Page 111 of My Beautiful Sin

I dial him back, but it goes straight to voicemail. I frown and check my signal, but it’s strong. So I watch the software do its thing as I wait for Devlin to call me back.

Except he doesn’t call.

Ten minutes later I hear the beep of the front door keypad.

“Brandy?”

“It’s me.” A heartbeat later, Devlin steps into the bedroom. “Turn it off,” he says. “End the program.”

He couldn’t have surprised me more if he’d slapped me. I’m cross-legged on the bed, and I just stare at him, my mouth hanging open, because I don’t have a clue what to say.

“Shut it down,” he says, coming to my side.

“Are you insane? No. Maybe you’re right or maybe I am. Or maybe we’re both wrong. But at the end of the day, I’m writing a story about the Myers assassination, and I am going to reveal who did it. And I’m sorry if the killer is your friend, but that doesn’t change—”

“Ronan didn’t do it.” Each word is slow. Measured.

I let my head fall back in frustration. “For fuck’s sake, Devlin. Can we stop this game? We’ll know soon enough.”

“I already know,” he says, reaching past me to press the space bar and pause the program.

I slap his hand away, then freeze as he continues speaking.

“I know, because I’m the one who killed Myers.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“No.” I shake my head, wishing I had the power to make his words disappear. “No. It isn’t true.”

I feel nauseous, and when he reaches for me—his fingers barely brushing my shoulder—I scramble away, almost falling off the other side of the bed in my attempt to get clear. “Don’t,” I say, my throat thickening with tears when I see the pain in his eyes. Pain I’ve inflicted with that one small word.

I shake my head, willing myself not to take it back. “I can’t. Not now. I need to think. And if you’re touching me—” My voice breaks on the words, and I try again. “If you’re touching me, we both know that I won’t be able to think clearly at all.”

“Let me explain.”

“Explain?” I snap the word at him, wanting him to snap right back at me. I want a fight. A battle. And yet every one of his movements is as gentle as his words, leaving me nothing to spar against.

I draw in a breath. “Explain?” I repeat, letting myself get lost in the mire of hurt and confusion. “Do you think I don’t understand already?”

Even as I speak, it’s becoming clearer and clearer. “Rappelling equipment. A trial run. That wasn’t a spur of the moment decision because you thought the appellate court had screwed up. This is something you do.” I hug myself. “This is part of who you are.”

My throat is parched, and I hug myself as I pace the room. I stop at the window, then turn and look back at him.

“Yes.” That’s it. That’s all he says.

“Was it a government hit? Did some agency hire you to take Myers out?”

He hesitates, and I see a flicker of something I think is hope cross his face. I feel it bloom inside me. If he still has that connection to the military … if he was on a government mission…

But my tentative hope shatters like glass when he says, “No.”

The fist around my heart tightens as a fresh wave of puzzle pieces rearrange themselves in my mind, coalescing into answers. I feel as if I’m in school, and I’d been stymied during a test. Then I’d looked at the question a different way and all the answers rushed into my head.

“You killed Myers,” I say slowly. “But I was still right about the video. It’s you, sure, in that video. But it’s also Ronan.”

His silence is all the acknowledgement that I need. “And Vegas. I was right all along. Ronan took Bell out.”

“No. That was me, too. I told you. Ronan was in Victorville.”