Who Shot the Bitch Troll?

Chapter 12

Elliot

All fucking hell has now broken loose! I wish that Mom and Dad had let me follow that fucker out of the house so that I could beat the shit out of him. After everything that he and his goddamned wife have put my family through, this is the icing on the cake. The second that Mon dropped her head in her hands to cry, I bolted towards the door of the dining room. It took both Ethan and Dad to hold me back as I struggled, yelling and swearing at the bastard as he walked out of the house like the king of the world or something.

"Let me at the piece of shit!" I hollered at them. "One swing and I'll bring him to his knees. Who the hell does he think he is walking in here and running his filthy mouth with his lies?"

"Don't, Elliot," pleaded my Mom, looking up through her tears. "You're so angry that you might kill him. I couldn't bear it."

"I'd like to kill the fucker," I fumed, but stop struggling against my captors. "You can let go, Dad, Ethan. I'm not going anywhere. Lincoln's not going to get what he deserves tonight."

"Or ever, son," replied Dad sternly. "There's been enough violence already. I do not want to have to defend my son against a murder charge. That piece of trash that just walked out of here is not worth it."

I noticed that Mia had moved over so that she is sitting beside Mom and rubbing her back.

"It's all lies, Mom," she was saying soothingly. "You'll see. When Christian gets back, he will tell you. It's nothing but evil, wicked lies. Mr. Lincoln is trying to cover himself because he killed the bitch troll and everyone knows it."

"Mia," said Dad in his warning voice.

She tosses her hair back off her face defiantly. But I can see that there are tears in her eyes also. She has also loved Christian more than me. He has always been her hero. This has clearly devastated her just as Mom. If Christian were here, I know that he would be comforting both of them and Ana. Of course that would be after he took Linc apart limb by limb. I don't think that the three of us could have held him back off the fucker.

"Everyone here is family," she replied petulantly. "I doubt that anyone will go running to the police. Besides . . . Everyone is pretty convinced that I am too stupid to have done it anyway."

On any other occasion, I might have picked up gauntlet and made a smart remark, but even I knew that this was no time for humor or sibling teasing. My Mom was shattered. My Dad was furious. And Mia was seething. Looking at Ethan, I could see that he was totally confused, but Kate's response was the most interesting. She looked angry, sad, and a little . . . guilty, all at the same time. What the hell did she know about all of this shit?

"I think that dinner is well and truly over," remarked Dad. "I don't know about anyone else, but I need a drink. Come, Grace. Let Mia and Kate help Gretchen with the clean up."

Dad takes Mom by the arm to lead her off to the dining room and Ethan and I look at each other. I can see that he wants no part of all that. But Kate will be family in a few months. Besides, she'd tough. She can take it.

"I'll help Mia," said Ethan. "You guys go have drinks."

When Kate and I entered the room, it was obvious that Mom was not done crying. Kate sat down across the room from them, while I got the drinks. They always have the same thing after dinner, a little brandy with their coffee. But tonight they wanted no part of coffee. I wanted something stronger so I poured myself a double whiskey neat. Kate shook her head to my unspoken question. She wasn't interested in a drink.

After a few sips, Mom calmed down. Dad continued to sit beside her in the love seat with his arm around her. I was too jazzed up to sit, so I paced. A million thoughts were circling in my brain. I always knew that Elena Lincoln was creepy. I never liked the way that she used to look at me, as if she was measuring me up or something.

Of course, if she had ever tried any of that shit with me, I would have hit her back. But Christian was a different story. No matter how hard he tried to play tough guy, I was always determined to protect him. I know Mom felt the same way. if she had been beating herself up before, she must be totally devastated.

Nobody seemed to know what to say. Finally Mom spoke up.

"Maybe we should ask Christian to return early," she suggested. "Then he can tell us the truth."

"I don't know," replied Dad. "Both he and Ana need some time for themselves. Things seemed to be getting easier for them. I think that maybe we should allow them a few more days of peace before we have to hit them with this latest shit. Of course, if he goes to the press then they will find out anyway. And then it would be much worse for them. They don't even have Taylor with them this week."

"Do you really think that he'll go to the press?" asked Mom fearfully.

"Not if he wants me to represent him," said Dad. "He has two concerns right now, keeping his ass out of jail and getting his hands on Elena's money. He's got to get from point A to reach point B."

"And afterwards?"

"Christian ruined him once, don't think that he would hesitate to do it again," replied Dad. "You should notice that he hasn't shot the whole wad yet. He's certainly made our lives miserable, but at least he didn't go to the press first. I hate to placate him, but I don't have a choice."

