“It just fucking sucks… Zach was clearly an awful man, but this will ruin Jesse’s life, his career… he’ll face jailtime. Why wouldn’t Lacey have gone to the authorities before doing this?”
He seems to steel himself before he sighs and pushes the door of the diner open. Once inside, he heads to where Jesse has an entire pie that he’s eating like it’s his last meal. It might be, depending on what Gabriel has to say.
Gabriel sits down in the chair I’d been sitting in, so I grab another.
“I’m sorry,” Jesse says, but I’m not quite sure what he’s apologizing for. I’ve definitely never apologized for dealing with a dead body. Or maybe he’s apologizing about how shitty of a job he did. “I fucked up. I wanted to protect her at the expense of my own life. But please, please, don’t tell anyone about her. I will take the blame for Zach’s death.”
“Your selflessness is disgusting,” I decide.
Jesse gives me a look, and it makes me smile. I really do enjoy his disgust.
Gabriel glances over at me before shaking his head and leaning back. “Fine.”
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Yep.”
My smile widens, worrying Jesse even more, but my mind is on Whitaker. “So this is how it’s going to work,” I say. “You’re going to reexamine the wound on the back of Zach’s head. This time, you’re going to find specks of rust particles in his hair that are going to match a hammer found in the trash behind a large commercial business. After we spread it around the zoo that we’re looking for the bludgeoning tool of choice, there will be an anonymous tip that this person saw someone toss something out. I’m assuming you hid his clothes somewhere? We’ll take hisclothes and put them in the dumpster as well. When we go to investigate, we’ll question what time they take the trash out and determine that the anonymous tipster was likely right, and that the items were dumped and covered before Lacey even left work. And we know she was on the premises because of the security cameras at the zoo. It’s simple. Very simple, but we don’t want it too complex. All we’re doing is diverting attention from those we see on camera at that time.”
Jesse is staring at me and for a moment, I wonder if I’ve read him wrong. Is he going to go all “But I’m a law-abiding citizen and this is bullshit” on me?
“What are you doing?” he asks.
Gabriel is quiet as he leans back in his chair. He’s likely second-guessing everything, but I’m not. This whole thing has just added a bit of spice to my life. After learning about Jesse’s past, I’m well aware that this man is desperate to fit in. He’ll go to great extremes because of the hole his family left in his heart. He’s a chronic liar, having lied to us about his extended family he’s visited and about the fact that he’s only ever been with women—although, it sounds like that period in his life was not a good one, so he might not have been with men since.
“What am I doing? I’m finding a way that I can blackmail you for the rest of your life,” I announce.
His gaze is unwavering. “You would risk everything… why?”
“I already told you. Blackmail.”
Gabriel gives me a little push which I just find sexy. “Jesse, we really care about you. Just like you really care about Lacey. This is extremely risky for us, I agree. But it’s not like you helped her bury the body of a man she had some foolish grudge toward. He was going to hurt or kill Nadine. We already know he’s hurt people in the past; who knows how many he was going to hurt in the future? No, it’s not right to do this. It’s really fucking wrong…but we truly care about you, and I don’t want your life ruined because of this.”
Jesse’s silent as he stares at Gabriel before looking over at me. “You both could get into so much trouble.”
“I never get in trouble,” I assure him.
“And how are you just… are you going to cold case this? I mean… you can’t tack it on anyone.”
“No, but when Nadine wakes up and tells the world about the way Zach treated her, people are going to stop caring who killed the monster. They’re just going to be happy he’s dead,” Gabriel says.
“I will owe you my fucking life,” Jesse promises.
I smile. “You sure will.”
He raises an eyebrow. “That smile makes me wonder if prison would be better.”
“Nah, I already blackmail Robinson and Michaels and Matthew… I’m just adding a new victim to my list,” I say, quite pleased.
“How are you blackmailing Robinson and Michaels?” Jesse asks.
“You aren’t allowed to know; otherwise, you might blackmail them as well.”
Jesse scoffs. “You really see me over here blackmailing people? I’m just… are you really not going to turn me in?” he asks in disbelief. “You… Oh fuck… oh…” He bows his head in relief, but I’m just curious if he’ll tell me more about this Whitaker fellow. I really feel like I’d love to meet him.
FOURTEEN
Gabriel
