Schooled in Revenge (20 page)

As soon as she entered the foyer, Jane knew that she’d been in the house before.

She’d maneuvered her way past the guards without incident, just another pretty face in a party full of them, and headed straight for the stairs. Guided by some kind of strange intuition, she made her way to the second-floor hall, then stopped at the third doorway on the left. Placing her hand on the bronze knob, she pushed open the door and turned on the light.

Recognition slammed into her.

She crossed the room to the bed and dropped onto the pale pink comforter, surveying the room. It was elaborately appointed, the white walls offset by a rich mahogany bed, matching dresser, and vanity. A massive armoire sat to the right of a mirrored door that Jane somehow knew was to a large walk-in closet.

Standing, she turned her attention to the knickknacks and awards that decorated the dresser, her gaze coming to rest on an intricately detailed music box. She picked it up and opened the lid. A tinny refrain that she recognized as Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp echoed through the room.

Jane looked inside the music box, her eyes drawn to a pair of ruby earrings. She lifted them to the light, recognizing them from a memory she’d had while at Marie’s house.

Closing the music box, she leaned into the dresser, studying a porcelain doll encased in glass. It was obviously old, its cheeks tinged brown, its eyes eerie and glazed. Oddly, Jane could relate to its frozen glare.

She removed the glass enclosure and picked up the doll, rubbing the cool porcelain against her cheek. Her mind raced backward.

Seven-year-old Jane sits in the back of a limo, her legs dangling, unable to reach the luxury car’s matted floor. A large man sits across from her, the smell of his aged Lagavulin single malt overwhelming, as an equally impressive man sits by the little girl’s side: her father.

He puts his arm around Jane’s shoulder, whispers in her ear. “Don’t worry, sweetheart; Daddy’s meeting is over. We’ll get to spend the whole day together now. I just have one quick stop to make.”

Jane looks up at him. She loves spending time with her father.

The limo pulls up to a bar built to look like an old Spanish mission. Its name—Tavern Red—is lit up in flickering neon light.

The big man across from her puts his glass down, shakes William Reinhardt’s hand, and leaves the limo.

Now that they’re alone, and Jane’s been such a good girl, William hands her a gift box.

She takes it, asking what it’s for.

“It’s for you. Plain and simple. Don’t need an occasion to give you a gift, do I?” His deep, aggressive voice makes most people nervous, but to Jane, it’s as harmonious as the music box on her dresser.

Jane opens the gift, thrilled to see her very own china doll. Just what she’s been wanting. Reinhardt lowers the limo’s divider and commands the driver to head to Napa Valley. The driver asks where exactly in Napa they’re going.

“Starling Vineyards. I’ve got a proposition for the owner. She’s a tough one,” he says, then looks at his daughter with a wink. “But Daddy’ll crack her.”

Jane is too busy playing with her new doll to care. She thanks him again.

Reinhardt smiles.

Emerging from the memory, Jane turned her attention to a stack of certificates and awards from school competitions and extracurricular activities. It appeared she had gone to boarding school, taken karate and tai kwon do, ridden horses competitively, and sailed extensively.

She leaned in, looking more closely at a certificate of completion from an aviation academy; a photograph tucked into the frame showed her standing next to a small propeller plane.

“Flying lessons,” Jane murmured.

She looked at it all, finally understanding. She wasn’t some kind of badass genius. Just a spoiled rich girl who’d had the luxury of learning and experiencing everything that interested her.

And then she saw something else. Something on the aviation
certificate that had escaped her notice on everything else.

We are pleased to award this Certificate of Completion to Mira Reinhardt…

Mira Reinhardt.

Mira. Reinhardt.

She dropped the stack of certificates, horror washing over her. She was William Reinhardt’s daughter.

Her father had helped kill Reena’s mother, had destroyed Ava’s life.

“Oh, God…” Jane stumbled backward, the wheels of her mind turning.

If he was capable of murder, or betrayal, or theft… was he also behind what happened to her?

Her attention was pulled away from the possibility by the sound of shouting outside her room. She went to the door and listened.

The voice was deep and aggressive. Intimidating.

And familiar.

