“You said Elliott wants information. What information does he want?” Sebastian asked as Charles tied a rope around my other ankle and then again attached it to the concrete block.
“He wants to know your plans,” he muttered.
“I don’t have any,” I finally admitted. “I did some digging, found out she’d had dinner plans with some important men that night, and I knew it was them that had killed her.” I glanced at Sebastian. “I paid some internet sleuths to help me figure out who they were, and you guys came up. So, I packed my bags and came out here to start with Thornton. That’s it. That’s the plan.”
Shame filled my belly as I felt Sebastian’s presence beside me. I’d tried to pretend I had plans or some semblance of organized thought, but there were none. My brain didn’t work that way. I had too many ideas and nuggets of information and no clue how to use them to execute things.
“Hm. Guess I don’t need to wait, then. Let’s do this,” Charles said. His face was blank, and my blood ran cold. He wasn’t lying, I realized. He was going to drown us in that lake.
He stood and walked over to Sebastian, tying cinderblocks to him as well.
“Wait! I—I have to know. Did you guys kill Antoinette, my agent?”
Charles cocked his head. “I don’t know anything about that. See, you’re just like her. Digging into things you shouldn’t. If it hadn’t been us that night, it would have been another group of men. Lita was no stranger to getting herself into trouble,” Charles told us as he worked.
“What trouble?” I pushed.
Charles looked up, raising an eyebrow. “She threatened to expose us, to lie about us. She was going to tell everyone we raped her. She was going to ruin us.”
“So you killed her because she was going to tell the truth?” I gaped. When he didn’t immediately reply, I began to wiggle in my seat, attempting to loosen my restraints.
“Because she was going to ruin our lives. We had wives, kids, important jobs. She didn’t care. She was just upset that no one was interested in sharing those things with her. She was a deeply unhappy woman. We had to protect ourselves.”
I shook my head. He was a liar. My mother was happy with her life. She’d had it all. They took that from her.
“You’re pathetic,” Sebastian snarled. “Your friends don’t care about you. You think Elliott Bradley will care if you die?”
Charles didn’t respond, but his jaw ticked, and I could see in his eyes that Sebastian had struck a nerve. Just then, we saw a shadow move. Sebastian’s head shot up, and my attention flicked to it. Hope washed over me.
Skye.
She was creeping up slowly. Arms raised. My heart soared as the knives—my knives—caught the light as she clenched them high in the air.
“We were told to put an end to all of this. Elliott doesn’t like to be played with. Picking us off one by one has only pissed him off.” He stood, shaking his head and rubbing his jawline. Was he having second thoughts? Could we stop this?
“Are you my father?” I blurted.
He did a double take. “What?”
“My dad. One of you is my biological father. Which one is it?”
Charles took in my words—then laughed. It started as a chuckle and turned into a full, wholehearted belly laugh.
“You really think she’d have wanted me to father her child? Lita Reyes, the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, creating a child with someone less than her? Sorry, sweetie, I’m not the guy you’re looking for. I wasn’t good enough. Now let me go get Riley so we can haul your asses onto the boat. She’s such a good girl.”
“I’m not your good girl.”
Charles turned and gasped as Skye swung her arms down, plunging both knives into the sides of his neck. The blades pierced his flesh, making the sound of a juice box being punctured. Blood sprayed everywhere as she pulled them back out. She leaped back as he fell forward, almost landing on her shoes.
The gurgling sound of him choking on his blood filled the silence, and only when he stopped breathing did we look away. It all happened so fast, it didn’t feel satisfying at all. In fact, I felt a little bad. He wasn’t innocent by any means. He had plans to murder me and Sebastian. I just…
What a way to go.
Skye inhaled rapidly, her face sprayed with blood, a smile slowly formed on her lips. “Did I do good?”
Chapter 47
Evie
