Chapter 24 Davids Explanation

Present day...

After greeting Liam with a warm hug, I asked if he'd eaten yet.

"I just had a pizza delivered.There's plenty if you would like some."He agreed, and I got another plate out for him while he grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. We both headed back to the living room and sat on the couch to eat.We made small talk, mostly him updating me on my uncle and cousins. Once we finished, he asked about the case against Scott and Vanessa.

"I read the news report on the charges.Scott seems to be having a tough time on the inside," he said."He and his bunkie aren't getting along."

"Bunkie?" I asked.

Liam smiled."His cellmate, Princess. Otherwise known as a bunkie or cellie."

"I had a bunkie at summer camp when I was twelve. We made s'mores and painted each other's fingernails. Not quite the same thing," I said with a chuckle.

"No, indeed it's not," he agreed. He pulled up one leg, tucking it under the other as he turned to face me on the couch.

"The prosecutor called, and wants to meet with me on Monday to go over any questions he has and prepare me for my testimony."

Liam tilted his head and looked at me carefully. "Are you going to be OK with that? Remember, just stick to - "

" - the plan," I finished his sentence with him. "I know, just stick to the plan.I think I'll be OK.I'll just keep doing what I've been doing.It's worked so far."

"Good girl. Just remember, at the first hint that anything is going south, you get out of there and call me or Conor. We'll get you out of the damned country before they know you've even left the city."

"I know, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.I have no desire to spend the rest of my life hiding and looking over my shoulder."

He snorted. "No, but it beats the hell out catching a premeditated murder charge, for both of us. I'm too pretty to last in the cage, Princess."He smirked at me as I choked on a sip of my Diet Pepsi at his comment.

"All right, Pretty Boy, so tell me what happened after I left the dock that day.Now that we have the privacy and the time to talk, I want all the details," I said.

"I can do better than that.I filmed the whole fucking thing on a burner phone just for you."

He pulled a phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen to unlock it, before handing it over to me."There you go, it's the only video on there.I'll destroy this phone once you watch it - and no, this burner phone doesn't get backed up on anything so once this is gone there is no trail left for anyone to find."

I nodded and took a deep breath, taking the phone from him. I noticed that my hand was shaking slightly, and I hesitated before pressing play.

"You OK?You don't have to watch it you know. I can just give you the highlights," he offered quietly.

I rolled my head along my shoulders, trying to ease the sudden tension in my neck."No, I need to see it. I don't think it could be any worse than what I've imagined - or what I've seen in my nightmares," I said with a shudder, remembering the dream where I was drowning along with David.

I pressed the screen, and the image of David standing on the dock came to life.Liam's forearm and right hand were visible in the lower corner, along with the gun he had pointed at David.I turned the volume up so I could hear them clearly.

"Who the fuck are you?" David asked, sounding shocked and a little scared.

Liam chuckled off-screen. "Liam Doyle, not that my name really matters at this point." He gestured with the gun. "Pull your phone out of your back pocket with your right hand, and slowly set it on the dock in front of you."

David complied. "Now very carefully slide it forward with your right foot.If you kick it into the water, I'll blow a hole in your kneecap.Good...a little more...a bit more. Thank you. Now, take three steps back."

David followed his instructions exactly. "Oh, you are a very good listener, David," Liam praised him patronizingly, while bending to pick up the phone.David's hands clenched into fists at his sides, and his jaw tightened with the effort not to respond to Liam's tone.

"What do you want, man? You want money? Is that what this is? She doesn't have the guts to face me to ask for the money back, so she sends a thug with a gun to force it out of me?" He peered around Liam, looking up toward the house. "Lila!" he called out, then yelled my name again a little louder when I didn't come back out to talk to him.

I could hear the faint chime of a cell phone, then Liam said, "I think that's your phone, David." He turned the phone around and spoke into the camera.

"Hang on just a second, Princess. I'm going to have to put my phone in my shirt pocket for a second while I check David's phone." He flipped the phone back toward David, then the video jostled around a little as Liam slid the phone into his pocket. The volume was slightly muffled and the video angle was a little off, but I could still make out everything.

"Hopefully, the camera can still record everything. I want to surprise Lila with the video so she can see everything for herself. I think she deserves the closure," he kindly explained to David. He angled David's phone so that he could read the screen.

"Oh, it's your girlfriend. I'm sorry...I should be more specific. It's your girlfriend Vanessa," he clarified.

I snorted and pressed the pause button, then looked at Liam sitting on the other end of the couch. He raised a brow at me and grinned, shrugging his shoulders.

"You're such a smartass," I told him with a chuckle, before turning my attention back to the phone screen. I hit play to continue watching.

