Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

PRESENT DAY

SYDNEY

I can't stop shaking.

The police are here. Officers wearing paper boots and gloves are tromping in and out of Bonnie's apartment, doing whatever police officers do at a homicide scene. I have been sitting on Bonnie's expensive leather sofa, which she was so excited to get a great deal on, and I have spent the last twenty minutes rocking back and forth and hugging myself. Nobody has asked me to step outside, which is a good thing, because I don't think I could walk right now.

Randy was the one who called the police. I can still hear his voice echoing in my head. Her name is Bonnie Griffin. She asked me to come over to fix her toilet, and we found her in the bedroom. And she…she's dead.

I will never get the image of Bonnie lying in that bed out of my head—not for as long as I live. This wasn't a woman who just went to sleep and never woke up in the morning. She wasn't that kind of dead. I don't think I've ever seen that much blood in my entire life, and I have seen quite a lot of blood.

A female officer comes over to sit down beside me. Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun, but she has a kind face. She rests a hand gingerly on my shoulder, as if she's worried I might break.

"How are you doing, Ms. Shaw?" she asks.

I can't quite manage a response. I suppose that's an answer in itself.

"We have a detective being briefed outside," the officer tells me. "He'd like to ask you a few questions, if that's okay? Do you think you're up for it?"

Again, I can't get my vocal cords to function.

"I know it's hard," she says gently. "But you want to find out who did this to your friend, don't you?"

I do. I really do. Whoever the monster was who did this to Bonnie, I want them to pay. Because she did not deserve that fate. Nobody does.

And whoever did that to her is a sick, sick individual. They need to be locked up with the key thrown away.

"Okay," I croak. "I'll do my best."

My head jerks up at the sound of the front door opening. Presumably that's the detective who has been assigned to find out what happened to Bonnie. Despite how awful I'm feeling at this moment, I have to put my big-girl pants on right now. It's the only way to help my friend get justice. Hopefully they assigned one of their best detectives, and he will track down the killer ASAP.

And then the detective steps into the room, and I get a look at his face.

Oh no.

The female officer leaps to her feet and darts over to talk to him. "Detective Sousa," she says. "This is Sydney Shaw, she's a friend of Bonnie Griffin. She was the one who discovered the body."

The detective is staring at me. He doesn't introduce himself, but it's unnecessary. I already know his name is Jake Sousa.

I know because we lived together for an entire year.

"I know Ms. Shaw," he manages. "We, uh… Anyway, I'll take it from here, Morales. Thank you."

I can't imagine how many detectives there are in the NYPD. Hundreds? Thousands? Why did Jake have to be the one assigned to this case? Couldn't it have been a detective who doesn't bring back painful memories?

Jake takes a few tentative steps toward me, like he's not sure if I might jump up and bite his head off. It's a distinct possibility. I take the opportunity to give my ex-boyfriend a once over. Sadly, he still looks great. Pushing forty, with just a hint of gray in his temples. He's just as tall as Real Kevin, but instead of being bone thin, he's muscular and still does a hell of a job filling out a suit. My eyes are on his left hand—no wedding band, but that isn't a surprise. He'll be single till the day he dies.

Jake offers me a strained smile. "Sydney," he says. "It's been a while."

"Yes," I say tightly. I don't believe it's a coincidence he's here. I refuse to believe that my former boyfriend was assigned the case just by chance .

"When I heard the address, I asked for the case," he finally says. "I remembered this was where I was forwarding mail the year after you moved out."

"I see."

I really wish he weren't here right now. This is hard enough as it is without having to face my ex for the first time since our breakup.

Jake settles down next to me on the sofa, his brown eyes leveled at me. "Look, Sydney. I'm not going to pretend this isn't awkward. But I've got a job to do here."

I don't respond, but I recognize he has an excellent point.

"I need your help," he says in that firm, deep voice of his. Jake has this way of making you believe that he's got everything under control—it's something I used to love about him. "We need to find the monster who did this to your friend."

I swipe at the tears forming in the corner of my right eye. He's right. I need to let go of my angry feelings at Jake, because the most important thing is getting justice for Bonnie. "Fine."

"First off," he says, "tell me everything that happened this morning."

My voice is trembling slightly as I recount all the events of the morning, including going down to Bonnie's apartment, meeting Randy at the door, and then discovering her body, sliced to pieces in her bedroom. This wasn't a crime of passion. Bonnie was tortured . She was mutilated .

Jake listens the whole time in that quiet, intense way he always does . Of every man I have ever met, Jake is the most skilled at listening. He makes you feel like he's tuned out everything else, and like you are the only person who exists in the entire universe.

"I'm so sorry, Syd," he says when I finish my story. "That sounds terrible. But you have my word…" He places a hand over his heart. "I am going to find the person who did this and make him pay."

"Thank you," I say softly. And I actually believe him.

