Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

Carlotta

I don’t really know what came over me there. I went from being so terrified I thought I would actually pass out from the fear to being so calm and accepting of the situation in the blink of an eye. I don’t know if it was a sudden rush of adrenaline or whether it was more a quiet acceptance of the fact that I was likely going to die there, but I suddenly felt calm, almost serene.

I thought that maybe what had really calmed me down was knowing I was finally going to get to tell my story. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Because that’s what they were going to get. Detective Del Rey would know I was speaking the truth. No one could lie convincingly with a gun pushed into their face. And Morrie would hear how it was all a tragic accident, and maybe he would put the gun down. At the very least, he would see he had it on the wrong person. Not that I wanted him to shoot William. He was still an asshole, but I didn’t wish to see him shot. But if Morrie started to move the gun’s position, it would be the opportunity Detective Del Rey needed to shoot him without risking our lives.

“Morrie,” Detective Del Rey said before I had a chance to start my story. “Don’t you think it would be a whole lot more civilized if you and I put our guns down and we all sat down for this?”

“No, Detective,” Morrie said, his eyes not leaving my face. “What I think is that suggestions like those might lead to someone being shot here.”

“Okay, I hear you,” Detective Del Rey said.

He nodded to me and I cleared my throat.

“Where do you want me to start, Mr. Xavier?” I asked in a level voice.

“How about with the part about your husband breaking my daughter’s heart?” Morrie said.

I nodded and cleared my throat again.

“Yes, my husband had an affair with your daughter. I didn’t know it at the time, but Candy thought it was more than an affair. She thought they were starting a real relationship. Of course, that was never the case. When I found out about the affair and told William to end it, he did. And that’s when Candy started showing up here, watching the house. She even knocked on my door one day, you know. I think she wanted to size up the competition or whatever,” I said.

Morrie was glaring at William now, but the gun was still very much trained on me. It was more nerve wracking that way somehow, looking into the barrel of a gun and knowing the person holding it is mad at someone else and might just react and shoot you.

“Mr. Xavier?” I said, bringing Morrie’s attention back to me. “I apologize for my part in this. If I had any idea Candy was unstable because of the affair, I would have come to you, told you she needed help. But I didn’t know. I thought she was just jealous and wanted to try and split William and me up.”

“You don’t have to apologize for that,” Morrie said. “It’s that fucker who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.”

He made a fair point, and I gave him a half nod and then continued.

“On the night in question, Candy broke into our home. She was drunk or high or maybe both. She clearly wasn’t rational. She was talking about William leaving me, about their being a family. William tried to calm her down, but she was just getting more agitated. She had a knife and she came at me with it. There is no doubt in my mind that if William hadn’t gotten between us, she would have killed me.

“William jumped between us, and he pushed Candy away from me. For a moment, she seemed like she had regained her footing, but then she stumbled again and lost her balance. She flew through the air and crashed into the window. She fell out of it, and well, I think you know what happened then.”

“Haven’t I told you from day one that he was responsible for killing my daughter, Detective?” Morrie said.

He still looked at me, and I risked a glance at the detective who was watching Morrie, the gun still trained on him. I could see it in the detective’s eyes. He believed me. He knew my story was true. If I did get out of this alive, I wasn’t going to prison. At least, not for murder.

“You did,” Detective Del Rey said. “You’ve made your point, Morrie. Now let me do my job and arrest your daughter’s killer.”

“No chance,” Morrie said, his voice still sounding agitated. “He doesn’t deserve to get off with this so lightly as just getting sent to prison. He took my daughter’s life, and with it, the parts of mine that were worth anything. He deserves more of a punishment than prison. He deserves to really suffer.”

I glanced at William. He was standing with his head down, looking at the ground. For once, it seemed he had no smart comments to make, and he wasn’t even trying to deny my words. Something about the way his shoulders were slumped and how he looked so pathetic made me want to try and help him. He saved my life. I didn’t owe him a life sentence, but I figured I did owe him at least the same in return.

“Mr. Xavier?” I said.

“What?” Morrie snapped.

“Please, Mr. Xavier, put the gun down. I know you’re hurting, and I get it, I really do. But shooting me isn’t going to make you feel better. It’s only going to mean that you end up in prison.”

Morrie made no effort to lower the gun and I continued. I desperately wanted to make him see that a lot of the blame for this fell on Candy herself. I wasn't saying she deserved to die, and I hated to victim blame, but all the events leading up to her death were her own doing.

I wanted to remind Morrie that Candy was happy enough to fuck around with a married man, happy enough to try to end a marriage. And then when that didn’t work, she was the one who broke into my house. She was the one who was armed. And she was the one who came at me with the knife.

I knew if I said any of those things, I was effectively signing my own death warrant, so I tried a different tactic instead.

“Please, Mr. Xavier, you don’t need to do this. Your daughter wasn’t killed in cold blood. You don’t need to avenge something that was essentially an accident,” I said. “And nothing you do here is going to bring Candy back.”

“Don’t you dare say her name,” Morrie snapped, waving the gun aggressively toward me. “Don’t you fucking dare say her name.”

“I ... I’m sorry,” I stuttered, realizing too late that I was pushing Morrie too hard.

“No, you’re not sorry. You’re just trying to save your own ass. That and that scumbag husband of yours. But you’ll be sorry in a moment,” Morrie said, his tone falling quiet and dangerous sounding. I swear, I could see the madness flashing in his eyes in that moment. “I’ll make you fucking sorry, all right.”

I closed my eyes as I saw Morrie’s finger starting to tighten on the trigger of the gun.