"Oh my, she is really unhappy with you. She's demanding diamonds in exchange for going out with Lila today. Is Vanessa always this much of a greedy bitch? You do realize she's only with you for the money, right?"

D avid glowered at Liam, who just laughed at him. "It would be rude not to respond to her message, so I'll take care of that for you."

The phone tucked into his shirt pocket caught glimpses of Liam holding the gun with one hand and trying to hold David's phone and text with the other. He read his message aloud while he typed, and I laughed as he asked David's opinion on which emoji to tack on at the end.

My husband didn't bother answering, but the clenched jaw and the vein bulging at the side of his neck made it obvious that he was furious at being taunted like that.

I paused the video as I realized something. "Liam, you aren't wearing gloves.Your fingerprints will be all over his phone!Did you wipe it down?What about on the boat, or -"

"Calm down, Princess," he interrupted me."First of all, I can't text with gloves on.Secondly, these prints aren't in the system anywhere."He waggled his fingers at me.

"You're looking at a man with nothing more than a single speeding ticket on his record.I'm a ghost as far as the cops are concerned.It's one reason the Boss likes me so much.And third, I did rub my shirt over the surface of the screen and along sides of the phone just a bit before I left it in the boat.That should smear my prints enough they would useless.If I'd wiped the phone completely, it would have been suspicious.Lastly, if for some reason the cops ever pull me in for prints and by some miracle they get matched with unknown prints on David's phone, his widow will be happy to tell them that I had been to the house the evening before and that she remembers that I used David's phone to look something up."He smiled at me, raising a brow as if asking for my agreement.

I sighed in relief. "Ok, yes, I can do that."

"Relax.They aren't going to check, and I did put gloves on before I touched the boat or the dock cleat."

I turned back to the phone in my hand and played the video again.

David's attention was caught by something behind Liam, and he craned his neck to try to see around him. I heard Liam tell him that it sounded like I was leaving now, if he wanted to take one last look at me. David stared off in the direction of the driveway, then dropped his head down onto his chest, before raising it to give Liam an imploring look.

"What the fuck, man?Just put the gun down. I can get you the money.In fact, I can get you the money and you can do whatever the hell you want with it. I'll deal with Lila!" he bargained.

Liam's voice was icy as he asked, "And just how exactly do you intend to deal with Lila?Planning to give her more sleeping pills?Planning to help Scott and Vanessa kill her like they've been plotting?"

David appeared momentarily rattled by that comment and then he shook his head. "What are you talking about? They aren't plotting anything," he said dismissively.

"Oh, yes, they most certainly are.They text each other a lot. Were you aware of that?"

David just shrugged, eyeing the gun as if he was trying to gauge whether to try to make a run for safety.

"I've seen the texts, David.The more important question is whether you have seen the texts," Liam continued in a very calm soothing voice.

"I've been wondering, and I can't quite decide.Are you sharing Vanessa with your brother, or are theyjustfucking each other behind your back, hmm?"

David's jaw dropped, and he started to step forward, only to step back again as Liam raised his gun. I could see the barrel of it in the video.

"Now, don't be stupid David. Well, don't be even more stupid than you already have been.Did you know about their affair?"

David just glared at him, and Liam chuckled. "By the look on your face, I'm going to assume that you did not. It's kind of ironic, isn't it.The woman you're cheating with, is cheating on you as well." Liam snickered a bit. "It's a shame, it truly is.You just can't trust anyone these days."

Liam continued his taunting. "Perhaps she found out that you were cheating on her as well with...Marissa, was it? Or...maybe she just wasn't satisfied with what you have to offer." Liam motioned to David's crotch with the barrel of the gun, and David flinched.

"Look, just tell me what the hell you want from me, man." David demanded with false bravado. The slight tremble in his voice betrayed his fear.

"I want answers for Lila. She deserves to know why. Tell me, what on earth would cause you to do the things you've done? You have a wife who is wickedly smart, sweet as can be and absolutely gorgeous who - for some reason I can't begin to fathom - loved you unconditionally until she stumbled across the first of your secret videos. You have a successful, highly lucrative career and access to more money than you could possibly need. So tell me, why did you do it?"

David heaved a sigh and shook his head. "I don't even know where to start. I fucked up, then kept fucking up even more. What the hell do you want me to say?"

"Start at the beginning. Did you ever love her?"

David nodded and looked down at his feet. "Yeah, of course I did. The first few years were great. We were happy."

His phone chimed again, and Liam stopped to read the text. "It's Vanessa again. She's demanding diamond earrings, one carat studs. You've really got yourself a winner there, haven't you?" He chuckled then said, "I think I'll ask her to send me a picture first. Let's see if she'll whore herself out for some earrings."

