Bolton giggles, and I kick him in the shin, killing his laughter in its tracks. They look at him like he’s an unhinged maniac, clearly not catching the murder pun O’Callaghan just made. Bolton loved a good pun, but now isn’t the time to appreciate one about dead bodies.
“I apologize for my outburst, but you made a pun. You saiddead ringerwhen talking about a murder…get it?”
Johnson smiles, then laughs. “Yeah, Mike, you made a pun, albeit an unintentional one.” O’Callaghan rolls his eyes, then whispers something to Johnson that switches him back to serious mode again.
“The first victim, John DiMuzio, was found with multiple stab wounds in an alley between a pizzeria and a dry cleaner. A young man opening the pizzeria found him face down, covered in his own blood. That’s exactly how you wrote the first victim inDark Destiny, right down to the location.”
O’Callaghan slides a picture of the victim at the crime scene across the table to Bolton, whose face turns green. He turns his head, and I can tell from the way he’s breathing he’s about to puke. For someone who writes dark romance and thrillers, he doesn’t do well with blood and gore in real life.
I turn the photo over, then take his hand in mine and squeeze to ground him. “Please don’t show my husband crime scene photos. He doesn’t need emotional trauma from such unnecessary gore.”
“I would think a writer with Mr. Monroe’s catalogue wouldn’t be bothered by photos like this,” he flippantly comments.
“Why don’t we call Police Commissioner Delgado in and ask her professional opinion?” I take out my phone and scroll through my contacts until I find her phone number, angling my phone so both detectives can see my screen across the cramped table.
“There’s no need, Mr. Monroe.” Johnson taps his partner on the forearm, causing O’Callaghan to flinch. “Mike, how about we go light on the photos?”
O’Callaghan glares at me, but slides the photo back. He knows who I am, how my company donates a large sum to the NYPD every year so they overlook some of my moreintricatebusiness practices. He should have known better than to pull that shit.
“The second victim, Charles L. Bawdin, was found with his throat slit in a bush in Central Park. The exact way the husband died inThe Whisperer,” Johnson follows up. “And the third victim, Keith Summerton, was found with his hand cut off inside his brownstone in Astoria. He bled out from his wounds. Sound familiar?”
That was the way the main character inKnives & Knowingkilled her first victim. It was Bolton’s first vigilante romance, and it cemented his place in the genre because the female main character, or FMC for short, was the morally gray one. It was his first book on the bestseller list. I remember how upset he was when I missed the release party. My absence during such a pivotal moment in his life was the final straw for him. For me, it was the event that changed our marriage for the better. It started our new tradition—going to his cabin in the woods and playing our favorite primal game.
It takes serious self-control not to stop fantasizing about chasing Bolton through the woods. I need to concentrate right now.
I chased him through the trees, his bare feet pounding against the dirt as he fled from me. His panting breath was a beacon in the darkness, alerting me to where he ran. He tried to run as fast as he could, but it was no use. I caught up to him, pulling him into the dirt and straddling his thighs.
I remember exactly what I called him that night—my little fighter. Even though I pinned my helpless baby to the dirt, he still fought me. Even as he ground himself into me, desperate for friction to dispel the feelings he couldn’t explain, he had this molten fire about him. A defiance that turned me on and made me rabid for him. I’m addicted to that fierceness, and I’ll crave it for the rest of my life.
Dante’s sharp tone breaks my revelry of that fateful night, bringing me back into the present.
“You don’t have to answer the question,” he instructs Bolton. “Detectives, what is the point of this line of questioning? Are you accusing my client of murdering three people?”
Johnson leans back in his seat, running his hands through his hair again. I can tell he’s not as motivated to investigate my husband as his partner is. Accusing a Monroe of murder is a bold move in this city. Unfortunately, his partner doesn’t share his common sense.
“Not formally, but we want to know where you were the night of all three murders, Mr. Monroe,” O’Callaghan says as he slides a piece of paper with dates and times to Bolton.
He takes a few moments to read the paper before responding. “The first night, I was home writing. I have a huge deadline coming up, so I spend most of my days and evenings writing. On the second night, I had dinner with my mom in the late afternoon, but then I went home to write. On the third night, I stayed up late writing. I called Cal, and he can vouch for me. And I use software that tracks my document changes, but I’m not sure if they’re time-stamped.”
Dante exchanges a look with me, and I know he’s thinking the same thing I am:None of that is an alibi.
And because he doesn’t have an alibi, they’ll pursue him as a person of interest. A dark romance author recreating the murders from his books in real life is a career-maker for these two morons—a way for them to climb the ladder and gain notoriety. They’ll drag him through the media, tanking his career. We need to gag the information before it comes out, or get ahead of it so the damage isn’t catastrophic.
“You obviously have no hard evidence my client committed these crimes, or else you’d arrest him instead of asking him to come in for questioning,” Dante comments nonchalantly, as ifhe’s talking about the weather. “Then you harassed him with a traumatizing photo and made inappropriate comments about his career. If this were to hit the press, I’d have no issue bringing a civil suit against the NYPD for the malicious impact it would have on my client’s career.”
“I can imagine the headline now: ‘Famed romance author person of interest in gruesome NYC murders’,” O’Callaghan laughs. “We aren’t in the wrong, Mr. D’Amato. We’re just doing our jobs.”
“Given your lack of an actual alibi, I’d stay in the city for the time being, Mr. Bolton. We’ll be in touch,” Johnson says with a smile on his face.Fucking prick.
“And I’ll be in touch with my philanthropy office and Police Commissioner Delgado. It’s a shame Monroe Enterprises won’t be able to contribute to the NYPD’s Christmas bonus fund this year or next year. Have a great day, detectives,” I quip as I lead Bolton out of the room with a hand on the small of his back.
He talks, but I shush him. “Say nothing until we’re in the car. They have eyes and ears everywhere.”
When we get inside the car, I discreetly scan for listening and recording devices with a small device my personal security gave me. No beeping means the coast is clear, so I lean over the console and hug my lightning bolt as tightly as I can. He sobs into my neck, his tears soaking my shirt collar.
I rub his back, making soothing sounds to calm him. “It’s okay, lightning bolt. Let it out. It’ll be okay.”
“N-no it won’t!” he cries. “My alibis are shaky at best, and they’d love to pin something like this on me. Putting a famous writer away will make their careers. The one detective has it out for me. I can’t go to jail, Cal. I’m too fucking pretty to survive on the inside!”