Sixteen-year-old Mira Reinhardt is sitting shotgun in her boyfriend Tim’s candy-apple-red Mustang as they pull into Starling Vineyards’ large circular driveway. Tim’s house is just ten minutes away on the other side of town, in an affluent neighborhood that prides itself on old money. Still, it’s nothing compared to Starling.

“This is it,” Mira says, as Tim, draped in a popped collar and low-sitting baseball cap, hops out of the car to open the door for his new lady, proving that chivalry isn’t dead. At
least not to a sixteen-year-old boy who’s dating the hottest girl in his class—and wants to keep it that way.

“Starling,” Tim says in awe of the landscape. Mira mentions it’s some kind of bird or something, she’s not really sure.

Tim and Mira pass the marble fountain. She runs her hand through the water and flicks some back Tim’s way with a flirty giggle. Mira’s truly happy, frighteningly unaware of the fate that lies ahead.

Tim looks around at the lavish estate, asking Mira what it must be like to live in a place as opulent as this. “I don’t know yet, we just moved in,” she says, grabbing his arm and moving her boyfriend along. “C’mon, let’s go upstairs,” she says suggestively.

They walk up the stairs, Tim noting the elegant beauty of the cathedral-like home Mira’s father recently acquired. She’s used to her dad’s frequent acquisition of businesses and houses, but this place is different. It’s so gorgeous and meticulously designed, as if the people who lived here had planned to stay forever. She wonders why they left. Where they’ve gone.

Tim takes in every last detail of Mira as she walks up the stairs. Mira notices his appreciation of her. They stop on the stairs and kiss the way only teenagers can. Tim pulls away, asking if her father’s home. But Mira just shrugs—even if he is, he’s too busy to care.

Mira takes Tim’s hand as they continue toward her bedroom. Tim asks about a rectangle of faded paint on the wall. Seems something used to hang here. Mira mentions there was a painting when they first arrived, a gorgeous portrait of three women.

“Perhaps they were the original owners?” Tim reasons, but
Mira’s already thinking about what can go in its place. Maybe she’ll take an art class in the fall and replace it with something new and original. Tim wonders how she’ll find the time, given her tennis, equestrian, and aviation lessons.

Mira wraps her arms around Tim. She finds time for this, doesn’t she?

Mira stops inches from her father’s master suite, hearing deep voices looming from within. Mira suggests that today’s the day Tim finally meets her father. Tim doesn’t like the sound of that, but Mira tells him to relax—it’ll be fine. They approach the door, but before she opens it, she realizes her dad and two other men are speaking in the most serious of tones. Mira tells Tim to hang on for a moment, and listens.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Tim says, but Mira shushes him, eavesdropping diligently.

“So then it’s settled. You’ll take her out.”

Mira’s heart begins to pound. What are they talking about?

“I’ve got the right guy to do it,” Cain says, “Darren Marcus.”

Reinhardt wants to know if he’s loyal. Cain snickers—they’re all loyal, till they’re not. “And if that happens, we’ll deal with him accordingly. Just like we’re dealing with this Senator Fuller situation.” Wells explains this can never be traced back to him. The assassination, or this meeting. But that’s not a problem. The problem is figuring out who’s going to take the fall. Wells says that’s already taken care of, as he presents a photograph of Simon and Cruz Benton. Cruz works for Senator Fuller, so they’ll make it appear as if his brother Simon used Cruz’s name to sneak in the back, past security at the upcoming state capitol event in Sacramento. They can’t
pin it on Cruz because he’ll be working all that day and have alibis. But Simon is on vacation from college and isn’t being watched.

“What’s his motivation?”

“He killed his abusive father when he was eleven. The courts ruled it self-defense, but it’s still on record. Last week we arranged for someone to start a bar fight with him up in Boston after he had a few drinks. Kid was arrested, though no charges were filed.”

