contained five more notes—death threats—against the entire Rothchild family.
Notes her father had not given to the police.
These were not typed, either, like the first threat. They’d been created from letters cut from magazines and newspapers. Jenna was careful not to touch them as she read the words, horrified.
Whoever had crafted and sent these was threatening to systematically kill off Rothchild “trash,” eliminating family members one by one after Candace. Each of the notes was dated, and every one alluded to the infamous Tears of the Quetzal, in increasing detail. And all five spoke of an old deed that needed to be avenged.
The last one was even signed, The Avenger.
A shudder washed over her as the rain lashed against the windows again, and fronds swished against the panes.
Why was her dad hiding these?
Had he kept these notes even from Natalie, her LVMPD sister and Candace’s twin? Just as Jenna herself hadn’t told anyone, including Nat, that she’d been to visit her sister the night of the murder?
Jenna was really afraid now. She needed to come clean, tell Lex everything that had happened the night of Candace’s death.
And she needed to inform him about the existence of these notes.
But that would mean betraying her father. Maybe Harold had good reason to have withheld these from the cops. Maybe these notes weren’t even from the killer—they were a completely different style to the first one.
She needed to speak to her dad, find a way to broach the subject of the death threats, and she’d make her decision from there. But as Jenna closed the file the headlights of a car swept up the driveway, and she heard the distinct crackle of tires approaching on wet driveway. She glanced up. She had to get out of here, fast. Quickly shoving the file back into the drawer, she closed it and flipped off the light.
Jenna couldn’t face her father now…she needed to think.
Rebecca Lynn had set her up to find these. Why? And how had Rebecca Lynn known about them in the first place? Had Harold told Rebecca Lynn himself? And, if so, why not tell the rest of the family? Her stepmother had succeeded in her goal tonight—she’d driven a needle of mistrust into Jenna. Mistrust of her own father.
Carefully shutting his office door, she made her way quickly through the living room and up the marble stairs. She reached the landing just as the front door opened.
Heart thudding, Jenna peered down over the banister, saw her dad’s distinguished silver head. And with a sick feeling, Jenna knew. She just knew that she was going to be forced right up against the fence, and she was going to have to pick a side.
The side of her family, a place of murky allegiances and mixed-up love, a place she’d always felt secure, the only place she’d ever really known.
Or the side of law—Lex’s side.
Chapter 7
It was late Sunday afternoon, and both Lex and Rita Perez were still in the FBI office. Perez was meticulously combing through public records of Rothchild real estate dealings, putting together a detailed timeline of transactions. She was looking, in particular, for links between Harold and Frank Epstein’s old cartel. Lex, on the other hand, was focusing on Frank Epstein himself.
The two families seemed to be intersecting in relation to himself and to this case, and Lex didn’t believe in coincidence.
He was finding it tough to accept Mercedes Epstein had shown up at Jenna’s auction, uninvited, and started a bidding war on him purely by chance. Or was he just trying to read too much into it all because Mercedes had worked at the Frontline at the same time as his mother? And because Frank Epstein had been the one to both hire—and fire—Sara Duncan.
Lex rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was also troubled by the fortune-teller’s allusion to his mother being connected to the old Vegas underworld. Or was he also giving too much weight to the Lucky Lady’s strange words?