Page 103 of Above All Else
“She kissed me.” His face paled. “I told her we shouldn’t. Itwasn’t right, but then she started sending me little notes. She became obsessed and wouldn’t stop.” He leaned forward and hung his head, his elbows braced on his knees. “It didn’t go any further than that. I swear it.”
“She was a child, James.”
He stood with fists clenched. “Don’t you think I know that?” He rubbed the back of his neck and turned his side to me. “She was my daughter’s age, for Christ’s sake.”
“And then what?” My knuckles popped as I squeezed the knife handle harder, my heart rattling in my chest as though it’d come loose.
“Are you going to kill me in my own home?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“You know I found her in my bed once?” He shook his head, his hand flopping down to his side. The floor creaked outside the door. “I’d come home early. It was my anniversary with Susan. We were going to the resort for dinner, and I wanted to surprise her before she came home.” James turned, his brows tightened together. “When I got home, there she was, in my bed, stark naked.”
My gut bubbled, and my skin heated. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I told her to leave. Do you know what she did?” He paced back and forth, his eyes wide. “She threatened to tell everyone I raped her. On my Goddamned anniversary.” The cords in his neck bulged, his face mottled.
“When was this?”
The whites of his eyes expanded, his nostrils flaring. “A fewdays before she died.”
My blood boiled, searing my flesh, my cantering pulse throbbing in my throat. I jumped to my feet and pressed the knife to his throat. “So you killed her, didn’t you? That’s how you have her locket in your little trophy case.”
“Trophy case?” His mouth dropped open as he shook his head, his brows cinched together. “No. I would never.” His Adam’s apple bobbed against the edge of the blade. “I told her she needed to stop. That it was getting out of hand. She threatened to tell everyone of this fantastical relationship we had.” Tears brimmed in his eyes. “I was going to lose everything.”
“So you killed her?” I ground my teeth, baring them as if I’d rip his throat out.
“No. I—“
“He didn’t do it, Carter.”
Susan stood in the doorway, and I pulled the knife away from James’ neck, glancing between them, her hands clasped in front of her, her shoulders hunched. “I did.”
My stomach bottomed out, and the need to vomit hit me like a freight train. “You?”
She gave a curt nod. “James is telling the truth.”
“Susan?” James leaned forward, his hand outstretched to his wife, his brows narrowing, his lips curled. “It was you?”
“Why?” I pointed the knife at her, my hands shaking.
How was her killer closer than any of us realized?
I shared food with her at my table.
I bought her a home... bothof them.
Snarling, I raised my knife. “Explain yourself.”
“James didn’t know it, but I saw her in our bed, naked...” disgust scrunched her face as her eyes slipped to the left, “sitting on her phone like she wasn’t violating my home.” She walked around me and sat in the chair he’d occupied before. She kept her back straight, her hands resting on her closed legs, her dress dangling around her ankles. “Her little obsession was going to destroy my family, and I panicked.”
“You panicked, as in plotted her death, kept a memento for safekeeping, and then pretended to grieve for her?”
Her eyes clashed with mine. “I did grieve for her—for the young, innocent woman we used to know and love.”
“Why didn’t you bring it to my parents?”
James moved off the side, and she followed him with her eyes. “The outcome would have been the same.” She held her head high. “She had evidence, notes passed, the stupid picture from the concert, and the postcard they’d gotten together.” Susan scoffed, shaking her head. “He even kept a ring from her.”