Cloaked in Blood by LS Sygnet

realized
that Rick wasn’t giving you any information, he was afraid that
Rick’s loyalties shifted.  He told me that the information
Rick gave him might’ve been incriminating, but that Rick was doing
too good of a job making Sully’s money appear legitimate.”
    “Did he talk to Rick about it?”
    She nodded.  “Rick just told him that
they’d both end up dead if they weren’t careful and
methodical.  In the meantime, Rick was getting richer and
richer.”
    “And I had no idea that there was even a
link between my husband and the Marcos family.  Not until the
end.  Were you aware that when I was vetted for service by the
FBI that they never uncovered the fact that Rick and Danny were
cousins?”
    She nodded.  “Rick felt it would be
safer that way, if they maintained distance, and Danny agreed.”
    “But he was at our wedding.”
    “Yes,” Celeste said.  “At that time,
Danny and Rick were very close.  He told me he was so hopeful
that his plan would work.”
    “To use me.”
    “He was aware that Rick didn’t…”
    “Love me,” I said with a hard edge.
    “Yes, but Danny once told me that love was
as rare in his family as honesty and integrity.  He wondered
most of his life if he was even capable of it, if there wasn’t some
sort of genetic flaw that made them all bad.”
    “And again, I can relate.”
    “We were stunned to learn about your father,
Helen.”
    “You mean Danny didn’t know about
Wendell?”
    She shook her head.  “We didn’t know
about that until after you came to Darkwater Bay.  An FBI
agent who was investigating Rick’s death met with Danny a number of
times.  He told him that you came from… bad seed , I
think was the exact phrase he used.  Danny had no idea that
your father was still alive until then, or what his history
was.”
    “Mark Seleeby.”
    “Yes, I believe that was his name.”
    “Danny didn’t believe me when I told him
Rick committed suicide, did he?”
    “No.  He said Rick was too selfish to
ever kill himself.  When it first happened, when we learned
that Rick was found dead, Danny immediately suspected that his
uncle had him killed.  He’d heard from Rick that some of
Sullivan’s money went missing and Rick was afraid that he’d be
blamed for stealing it.”
    “I know Rick didn’t embezzle that money,
Celeste.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that one of Sully’s other
hired killers, a man named Eddie Franchetta was responsible for the
missing twenty million.”
    “Well, Rick told Danny that he was going to
go to you and tell you everything.  The next thing we heard,
he was found dead.”
    Oh, he’d told me quite a bit less than
everything.  In fact, Rick was still angling for a way out of
his legal problems without losing his money or his standing with
Sully.  “He asked me to destroy the evidence that the FBI had
against him,” I said.  “And when I refused to do it, he
threatened to expose my connection to the Marcos
family.”
    “I see.”
    “I’m not sure you do, Celeste.  You
see, until that conversation, I had no idea that my husband was
related to Danny, or who Danny really was, that he was at our
wedding and welcomed me to the family after the
ceremony.”
    “Oh dear.  You don’t have to tell me,
Helen, but I’d like to know.  Was Danny right about what
happened to Rick?”
    A shudder rippled through me.  What was
it about this slip of a girl that made me want to spill my
guts?  Had she had the same effect on Danny?
    I ignored her need for answers and focused
on my agenda. “I need to know what really happened when Mitch
Southerby came to Darkwater Bay.  The first time,
Celeste.”
    “Danny said his uncle sent him, that he
suspected Danny was talking to the FBI and trying to make it look
like Southerby was doing the talking.”
    “And according to my friend at the FBI,
that’s exactly what they thought,” I said.
    “Right, so Southerby was really out to get
my husband.  Danny swore up and down to him