“When you saw him last week,” Darius had repeated.
The conspiratorial partners had glanced away from him at that.
Mitchell took his blame well despite it.
“I met Gary for lunch the day he was killed, just after noon.”
Darius had looked at Eve for that. She’d met his gaze too, less enthused to admit her part in what had happened next.
“Which I didn’t know about because I was too busy trying to stop the wedding, so when I was asked about where Mitchell was later… I lied and said I was with him.”
The rest of the conversation had been short, but Darius couldn’t deny he had felt something in him shift at finallyknowing the why behind Eve’s lie. It wasn’t that she was in love with Mitchell or held him on some pedestal because of his fortune, status and connection to his older, much more popular brother.
She had been trying to help a friend.
A friend who swore up and down that Gary had been alive when he’d left his hotel room around twelve twenty.
There was no evidence or way to confirm Mitchell’s story, but despite himself Darius believed him. Maybe, he realized, because Eve did.
After that, Darius might have stayed in the hospital, but Gary Whittaker’s homicide case had done something he hadn’t expected it to do.
It had gone backward.
Back before the day of the wedding, or the arrival of the wedding party in Seven Roads, or the engagement, or the lie told to Scott about Eve and Mitchell’s secret relationship. Because, they might not have had proof yet, but Darius had had a hard time believing it had been a coincidence that Gary had been killed after talking with Mitchell.
And, for the first time since the murder, Darius had a lead he knew would go somewhere.
It just was a matter of how to approach it.
Now standing in his living room and staring at the fake couple who had spent the last half of a year trying to topple a man steeped in money and power, Darius had a plan.
One it was time to share.
“You think Scott is using his money from the foundation to fund more sinister activities. I think you’re right. And I’ve come up with a plan that I think will prove it.”
Darius had spent the last several days in the hospital pouring over all the notes Eve and Mitchell had made on their investigation. Their breakthrough had been less of abreakthrough and more of a hunch that someone in the wedding party had helped with Scott’s less-than-legal intentions.
As of that morning, Darius believed he’d finally bridged that hunch to what would be a tangible piece of evidence.
If they played their cards right.
Eve’s eyes had widened as she waited for his explanation.
Instead, he knew he was about to get her anger next.
“But I’ll only help on one condition.” Darius pointed to the woman standing in front of him. “You don’t leave my side. Not once and not for anything.”
“What? Why?” Darius noted her reddening cheeks, but he didn’t wait to see if it was from annoyance or something else.
Instead, he narrowed his eyes at her and made sure the aim of his finger stayed true.
“Because you, Evelyn Myers, have a talent for getting into trouble. Whether you’re making it or falling into it. So until we get this entire thing settled, you aren’t leaving my sights. Agree now, or else you two can leave and I’ll let you figure it all out on your own.”
That, of course, was a lie.
And like the fake alibi she’d given Darius before, he knew thatEveknew it was a lie too.
Still, she’d never been one with the personality to accept an ultimatum easily. Her nostrils flared a little as she took a moment to let his nonthreat linger.