"Now tell me"—he clears his throat—"do you know anyone who would have wanted to harm Bonnie?"

"No, she was awesome. Everyone liked her."

"Was she dating anyone?"

She was dating everyone . But I don't want to say that. It will sound like I'm posthumously slut -shaming Bonnie, and anyway, she was trying to be exclusive with someone. "She dated a lot. She used the Cynch app. Do you know it?"

"I know it."

"Can you look up who she was dating on the app?"

"Yes, we are looking into that. There was no sign of forced entry, so whoever did this was someone she knew and allowed inside."

I'm not telling Jake anything he didn't already know—he's the sort of person who is always one step ahead. Still, I want to give him a piece of information he might not already know. Something that could be important. "There was someone special though," I say.

"Oh yeah?" He looks at me with interest. "Who is that?"

"This guy she's been dating for the last year," I explain. "But they recently decided to be exclusive."

He nods slowly. "What's his name?"

I open my mouth, but no sounds come out. What the hell was his name? She told us his name, didn't she? I could have sworn she said it at some point. Something starting with…a J maybe? Or was it a G ?

Maybe she didn't tell us. She was always very tight-lipped about guys she really liked, because she didn't want to jinx it. And the truth is I was so jealous of her newfound happiness that I didn't push her too hard for the details.

"I don't know," I admit. "But she told me he was a doctor."

"What kind of doctor? Did she say where he works?"

No and no. "I'm sorry."

Jake is looking at me like I'm the most useless person ever. And I can't blame him. Bonnie was one of my best friends, and I know absolutely nothing about this guy she was so wild about. Why oh why didn't I make her tell us his name?

"She was texting him the night before last," I recall. "They went out on a date, and then they were texting each other afterward. You can check on her phone and see who she was texting…"

He rubs his jaw, as if debating whether to tell me something. Finally, he sighs. "We saw the text messages on her phone from what seemed like a boyfriend. But they were all coming from a burner phone."

A chill goes down my spine. The sexy doctor that Bonnie was crushing on the other day had been texting her from a burner phone. Of course, he probably wasn't even really a doctor. Everything he told her was probably a lie. Even if he had told her a name, it probably wasn't his real name.

Is it possible that the man planned to kill Bonnie from their very first encounter?

"So it's him then." I swallow down a lump in my throat. "This guy she had been seeing was the one who killed her."

"It's a possibility we are exploring," he admits. "But it's not the only possibility."

It seems so obvious, and yet, he's right. There are other possibilities. For example, there's a man who has a key to Bonnie's apartment. A man who could have let himself in without any struggle at all. A man who Bonnie herself was afraid to be alone with.

But could I really point the finger at Randy? He's the boyfriend of one of my closest friends, and I've known him for years.

Then again, if he is capable of doing this to Bonnie, it's my responsibility to let somebody know.

"Listen," I say. "Our super, Randall Muncy…he has the key to Bonnie's apartment and…"

Jake nods slowly. He doesn't look at all surprised to hear this. "Mr. Muncy has an alibi for last night. His girlfriend was with him the entire time."

Of course. It doesn't surprise me that Randy and Gretchen spent last night cuddling, since that's what they do every night. I'm relieved to know Randy couldn't have done this though. But there's one other potential suspect I need to mention.

"Also," I add, "I went on kind of a bad date a couple of nights ago with this guy I met on Cynch who you should probably look into…"

"You're dating?" he blurts out.

I look at him sharply. " Yes . Anyway, the guy sort of…" I don't want to tell Jake exactly what went down between Real Kevin and me, because I can't face the judgmental look in his eyes, but I also have to make sure he takes it seriously. "The date didn't go well, and he showed up again yesterday to try to talk to me. Bonnie… She stood up for me…"

I can't talk anymore because of the lump in my throat. I want to burst into tears when I remember the way Bonnie told off Real Kevin yesterday. She was a true friend. If there's any chance that she was killed because of me…

"Listen, we are going to find the guy who did this," Jake assures me. "Believe me, we have a lot of resources dedicated to this, and I want to give you my personal assurance that I am going to find him. We are going to look into this Cynch guy and every other possible suspect until we find the killer." A crease forms between his brows. "You believe me, right, Syd?"

I do believe him. There is nobody more dedicated to his job than Jake Sousa. That is, in fact, why his first marriage ended in divorce. It's also the reason why I finally called it quits on our relationship when I realized I hadn't seen my boyfriend for even one meal in the last two weeks because he couldn't stop working. What's the point of being in a relationship with somebody you never see? was what I yelled at him while I was packing my belongings.

He never even promised to try to cut back on work. He told me in that sincere voice of his that his job was the most important thing in his life, and that any woman who was with him needed to understand and respect that.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of the first man I ever loved.

I don't love Jake anymore. For a while, I hated him, but right now, I'm glad he's here. If anyone can find out the truth about what happened to Bonnie, it's this man.