David breathed out an angry sigh. "You're a real bastard, you know that?"

"Me? I'm the bastard in your scenario?" Liam asked with a laugh. "Really???"

David flipped him off, which Liam ignored.

"When did you cheat for the first time? Why?"

David just stared at him, not saying a word.

"What's wrong, David? Having trouble remembering? There have apparently been so many women, after all, I guess it could be hard to keep them all straight."

David huffed and rolled his eyes. "It was right after Lila graduated. Her mom took her to London for a week as a graduation present. I was pissed. I mean, fucking London? I could barely afford a trip to Cincinnati when I graduated. I went to a party and got drunk. Woke up next to some woman."

"And did it not occur to you to confess to Lila? Beg for her forgiveness? Perhaps, oh I don't know, just keep your dick out of other women from then on?" Liam asked snidely.

I snickered and eyed Liam, who shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Sorry, Princess, but the man was a colossal ass. You need better taste in men."

I shoved his shoulder and turned my attention back to the video, in time to hear David's response to Liam's oh-so-helpful suggestions.

"Fuck no, man. I couldn't confess. I didn't want to lose her. I know you don't believe me, but I did love her. I just wanted more. It was so fucking unfair. She got everything handed to her, and she acted like it was no big goddamned deal!It just pissed me off, so the next time I ran into that chick, I slept with her again. It was a rush, you know?"

"You cheated on an incredible woman who you claimed to love, because it was a rush?" Liam asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I did. And you know what? I kept doing it. Lila got every fucking thing she ever wanted, even the perfect man. Only I wasn't so perfect, and she had no fucking clue. It never occurred to her that something might not go her way. She had her perfect little life, and her perfect little romance, and I had the power to ruin it all for her if I wanted to. So yeah, it was a rush."

"I have to say, David, that's a pretty shitty explanation," Liam told him.

"Fuck you, man." David exploded in anger. "You have no goddamned idea what it's like to be so poor you don't know if you'll have food the next day. You have no idea what it's like to have to pack up in the middle of the night and sneak out before the landlord catches you. Newsflash...when that happens, you end up leaving half of your stuff behind because you don't have time to move it all. You don't get to say goodbye to your friends. You don't get to go back to the same school. You just disappear and start all over somewhere else."

He stopped to take a ragged breath, before continuing his tirade. "Do you have any idea what it's like to watch your mother die because she couldn't afford to go the the doctor? I do, and it just about killed me. Then I met Lila, and it was good for a few years. When I started fucking other women all the time, I figured I should go ahead and do the right thing, so I was going to break up with her."

He fell silent then, and after a moment, Liam prodded him to continue. "So why didn't you?"

David sighed and actually looked ashamed for about a half a second. "I found out about the trust fund. I heard her mom talking to her about it. I couldn't break up with her then, not after I found out how much money she had coming to her. So, I asked her to marry me instead."

"And that obviously didn't work out the way you'd planned, since we find ourselves in this situation this morning," Liam pointed out. David just glared at him again.

"So why did you steal from her?"

David blew up again, and he began to rant. "She has all the money she could ever need, and she wouldn't fucking spend it without questioning every last dollar. She insists on working her stupid little job because she likes to read. Can you fucking believe that? I told her to quit, and then she'd have all the time in the world to read, and she wouldn't do it. She was raised to work hard, she said. It's bullshit, complete and utter bullshit! So I took it. It's not like she missed it."

"And you gambled with it because...?"

"Because it wasn't enough. I tried to turn it into more, and it worked for a while." David dropped his head back and looked up at the sky, shaking his head as if he couldn't understand why this was happening to him.

"So you gambled and won, then gambled more and lost, then kept on losing? Liam asked, and David nodded.

"Why did you start with the drugs, and why did you drug Lila with your sleeping pills?"

"Why the fuck do you care, man? This isn't an episode of goddamned Dr. Phil!" David lashed out at him.

"I care why you did it because Lila needs to know. She deserves to know why you destroyed her life."

"Fine! Istarted using coke here and there to get through finals my senior year, and then the first couple of years when I was trying to get my graduate degree. I was working and taking classes and it was just too fucking much. The coke helped me. Then I started using pills, because the coke wasn't enough."

"OK, so then Lila got control of her trust fund, and you turned into a prissy bitch because she wouldn't let you blow it all. Youand your piece of shit brother worked up this mortgage scheme, drugging Lila to get her compliance at first, and then continued doing it...just for shits and giggles? You just decided to try to literally drive her crazy?"