"Are you really certain that he didn't do it?" asked Kate. "Kill Elena that is."

For the first time, Dad turned and looked at her. He seemed to be debating what he should say, and it was then that I realized that he didn't trust her at all. He still hadn't forgiven the fact that Kavanagh Media had broken the paternity story.

"Yes," he answered tensely.

"Who do you think did it?" she asked.

"That woman had more enemies than she could count on both hands," he replied. "But like it or not Linc has an airtight alibi and no money to hire a hit. Whoever did this was a pro. If this case were to go to court, and I sincerely doubt that they could get a conviction on him, even if that stupid prick chose to represent himself. Motive isn't enough. You need means and opportunity. Arguably he had opportunity, but no means."

"So then why is he doing this?" Kate persisted, much to my chagrin.

"Revenge, pure and simple," he answered. "First Christian fucked up his marriage and then his company. He built Lincoln Timber out of nothing. It's not just about the money. A man has a certain pride in his own achievements. A self-made man puts his heart and soul into a company. It's not just a living. It's his life. Ask Elliot, if you don't believe me, or Christian."

"Yeah, babe," I said. "Grey Construction is a part of me, it's not just a job that I go to every day. I can understand how pissed off Linc was when Christian demolished his dream, his life's work. But you know, something still doesn't really add up. I mean, I suppose that it really isn't a huge shock that Elena fucked Christian up or collared him or whatever that shit was that he was talking about. That was just connecting the dots on his part. But what makes him think that Christian was into that whole scene after they broke up?"

"Do you think that he was lying?" asked Mom, hopefully. "To hurt us more. Elliot is right. How could he possibly know that?"

At this point, Dad stared out into space and Kate looked down at her hands. Then I could see it. She knows something. Ana and Kate tell each other everything and Ana has never been able to keep secrets from her. Kate is just too damn persistent and Ana can't help it, especially, if she's been drinking.

"Do you want to take that chance?" asked Dad.

As his question hung, unanswered, in the air, Mia and Ethan walked in. HE had his arm around her and she was still sniffling. Dad gave us all a look and I knew that the conversation was over. No need to fill up Mia's head with any more of that shit. She may play at being sophisticated, but the truth is that she is a real innocent.

"All cleaned up," said Ethan with that forced cheerfulness that people use when they want to change the subject. "I need to get home and prepare for classes tomorrow."

Mia pouted.

"I have homework to do too," she added reluctantly, but I doubted that she would get any of it done.

"Well, we both have work in the morning," I said. "So Kate and I had better get going. How are you folks doing? Do you want us to stay for anything?"

"No," Mom shook her head sadly. "I just want to go to bed and try and pretend that this evening never happened."

When we get home, I immediately talk to Kate. She's just been too quiet. This is not her style at all.

"Okay, spill the beans," I say. "What the fuck do you know about Christian and this so-called lifestyle? And don't try to put me off because I can read you too well, baby. Ana couldn't keep a secret from you if she tried. What information did you bully out of her?"

"That's between Ana and me," she answers back smartly. "And anytime that Ana and I have discussed her relationship with Christian, it has always been with the understanding that I wouldn't tell you. Christian's rule, if you want to know. He hates it when you bust his balls."

"But nothing that Linc said tonight was a surprise to you," I shoot back.

"The only surprise was that he knew it," she admits. "Although how the hell he knew it is a mystery that we'd better clear up quickly."

"So in other words, whatever was between Ana and you is no longer just between the two of you," I say. "The best defense is a good offense. I would rather know all of the shit now than have it hit me in the face unexpected, like it did tonight. Start talking, Kavanagh and stop pleading at the secrecy of the confessional or some shit like that."

"Cool your jets, Grey," she says right back at me. "Ana told me that I couldn't tell you because Christian would have gone ballistic on her for talking about anything behind his back. He had her sign a fucking NDA for crying out loud. He specifically told her that he didn't want you to know because you were a nosy bastard."

"Really?" I say sarcastically. What the hell does she know about me and my brother anyway?

"Well, maybe if you weren't such a shit about his love life all the time, he wouldn't be like that," she answers. "But can you be sensitive? No. First you're all, are you gay, Christian, are you gay? Then you're all, speedy in flight service, bro. You married the first girl you dated. Well, obviously you were wrong on at least two of those charges."

"Hey!" I shout back. "What the hell do you know? Christian and I have always teased each other. That's how brothers are. And it's not like he doesn't bust my balls every once in a while."

