Wealth (free and completed)

Chapter 6 - What About Valerie?

Janus 

My new room was about as large as my old apartment. I wasn’t even joking. Even I felt engulfed by the whole thing – the situation. The house. The new siblings who hated me on sight – yeah, I would not eliminate Rafael from this little list yet.

But what about Valerie?

What about my new siblings?

What did I think of my new siblings? Well, I understood their point. Although I was Mr. Sangster’s flesh and blood, they were here first. They touched based, hot palms on the wall to lay claim of the property. I would not be surprised if I found one of them hugging the pillars just so they could stay.

Of course, they would. What did they think about me, anyway? I was not the sort to grovel at money. I was here based on principle, fairness, and whatnot.

Joseph was related to me by blood. We shared grey eyes, cold and piercing. He was almost as tall as I was. I knew that people did not warm to me quickly because of the coldness in my eyes and my intimidating height. It could also be how I kept to myself most of the time, an outcast. Even now, during what people would consider a homecoming, I was still one. I knew the oldest sibling hated me. There was no pretense. So, I wondered if he could be dangerous when openly antagonistic. He did not give a f**k if people thought of him a certain way.

As for the younger brother, the danseur, Rafael’s offered friendship might not be because he liked me. It was a challenge. He hated Joseph enough to oppose his every move. I was caught right in the middle of what was happening between them. History burned between the siblings. It was something I would never be part of, coming in too late. An adult. They were together during their teenage years, a time of vulnerability and formation.

Then, there was Emilie, lewd and dramatic. She seemed willing to take Joseph’s side no matter what. There was something off about her. It could be drugs. However, Rafael’s pale skin and the dark circles around his eyes made me wonder about him, as well.

I was thrown into the lions’ den. Could one of them really kill their father figure? My father, which I had to get used to calling one from then on, took them in when they needed someone to care for them.

Their lives could have gone to s**t, but somehow they were better off as children than I was. I had to claw my way up to the top, tuition fee from my father be damned. I had grown up feeling small. Friends pitied me. Women left me. All because they thought I would not amount to anything. Buried in my books more often than not, I managed to graduate with honors every damn time.

I did not know where this terrible mood was coming from.

It was probably the way the conversation had turned to money. What was I expecting? I was expecting the way celebrities handled deaths. They would talk about how good the deceased one was. How precious. They would prattle a litany of good deeds. They would emphasize the charities while lowering their lashes if they mentioned money, apparently embarrassed to even go there.

Behind the scenes, CEO Joseph Sangster was more vocal about wanting his part of the wealth. After all, wasn’t he related by blood?

Then, I had to come and ruin everything.

Meanwhile, Rafael should not show up looking stoned or drunk. He should still be dancing for the ballet corps, talking about how he wanted to make his dad proud. Then, Emilie should still be modeling instead of acting too cozy with her big brother.

But what about Valerie?

She was a light in the gloom of this large, dark house. She warmed up to me quickly, even though I loomed bigger over her as she sat in her wheelchair. When I held her hand in mine to show my support and lend my strength, she did not pull away. Emilie had watched us with narrowed eyes, mind going in the gutter more likely. I could not say I blamed her because my mind had gone there, too.

Valerie was a beautiful woman. She was obviously smart and kind. However, it looked like she was now off-limits. Ethically, anyway. I did not know how these things worked. I complained about my new siblings’ way of dealing with things, but I was no better. One look at Val, and I wanted to kiss her, and not in a chaste way.

I was not that sort of man, either. The last time I took a woman to bed was within a relationship. I was surprised that Gabriella and I lasted for three years. Then, she took off as soon as a man with a nice sleek car started taking notice of her.

There was something unique about Valerie. It was not just her looks, intellect, and condition that made me think that. It was something in her eyes. She seemed willing to trust me with her life.

On the other hand, it frightened me of how strong the feeling was. Blood calls to blood. What if I was drawn to her because she was my sister by blood? Why would Mr. Sangster bring home a girl he did not even adopt?

When I closed my eyes that night, her face still burned in my mind.

***

“What about Valerie Matthews?” I asked Detective Ryan Ford. He looked at me as if I had gone crazy.

It was a week later. The detectives had given everyone time to settle after the funeral, but nobody was allowed to leave town. We were in the study assigned to me in Briar Hill. Apparently, I had inherited another of my father’s home offices. No, it was not the one he died in, but another one with all his documents and even leather samples. The one that he died in had his library books. The study was more extensive and opulent than Joseph’s, and I could feel his resentment. He did not say anything, but his gaze followed me as I walked towards it.

