“The app.” The realization floods through me with nauseating force. “What if Aaron didn’t send that message? What if it was Blake who did it? What if after he killed Aaron, he planted the dead man’s switch on Aaron’s phone?”
“Birdie,” Tristan holds my shoulders, “you’re spiraling right now. Why would he do that?”
“To turn the whole world against me. To make me think I have nowhere to go. To seek his protection. To make me leave Miami with him. Oh God, Tristan. Remember the shiner he gave me, the one you saw me hiding in the school pantry?”
Tristan’s face contorts with rage. “Of course.”
“After he hit me, despite the ring on my finger, I wasn’t going to stay with him. I’ve had my share of wife beaters. I wasn’t going to repeat the same mistake.”
“So he did all that to convince you couldn’t stay in Miami. You had to disappear. Different name, different city.”
“He knew he couldn’t stay here after Aaron. He knew he had to leave. But he couldn’t be a cop anymore so he needed another source of money. He’d seen my writings. My first manuscript was getting offers. He knew I’d be his golden goose. The girl he could control into doing anything he wanted. Two birds with one stone. He gets the girl and gets away with murder.
“The new name, Martha’s Vineyard, he chose everything, and he made it look like he was looking after me, protecting me.” I letout a quivering moan. “All those years, he watched me fall apart. Hemademe fall apart.”
Tristan’s grip tightens on his gun, his knuckles white with fury. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to hunt him down and put a bullet between his eyes.”
“No, Morra,” Reid says firmly. “We need to do this right. Blake is already tied to two murders—Saldana’s and Connelly’s—and likely others. We have evidence now. Let the police handle this.”
“The police?” I wipe the tears from my cheeks. “The same police who ignored my reports for years? The same system that let him get away with terrorizing me, with putting me in a hospital nearly dead, while they dismissed me as some hysterical woman? Blake has people on the inside that manipulate everything for him. He will walk and come back to hunt me.”
“Fuck the police,” Tristan snarls. “They had their chance. This bastard tortured her for years, just like my father did to my mother, to me, and they did nothing. I’m not letting bastards like Abel slip through the cracks again.”
“It’s different now,” Reid insists. “We have proof. The video, the timeline, the connections.” He holds my gaze. “And you have me.”
“With all due respect, Detective, you are one person. You’ve just told me your own partner was dirty, and you were taking the heat for it. The justice system doesn’t exactly work for people like us.”
“I can’t let you commit a crime, Birdie. You or your bodyguard.”
“Blake was here, Reid. He led me straight to this place, where you said you received a text from me to meet you. That means he was setting you up. A trap for Tristan to kill you. Is that the person you want to risk everything for?”
Reid’s confidence wavers for the first time. He runs a hand through his hair, looking between Tristan’s murderous expression and my tear-stained face. “Look, I get it. I do. The system failed you, and Blake manipulated it. But if we do this my way—if I can capture him legally—then it’s over. Really over.”
“Florida does have the death penalty,” I muse.
“But not Massachusetts,” Tristan reminds me.
“If we get him for Aaron’s murder…”
“Birdie, wake up. The only evidence the detective has is in the murders in the Vineyard, and they are circumstantial at best.”
“They’re not,” Reid confirms. “We questioned his therapist. She has records of their sessions, and they exhibit dangerous and violent behavior. She also said he was showing compulsive obsessive tendencies toward his wife, and the drugs she prescribed him made it worse. Then the tests proved the psychedelic amphetamines we found in Saldana’s blood came from the same source that Abel used.”
Tristan scoffs. “Great, you build your whole case based on a dealer’s testimony.”
“It wasn’t just any dealer. It was Gia Connelly.”
My head jerks toward Reid. “What?”
“She was spotted multiple times securing drugs, although we didn’t find any traces of illegal substances in her blood. After reviewing CCTV cameras, we can confirm she was deliveringthem to Abel. I’m sorry to add this to the list of betrayals, but Abel and Connelly were having an affair. His semen was found inside her.”
“Another girl that would do anything for him. She gave him the drugs, thinking they were for him, but he used them to kill Saldana.” I put two and two together. “The gun.” I gasp. “Gia saw Blake’s gun in my room. She’d asked about it. She must have taken it back to him as a favor. She was the only one who could go in my room without permission or raising suspicion.”
Tristan rubs his chin pensively. “But then you told her the truth about him, how he beat you, and she wanted out. That’s why he killed her.”
“With the gun she stole for him.” Pain squeezes my chest. “Oh, Gia.”
“What was Abel’s gun doing in your room, Birdie?” Reid stares at Tristan. “Is that the same gun you confiscated from Abel but said you’d returned back to him?”
