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“Not similar, Mr. Capece. Identical. You own a Smith & Wesson that is identical to this one. We have the registration for it, right here.” He slid a page forward, and Dario didn’t follow the movement, keeping his gaze tight on the man.
“My guns are locked in a safe in my home, with serial numbers that match their registration. There’s no way in hell that gun is mine.”
His attorney leaned forward. “Was this the weapon used to kill Gwen Capece?”
Her name caused a pain to stab in Dario’s heart, the short syllables a sudden reminder that he would never see her again. He’d never meet her eyes over breakfast and discuss their day. She’d never bitch about the staff, or laugh at his workout regime, or fill up their fridge with disgusting soy milk and wheat germ oil. He swallowed as a vision of her eyes, open and still, blood dotting her cheek, flashed through his mind.
His best friend. Gone.
Guilt sat, like a thousand-pound weight in the middle of his chest, pinning him to the seat.
“Yep. Ballistics matched it to the bullet. Anybody have a guess where we found it?” The agent tapped the top of the gun.
Dario stayed silent.
The man waited, and the seconds slowly ticked past before the agent sighed, disappointed in their lack of response. “Fine. Hawk’s study. We found the gun in the top drawer of a writing desk.”
“I’ve told you from the beginning that he killed her.” And he’d planted the gun as insurance, in case the wire hadn’t produced a confession.
The agent scooted forward, his shoes squeaking against the floor. “So, you think Robert Hawk left his mansion at eleven o’clock at night, drove over to The Majestic, waited in a suite you set aside for your girlfriend, then shot his own daughter in the back of the head?” He tilted his head. “Come on, Dario. Those lines don’t intersect.”
The guy was a fucking idiot if he thought that was the scenario in play here. And the guy couldn’t be a fucking idiot. Dario kept his mouth shut and fixed his gaze on a point just over the man’s shoulder.
“Oh, you’re not talking now? You pointed every finger you had at Robert Hawk, and now you’re silent?”
He paused, and Dario thought of Bell. Wondered if Laurent had already shared the news of Hawk. He glanced at the clock on the wall and fought the urge to quit this interrogation and call her. He’d fucked all of this up so far. Abandoning her in Louisiana. Not being there for her, at a time when she needed it the most. He’d felt her desperation—had seen the way she had broken down and sobbed.
But he had to keep his distance, and his phone lines free from traceable actions. It wasn’t just Hawk he was worried about finding her; it was also this bunch of federal assholes and their idiotic questions.
The FBI agent plowed ahead. “Plus, we’ve got an alibi. A forty-five-minute phone call between Robert Hawk and his financial advisor, with cell phone triangulation that proves he was in his home during the call.”
Another paper slid forward, joining the gun registration. It was a cell phone report, one line highlighted in bright yellow.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re about to tell me that he hired someone else and kept his hands clean.”
God, this guy was chatty.
Dario leaned forward, ignoring the cell phone report. “I thought we had a common goal in mind—putting Hawk behind bars. Now, your team found the fucking murder weapon in his house, and suddenly you’re playing patty cake as if I need to sit down and do your job for you. Isn’t happening.”
Agent King cleared his throat, folding his hands together as if in prayer. “Let’s just calm down for a moment, shall we? I didn’t say that you were under suspicion. It’s just that...”
He opened the folder and pulled out a series of photos, lining them up in a neat line along the center of the table. Dario watched as the faces were revealed, the driver’s license photos of each player in the game.
The agent pointed to the first face in the line. “Nick Fentes. Sleeping with your wife. Dead.”
He slid his finger off the cowboy and on to the second photo. “Gwen Capece. Your cheating wife and owner of eighty percent of your marriage’s communal assets.”
Everything inside Dario flared, each word boiling his blood. Cheating wife. Owner of eighty percent. That wasn’t what Gwen had been. Those words belonged to another woman, one who didn’t wrinkle her nose when she ate cinnamon, or bake cupcakes on Sunday mornings while singing Frank Sinatra. Underneath the table, his hands tightened into fists.
“Dead.”
Had he needed to say that word? Did he really think, in the midst of all of this, that Dario had forgotten that fact? The urge to stand, to fist his silk shirt and yank him across the table ... it was unbearable. Dario fixed his eyes on the table, on the blur of photos before him, and blew out a long, controlled breath.