"No, I just wanted her to think she had done all of those things herself, with the mortgages and the deeds and the money going missing," David explained earnestly, as if his explanation made it all better. He didn't want to drive me crazy, he just wanted to be able to steal every dime without me realizing he'd done it.

"You didn't think maybe you'd gone too far, after she had her miscarriage? It didn't occur to you how horrible you had been to her? What if that sleeping pillis whatcaused her to lose the baby? Lila almost died that night. Doesn't that make you feel bad at all?" Liam hammered away at him, throwing him question after question, his voice rising as it changed from soothing calm to seething anger.

"She didn't die, so just calm the fuck down! I don't want kids and she knows it. That's one of the reasons I kept dating her at first. Other chicks were trying to get pregnant to trap a guy. Lila couldn't, or at least she wasn't supposed to be able to. Then she was all depressed and shit. She has no idea how much a kid would have ruined our lives."

I stared at the phone, shocked by this statement more than any other I'd heard him say.

"You are one lousy motherfucking excuse for a man, and Lila's going to be so much better off without you."

David looked at him as though he couldn't figure something out. After a moment he asked, "What's it to you? Why the fuck do you care so much about Lila?"

The camera phone jostled as Liam apparently took it out of his pocket. He turned it to face him, then looked directly into the camera. "What do you think, Princess? Should I tell him about us? "

"What the fuck are you talking about, man?"

Liam smiled and winked into the camera before flipping the phone around toward David again. "I care about Lila because we've been sleeping together ever since she found out about you and Vanessa."

I gasped and whipped my head around to look at Liam, who was staring back at me unapologetically. "Why did you say that?" I asked in surprise.

"Because I knew it would bother him, even more than the idea of Vanessa sleeping with Scott. I made that part up too, by the way. I have no clue if those two are fucking, although it wouldn't surprise me."

"So you lied to him about us having an affair, just to piss him off?"

Liam looked me straight in the eye and replied, "No, I did it to hurt him the way he hurt you, even if only a little. And it worked, Princess. Rewind that a little, and you'll see tears in his eyes."

I did, and Liam was right. David's eyes were welled up with tears as he shook his head in denial. "No, Lila would never cheat on me.She's a good person. She wouldn't cheat."

"She didn't figure it was cheating, since you broke your vows first. I have to tell you, David. Your wife is fantastic in bed. You were a lucky man. It's too bad you didn't realize it."

David swiped a finger under his eye, andthenover his other cheek. "Just shut the fuck up, asshole."

"Have you forgotten about my gun? You are hardly in a position to give me orders or insult me. Now, I have just one more question for you. Did you ever wonder how Lila's family came to have such immense wealth?"

David looked puzzled. "It was from her Dad's business, why?"

"It wasn't only from her Dad. Her mother came from an even wealthier family. Tell me, David, have you ever heard of Patrick Flanagan, or the Flanagan Family out of Chicago?"

David nodded. "The mobsters?Yeah, what about them?"

Liam chuckled. "Well, our beautiful Lila is Patrick's niece. Your sweet wife is a Mob Princess, and let me assure you, her Uncle Pat does not like you in the least. In fact, you have him and his son Conor to thank for my being here.They suggested it, and Lila finally agreed."

David's mouth fell open, and his body went rigid with shock. "What???"

"I believe you heard me. She's a Flanagan. Now, as much as I've enjoyed out little chat, I have things to do today. I'm afraid it's time to say goodbye now, David."

I reached out a suddenly shaking finger to press the button to pause the recording, not sure I would be able to watch the actual moment David was killed.

"Lila?" Liam asked quietly. "Are you OK?"

"Yes," I rasped. My throat was completely dry, and I picked up my now-flat Diet Pepsi and took a few sips. "I'm just not sure I can watch the rest."

He was silent for a moment. "Would you like me to just tell you what happened instead?"

I nodded and gave him a grateful smile.

"I had him get into the boat and lean over as if he were untying it from the dock. I sat my gun and the phones down, along with the gloves I had in my pocket.Then I grabbed him by the front of his hair and slammed his forehead into the cleat. It didn't knock him out, but I didn't really expect it to.I just needed signs of an accidental injury.It disoriented him enough that I could knock him into the water. I jumped in with him and held him under. It didn't take long for him to stop struggling, and I checked for a pulse. I didn't find one after checking several times, so then I pushed his body down and he sank. Afterward, I pulled myself up out of the water, dried off, and changed into the spare clothes I'd brought. I texted Vanessa one last time, and tossed his phone on the floor of the boat so it would be found. I partially untied the rope from the cleat and then I left."

I was surprised to find tears streaming down my face as he described David's final moments. Liam pulled me into his arms, and I cried until I had no tears left.