Chapter Twenty-Two
Alex took a long look around her living room, no doubt picking up every strange detail, and she realized she’d never had a man in her home.
Not this home, at least.
“Do you... want something to drink?” she asked, mainly to distract his attention from his survey of her apartment.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” She walked around him to the kitchen. “You said you skipped dinner.”
“I’ll get something later.” He glanced at his Rolex, then ran a hand through his thick hair.
She stood beside the bar that separated the kitchen from her nearly empty living room, not sure of what to do or say. But she had to say something, and fast.
“Well, I’m really anxious for an update.” She leaned back against the counter. “You know, about the will? It’s been almost a week now, and I thought maybe you’d have something.”
He leaned his hip against the counter and watched her, those blue eyes taking in everything.
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Cassandra, I’ve been practicing law for ten years. I deal with liars all day long. And—no offense—you’re not very good at it.”
Her chest tightened. She forced herself to hold his gaze, and not to fidget, as she tried to come up with another story.
“Is this about Aubrey Lambert?” he asked.
Her stomach dropped. What did he know about Aubrey? She stared at him wordlessly for a moment, and then made herself respond.
“Why do you say that?”
“My brother mentioned you were involved in the case,” he said.
“Your brother?”
“Owen Breda. He’s a detective with Lost Beach PD.”
His brother was a police detective. Of all the lawyers she could have picked...
Cassandra’s chest constricted and the room seemed to tilt.
“Whoa.” Alex reached for her arm as she swayed on her feet. He grabbed her elbow and steered her into the living room. “You need to sit down.” Her body hit the futon with a graceless squish. “You okay?”
She nodded, leaning her head into her hand.
Alex walked into the kitchen, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to pull herself together. How did this keep getting worse? With every day that went by, another anvil fell out of the sky.
“Here.” He stood over her now with a glass of water.
She took it.
He sat down beside her on the futon. “Drink,” he said.
She drank.
Then she put the glass on the floor beside her foot because she didn’t have a coffee table or any other furniture in here.
“Cassandra.”
She looked at him. Her pulse was racing now, and she knew her panic must be written all over her face.
“Whatever trouble you’re in, I can help.”
He sounded so calm. And capable. She wanted desperately to believe him. And then the side of his mouth ticked up.
“I told you, I’m a problem-solver. That’s what I do.”
She looked away—she had to. She couldn’t look at his handsome face while she was trying to make rational decisions.
“Talk to me.”
She took a deep breath. Held it in for three seconds. Exhaled.
“I don’t know where to start,” she said.
He nodded. “Start at the beginning.”
She stared at him, studying his clear blue eyes. He looked intelligent. He had to be if he was a lawyer, right? Cassandra hadn’t even gone to college. Maybe if she had, maybe if she’d had an education to rely on instead of her looks, she wouldn’t have gotten herself into this mess.
She cleared her throat. “The first time we met... I asked you about attorney-client privilege.”
He nodded.
“That applies to whatever I tell you, correct?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Well, for example, I can’t help you rob a bank.” His tone was joking, but his expression turned serious when she didn’t laugh.
She swallowed. “I think I may be guilty of a crime.”
Her heart skittered as soon as the words were out. God, she was really doing this? Was she really confiding in him? Once she did, there was no going back.
She studied his face, but he didn’t seem to react.
“You don’t look surprised,” she said.
He tipped his head to the side. “I actually hear that a lot.”
“Oh.”
She looked down at her Reebok sneakers. She didn’t have class this week, but she’d been walking around in workout clothes anyway, mainly out of habit. The whole week had been like a waking nightmare.
“You were starting at the beginning?” he prompted.
“Right. So... I told you about my name and how I switched to my maiden name after I filed for a divorce.”
“Because you needed a change.”
“I did. But that was only part of the reason.” She paused, watching his face carefully. “My husband is Malcom McVoy.”
His face showed no reaction.
Alex shook his head. “Never heard of him.”
“He’s been in the news some. At least, his company has, McVoy Systems. Anyway, after my lawyer served Malcom with divorce papers, I decided to drop off the radar.”
“You went into hiding?”
“I basically left town and did everything I could to cover my tracks and not leave a trail. I had to go somewhere where he couldn’t find me. The divorce blindsided him, and I couldn’t be there for the fallout.”
Alex watched her, as though he was trying to read between the lines. “Was he abusive?”
“Not physically. But in other ways.”
“He was controlling?”
She laughed. She didn’t know why—it was just such an understatement.
