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“Breathe,” Conrad ordered me, his voice cold and hard and quiet.

“When Landry came home, I thought he was the answer to my prayers because he probably wouldn’t get hurt, but this way—” He lifted his head to meet Scott’s gaze. “I couldn’t take the chance on you or Chris. I would have had to stop him. I would have had to tell.”

Landry was expendable.

“When he called me yesterday and said that he had Landry,” he said, eyes returning to Detective Baylor, “I was terrified, but I told him what to do. I told him to call for the ransom. He just needed the money I promised him, that’s all.”

We all waited as he took a shuddering breath.

“When Landry left, I changed the trust,” he explained. “I thought he was gone forever and didn’t want anything to do with us, so I went to Brendan and I told him that the money that I had set aside for Landry, his trust fund, now belonged to him.”

I heard Scott take a breath beside me, and I reached out and grabbed his bicep hard. I didn’t want him to interrupt again, but I also didn’t want him to get us all thrown out of the room.

Amazingly, his hand covered mine and he squeezed tight. Like we were in it together. When he stayed quiet, because no one interrupted, Mr. Carter continued.

“But when I went to change the trust this year”—he turned his head and looked at Scott again—“I found out that you had changed the terms.”

Scott was taking no chances of being removed, so even with his father staring at him, he stayed quiet.

“What did you do, Mr. Carter?” Baylor asked Landry’s older brother.

He took a breath. “When I became CEO of Carter Limited last year,” Scott told us all, letting my hand go, looking at his father, “I saw that Landry’s trust was up for review. And I thought about breaking it at that point and dispersing the money, but no matter what, he’s a Carter, and that trust was set up by my grandfather when he was born. I had to think of Melvin Carter’s wishes, and I realized that he’d want Landry to have what was his. So I changed the terms and locked it until he turns thirty. I figured if nothing changed by then, if he was still a no-show in our lives, if the silence continued, then the money could be allocated to wherever it was most needed or even given to a charity in his name. We could distribute it if Landry wasn’t home before he turned thirty, but no way was it getting touched before that.”

“I had no idea,” Neil whispered. “And when I found out, I said nothing. I figured that I could get Brendan the money from some other source, and I had time because he knew that the trust couldn’t be opened for a while, but then… then….”

“Then he needed the money,” Baylor offered.

“Yes.”

“And Brendan, who had been content to wait, not knowing that the trust was locked anyway, asked you for the whole sum.”

“Yes.”

“But you couldn’t get it.”

He shook his head.

“So Brendan decided that kidnapping one of your sons was the way to get it,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And you were in the process of stalling him when Landry came home.”

He nodded.

“Did Brendan also believe that because Landry showed up, the money automatically reverted to him?” Baylor asked.

“Yes.”

“Even though that was never the case because the money had never left Landry’s trust to begin with, you let Brendan believe it was.”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Brendan Arnold how much was in Landry’s trust?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Brendan to take Landry instead of either Scott or Christian?”