Kristin Hardy - Fortune's Woman / A Fortune Wedding

What a tangled mess. Any other district attorney would see how ludicrous this whole thing was.

“Can I see her?” he asked.

Caldwell gave him a long, appraising look, then finally nodded. “It’s past normal visiting hours but we can make an exception in this case. It might take a few moments, though. She’s in central booking.”

Perhaps half an hour later, Ross was finally ushered by the young, fresh-faced police officer he had seen earlier on the murder scene to a stark white interview room. Frannie looked up when the door opened and Ross had to stop from clenching his fists again at the sight of her in a prison-orange jumpsuit.

Since his sister’s ill-fated marriage to Fredericks years ago, he had seen her disheartened and hurt, he had seen her hopeless and bleak. But he didn’t think he had ever seen her look so desperately afraid.

The chair scraped as he pulled it out to sit down and she flinched a little at the noise.

“Hey, Frannie-Banannie.”

Her eyes filled up with tears at the childish nickname. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

He was suddenly sorry for that, sorry that while he had never completely withdrawn from his family, he had enjoyed the distance that came from living twenty miles away in San Antonio. He didn’t have to be involved in the day-to-day drama of family affairs, didn’t have to watch Frannie slowly become this washed-out version of herself.

“How are you doing, sis?”

She shrugged. “I guess you know they’re charging me.”

“Yeah. Jim told me. Sounds like Bruce Gibson is on the warpath.”

Her mouth tightened but she only looked down at her hands.

“What happened, Frannie?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s what I hear. But you told them you didn’t do it, right?”

She didn’t answer him. Instead she rubbed the fraying sleeve of the jumpsuit between her thumb and forefinger. “How’s Josh?” she asked.

He sighed at her evasive tactic but decided to let it go for now. “He’s fine. I sent him back to your house.”

“He shouldn’t be alone right now. Is someone with him?”

“Julie Osterman is with him.”

“Julie? From the Foundation? Why?”

Because I didn’t want to ask the family to bail us all out once again, he thought but could never say. “She was with me when…everything happened. I couldn’t be in two places at once and I needed help and Julie seemed a good choice since she’s a youth counselor and all, like Susan.”

“Julie is nice.”

Frannie sounded exhausted suddenly, emotionally and physically, and he wanted to gather her up and take care of her.

Those days were gone, though. Try as he might, he couldn’t fix everything. He couldn’t fix her marriage for the last eighteen years. He couldn’t get his young, happy sister back. And he wasn’t at all sure he could extricate her from this mess, though he sure as hell was going to try.

“Ross, I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything. Whatever you need.”

“Take care of Josh for me. Stay with him at the house. I know he’s almost eighteen and almost an adult and will probably tell you he doesn’t need anyone else but I don’t want him on his own right now. Help him through this, okay? He’s going to need you.”

“Come on, Frannie. Don’t worry. You’ll be out before we know it and this will all be a memory.”

“Just help him. You’ve always been far more of a father to him than…than Lloyd.”

“You don’t even need to ask, Fran. Of course I will.”

“Thank you.” She attempted such a forlorn smile it just about broke his heart. “I can always count on you.”

If that were true, she wouldn’t be in this calamity. She wouldn’t have been married to Lloyd in the first place and she wouldn’t be facing murder charges right now, if he had been able to rescue her from the situation years ago, like he’d wanted to.

“We’ll get the best attorney we can find for you, okay? Just hang in.”

She nodded, though it looked as if it took the last of her energy just to make that small gesture. He had a feeling in another minute, his baby sister was going to fold her arms on the interrogation room table, lay her head down and fall instantly asleep.

“Get some rest, okay?” he advised her. “Everything will seem better in the morning, I promise.”

She managed another nod. Ross glanced at the officer who was monitoring the visit, then thought, to hell with this. He pulled his sister into his arms, noting not for the first time that she seemed as fragile and insubstantial as a stained-glass window.

“Thanks, Ross,” she mumbled before the guard pulled her away and led her from the room.

The Spring Fling seemed another lifetime ago as Ross drove the streets of Red Rock toward the house where Frannie and Lloyd moved shortly after their marriage.

The security guard at the entrance to their exclusive gated community knew him. His fleshy features turned avid the moment Ross rolled down his window.

“Mr. Fortune. I guess you’re here to stay with your sister’s boy, huh? You been to the jail to see her?”

The news was probably spreading through town like stink in springtime. “Yeah. Can you let me in?”

“Oh, sure, sure,” he said, though he made no move to raise the security arm. “Jail is just no place for a nice lady like Mrs. F. Why, you could have knocked me six ways to Sunday when my cousin Lou called to tell me what had happened at the Spring Fling. Too bad I was here working and missed everything.”

Ross gestured to the gate. “Can you let me in, George? I really need to be with my nephew right now.”

The guard hit the button with a disappointed kind of look.

“You tell Mrs. F. I’m thinking about her, okay?”

“I’ll be sure to do that, George. Thanks.”

He quickly rolled his window up and drove through the gate before George decided he wanted to chat a little more.

Lights blazed from every single window of the grand pink stucco McMansion he had always secretly thought of as a big, gaudy wedding cake. There was no trace of his sister’s elegant good taste in the house. It was as if Lloyd had stamped out any trace of Frannie.

The interior of the house wasn’t any more welcoming. It was cold and formal, white on white with gold accents.

Ross knew of two rooms in the house with a little personality. Josh’s bedroom was a typical teenager’s room with posters on the wall and clutter and mementos covering every surface.

The other was Frannie’s small sitting room that hinted at the little sister he remembered. It was brightly decorated, with local handiworks, vivid textiles and many of Frannie’s own photographs on the wall.

Lloyd had a habit of changing the security system all the time so Ross didn’t even try to open the door. He rang the doorbell and a moment later, Julie Osterman opened the door, her soft, pretty features looking about as exhausted as Frannie’s had been.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said. “I never expected things to take this long, that I would have to impose on you until the early hours of the morning.”

“No problem.” She held the door open for him and he moved past her into the formal foyer. “Josh tried to send me home and insisted he would be okay on his own, but I just didn’t feel right about leaving him here alone, under the circumstances.”

“I appreciate that.”

“He’s in the kitchen on the telephone to a friend.”

“At this hour? Is it Lyndsey?”

Josh’s young girlfriend had been a source of conflict between Josh and his parents, for reasons Ross didn’t quite understand.

“I think so, but I can’t be certain. I was trying not to eavesdrop.”