Mira and Tim don’t know what to do with this knowledge. They are flustered, don’t know where to turn. They bump into each other and Tim drops his keys, the sound seems to echo throughout the house. Reinhardt opens the door. Standing behind him are Wells and Cain. The three men look at Mira, her father particularly troubled by her possibly having overheard. “Mira, get out of here. Take this boy with you.” “Dad, I—”

“LEAVE. NOW.” Mira doesn’t need to be told again. As she goes, Cain and Wells trade looks. They wonder how much she and the boy heard. Reinhardt tells them not to worry—his daughter didn’t hear anything.

But Wells and Cain aren’t so sure. And don’t want anyone getting in their way.

Ava and Shay entered Ava’s secret room, planning to make their way into the main house from the restored cellar.

They were at the top of the stairs inside the main pantry when she grabbed Shay’s arms.

“What?” he hissed. “We need to find Jane.”

“I know we need to find Jane, but why are you freaking out? Why is it so wrong for her to see Reinhardt if he’s her father?”

Shay’s eyes glinted in the semidarkness. “Because he’s the one who tried to kill her. He thinks she’s dead, Ava. And if he figures out she’s not, he’s going to change that.”

The barrel of the gun, cold and hard, pressed against Reena’s cheek.

“Still not talking?” Reinhardt asked.

She didn’t say anything. She was playing a dangerous game, waiting until the last minute to play her final card.
There was always a risk she would miscalculate and wait too long, something of which she was acutely aware with the gun so close to her brain.

“Just pull the trigger,” Wells said. “If someone was coming for her, she would have said something by now.”

Reinhardt cocked the gun.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll make a mess on your perfect white walls?” she said.

Reinhardt hesitated. “The peace of mind will be worth the extra effort.”

There was a long moment in which Reena wondered if she’d waited too long, half-expecting to hear the roar of the gun rip through the room.

“Okay, okay, don’t shoot!” she said, readying herself for the next phase of the plan.

Reinhardt and Wells exchanged satisfied glances.

“It was Charlie,” she said. “Charlie’s the one who hired me to spy on you.”

Wells immediately went for Reinhardt’s throat. “You said we could trust him!”

Reinhardt shook his head. “She’s lying. Charlie’s in as deep as we are. He has just as much to lose.”

But Reena could hear the doubt creeping into his voice.

“If she’s lying, how does she even know about him?” Wells demanded.

“Please,” Reena begged, playing the part of the frightened captive. “Don’t hurt me. Charlie put me up to it.”

“Why would he do that?” Reinhardt asked, pressing the gun more firmly into her cheek.

“He wants to ruin you,” she said. “He paid me to get into your little meeting and find out where Marcus is.”

Reinhardt’s face went still as he considered her words.

“This is just great,” Wells said. “For all we know, your little con man got to Cain. Maybe that’s why we haven’t been able to get ahold of him.”

It was working. Reena couldn’t believe it. In just a few minutes, with just a few well-chosen words, Charlie was being stripped of the trust he’d worked for years to build with Reinhardt.

And now that he didn’t have his old life to fall back on—thanks to Ava—Charlie had nothing.

Which meant at least one of their targets had been successfully shattered.

“We need to get rid of him,” Wells asserted nervously. “He’s working with Cain to destroy us.”

Reinhardt shook his head. “We don’t know that.”

“Don’t be stupid!” Wells shouted.

“Why would they do that?” Reinhardt asked. “We’ve given them everything they’ve wanted.”

“Why does any man do anything, William? Not for love—that’s for children. And not for money, because there’s always a way to get that. But power… now that’s something worth fighting for. Your sidekick wants to dethrone you, my friend. And he’s planning to make me a casualty in his little coup.” Wells shook his head. “He knows too much. We can’t afford to take the chance.”

“What about Fuller’s daughter?” Reinhardt asked.

Wells walked over, removing the gun from Reinhardt’s
hand. He pressed it against Reena’s temple. “I think you know the answer to that question.”

Just outside the door in the hallway, Jane approached her father’s master suite, following the sound of his muffled voice. She didn’t know if she was prepared to face him. He was just a man she didn’t even remember outside of a handful of muddled memories and a white-faced toy.

But whoever she’d been before waking up on Rebun, she wasn’t that person anymore. And how could she embrace the person she was, the person she’d
become,
without facing the person she’d been?

She grasped the doorknob, preparing to face her father.