“Controlling in the extreme,” she said. “He controlled all the money, the credit cards. He tracked my every move and was constantly spying on me—”
“Spying?”
She bit her lip. Interesting that he’d zeroed in on that one particular word.
“He has a thing for spyware,” she said. “And he uses it to... let’s just say influence the people around him.”
Alex’s brow furrowed. “So, am I to assume you’ve been keeping up with him through your divorce lawyer? When did you file?”
“Six months, three weeks, and five days ago.”
His eyebrow arched.
“And, yes, I have been communicating through my attorney, who swore that he would keep my whereabouts secret from Malcom. Attorney-client privilege and all that. But I’ve come to the conclusion that he sold me out.”
Alex leaned forward. “Your lawyer did?”
“That’s the only way I can figure that Malcom could have found me down here. I left my phone and credit cards behind. I stopped using my email and social media. I removed the tracking device from my car.”
“A tracking device?”
“I told you, spying is his thing.”
Alex frowned. “Is there a chance he found you through one of your friends, maybe?”
She scoffed. “Friends? I don’t have any.” She had one, but she wouldn’t tell anyone about Jess, not even this new lawyer, who by all appearances seemed trustworthy. “When I say he’s controlling, I mean every aspect of my life.” She paused. “Being a man, you probably can’t imagine. Just trust me on this.”
“Okay.” He paused. “And what, exactly, made you need to drop off the radar?”
She picked up the glass and took a long sip. This was where things got sticky. She needed to choose her words carefully, even with someone who claimed to be on her side. Trusting an attractive man was what had gotten her into this in the first place.
“My husband has a very lucrative business,” she said. “Some of it also happens to be illegal. I found out about it, and that’s when I decided I had to get out.”
“How did you find out?”
“His accountant. She’d been doing our taxes for years, and she came to our house one day and told me she’d discovered Malcom was running two sets of books to conceal his operation. She was thinking of turning him in and wanted my help. I think she thought if we reported his operation together, we could make a stronger case and ensure ourselves immunity.”
“His operation?”
“The illegal one.” Cassandra didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t plan to. She felt like she was risking her neck enough just talking about this at all, much less providing key details.
“What did you do when you found out?” he asked.
Cassandra thought back to the screaming fight they’d had in the middle of her kitchen. It was nine at night. Malcom was away on business and the maid was gone, and Cassandra had been about to get into the tub with a book and a glass of wine when Isabel showed up at her door to drop a grenade in her lap.
“I basically called her a lying bitch and told her to go to hell.”
Alex’s eyebrows tipped up.
“I knew she was sleeping with my husband.”
“Your accountant was?”
“Yes. So when she showed up, I didn’t want to hear anything she had to say, and it wasn’t until four days later that I realized Isabel was telling the truth and I had to get out of the marriage.”
“What happened four days later?”
Cassandra looked at her feet. The words seemed to get stuck in her throat.
Alex leaned closer. “Cassandra?”
“Four days later... she was murdered.”
Alex stared at her. He rubbed his jaw.
“Malcom killed her,” she added.
Cassandra had never said the words out loud, and they sounded strange. Dangerous, even.
“It was a hit-and-run, meant to look like an accident. I don’t know who was behind the wheel, but whoever it was, it was Malcom’s doing.”
“You know this for a fact?” he asked.
“I know because I know. And I’m worried that makes me an accomplice.”
Alex blew out a breath and looked at his expensive leather shoes. Bruno Maglis, six hundred dollars. Cassandra had bought Malcom a pair for Christmas two years ago.
She got up and went into the kitchen to refill her glass.
“Do you want something to drink? I have alcohol.”
“No.”
Alex joined her in the kitchen, watching her and looking pensive. She knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth.
“What does any of this have to do with Aubrey Lambert?”
Tears stung her eyes at the mention of Aubrey. She glanced at the dream catcher in the kitchen window. It had been a birthday present.
Aubrey was Cassandra getting careless. Aubrey was Cassandra making the mistake of thinking she could come down here, more than a thousand miles from her old life, and make a new start. Make a new life.
Make a friend.
Cassandra leaned back against the counter. “I believe he killed Aubrey, too. Or had her killed.” She folded her arms. “Malcom doesn’t like wet work.”
“Wet work?”
“Anything with blood. He has people for that. Now, if it were me ... maybe he would take a personal interest.”
Alex just stared at her, probably wondering what on earth her husband’s business was. He probably thought Malcom was in the mafia or something.
