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Such a fucking cliché but, “Like it was all a bad dream.”
“Your mind will want it to be a dream,” he tells her, and for the first time in years, she hears a hint of pity in his smooth voice. But something else, too. Like he’s treading calculated steps through a minefield. “You find Gigi like you did. Then, waking up to seeing Carmine like that… It’s only natural for your mind to block it out or finddistractions.” His eyes linger over her half-empty glass of OJ that undeniably stinks of vodka.
She cups the glass tighter.
The urge to lift it to her cracked lips flexes her arms, ready to lift—
But she stops.
And she blinks at Preston still leaning against the doorframe, water droplets dripping from the ends of his tendrils, slipping down the lines of muscles contouring his chest.
“I only told Kate that… at the station.” Billie’s brow furrows together. “You’ve been with me. Not with the police or Kate… So how would you know that?”
His eyes darken, pits of nothingness. “Know what?”
“When I came to…” She swallows, hard. “That I was knocked out. That I woke up to find Carmine right beside me. You couldn’t know that.”
For a long moment, he watches her.
Then he pushes from the doorframe and advances on her. “Trevor called me.”
He snatches up his Nokia from the nightstand. The charging cable ricochets back and hits the wall, sliding down behind the nightstand. With a few clicks of clacky buttons he shoves the cell in her face.
And there it is.
The list of call records.
Trevor Vanderbelt, 12:12PM.
Little more than an hour ago.
She looks away, a slight red burning her cheeks. “Sorry. I just… Someone is out there… They want us.”
He frowns. “Us?”
“The ones who… with Henry.”
“And you suspect me?” he says flatly. “You think I did.”
Her mouth opens, then shuts, opens, then shuts. Cheeks crimson and eyes wet, she turns her gaze down—and drinks the rest of the spiked juice.
But he’s not about to let it go.
“I want to kill you, right? According to you, I’m hunting down your friends.You. I suppose that’s why I bought you this,” he snaps and rips open the bottom drawer. It rattles hard enough to come undone, landing on the floor.
He doesn’t care.
He scoops up a small blue box wrapped in a white ribbon.
Billie watches as he stands straight and practically shoves the box in her face.
“Go on, see how much I want to kill you.”
“Stop,” she sighs, turning away from him. “I’m sorry, I just meant that you’re the only one I told about Henry.”
He rips the ribbon off himself. “And who did Gigi tell? Who did Cletus tell? Who did fucking Carmine tell?”
Jaw set tight, his eyes are black smoldering coal as he flips open the box.
