I perk up.
She just pauses. Then she pushes away from the computer and turns to face me. “You sure you want to know all of this?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
She winces. “All right. Your father didn’t bury Greg at the funeral.” She speaks slowly as if trying to find a better word each time one comes out of her mouth.
A dull roar echoes in my ears. “Excuse me?” The coffin was closed, but I figured that was just because Greg had been beaten up pretty badly in the accident.
“Yes. Mathias sent Greg’s body to a specialized coroner in DC. I can’t imagine the strings he had to pull to do that.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, this coroner determined . . .” She turns back to read the monitor. “The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the temporal lobe.” She squints and leans closer to the screen. “Okay, so the coroner found a contusion on Greg’s right temple.” She looks over at me as if to gauge my state of mind and I nod. “There’s evidence of a depressed skull fracture at the impact site leading to intracranial injury.”
I gulp. “What else?”
“Toxicology report shows a blood alcohol level of 1.5. It’s not a lot, but it’s some,” she reads.
“What’s the conclusion?” I ask, my chest compressing.
She tilts her head. “Cause of death attributed to complications from blunt force trauma to the temple leading to significant intracranial injury. Most likely not from a car rolling over a cliff.”
I can’t breathe. “Not?”
“The coroner doesn’t say for sure.” She scrolls to another screen. “But she does say that the impact is small and definite. It’s defined in the skull.”
“But she can’t tell what caused the injury?” I ask.
“That’s all there is,” Ella says. “At the bottom of this sheet there’s a note that a phone call will take place to discuss the findings.” She sits back. “The phone call would’ve happened two weeks ago.”
The ache in my stomach turns to strong cramps. I can’t believe this. “What else do you have?”
“I’m still looking,” she says. “I’ll break into the records of the other two private detectives, but it looks like your father is careful to conduct most business either face-to-face or over, I’m sure, very secure phone lines. I don’t know that we’re going to find much in these servers.”
I rub my left temple. Why hasn’t my father told me any of this? “Is that it?” I ask, trying to sound in control of myself.
A small smile plays on her pink lips. “I did hack Nico pretty easily.”
“You didn’t hack him. I gave you the keys to the entire system.”
“Well, I guess that’s true.”
Enough. “Find anything good?”
“Yeah. He has reached out to several private detectives as well, but I don’t see anything interesting that he hasn’t already told you.”
I like that Nico is up front with me. My father could take lessons from him. “What about Quinlan?” I ask. “I mean besides the dirty talk.”
“Nothing,” she says. “He does have a lot of pictures on his terminal, of family, pictures that go way back.”
“Really?” I ask, standing.
“Yeah.” She brings them up.
I smile when I see all the people, many I recognize, at a lake cabin. “Wow, that must be some sort of family reunion.”
“Is that you?” She points to a baby held in my mother’s arms.
“It is me.” My hair was a wild mess even then. I look around. “Wow. We really did get together a lot.”
Quinlan has an arm over my mom’s shoulders. He mentioned they were close. He and Nico appear muddy with a football on the ground between them.
I smile and wish I could remember the good times. “They look happy. If I was around two, then they would’ve been maybe twelve or so. Is that Scarlett?” I lean in. She’s pretty in a white dress, and yet it’s obvious she’s about to go for the football.
Ella stares at the picture. “Is it weird having more people on the board of directors?”
“Yes,” I say. “But it might be good, since we’re family.” I pause as I think through her family drama. I know she misses her deceased father every day, and since her stepmother has discarded her, family is a four-letter word for her. “Oh wait, I didn’t mean . . .”
She waves a hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t consider Sylveria or the sniping sisters family.”
“I can’t believe they stole all of the company from you,” I mutter.
“Someday I’ll own the whole thing,” she says.
I nod. “I agree and I’m going to help you.”
She flattens her hands on her jean-clad thighs. “For now, let’s figure out who killed your brother. Do you want to order pizza? It’s way past dinnertime.”
I glance at my watch. “I can’t. I have a late dinner date.”
She turns around and stares at me, her eyes wide behind the thick glasses. “You’re going out with Thorn?”
