Beau appears in the doorway, taking in the mess of glass shards all over the floor. “Talk,” she orders, closing the door, a silent sign that neither of us is leaving until this is sorted out. Will it ever be? I’ve delved into the deep, and I’m fighting to keep my head above water.
My body as heavy as fuck, I go to the chair at my desk and drop into it with a thud, rubbing at my eye sockets. “The night your mum was killed, I found a phone on the body of an associate of The Bear. A message was sent confirming the hit on your mum.” I look up at Beau and find no reaction. Nothing. “I tracked where the message came from. Another burner. It’s been off since. Untraceable. Until a few days ago.” She still shows no reaction, and it’s beginning to fuck me off. What the hell do I need to say to penetrate her? She’s found out the man who ordered the death of my family also ordered the death of her mother. Where’s her fucking shock? “It was tracked to Nathan Butler’s flat.” And there it is. A recoil. “Your mother hunted me relentlessly, but she and I were after the same people, Beau. We just had different ideas of justice. I killed them before Jaz could cuff them. It pissed her off.” Beau’s reinstated her impassiveness. Shutting down? “I was tailing your mum the night she was killed. I called her. Warned her. She told me to fuck off and die.” If I could, I’d smile. How Jaz would have loved me to fuck off and die. “By the time she realized I wasn’t fucking with her, it was too late.” I see balls of fire in my memories. Hear screams. Feel the heat. Butler must have burst a blood vessel when he saw me at the graveyard with Beau. James Kelly—Beau’s boyfriend—is the man in the footage. The footage that’s been missing for two years. The footage that’s missing from the police report. The footage that, if complete, would have proved Beau’s mother’s death wasn’t an accident. But also would have put my face on the FBI’s radar as a person of interest. I laugh under my breath. Interest? They’d have no fucking idea.
Beau steps back. “It was you on the phone to her,” she says, and I nod. “Why did you contact me? Why did you bring me here?”
“Because your relentlessness would have got you killed too. The investigation you want won’t happen. You won’t get justice, Beau.” I eye her carefully. She looks about ready to bolt. “Not if you play by the rules,” I add gently.
She inhales. Swallows. “But if I play by your rules?”
“I have only one rule.”
“What?”
“No mercy.” Who I really am is still unknown. My motives are a mystery. But the game is nearly over, and it’ll be me who wins.
Her eyes drop to her bare feet. I would give anything to know what she’s thinking. “Are you saying Nath had my mom killed?”
“He’s dirty, Beau. Your mother figured that out.”
“No.”
“Yes.” I get up, resting my hands on the edge of the desk, leaning in. “The Bear’s got an inside man. Nathan Butler. Your mum was a clever woman, Beau. She figured that out. That’s why she’s dead. You want justice? Let me get you justice.”
She shoots her eyes my way, and I fucking detest the pain in them. “You want to kill Nath?”
“I want to kill them all.”
Her chest expands, her eyes darting across the glass of my desk. “And what about us?”
“Us, me and you?” I ask. “Or us, you and my baby?”
She quickly steps back, her eyes wide, her lip wobbling. “I don’t know,” she admits, and it’s crushing. I understand her doubt. Hate it, but I understand it. “What if you’re wrong?”
She’s clinging to hope. I wish it wasn’t so wasted.
“He’s hidden that footage for years, Beau. Why hasn’t he shown you it before now? He knew all along your mother was murdered because he played a part in it. He’s cornered.”
“I’ve trusted Nath with . . . everything.”
I can’t stand the devastation on her face. “I tried so hard to save her, Beau. And I’m so fucking sorry I failed.” I collapse back to the chair, exhausted, wedging my elbows on the glass and burying my face in my hands. My head feels heavy. Heavy with regret, with sorrow, and with fury. And yet I can’t regret stepping in and bringing Beau here. I can’t entertain the thought of what might have happened if I’d left her alone. She would have kept digging. And she would have ended up dead.
I flinch when I feel her touch on my shoulder. “I want justice.” She takes my hand and places it on her stomach, and I look up at her. “I can’t move on until then. I know it’s fucked up, but I have to prove for my own sanity that Mom’s death wasn’t an accident.”
Fucked up? She’s pretty fucking perfect in her own fucked-up way. I yank her onto my lap and hug her to my chest. “I want justice for your mum too. But by digging, I’m risking exposing myself.”
She frowns. “How?”
“Your mum figured out who I was,” I whisper. “She said she was keeping my identity as security. You pushing an appeal into the circumstances of her death wasn’t only bad news for The Bear and Butler, it was bad news for me too.” The video footage case in point.
“So why show me the CCTV footage now? They’re risking exposing themselves too.”
“No one will see that footage.”
“I have a copy.”
“It’s a cut version, Beau.” And even if it wasn’t, she’d be dead before she could share it.
She closes her eyes, shaking her head, as if trying to let the information settle. “So you found me,” she whispers, looking at me.
“And I wanted to kill you,” I admit quietly, hoping she’ll forgive me, since she just shot at me herself. “But only because I wanted to physically get rid of you to stop the crazy in my head every time I saw you. And because I knew you’d be the end of me. And you are.”
“The end of you?”
“The end of this me.”
“I kind of like this you,” she whispers, almost reluctantly. I smile. Perfectly fucked up. Both of us.
“I need to ask you something.”
She stills. “What?”
“Did your mum leave you anything?”
“Like what?”
“Like a safety deposit box key?”
“That’s very specific.” She leans back, eyeing me with suspicion. “And also the reason, I expect, why you conveniently brought up a conversation about safety deposit boxes the other day.”
I shrug. “I found a record for an account held by Dolly Daydream.” I raise a brow when Beau’s eyes widen. “Knowing your mum as I knew her, she would always cover her arse. Put security measures in place.”
“You think she’s put your identity in there?”
“It’s a possibility. Along with other information that might be of use to me.”
“Is that the only reason you hunted me down?”
I inwardly roll my eyes at her indignant face. “If I hunted you, you’d know about it.” I lean forward until our noses meet. “I’m hoping now that you’re carrying my baby, you might help me find the key to that safety deposit box to eliminate any possibility of your child’s father being murdered or put behind bars for thirty life sentences.”