“Anyway, Malcom was in Denver the day Aubrey was killed. I saw his post on social media. So I think he sent one of his people down here on a mission for him.”
She reached beneath the stack of junk mail sitting on the counter and pulled out the thick white envelope with her name printed across the front. She handed it to him.
“He sent me that.”
“What is it?” Alex asked, opening the envelope.
“It’s a sympathy card. It landed on my doorstep two days after I discovered Aubrey’s body on a deserted beach during my evening run. I was the one to find her. And when I got this card, I knew all my worst, most paranoid, most irrational fears were happening.”
“What fears?”
She watched him and knew he still wasn’t really getting it.
“It’s a warning murder. He killed her to send me a message.”
Alex blinked down at the card. Then he placed it on the counter.
“If he viewed you as a danger to him—you could expose his criminality and land him in prison, correct?”
She nodded.
“If he viewed you as a danger, why not threaten you directly? Why come down here and go after your friend?”
“I think he knows it would raise suspicion if both his mistress—who also conveniently happened to be his accountant—and his wife suddenly turned up dead within a six-month period.”
“Do investigators know about their affair?”
“Yes. He was questioned about their relationship when everything happened. I think something about her ‘accident’ raised some suspicion. That was when I went to see my first lawyer, and the advice he gave me is how I ended up here.” She shook her head. “But now my divorce is stalled, my legal bills are piling up, and the person who was supposed to get me out of this whole thing just got me in deeper. I don’t know what to do.”
Alex ran his hand through his hair. He was watching her with that skeptical look she’d seen before—when she went to see that first lawyer, in fact. Very few people truly comprehended what Malcom was capable of.
A few men who worked for him knew.
And Cassandra.
And possibly Isabel. Although Cassandra didn’t really believe Isabel had known. If she had, she never would have dreamed she could expose Malcom and get away with it. He had eyes everywhere, both human and digital.
Cassandra watched Alex’s expression. Something flickered there—just for a moment—but she recognized it.
Doubt.
“You don’t believe me,” she said flatly.
“No, I do. I just—” He rested his hands on his hips. “Help me understand. You’re saying he killed your friend as a veiled threat to you.”
“Friends.”
“Come again?”
“Aubrey.” Her stomach clenched. “And... I think maybe Danielle, too? My boss. I don’t have proof, though. Right now, it’s just a hunch.”
A depraved, paranoid hunch. Like everything else that had so far turned out to be true.
“A hunch based on...?”
She swallowed. “Well, we’re friends, for one thing. And we look alike. People are always mistaking us for each other, saying we could be sisters. I think he could be trying to make a point to me.”
“You think he murdered two people to make a point to you?”
“I think it’s possible.”
Alex shook his head. “If you’re right—”
If.He didn’t really believe her.
“—what is the message he’s sending?”
“It comes back to control,” she told him. “He’s saying, ‘I can get to you anywhere. And there’s no way you’re getting out of this marriage alive.’?”
Alex stared at her, and she thought that maybe, just maybe, her words were starting to sink in.
“It’s a warning, Alex. He’s telling me exactly what will happen if I insist on following through with the divorce. I’ll have some kind of ‘accident.’?”
He tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling.
“What about Lucas?”
The question startled her. “My brother? What about him?”
“Was that real, or did you just want to get me to agree to work for you for cheap?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I mean, yes, my brother is real. And he lives in a group home in Arizona. He’s one reason I can’t just walk away from my marriage and never look back. I need money.”
Alex stared down at her, and she could tell there was a debate going on in his mind. He prided himself on being a problem-solver, and she could tell he wanted to solve hers. But she also suspected he was regretting the day he invited her back to his office and agreed to let her drag him into the dumpster fire that was her life.
And for a discounted rate, even.
He was probably standing there right now, thinking of how he could get himself out of this. She couldn’t really blame him.
“Here’s the thing, Cassandra.”
Her shoulders tensed. Here it came.
“You should have come to me earlier,” he said.
Guilt gnawed at her. He was right. If she’d come to him sooner, and told him the truth, and asked him to help her go to the police, maybe Danielle would be alive right now.
Alex eased closer, pinning her with a stern look. “No more lies. I mean none, or I’m out.”
She gazed up at him, letting the words sink in. No more lies. Not even lies by omission? That wasn’t possible—she’d omitted a ton already. But she bit her tongue and nodded.
“I can’t help you with your problem unless you’re honest with me. Information is king in my business. You understand?”
“I understand.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”