Page 161 of Smoke Screen
“No recordings,” Louis said. “That was the deal.”
“We agreed to it for this part only. Once Maddy leaves, everything gets recorded. Understood?”
Louis nodded, and Special Agent Blackwell met her eye. “He’s got ten minutes.”
The door closed with a quiet click that boomed in the confined space. Realizing she still had her back to Louis, she whirled around, leaning against the wall to the right of the door.
“You can sit,” he said.
She folded her arms, crossed one foot over the other. “I prefer to stand. The view is good.”
“Me in handcuffs?”
“Absolutely. You tried to ruin me.”
“Not intentionally.”
That earned him an award-worthy eye roll. “Please. You don’taccidentallyframe someone. Tell me why you did it. That’s the only reason I agreed to this meeting.”
“My lawyer is finalizing the deal, but I already told them I’d confess. I felt … obligated, I suppose, to talk to you first.”
That was something. Maybe the man wasn’t a total loss. “You owe me at least that.”
The damage he’d done to her would change her forever. After this, she wasn’t sure she could even go back to the Thompson Center. They’d thought—or believed on some level it could be possible—that she’d stolen from them. Otherwise, they’d have let her stay.
That alone devastated her. How could she go back to work as if nothing had changed?
“The plan,” Louis said, “was to take the Pierre jewels. Only my father’s.”
“Why?”
He let out a forced, huffing laugh. “Gerry is my half brother. You know that.”
Maddy nodded. “Of course. He was a teenager when he came into your life.”
“I …” He shook his head, stared down at his cuffed hands, studying them. “I … well, resented, I suppose is the word, him. And my father. All I ever wanted was my father’s time. He had little of it for me or my mother, but had it for other people. Obviously.”
“That had to be difficult.”
“It was. I didn’t want to know Gerry. He was the symbol of all the reasons my dad didn’t have time for me. My father would set up weekends and dinners and such, but we never really bonded.”
“Understandable.”
“We’re different people. Different hobbies. He’s a bookworm. I’m not. I liked to watch sports, he didn’t. Zero in common.” He shook it off. “My mother, she’s dead now, was a good wife. Excellent mother. My father, although a good provider and genius designer, got cocky. Fame went to his head. He had affairs. I don’t know how many, but I heard the rumors. And saw the press clippings.”
A part of her, the Good Girl Maddy part, ached for him. Having lost her father, she knew that yearning. That want. Louis’s father may have been alive, but he’d checked out emotionally.
“Y’all never talked about it? The hurt he was causing.”
“Heavens no. We were exemplary at masking the obvious. At least until Gerry showed up. He’d found his birth certificate with Dad’s name on it and wanted to meet his biological father. Dad was off on a buying trip, so Mom spoke to him and then called Gerry’s mother. A few weeks later, instant brother. A paternity test confirmed it.”
Poor Mrs. Pierre. Not only the betrayal, but to have the young man unexpectedly turn up at her door?
Devastating.
“Your mother stayed with him?”
“She did. She later told me life was easier as Mrs. Louis Pierre.”