The will had been probated, and it would take months for the distribution of wealth to take effect. With the murder dampening the mood, it might even take longer. Everyone was supposedly a suspect.

“Mr. Sangster, there is no way Miss Matthews could have done it. One, she is, well, you know, um, disabled. Two, she is not even adopted. For some reason, we thought that maybe she might not get as much as the other three, although we have not seen the will. Yet.”

Mr. Malcolm. I mentally corrected the detective. However, I should also get used to my new surname.

“Good. I didn’t think she could have done it, either,” I said, satisfied.

“We’re talking to you, sir, because you’re the only one with a solid alibi. You were far away from the mansion when your father died. We don’t even know if it is a murder, well not yet, but there have been suspicions.”

“You said he fell and hit his head? Could it have been an accident?”

“It could have been,” the other detective, Shawna Williams said. “However, there were also traces of a slow-acting poison in his blood. The fall could have been an accident, or it could have resulted from a murderer getting impatient and trying something else.”

I exhaled audibly. I could not help it. While I told myself that I should be here to figure out if and who killed my biological father, I did not think that there would be actual signs that he was murdered.

“However,” the detective continued. “We cannot tell you anything else. We have already interviewed each suspect individually. We are processing the information, but we also want you to be more observant than you have ever been.”

I mulled it over. It seemed that they did not know how to make of the crime scene. No arrests had been made. Now, they were turning to the newcomer? The stranger? It did not sit well with me.

As soon as the detectives left, I checked my father’s drawers. Everything was neat. He was old-fashioned, owning leather appointment books. Of course, I would not know if he also used apps to record his appointments. Somehow, though, the leather books gave me more sense of who he was as I perused his well-defined penmanship. It revealed a confident man who had control over his thoughts and decisions.

There were folders with different names, my siblings’ names: Joseph, Rafael, Emilie, and Valerie.

It could not be this easy. Then, I remembered that the door had been locked before I was ushered in this morning. Mr. Twain had made sure I was the first person to come in. Then, the detectives came a few minutes later. The keys for the knob and the deadlock were now both in my hands.

Still, I knew it could not be that easy.

Joseph’s file revealed many things that I already knew about him. He was adopted when he was very young after his mother overdosed. Joseph was five years old. No wonder he felt territorial. There were some notes about how he was malnourished when he first came. Mr. Sangster – dad – had hired doctors to especially care for him. He was brilliant, always top of the class, but had gotten in trouble in school. The records, however, had been redacted. I wanted to get hold of that information so badly, but I would not know where to begin. I had to talk to Mr. Twain about this.

Then, Emilie came along about six years later. She was nine to his eleven. She seemed to have some childhood trauma and was constantly crying. Somehow, I was not surprised that she went into therapy. Again, the contents of the folder seemed incomplete. I then realized why it was too much out in the open.

The lowest drawer to the right was locked. It was deliberately so. I could feel that a lot of the answers to questions I had not even known to ask should be there.

Rafael was adopted a year after Emilie. It must be why the first two were already thick as thieves. He was eleven, Joseph was twelve, and Emilie was ten. He dabbled with drugs and alcohol at a young age. He was bisexual and bewildered about his own feelings.

 Finally, there was Valerie’s folder. It did not say much about her. It contained clippings of her accident.

Lawrence and Rowena Matthews. Why did those names sound memorable? Suddenly, I recalled why Valerie looked faintly familiar.

She was the daughter of a disgraced film star, Laura Foyle. She had tried to cover up her past after she was found to have engaged in an adulterous affair with her director. Sleazy pictures of her with this director had been sent to the tabloids. These days, they would just have been posted online.

Why did I know about that? Well, my mother went to school with Laura Foyle. She talked to me about the name change and how there were rumors she was already pregnant when she married entrepreneur, Lawrence Matthews. She even dyed her hair a darker blonde than her ash blonde. My mother had wondered if Laura had gotten pregnant by someone else.

I was only around sixteen when my mother was babbling about this case when she found out that the former Laura Foyle and her husband Lawrence Matthews died in a car accident.

What if Valerie was, in fact, my sister? My father seemed to be into attached women. There was a strong possibility. It should have made me happy, the possibility of a deeper connection with a woman I found myself warming to quickly. Instead, however, it shredded my heart.