She twisted her head and made eye contact with me, causing my belly to clench at the raw sadness there.
I never should have left like that.
God, I hated myself.
My first marriage I didn’t have this kind of all-consuming love.
Did I enjoy my ex’s company? Yes. But I didn’t think about her day and night like I did Mable.
“Talk to me, baby,” I urged, feathering one finger over the length of her exposed shoulder.
She leaned into my touch, and I took that as all the sign that I needed to reach for her and pull her into my arms.
She’d lost some weight since I’d held her last, and that only added to the anger that I harbored.
“What happened?” I asked once I had her settled in the curve of my arms.
“What didn’t?” she mumbled into my chest.
I rested my chin on her head, then just waited.
She’d talk when she was ready.
But before she could, Cody and Birdee came into the room with a bowl of popcorn and some more wine.
“We killed my mother,” Birdee blurted.
I blinked. “You what?”
Then the words Apollo had shared finally made sense.
Whitney was dead, all right. And these three were behind it.
“Tell me exactly what happened, right now,” I ordered the three of them.
So they did, leaving not a single thing out.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and counted to ten before saying, “Who saw y’all going there?”
“No one,” Cody said. “Well, no one but me. But I acted like I was going on a run. Which I totally do a lot. Everyone thinks I’m batshit crazy because I snap on my snow and ice shoes and go for runs all the time. The cops that saw me only assumed that this was one of those times. I circled back around to the parking lot. It happened within like three seconds of me being in the lot. We left almost just as fast.”
“Shit,” I hesitated, then reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.
Just as I was about to call Apollo, it rang in my hand, so I answered.
Before I could get a word in edgewise, he started talking.
“She had a Trojan horse,” Apollo mused, his voice sounding slightly off due to him being on speakerphone. “It was set to send to everyone and their brother about two hours from now. Something that was to be sent off if someone hadn’t heard from her in a set amount of time. I was able to pull it, and as of right now, there’s not a single person besides those you trust that knows who you are or who you were.”
“Hey, that’s good. Thanks, man.” I paused. “Did they ever find any information about her death?”
Apollo hummed in reply. “According to the police reports, they’re saying that she tripped and fell on the door. Broke her neck. Plus, her toxicology reports indicated she’d been drinking. Karma’s a bitch, right?”
“Right.” I locked eyes with Cody. “Thanks for everything. I really appreciate you stepping in and handling this.”
“No problem,” he sounded giddy. “This has been so much fun.”
So much fun.
