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I gave her hand another squeeze and urged, “Don’t go assuming the worst. What happened to Graham is horrible, but I would imagine this person likes Henry enough to want to keep him. I know it doesn’t make this any easier to deal with, but it doesn’t make sense for him to hurt Henry.”
“It does now.”
“What? Why? Because you saw him? Lamise, he could easily explain this away, claiming he found Henry wandering around alone months ago and couldn’t locate an owner.”
Shaking her head, tears welling in her eyes again, she insisted, “No, Banks. You don’t understand. I think the man who has Henry is the same man who killed Graham.”
Lamise was two for two on imparting unforeseen information. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me to hear what she’d just shared.
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?”
“I think Graham was murdered,” she rasped.
Tipping my head to the side, eyeing her curiously, I reminded her, “You told me he was bitten by a snake.”
Nodding, she confirmed, “That’s what I was told that Saturday morning it happened. He had the snake bite to prove it, so there was no reason for anyone to think any differently. And that’s exactly what I believed up until just a few days before I showed up at Harper Security Ops.”
“What could have possibly happened to make you think your fiancé went from being bitten by a snake to being murdered?” I asked, unable to wrap my head around this.
Lamise was silent for a long time, closing her eyes as she sighed. When she opened them again, tears spilling down her cheeks, she shared, “I found his phone.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
In the next instant, Lamise pulled her own phone out of her purse, tapped on the screen a few times, and held it out to me. That’s when I saw the face of the man I assumed had to be Graham. “This video was on his phone.”
I tapped on the play button, then watched as Graham attempted to warn Lamise about the danger swirling around him. I listened to the pure anguish in his voice as he revealed he’d done something he wasn’t proud of, but did it to protect her. And I observed the terror in his face when he looked off to the side and almost accepted the fate that awaited him before he told Lamise how much he loved her and wanted her to find happiness again.
No wonder she’d been so confident about how he’d feel about that.
When the video finished playing, I took a moment to process it all. I wasn’t quite sure I’d accomplished that when I finally asked, “What did you do with his phone?”
“For a few days, I struggled with what to do, but I ultimately took it to the police,” she answered. “I just talked to Detective Shaw not that long ago, and he indicated he’d spoken with the coroner. Between that discussion and the new evidence I’d given him, they believe there’s a strong likelihood Graham was murdered.”
“How does the snake bite fit in? What did the coroner say?”
Lamise licked her lips and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Well, the initial thought was that he’d been bitten by the snake, became disoriented, and wound up falling before hitting his head on a rock. But there’s no conclusive evidence that Graham didn’t suffer the head trauma before the snake bite. Now, considering this new evidence, it’s more likely that’s the case.”
For a long time, I sat there, staring at Lamise and allowing one question after another to filter through my brain. Ultimately, I settled on asking her one. “Why didn’t you tell me this from the start?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess there was a part of me that didn’t want to believe it was the case. And maybe there was another part of me that was afraid you’d judge me, wondering what kind of man I’d gotten involved with. I don’t know what happened at that dog park or what Graham did that he wasn’t proud of, but the way he was in that video wasn’t the man I knew.”
My mind was racing, an overwhelming need to figure this out for Lamise pulsing through me.
She might not have done it immediately, but Lamise eventually came to me for help. Or comfort. No matter what it was she needed, I vowed to give it to her.
Violet never made it clear to me that she’d been struggling. Maybe in her mind, she had. Perhaps I’d just been so caught up in how great life was that I was blind to her pain and failed her.
I couldn’t allow that to happen again.
Lamise told me what I needed to know in a way that was unmistakable. I had the chance to fix it, to make it better for her. No matter what, I’d make sure she remained unharmed.
Because if one thing was for certain, it was that I had a chance at redemption, and I wasn’t going to screw it up.
Not when the life of the woman I was falling for was at stake.
I had to take a minute to figure this out and come up with a plan. I knew what I wanted to have happen, but I’d need some time to figure out the logistics.
In an effort not to have her feeling the worst or regrettingthat she came here to begin with, I decided to let Lamise know what my intentions were.
