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But that still didn’t give either of them the right to commit murder. If one of them had, that is. Maybe all of this was indeed on Jason.
“Tell me about your relationship with Levi Bodine,” Bree said, obviously shifting the subject.
Manson’s shoulders went stiff for a second, but then she calmly leaned back in her chair. “He was a friend of my mom’s.”
“Were you having an affair with him?” Bree went on.
“What?” Manson opened her mouth as if to dismiss that, but she must have rethought why Bree would have asked that in the first place. “I was seeing him, yes. Nothing serious. Common bond, you know. We both loved my mother.”
Bree kept her hard stare on Manson. “Did you have sex with him?”
“Yes. So, what? That’s not a crime.”
“No, it’s not. But it is a crime if you convinced Bodine to kill to avenge your mother’s death.”
Manson leaned in again. “I. Didn’t,” she insisted.
“But did you know that Bodine was going to the Stronghold compound to kill someone?”
“I. Didn’t,” she repeated. She literally dismissed it with a wave of a hand. “It was just sex and talk of my mom. That’s all I had with Bodine. I didn’t have a clue he was going off half-cocked and would start shooting people. Even if those people deserved it,” Manson was quick to add.
“Where were you earlier this evening?” Bree said, shifting the subject again.
“Home. And before you ask, I was alone. But I didn’t do whatever the hell it is you think I’ve done.”
Manson started a curse-laden rant about Bree having no proof of her wrongdoing, no right to have dragged her in. But Rachel shifted her attention from the interview to Jericho when his phone buzzed, and she saw Marco’s name on the screen.
Maybe they’d found Jason. Or Arnez.
“You got good news for us this time?” Jericho greeted, and he put the call on speaker so Rachel could hear Marco’s response.
“Sorry, no,” Marco said, and she heard the dread in his voice. “Sorry, no,” he repeated. “There’s been another murder.”
Rachel’s stomach went to her knees, and she groaned. “Who?” she managed to ask, figuring it was a name on the list.
But it wasn’t.
“Rachel, your ex-boyfriend, Chase, was murdered,” Marco said. “The cops found his body about an hour ago. He’d been stabbed in his car and bled out.”
The words didn’t make sense. She couldn’t process them. Not for a couple of seconds anyway. And then, it hit her hard. So hard. Not because she still loved Chase. She didn’t. But Rachel knew exactly what this meant.
Chase had been killed because of her.
Chapter Thirteen
----- ??? -----
Jericho heard the jets going in the bathtub in his bedroom and knew that Rachel was still in there.
The guest bath only had a shower, and since she’d wanted a long soak, Jericho had gladly offered up his. Hopefully, the hot water and the tub massage were helping with the tension that had to no doubt be claiming her body.
But what she was likely doing was crying.
She wouldn’t have wanted him to see that. Rachel had never been the sort to shed tears in front of anyone, though there’d been plenty of times when tears had been warranted. Like now, for instance.
He knew that Rachel hadn’t been in love with Chase any longer, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t sick over what’d happened to him. Jericho had hoped Chase’s death wasn’t linked to the killer’s revenge list, but a note left at the scene confirmed that it was.
Rachel, this is on you. He died because you’re too much of a coward to take your own punishment.
