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She’d also handed me a change of clothes, almost as badass as her own. And she’d known all my sizes, right down to the La Perla bra she’d provided. I was back in designer armor—a Balmain blazer for Chrissakes.
Staring at the clothes on the floor of the motel room was like staring at the corpse of who I’d become at that ranch.
I was careful not to stare too long.
With makeup—again, that Rosie had supplied—applied and clothes still on the floor, we left the motel room and got into a black Range Rover.
It was only then she’d wanted to know what she was doing here.
I sucked in a breath. “This man killed my best friend,” I said in response.
Her face stayed blank. She’d known this of course. But something moved in her eyes, something that wasn’t the open dislike she’d worn the last time we saw each other. She was still wary of me, to be sure. I was wary of me.
“Andre had two brothers,” I continued, looking out the window. “Macho-men in their own right. They run a gym. One of them is a UFC fighter. They’re alpha all the way, and they adored their very openly gay and fabulous brother. They would’ve died for him, same for his parents.”
I’d met Andre’s family of course. They didn’t really like me since I had made sure not to be warm or kind. But I liked them. I liked how accepting and supportive they were of Andre, even though they didn’t understand him. They were staunch Catholics, had emigrated here from Mexico, been through poverty to give their sons a life, and did not hesitate to accept their son.
I was fiercely jealous of the strong family unit he came from, though I’d never admitted such a thing out loud.
I sipped my coffee. “They have a hole in their family because of me,” I said, my voice shaking only slightly. It wouldn’t do to crack right now, to crumble. Not in the car with this woman. Not on the way to do what I was going to do. I’d break down once it was done. I’d entomb myself in my mansion, drink vodka in the bath, not talk to anyone for a month and come out of my chrysalis the cold, unfeeling butterfly I had been before.
Rosie didn’t try to argue with me for taking the blame for Andre’s death like Duke had. She didn’t try to convince me that this wasn’t my fault. This was not a chick to pull punches, and it seemed to me she was someone who understood all the harsh truths of the world. She was definitely not the kind of woman to comfort someone with soft lies.
“I could wait it out at the ranch, for however long,” I continued, still looking out the window, letting the Montana landscape seep further into me. “I could continue to get in deeper with Duke, with his family, keep up the lie, tangle it up so tightly that there would be no way to remove myself without hurting more people.”
I paused, taking a breath and then turned my gaze from the window to the woman driving. “I’m not going to do that. I won’t do that. So I want to figure out a way for this to end. Not with me on the witness stand. Not with him in prison, for however long. If he’s as dangerous as everyone says he is, then he’s either going to be powerful inside of prison, or he won’t stay there for long. So I want this to end.”
I waited. I wasn’t waiting for Rosie to get it. She was smart. That much was clear. She knew exactly what I meant.
I was waiting for her to digest it, figure out whether she was going to be a part of doing something like this for a complete stranger she didn’t even like.
It didn’t take long for a response. And not at all one I expected. She grinned. Beamed. Full-on ear-to-ear.
“You know, I’m pretty good at reading people,” she began. “A result of how I grew up around all kinds of people, people that looked really fucking bad on the outside, but were mostly good on the inside. And I’ve learned the hard way that most of the people that look good, safe, straight off the bat, they’re gonna be the complete opposite. It’s my job to read people, to know them, figure out what column they fit into. I’ll say straight up, you fit into the ‘bitch’ column quickly—and not a good bitch.” Her eyes flickered over me. “I was pretty darn confident in my assumptions, but it seems I was wrong. And, honey, never in my life have I been happier to have been wrong.”
She started the car and screeched out of the empty parking lot.
