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He owed her from the last hundred favors that were outside of her remit. This job was supposed to be a nine-to-five thing, doing stuff like maintaining his calendar and running errands during business hours. Instead, she was his on-call minion. The workday never ended. Not to mention all the other things he owed her for. She hadn’t been lying when she told Eve she understood not wanting to do the job anymore. Margot would bet her last measly paycheck Claudia treated Eve better than Beau treated Margot. Then again, it was Eve who always went the extra mile. Eve had taken the time to get to know every person who worked for Beau and Claudia. She knew all of their birthdays and brought in a pastry for the entire staff whenever someone turned a year older. She even knew that the audio-video guy had a nut allergy. For his birthday, she brought fresh fruit arranged to look like a bouquet of flowers.
“Margot, truly, I am sorry,” Beau said, interrupting her thoughts. “I know you have your own life. It’s unfair of me to put these responsibilities on you. Once this anniversary is in the books, we should sit down and discuss a more adequate compensation package for all the work you’re doing that is above and beyond your job description. I know that’s not really why you came here in the first place, but I do want you to know how much I value you—as a person and as my assistant.”
There it was. The reason she stayed. He always seemed to read her mind and he knew just what to say, even if he didn’t always follow through on his promises. This was the uncanny quality that had recently landed him and Claudia a deal that would launch their show from the local WYEP station in the small city of Denton to the national market.
She had to lock in her pay raise before that happened. There were lots of things she needed to do before that happened. Before his attention was even more difficult to get than it was now.
“How late will you be?” she asked.
She practically heard his grin. “That’s my favorite girl! Not long. I promise. Are you headed there now?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll probably be five or ten minutes behind you, maybe not even that long. If you can just meet me there with the ring, that would be perfect.” Margot was twenty minutes from the house, which meant he was almost thirty minutes from getting there—assuming there was no traffic.
“Beau, it’s your anniversary!” Margot blurted. “What’s so important—you know what? I don’t want to know. I’ll see you there.”
She hung up and found a number for one of their camera operators whose job it was to bring the video crew. Liam Flint answered, his voice tinged with annoyance. Without preamble, he said, “What is it?”
Margot resisted the urge to snap back at him. Beau insisted she be nice to everyone on the show, even though Liam tested her nerves on a regular basis. “Beau is going to be late,” she said. “He wanted me to ask you to bring the crew at six thirty instead of five thirty.”
There was a four-second silence, then a heavy sigh. “Beau Collins is going to be late for his own anniversary dinner? He couldn’t even call me himself to let me know?”
Margot bit her lip to keep from defending Beau. It was a well-known fact among the staff that he was always late. Even his late was late, but Liam would have found fault with Beau even if he’d offered him a raise. She ignored his questions, asking her own instead. “Can you be there at six thirty instead of five thirty or not?”
“Has anyone told Claudia?” he asked pointedly.
Her irritation reached its flashpoint. “You know what? That’s not my job, and I don’t appreciate your tone. Just be at the house at six thirty.”
Before he could respond, she swiped the End Call button, tossed her phone onto the passenger’s seat and pulled into traffic. The Collinses’ home was in a small but exclusive development that bordered the city park. There were only four other homes on their street, each one at the end of a long driveway and separated from their neighbors by dense clusters of trees. Margot wished her place afforded as much privacy, but she was still in a one-bedroom apartment in the center of Denton. She could have demanded so much more, but she had wanted to earn her own way. Maybe with a larger compensation package, she could finally buy her own house.
Eve’s brand-new Nissan was parked outside the detached three-car garage. Margot parked next to it, jealousy flaring, making her stomach acids roil. She had never asked because she didn’t think Eve would tell her, but she suspected that Claudia paid her a lot more than Beau paid Margot. She should find out before she renegotiated her salary with Beau. The Collinses were equal partners. They should pay their assistants the same.
Through the rain-splattered windshield, the golden glow of the floor-to-ceiling windows splayed across the front of the house were visible. Beau had told her how he and Claudia had the house custom-built almost ten years ago. The great room had twenty-four-foot vaulted ceilings. From the outside it looked like an enormous log cabin with more windows than logs. The three pitched rooftops were copper.
Cold rain pelted her as she stepped out of her car. A pair of headlights cut across the driveway. Margot paused at the bottom of the wide stone steps leading to the front doors and watched Beau climb out of his Lexus. He held his coat over his head. As he neared, he offered her shelter beneath it. This close, he smelled like expensive cologne and leather. Even in the dim light, the flush in his cheeks was evident when he smiled down at her. Margot felt some of her annoyance slip away.
She was about to tell him that she had called the video crew when the double doors at the top of the steps burst open. Eve stumbled out. Her hands were pressed against her cheeks. High-pitched screams tore from her body. Tucked under Beau’s shoulder, Margot felt him tense. Eve rushed down the steps toward them.
“Eve,” Beau said. “Are you okay? My God, is that blood?”
Eve fell into him, hand on his chest. A dark red streak slashed across her cheek. The coat flapped against the side of Margot’s head.
“Ca—” Eve choked on the words. Coughed, swallowed, tried again. “Call 911. We have to call 911.”
TWO
DIARY ENTRY, UNDATED
Today was the worst and best day of my life. How can that be? I’m still trying to process it. I did something terrible. Something unforgivable. Something I swore I would never do but when it happened, it felt so good. It felt right. That sounds awful. Maybe I’m not a good person. All I know is that I spent years trying to be a good person, a good partner, and it’s never brought me anything but stress and heartache. Today I finally did something for myself and, even though I know it was wrong, it felt amazing. I feel amazing.
I just hope he doesn’t find out. If he does, he’ll make me pay.
THREE
The Chief’s door had been closed for an inordinate amount of time. Detective Josie Quinn stood several feet away from it, hands on her hips, ears tuned to the voices coming from the other side. Behind her, the great room where the investigative team gathered at the Denton Police Department headquarters was silent except for a couple of her colleagues typing up reports. The room was large and open-concept. It held several desks, most of which were there for any of the uniformed officers to use for paperwork or phone calls or any other administrative work that needed to be done. The only permanent desks belonged to their press liaison, Amber Watts, and the four people who comprised the investigative division: Josie, her husband, Lieutenant Noah Fraley, Detective Finn Mettner, and Detective Gretchen Palmer.
“Can you hear anything?” asked Mettner.
