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Chris’s face twisted with rage. “You betrayed me—”
But Julia wasn’t listening anymore. Suddenly, she flew at Chris. “You better kill me, motherfucker, because if you don’t I’m going to send you right to hell—”
A shot rang through the air as Julia landed on Chris and they tumbled to the floor. The gun dropped from between them.
Jo and Arnett jumped forward. Jo pointed her gun at Chris’s head. “Don’t move.”
Arnett kicked the gun out of reach, safetied and holstered his weapon, then pulled out handcuffs.
“Both of you, raise your arms slowly to where I can see them,” Jo barked.
Chris tugged his arms out from under Julia.
Julia didn’t move.
Arnett slid the handcuffs onto Chris. Once Chris was secured, Arnett reached for Julia, and pushed her off Chris. She rolled over, onto her back.
A gaping red hole poured blood from her forehead down and over her open, staring eyes.
CHAPTERFIFTY-EIGHT
Jo watched as Chris settled himself into the gray plastic chair across the interrogation table, amazed that the meek, seemingly gentle person in front of her was the same man who’d registered as a raging colossus over Julia. She’d have sworn he was at least three inches taller, weighed twenty pounds more, and had completely different facial features—and she had two decades of experience taking in scenes accurately. Matt would tell her memories were fallible, influenced by context and emotion, and he was right. But this was more than that. Chris had transformed, maybe not his height and weight, but his ability to psychologically fill a room.
He leaned forward, clumsily navigating his cup of water between cuffed hands. Arnett shifted impatiently as he drank.
Backup had arrived shortly after Arnett secured Chris. Julia had been pronounced dead at the scene by the paramedics, as had the man who turned out to be Rick Moranto, proprietor of a small café downtown. Chris had been arrested and processed, and as soon as Jo and Arnett had been able, they pulled him into the interrogation room.
When he set the cup back down, she Mirandized him. “With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to us?”
He sat back in the chair, expression and posture tight. “Will the judge go easy on me if I do?”
Jo held his eyes. “I can’t promise what the district attorney, or, should it come to that, the judge will do.”
He sighed, and slumped down. “There’s not really much point in denying any of it. You saw what you saw, and you have the texts. What do you need me to tell you?”
“We need a statement from you for the record,” Jo said. “Just start at the beginning.”
He started with the first days of his marriage to Naomie. He’d loved her and thought she loved him, but she was used to a lifestyle he couldn’t give her, and refused to scale down her expectations. Worse, she went behind his back to get what she wanted from her parents, which emasculated him. Made him a joke to his father-in-law.
“Julia understood. She was an outsider, too, although nobody expected her to be a bread-winner. She was expected to look good and help charm people into business deals with The Mighty Gagnons, and raise the next generation. And she was good at it, but there was still a disconnect, one that only she and I understood, and it brought us together. We laughed at the family’s foibles behind their backs, and got closer over time. Then, one night when we’d both had a little too much to drink and had taken a little too much shit from the Gagnons and Naomie was out of town at some conference, she ended up in my bed. And we realized that night that we were in loveless marriages and needed to get out.”
“But you didn’t ask for a divorce.”
“It was complicated for Julia.” A sneer flashed across his face, and for a moment, the raging colossus returned. “At least that’s what shesaid. Between her son Ethan being in his final year in high school and the expense of a separation it just didn’t make any sense, yadda yadda yadda.”
“And you’ve been seeing each other since?”
“No. We had a couple of close calls where we almost got caught, and she was afraid it would blow up her life. She felt guilty about what she was doing to Naomie and couldn’t bear that anymore. That was about a year ago.”
“And the other guy, Rick. When did they start dating?”
The rage flashed across his face again. “No idea.”
“Julia said you used her as an excuse to kill Naomie. What did she mean by that?”
He stared off to the side of the room. “You have to understand, I never wanted to be a father. When Naomie got pregnant, I just saw us plummeting down an endless black hole of debt. That was going to be the rest of my life—trying to live up to the expectations of two princesses who I’d never be able to satisfy. Then I found out Julia and Pete were divorcing, and I knew it was a sign. Julia would be free, but she’d never be willing to take me away from Naomie, so I knew I had to take things into my own hands.”
“And divorce wouldn’t get rid of the baby,” Arnett said.
