Page 108 of Without a Clue

“You could say that. He was a reeeeeal piece of work.”

Well. At least she doesn’t have a problem with dispensing information. “How so?”

“You know how people don’t have secret daughters anymore? How that’s one of those old-fashioned things only terrible people did in high positions hundreds of years ago because they sucked and reputation went with money? Yeah. Well, sometimes it still happens. Or perhaps you haven’t heard my real name before.”

“You’re Crystal Murrell,” I say automatically. I’ve seen everything on her. All of her social account names. All the contracts she’s signed with us. Everything. I pause. “But you’re saying it’s a pen name?”

“Yep.”

“And your real name?”

She frowns. “Try this mouthful on for size. Mary Alice Givens Griffin. I know. It’s awful, isn’t it? My parents had no chill.” The seven ball drops in and she moves around the table.

“Griffin?” I say, my brows rising. My eyes link with Nash’s. His hands are stuffed in his pockets. He’s leaning back and forth on the heels of his boots as if poised for action at any moment. “Crystal. Mary.” I shake my head. “Are you telling me you are Hugh’s daughter?”

She raises her pool stick. Grins.

“Secret daughter,” she corrects. “Secret daughter he was so bent on teaching to raise herself up by her own bootstraps that he only allowed me to join this ridiculous little group of his if I changed my name.”

“Wait. But you’re not in the will—”

She laughs.

“Don’t I know that?” she says with an edge in her voice. “Don’t I know how ridiculous it is for him to go on and on about how I need to learn self-sufficiency and how ‘it doesn’t do you any favors to take the shortcut,’ but then I join this little parade and realize that all this time he was not helping me, he was doing everything he could to try to help you? His special Penelope Dupont princess. The little administrative genius. He was willing to do more to jump-start you into a writing career than me.”

I grip the pool table. “But . . . but . . . I’ve met your dad. At the July Fourth party—”

“Yeah, you mean my portfolio manager, Frank?” She laughs callously. “You’re so stupid. You’ve always been so gullible, Pip. You’d believe anything. Explains a lot about why you stayed forever with that loser Michael—”

“Hey!” Nash takes a step toward her. “That’s enough, Crystal.”

Crystal immediately puts her hands up. “Alright, alright. Geez. Pip, call your bodyguard off.”

Nash looks to me and his eyes say it all. Pure fire. Give me the word and I’ll kick her out myself.

I’m good. It’s fine.

It’s more than fine, actually.

Nash standing there, putting himself on the line without a second thought. That face. That fury.

It could melt metal, that look.

“And the name’s Mary,” Crystal calls out to him as I wave him off. She smiles again at me. “Horrible name. Bland as it gets. You got a real keeper, though, haven’t you there? Man, if I had a man like that tearing down the rainforest to make my way—”

“Why did you tell me that?” I interrupt. “What purpose does it serve you to tell me you’re Hugh’s daughter?”

“You’d figure it out soon enough. Might as well beat you to it.”

“And put yourself on the prime suspect list?”

“Over what? That he’s my less-than-average father? Oh, honey, you have far more interesting suspects to consider than me.”

“I don’t know. Jealousy is a solid reason for revenge.”

“Oh, I’ve been watching him dote on you for years now with that stupid smile on his face, but I didn’t kill him.”

“Then who do you think did it? Who’s a better suspect than you?”