“I was there the entire time. Earlier, in the hotel garage, when he gave you his suite card and told you the room number. In the backyard, where I knew Claire was going to set you up. After you left, I took the eye drops. They had your fingerprints on them.” He paused for a beat. “Then I went to talk to him. To beg him to let you go, to break it off.”
“You’re lying!” I snapped, still clinging to some irrational hope that the man I’d seen on video wasn’t him. “He would’ve never opened the door to you.”
“I mentioned your name. I said you’d sent me.”
I put my hand on my chest to soothe my aching heart. I could barely breathe anymore. “What did he say?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“He kicked me out. Threatened to call security. I fought back ... I punched him, and he fell. I knew I could never compete with him. Not when you lit up like that in his arms.”
“Tell me how you did it,” I hissed, grabbing his lapel and twisting it into my trembling hands, wishing I had the strength to slam him against the wall.
“I had some meth on me because of a client.” He made a swatting gesture. “Long story. That’s when I got the idea, digging into my pocket for the eight ball of meth to shove down Donovan’s throat, and finding the eye drops. I thought if I could save your life, you’d see me again. You’d love me again.”
I didn’t believe him. If he hadn’t planned to set me up, why would he have taken the eye dropper in the first place? I looked into his eyes and realized what that darkness had been, filling my heart with dread each time I’d seen it.
Insanity.
That’s why Jack—a.k.a. Frank the enforcer—had been telling me to leave Vegas and never come back. He knew his boss was a dangerous man. Insane. Homicidal. A killer with a fixation on me.
Slowly, I let go of his lapel, stepping back. “They’ll throw you in jail for the rest of your life, Colton.”
Distant clamoring caught my attention, and I thought I’d heard Billy Ray’s voice, but I stared at Colton, holding my breath.
He seemed strangely resigned. “They don’t have enough. And witnesses ... they’ll think twice before testifying against me.”
Because he was the “connected” lawyer, working for the DiMarco family. Because he was a ruthless killer.
The door squeaked loudly in the silent courtroom. Detective Stanek walked in with a couple of uniformed officers in tow.
“Colton Blake? You’re under arrest.”
Compliant, Colton held his hands behind his back, all the time looking straight at me. Then they took him away, and I found myself alone in the courtroom, immersed in a haunted silence.
I sat on the edge of the defense table, lightheaded and feeling sick. Grief tore through my chest, making me double over with gasping, quiet, tearless wails.
That’s how Billy Ray found me.
“Come on, sis. Let’s go home.”
60
The Aftermath
The next morning, the charges against me were dismissed. The jurors walked out of the room, some looking at me with curiosity, a couple with empathy, but most with the same animosity I’d witnessed throughout the trial. As if my sins—pretending I was someone else and seducing a married man—were grave enough to condemn me for a murder I hadn’t committed.
Billy Ray and I held hands as we rushed out of the courtroom. I hid behind large sunglasses and a loosely wrapped scarf. Regardless, my picture would end up splattered all over the media and the internet before we got home.
From the clamoring newspeople, one voice I recognized rose above the others.
“Hey, Princess, are you glad it’s over?” Tony Vega grinned, his camera aimed straight at my face. “Are you staying in Vegas? Hey!”
I pushed through, with Billy Ray by my side, and drove home in his beat-up Chevy truck that smelled of straw and manure and sweat.Of home.
“It’ll be all right,” he said as he pulled into my driveway.
Inside, I froze, standing by the door and staring at the living room, not knowing what to do. The dining room table was still covered inheaps of Colton’s files and notepads. The sofa had most of its cushions upside down, to hide the damage done during the search by police. It wasn’t a home ... it was a bereft battlefield, stained with blood.
Billy Ray’s jacket landed on the sofa, and the shirt and tie followed right after. He picked up a black T-shirt from the floor, snapping it in the air a couple of times to shake the dust off, then pulled it on.
