BLACK CRIMSON (Fairy Tale Quartet #4)

8. Camille-1

8

Camille

A week later, I was an obsessed mess. My apartment was covered with papers that had scribbled notes all over them, the three-ring binder I’d been keeping all my Black Crimson research in had been dismantled and was spread across my floor, and an entire wall in my living room was filled with holes where I’d tacked up the important articles and pictures with push pins and even connected them with strings of yarn.

It looked like a freaking detective’s crime board, but I was finding so much information, and everything was linking together faster than I thought it would; I’d needed to do something to keep the order.

Rubbing my chin and squinting at the photograph of a mural Black Crimson had made on the side of a historical museum, I sighed because I couldn’t link this one back to Broderick Carmichael at all.

I knew there had to be something, though, because I’d been able to somehow find a connection between him and all the other murals.

I just had to keep digging.

Meanwhile—

I glanced at the cup he’d given me. My source from the police department hadn’t been able to lift a decent fingerprint from it, but that didn’t really matter, since they’d never gotten a usable print from any of Black Crimson’s graffiti sites either. So I couldn’t prove anything from that end.

A chime from my laptop told me I had an incoming email. It was probably just spam, but I’d been waiting for a message from another source at the vital statistics office, so I high-stepped over a piece of yarn that was connected to the wall at one end and to a ball of yarn on the floor at the other end, and I hurried to the sofa.

Once there, I shoved aside a stack of papers to make room on the cushions for a place to sit, and I wiggled myself down before pulling the computer onto my lap and waking up the screen.

“Yes,” I hissed when I saw my contact had replied to me after all. And attached images. “Let’s see if we can figure out who Isaac Carmichael is.”

I opened the message, skimmed past whatever Rachel, my contact, had written, and I went directly to the attachment to open it. When the birth certificate popped up, I checked out the date of birth first.

Isaac was twenty-three years older than Brick, a fact I knew because I’d gotten a copy of Brick’s birth certificate on day one. So maybe this mechanic from Mooney’s car shop was an uncle or—

“His brother?” I gasped in surprise when I got to the line where his father’s name was and read that it said Charles Godrick Carmichael, who was also listed as the father on both Brick’s and Hayden’s birth certificates. “Huh. I didn’t know there was a third brother.”

Kaitlynn had never mentioned that.

The mothers were different, though, and that’s how Kait was connected to Brick and Hayden—through their mother, Lana—so it was possible she didn’t even know about a half brother on their father’s side. I wondered how the two younger Carmichael sons seemed to have made off so well, but Isaac hadn’t inherited anything after their father died because Charles Carmichael had been one rich man; Isaac should’ve gotten something.

I mean, that was why Brick’s mother had married Charles in the first place.

And why she was now in jail for having him murdered.

And also for having her second husband, Kaitlynn’s dad, murdered, too.

It was all about the dollar signs for her.

But I’d already learned everything I could about Lana Price-Carmichael-Judge. The news articles I had on Brick and Hayden’s mother and all her illegal dealings could fill its own book. Or series of books.

It probably should’ve made me leery about Brick himself, since he’d been raised by a woman who was that corrupt. One could logically deduce it would’ve stained him in some way or another. You’d think he’d have to be involved in at least one of her dirty dealings. But he and Hayden and even Kaitlynn had been cleared of all suspicions in aiding and abetting Lana Judge after a lot of lengthy interrogations with numerous detectives.

Not only was Brick innocent in helping his mother commit her evil deeds, however, but it had been revealed that his mother had stolen funds from him and his brother too—along with Kaitlynn—which made him even wealthier coming out of all this than he’d been before.

Which also made it harder for me to equate the rich, playboy businessman with the hooded figure I’d run into on the wrong side of town spray-painting the world with motivating pictures and quotes.

Though, I guess, I now understood the meaning of the piece that had been thrown up across the street from the mechanic shop where Isaac Carmichael worked. The picture had depicted “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” where the goats had been waiting in line to get into an exclusive club, but the troll-like bouncer at the door didn’t seem to want to open the rope to let the first one through until the little bubble quote above his head said his brother behind him could pay his cover fee. The quote with the mural had been about honesty, however, claiming a person could lie for only so long until the truth came out.

Huh. I wonder what kind of lie there was between the three brothers: Isaac, Brick, and Hayden.

Didn’t matter. This final proof of evidence felt like enough for me to connect Brick to that mural. I could unequivocally tie him to eleven out of twelve of the graffiti art pieces that had popped up around town. Surely, that was enough to let him know I was serious.

Which meant… First thing in the morning, I’d make my stand.

Anxious to get everything underway, I began to reassemble my portfolio and put it into order, then I scanned the sheets so I could have a digital version, after which I printed out a second copy.

And as I worked, I tried to rationalize my findings because studying the life of one Broderick Carmichael had almost felt like I’d been researching at least three different men.

First, there was everything I discovered about him online. All those articles had shown a man who’d been raised in the greedy and corrupt corporate end of the fashion and design industry. He had to be used to the lavish life, drove expensive cars, made more money in a day than I probably made in a month, and wore nothing but three-piece suits.

But then, he couldn’t have had an easy life either. From the timetable I’d created, he’d lost his dad at age seven, been jerked around from location to location with his mom until he was fourteen, where he’d gotten Arthur Judge as a stepdad for about thirteen years when he too had died of, at the time, natural causes, only to learn a few months ago that his mother had hired someone to merely make both her husbands’ deaths look legit. You had to feel sorry for a guy who’d lived through all that.

Except, from meeting the actual man in person, I never would’ve guessed he was some affluent fancy tycoon or a damaged soul. All he seemed to show people was this laid-back and charming flirt, who didn’t seem to have a care or worry in the world. He acted quick to smile and laugh, and for all intents and purposes, the only concern in his pretty little head was which woman he should land next.

But then, trying to fit all three of those men into Black Crimson was basically impossible for me, especially since I’d pretty much already made up my mind what the mysterious artist had to be like.

I’d always pictured him as some poor, down-on-his-luck scrapper who’d had to work for everything he had, probably raised by a single parent with most likely a handful of younger siblings that he helped raise. He took every backbreaking job that came along to assist with paying bills, and it still never seemed to be enough.

Yet, despite all the hardships, he would help old ladies cross the street, save kittens from trees, and still manage to pause and gaze up at the sunset in wonder because there was beauty in life no matter how hard and ugly it got. And he just wanted to help boost his community's spirits and morale so they didn’t forget that lesson, too. Life was worth living, despite who you were or where you came from, and anyone could make it that way, their circumstances be damned.

Those were the kinds of lessons his murals had taught me, anyway. I’d kept going and working and seeking out the things I loved because of his art. He’d inspired me. And all this time, I’d never expected those lessons to come from some pampered, rich boy who’d probably seen very little hardships in his life, save for the big scandal with his mom.

But wow, had I ever been wrong about who I assumed Black Crimson was.

Maybe I should’ve been disappointed and disheartened by his truth. Except I wasn’t. Honestly, I was more intrigued than ever to learn everything there was to learn about him.

And so, I needed that interview, for my own peace of mind, not just to boost my career goals, but because I personally had to learn Broderick Carmichael inside and out.

He was just too fascinating to leave alone.