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“What?” I asked, confused now.
“I found out their life story about two seconds into knowing the two of them. Both men love each other.” He looked disgusted. “And the one living across the street was shit at hiding the fact that he more than knew who his neighbor was. So I got to asking around, made friends with him. When I found out he was set on leaving, I made sure to offer him my other rental house. He jumped on it. Two birds and one stone and all that.”
I rolled my eyes, which was a mistake.
“You think I’m joking? You think this is funny?”
No. I thought this was a colossal fuck up on my part, and I wanted to go back to the real world.
Yet I didn’t say any of that, because Charles was quickly showing me that he was unstable, and I didn’t want Harleigh anywhere near him.
And I didn’t care what it took on my part to get him away from her.
I would make sure to hold my cool no matter what.
“All of you and your petty problems,” he snickered. “And here I am missing the love of my life, and nobody even thinks about her anymore.”
So we were getting down to the point now.
Thank God.
“You’re going to have to explain that statement to me,” I murmured softly. “I have no idea what’s going on right now.”
Charles sneered, his hand shaking with rage as he pointed at me.
That was when I saw the glint of silver—a knife—tucked up under his sleeve that he had concealed by wrapping his hand around it.
I guess that was the good thing about Disney World.
It was utterly impossible to sneak shit into the park. They checked you at the gate, they checked you at the Monorail, and they checked you at the hotel. I should be counting myself lucky that he had a knife and not a gun at this point.
“You know how fuckin’ hard it was to insinuate myself into your life?” he asked. “How hard it was to pretend that you were my friend and that I didn’t care one bit that you got to sleep next to her every night while I had to sit there and act like it didn’t kill me that your hands were on her?”
I shook my head.
“I suggested double dates as much as I could, hoping just to get some time with her.” He laughed hollowly. “And the one time that I get to spend with her, that I get to have her, I can’t even remember because I got so drunk, acting like I cared that some stupid kid died, trying to pretend.”
A snick of air had me glancing at the door that separated our room from Rome and Izzy’s. There were two doors. One on our side, and one on theirs. Neither one was locked because this morning Astrid kept coming back and forth between the two rooms as she gushed about meeting princesses that day.
That was when I saw it crack slightly open.
I couldn’t see anybody, but I knew that someone was there.
Someone had heard Charles raising his voice.
I just hoped that it wasn’t Astrid.
Goddamn, talk about bad.
That would be a monumental clusterfuck.
My eyes returned to Charles when he continued to talk.
“Tried to force her to come home with the fire,” he sighed and took two steps away from the door. Though good, it also put him closer to Harleigh, who’d managed to creep almost to the balcony doors. “But neither one of you gave a fuck. Who the hell doesn’t come back home after their house is set on fire?”
Us, apparently.
Thank God we’d stayed on course, or there was no telling what he would’ve done.
“Well, I’m happy that I managed to make it down here. Because it’s better to be done here, anyway. So many people.” He shook his head, a small smile lifting up the corners of his mouth. “Do you ever think about what you want to say, what you want people to hear, right before you die?”
I didn’t answer him.
“I know what I wanted Vanessa to say to me,” he whispered, sounding broken.
I glanced at Harleigh only to return it to Charles just as quick when I saw her creeping closer to the sliding door.
“And you let her die,” he growled. “You sat there and allowed her to get shot.”
No, I hadn’t.
I most certainly hadn’t.
“And when you went back to take care of that prick for killing my Vannie, you didn’t even finish the job.” He laughed. “I did.”
My heart stopped.
Everything inside of me just froze for an instant in time while I soaked in his words.
You didn’t even finish the job. I did.
Oh, holy fuck no.
No, no, no.
Was he telling me that I hadn’t killed Vanessa’s killer?
That was when Harleigh lost her shit.
“Are you fucking telling me that Slate went to prison for killing a man…and it wasn’t even him that killed him, it was you?!” she shrieked.
