Collapsing on my haunches, I scrambled to the toilet and vomited. When my guts dried up, I stood on weak legs and rinsed out my mouth. I closed the lid of the toilet and slumped down on it, trying to convince myself that therehadto be a reasonable explanation for the ring. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it could be.
Liz and Robert had only met the one time at the apartment. They were hardly what I’d consider friends or even casual acquaintances. So . . . what the actual fuck?
Though I sensed I was falling in love with the vampire, I was still level-headed enough to recognize how far away we were from marriage, so there went any theories about Liz helping Robert pick out a wedding ring for me. And he’d already paid off my student loan, by far my biggest economic burden, so he couldn’t have been consulting her about improving my financial situation—which, thanks to the outburst at the coffee shop, he knew better than to do, anyway. Crazily, I wondered if they might have been planning a surprise party. No, my birthday wasn’t for months.
I was really grasping at straws. Best way to get the bottom of things was to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, which terrified me. I’d gotten the sense earlier that Robert had been hiding something, and I was hoping this wasn’t it. If he hadn’t been doing anything wrong, why not just tell me?
Plus, the last time I’d seen Liz—right before I’d left to decoy for Jerry—she’d been wearing the ring. Like her hair or those flirty dresses she liked to sport at work, it was so much a part of her appearance that I would have noticed if she hadn’t been wearing it. Which meant that the only time she could have left it at Robert’s was sometime yesterday evening before she was murdered. How could that be? If that was truly the case, he might be one of the last individuals to see her alive, which he probably should have mentioned.
I grabbed the ring and headed back to Robert on shaky legs. When I entered the sleeping chamber, his expression turned from happy, to confused, then worried, as if he suspected that I’d gone insane during my trip to the bathroom. I felt like throwing up again.
Fighting to keep my voice even, I said, “I’m going to give you one chance to tell me the truth.”
He sat up quickly. “What’s going on?”
I shushed him. “What did you do last night, Robert?”
“I told you. I worked.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Literally. I did not believe him. “You’re sure you’re not forgetting to tell me something?”
He got to his feet, dodging my question by presenting one of his own. “What’s that you’re holding?”
I brandished Liz’s ring like a smoking gun. “Like you don’t know.”
“Idon’tknow. What is—”
“Why is Liz’s ring here? You tell me why!” My best friend had been murdered, I’d been up all night, and I’d just puked my brains out. But whatreallymade me lose it? Robert lying to my face. I hurled the ring at the vamp with all my might, hitting him square on the shoulder.
“Oh, shit,” he moaned. I couldn’t recall ever hearing him use profanity, and it sounded strange coming off his tongue. It also told me everything I need to know about him not telling me the truth. “Please, let me explain. It’s not what you think.”
“Did you kill her?” I sobbed. “Was it my punishment for rejecting you at the coffee shop?” In my grieving, traumatized mind, it all made perfect sense.Of course,it was just my luck, that the first male I fell in love with after Nick was a psychopath. There always had to be a catch, didn’t there? He couldn’t snore or be messy. No, he was a murderer. “It’s you whose been stalking me!”
Robert made a move toward me.
“You stay back!” I screamed. For the first time since my arrival, I was feeling genuinely afraid. I thought of Carl upstairs, wondering if he could hear us shouting. If I called for help, I wasn’t completely convinced that he’d come running. His loyalty to Robert seemed to run deep. He’d probably even help dispose of my body.
“Okay, Lizdidcome here last night,” he finally admitted. He looked guilty as hell.
“No shit, Robert!” Another disturbing possibility suddenly struck me. “Did youfuckher? Oh my God! And, what, you killed her so she wouldn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t murder Liz, Olivia.”
“So, you just fucked her, then?” After what I’d gone through with Nick, such betrayal was on par with murder in my book. “I feel so disgusted! I shared my body with you, let you inside me. How could you?”
“You have it all wrong. Liz came over here to discussyou. That’s all. I swear. She left right after her boyfriend called. I had Carl drop her off. You can ask him.”
“Right, because Carl would never lie for you.” If what he was saying was true, then Liz had betrayed me as much as he had. “Liz would never do that to me, talk about me behind my back.”
“She didn’tdoanything to you. I called your phone last night looking for you and she answered. Check your phone if you don’t believe me. I had topleadwith her to come over. She gave me advice on how to make things right with you.”
“How convenient for you that Liz isn’t around to validate any of your claims,” I snapped. “I may have been born at night, Robert, but I wasn’t born last night.”
“Liz loved you and wanted you to be happy. She was only trying to help. I’m sorry that I lied to you.”
