I felt like I was going to throw up, but I swallowed down the bile. “JJ, I think…”
“Yes?”
“I think maybe I should look at them.”
CHAPTER45
JACK
“Absolutely not,”I snapped, a little too aggressively. I was still thinking about exactly how hard and how painfully I was going to kill Julian Castellani.
“JJ—”
I put my hands on Miller’s shoulders, and said, “You are not looking at those pictures. Not now. Not ever. Understand?”
“No, Idon’tfucking understand. Where did Julian evengetthem?”
“He must have a contact. I’ll ask him before I—” I paused. “Before I get him to delete his copies.”
Miller tried again. “I still think I should look at them.”
Exasperation rose in my chest. “Why would you evenwant—”
“Because I needproof, JJ!” he insisted. “Proof that this isreal. That she’s dead. That she’s reallygone. I still can’t believe it. I can’t make myheartbelieve it.”
He jumped up and wandered around the room, as though he needed some kinetic energy to work off his mood. But the room was tiny and cluttered, and seemed to frustrate him more.
When they’d told me my father had been taken out, I couldn’t believe it, either. The old man had been immortal, surely? Death wouldn’t fucking dare.
“I’m sorry you’re struggling,” I told him, coming up behind him. I put my hands on his shoulders, but he stayed stiff and unyielding under my touch. “I hear you,” I said soothingly. “I hear what you’re saying. But sweetheart, you gotta trust me on this one. Don’t flood your mind with those pictures. You remember your sister how she was. It’s better that way.”
“Fine.” He shrugged me off and cleared his throat. “Then tell me why Julian gave them to you.Doyou think he killed her?”
I hesitated again, and I could see Miller’s anger rising, a red tide flushing up the back of his neck. I thought back to Julian Castellani’s kills—the ones I could attribute to him without a doubt. The ones I’d seen myself and the ones I’d heard about. They were violent, bloody, messy. But more than that, Julian liked toshock. He had a sadistic, macabre sense of humor that played out in his kills. Shooting a defenseless woman in the face and leaving her body to be found by off-trail hikers…well, it wasn’t his style. He would have made a bold statement with her murder.
I’d seen only sudden, angry violence in the crime scene photos. Admittedly, I hadn’t studied them in depth, because I didn’t see much point staring at a corpse. And then I’d spent the next twelve minutes wondering how in the hell I was going to tell Miller about them.
Maybe that had been Julian’s game all along. Force me to be an unwilling witness to his crime, force me to be an unwilling bearer of bad news to Miller?
“JJ?” Miller asked impatiently, turning to face me. “Was it him, or not?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You made a big deal out of Julian and this necklace, but every question I’ve asked you about it is ‘I don’t know’ or ‘Maybe.’ Does he have something to do with her death or not?”
Julian had always wanted his mother’s ashes for himself, wanted to inter them rather than have them displayed as a decoration in a rich man’s house. But the necklace? I’d never heard him mention that.
An idea began to nag at me, eating away at the corner of my mind. Miller didn’t miss it.
“What?” he asked sharply. “What are you thinking?”
I rubbed my face wearily. “Nothing that makes any sense. It’s late. Let’s get some sleep,” I sighed. “We can strain our brains some more in the morning.”
I half-expected Miller to turn cold on me, tell me to sleep on the tiny couch, but he even pulled me close in the bed when we got into it. We were both naked that night, and I hated myself for enjoying the intimacy, for all those daydreams of making a life together.
It was bullshit, and I knew it now. Staying in Los Angeles was untenable for me after assaulting the Boss’s favorite son. And Julian Castellani, once he got obsessed with something—with someone—would not fucking let it go. I’d seen the way he’d looked at Miller, and I’d known what it meant. There was only one way out of this mess.
I had to kill Julian.