"Well, your brother was keeping a whopping big secret to himself," she yelled. "First the bitch troll fucks him up so bad that he doesn't know how to have a normal relationship with a woman. You should see the email that I found between him and Ana at the beginning if their relationship. All this shit about bondage and beatings with canes and whips and kinky crap that I had never heard of before. He was one sick bastard. But you had to keep fucking around with his head."

"What email? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Before Christian started any of these so-called Dom/sub relationships, he and the woman wrote out and signed a fucking contract that spelled out exactly what she had to do, how she had to act, and what he could do to her," she explains heatedly. "It covered everything from a Brazilian wax to metal handcuffs, and worse. Do you know what the fuck a genital clamp is? Why do you think that I tried so hard to get Ana away from him. I knew that he was a control freak from the minute I met him. And that email was proof that I was right. He creeped me out form the day that I met him."

"What happened to this supposed email?" I ask.

"When I confronted them with it, Christian burned it," she replies. "It was the night that they announced their engagement, the night that your Mom found about his affair with Elena and kicked her out of the house. But Ana swore up and down that he had never hurt her, so I let it go. She said that he was cured or some shit like that."

"And you never thought to tell me?"

"Elliot, you can be such an asshole sometimes," she says. "I couldn't take a chance that you might make a joke out of it or something to Christian. He's really hypersensitive about it all now. And if I lost Ana's trust, then whom would she have to talk to? This is hardly the kind of shit that you can confide in your mother you know."

"So you're saying that you don't trust me?" I ask, getting angry again.

"Not where this kind of shit is concerned," she admits. "You may love your brother, but you can be a real loose cannon, no filters, if you know what I mean."

Now I really don't know what to think. This is the woman that I am planning to marry and now she's telling me that she doesn't trust me. She's calling me an asshole for crying out loud. When two people love each other the way that we do, they're supposed to trust each other completely. Right? I could swallow this if she said that she didn't want to see me hurt or something, but no. This is a lack of basic trust.

"You know, your father has been keeping this back from your Mom," she says, as if she had just read my mind. "He knew too. I could tell it."

"My Dad was trying to protect my mother, who has already been through enough pain and guilt over the whole Christian and Elena thing," I reply sharply. "You weren't trying to protect me."

"No," she says. "I was trying to protect Ana. She and Christian still have their disagreements, and he still scares the shit out of her when he gets angry."

I know that. In fact, I know that when Christian finds outs about this he will completely blow his stack. And what about Lincoln? If Christian discovers that he outed him to the family, he just may kill him. Not that I would blame him, but it would only serve to fuck up his life even more.

"Thank God, Christian and Ana are out of town," I say.

Kate shakes her head.

"Sooner or later, they are bound to find out," she comments. "Linc really has it in for him. Christian had better watch his back."

Price

I have just taken a late night call from Carrick and am at a complete loss as to what I should do. The infamous Linc Lincoln has chosen tonight to be the night that he would reveal the true nature of Elena's relationship to his entire family. Flynn and I tried to warn Carrick that he might pull some stunt like that if he didn't agree to represent him, it he didn't take us seriously. Now Grace and the children have been traumatized by a scene of epic, dramatic proportions.

Elliot nearly chased down the bastard and beat him to a pulp. That would have been the worst thing that could have happened. I have no doubt that from his hospital bed, Lincoln would have taken the story to the press in all of its techni-color salaciousness. Of course, he still could and then everything that we have been doing to protect Christian from any further pain would have come to naught.

Carrick wants me to warn Christian before he returns home that Linc has been making these threats and that he exposed his former life to the family. He has no choice, but to defend him if he is arrested, but he wants Christian to understand why he would do that.

Quite frankly, I don't think that it is my place to have that discussion with him. I understand that he does not want Christian to return to Seattle unprepared or for him to hear it via the press, and I understand that he does not want to tell him over the phone. But I am not even entirely sure of what Lincoln said.

However, I decide that the best person to bring into the conversation now is Flynn. He knows Christian better than any of us. And because he has been a party to all of his secrets, he knows exactly how much progress he has made. I feel that he has made great progress this weekend. He is slowly coming to terms with my existence and what it potentially means for him. I am glad that the time zones are working in my favor and it is not quite as late in Seattle as it is here.

"Flynn," he says crisply when he picks up immediately.

"Price," I reply tersely. "We have a situation."

"Is the Aspen trip not working out as we had hoped?" he asks.

