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“Care to tell me what you were hoping to find snooping through my things?” Alistair asked, his head angled down at me, his blue eyes icy as always. His hands had fallen from my shoulders, now resting on my upper arms, and he showed no signs of letting go. His black hair hung over his forehead a bit, messy from his encounter with my mom.
When I didn’t answer, he glanced at the door and said, “Don’t worry. We have at least thirty minutes before your mother’s done.” He was slow in releasing me, taking a step back. He seemed unperturbed by the fact that he stood before me shirtless, with nothing but pants on, with said pants undone. “Now, I ask you again, what were you looking for?”
“I…” Having Alistair’s intense, cold stare on me made me uncomfortable in more ways than one. Coming up with an excuse was a lot harder than it should’ve been.
Alistair moved to pick up his shirt off the floor, slipping it on, though he made no attempts at buttoning it. Seeing him so undone… it really hit home how attractive the guy was. At thirty-five years old, he was the peak of what a man should be.
“Is this about your missing friend?” he asked. The mention of Erin was so out of the blue that I couldn’t hide the way my eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. “You’re trying to be the investigator, aren’t you? Don’t you remember what I told you would happen if you went to the police again?” Alistair was once again before me, towering over me and reminding me just how intimidating he was.
He could snap me in half if he wanted to. Hell, I didn’t think I’d stop him.
“Gareth told me he didn’t do it, but I don’t believe him,” I whispered. “And until she turns up, I’m not going to stop looking for her.” I’d be lying if I said standing up and saying that to Alistair didn’t terrify me, but it did. Something about this man… how calm and collected he was, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was even more psychotic than Gareth.
He had a freakingfileon me, for hell’s sake. He was basically a stalker. A hot stalker who was now my stepdad. And not only that, he clearly didn’t want my mom, if what I’d overheard while I was tucked away beneath the bed was any indication.
“I told you I would ruin your life,” Alistair whispered. “And yet here you are, playing investigator. Tell me, Brianna, what should I think? What should I do about that?” His mouth thinned into a line, his jaw clenching. His face was clean-shaven, but the barest hints of stubble peeked out.
I ignored his questions, instead saying, “All I want to know is if Erin is safe or not. If Gareth—”
“You think he, what, left the hospital while you were unconscious and killed your friend, along with her family?” When I made a face, he nodded. “Oh, yes. I’m well aware her family is missing, too. Rick told me all about it. He was careful to keep your name out of it, though, and I wonder why that is. Care to tell me?”
Shit. I was supposed to snoop without getting caught, and here I was, trapped in Alistair’s web, about to tell the man everything. But what else could I do?
“Erin’s friends wanted to go to the sheriff to ask him to do a wellness check on her since she hasn’t been to school all week. It wasn’t my idea. I never told any of them about my suspicions involving Gareth.” I swallowed hard at that; Alistair’s expression was just as intense as ever. The look he gave me made my knees weak.
“Let me put your mind at ease, then.” He took a tiny step forward, his chest eye-level with me. I couldn’t move. He lifted a hand up to my hair, tucking some stray tendrils behind an ear as he whispered, “When your mother and I left our charity dinner, we rushed straight to the hospital, where we found Gareth. He never left. He was by your side the entire time.”
“But—”
“There is no body in the pool house. If there was, I’d see it. And if you’re about to suggest he killed them somewhere else, please. We both know Gareth prefers to have his victims here, so he can get their blood. He wouldn’t be able to contain all that blood somewhere else.” The hand that had tucked some of my hair fell to my chin, fingertips pushing up on it, forcing me to angle my head back and stare up into his icy blue eyes.
So cold. So emotionless. How could this be the same man that had made me feel all those things, that had made me say all those things, in the shower that day? It was like he was two different people, like he’d mastered the art of faking it, the real, true Alistair Montgomery tucked away in the darkness where no one could find him.
“Gareth fancies you. It’s the only reason you’re still here, the only reason I’m entertaining this vendetta of yours,” Alistair went on, his fingertips still pressing against my chin. “If you think he did this, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
Was Gareth the only reason I was still here? Though he sounded sure of that fact, I doubted it, especially after seeing that file. Why would he keep all of that so nearby, so at hand he didn’t even need a key to open the drawer? Like he looked at it often.
No, I had the feeling I wasn’t just here for Gareth.
“Now, doesn’t it make you wonder, hmm? If Erin is gone, someone acted almost immediately after she left this house,” Alistair said, his fingertips dropping, trailing along my neck until they hit my collarbone, which he absentmindedly traced with such a delicate touch. “Almost as though someone wants you to think Gareth did it.”
That thought hadn’t occurred to me. I sucked in a breath, both because of the shock from the new possibility and from the way Alistair was touching me. The most probable conclusion was that Gareth had killed Erin behind my back; I’d been so focused on assuming it was him that I didn’t even think it could be a frame job.
“Who would do that?” I breathed out the question, still staring into the depths of Alistair’s blue eyes. I couldn’t look away. He had me, and he knew it.
“Do you know who it was who found you with Gareth that day?” Alistair asked, the hand on my collarbone dropping to dance just over the fabric above my chest as it fell to my side, where it then touched my left hand. “It was Rick. The head sheriff. He’s also the one who answered your previous call. He was at the wedding—I don’t know if you met him then, but he was there.”
The memory of kissing him, both at the wedding and at the basketball game, was alive and bright in my mind, and I struggled to keep my cool. I didn’t want to tell Alistair about any of that.
“He’s Gareth’s uncle,” Alistair told me information I already knew. “His brother married my sister. Twelve years ago, he killed his brother and I helped him cover it up. I kept his involvement out of the news.”
My eyes widened at that. Rick was a murderer, too? He was just like Gareth, then. Goddamn it. It was like I was killer bait, the scent I gave off too strong for murderers to resist. And I, in turn, was weak for them. The news shouldn’t surprise me, but it did. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
“I put him where he is today. He works for me, helps me keep Gareth’s… activities away from prying eyes. But, truth be told,” Alistair paused, the hand toying with mine now creeping up that arm, “I always did wonder if he was plotting something. You see, he killed his brother for a reason. He was in love with my sister. When Gareth killed her, he took it quite hard.”
It was like the wind had been knocked out of me, and no matter what I tried to do, I couldn’t catch my breath. Shit. This whole thing was way more complicated than I’d thought—and here I’d assumed Gareth being a serial killer was the worst thing I’d find out. No, silly me. Everyone was a killer.
Everyone I was attracted to, anyway.