"No," I say. "It has been good, in fact better than good. I think that Christian is finally coming to grips with his past. He seems to finally be making peace with who he is and attempting to move forward with a more positive outlook."

"So then, what is the situation?"

"It happened tonight back in Seattle," I reply. "To cut right to the chase, Lincoln showed up at the Grey house tonight while the family was having dinner. They were all there: Carrick, Grace, Elliot, Mia, Kate, and Ethan. Lincoln basically told them that Elena had introduced Christian to her 'alternative' lifestyle and that he had continued after the marriage broke up."

"Oh, shit!" he swears. "What brought that on?"

"Apparently, Carrick has been dithering about defending him," I answer. "I guess that Lincoln got tired of waiting and decided to force his hand. But I think that there was also some payback involved towards Christian. I sincerely doubt that he has forgotten or forgiven the fact that he broke up his company."

"Well, let's hope that he restricts his payback to outing him to the family," replies Flynn. "Otherwise it could set back all the progress that has been made. But why are you calling me?"

"I just got a calling from Carrick, telling me the whole story," I say. "He wants me to tell Christian before he returns to Seattle, to prepare him. I'm calling you for your recommendation. My gut instinct is that that is a very bad idea."

"Your gut is right, Price," answers Flynn. "That is a terrible idea. Christian is in Aspen for another week. In that time, we can hopefully get the family past the worst of their shock and muzzle Lincoln to keep him from telling the press. The police won't give a shit, since it has nothing to do with the case. But the press could make Christian miserable for months."

"I know," I reply. "That is precisely what I want to protect him from. You should have seen him today. He was laughing and joking with the girls. We even told him that Melissa is finally pregnant again and he took it very well. He's still promising the girls that he will take them out on his boat. They invited him to Tahoe and he hasn't said no."

"Is he still confused about how you fit into his future?" he asks. "I have been working with him to focus on the future rather than the past. It's really the most positive direction for him to move in."

"I think that he's still feeling his way through the future," I say. "With him it's hard to tell. But we have had some general discussions about what makes one a parent, even if there is no biological connection. The girls are pretty helpful in that sense. They have no compunctions about asking any and all questions that come into their heads. I think that it has helped to clarify things for all of us."

"Well," replies Flynn. "If you are asking for my advice, then I would say don't disrupt Christian's peace of mind. I'll talk to Carrick tomorrow. After you leave, I am sure that Christian will have some more sorting out to do. We have a Skype session set up for Tuesday. I can help him process all of this. I would really like to put him in an emotionally secure place before he gets home. That way he will have a better shot at coping with whatever life hits him with next."

"In case the shit hits the fan?" I ask.

"I hope that it won't come to that," he answers. "But essentially, yes. If we can put the lid on Lincoln and get the police to give up on him as a suspect then Christian may never need to know what happened tonight."

"And the other?" I ask with trepidation.

"It's under control and it will stay that way," he replies.

I return upstairs and am happy to discover that the rest of the house is sound asleep. As I lay down beside Melissa, I know that I need to get a good night's rest myself. We go back home tomorrow, but I don't want to let anything slip that might tip Christian off that things are not all that they appear to be. I need to be on top of my game.

Flynn

This twisted tale will only get worse if the truth does not come out once and for all that Lincoln had nothing to do with the murder. I am glad that Christian is still in Aspen with Ana so that they are missing the worst of the emotional fall out. And I am glad that Price called me to ask for my opinion before telling Christian about what happened at dinner on Sunday night. I know that I will have to face the wrath of Carrick for countermanding, but I do not want either Christian or Ana to be flying back from their vacation with the anxiety of facing this madness. And I do not want them ending their vacation early.

Thankfully, Taylor gets back tomorrow. He is the only one who will be able to sort Carrick out. I really don't want him to get mad at Price for not following his wishes, but I also believe that Carrick is misreading the situation. For the moment, Christian is safely packed away in Aspen. If Price had told him, he would have been back tomorrow and put right in the middle of the whole thing.

I believe that we can get things here under control before he returns next weekend. At least, I hope that we can. The longer that this goes on, the greater the chance is that more revelations will be made. And that could have dire consequences.

To those of you who have expressed concern about Sophie, I want you to know that that situation will not be resolved in this story. I am presently working on another story "Sophie's Choice," which will deal specifically with it. I thought that it deserved its over story. But I decided to foreshadow it in this story to add to the dramatic tension. That story will be true to the ending of Book 3, where ten-year old Sophie appears to give little Teddy his "pop." You'll just have to wait to see how she gets there!