Chapter Twenty-Eight Her

Chapter Twenty-Eight Her

Present Day

Most lawyers probably refused to make house calls. Understandably so, but Elias was not one of them. The risk of social ruin

that came with people seeing us in public together explained why he volunteered to commute between our properties instead.

No matter how or why, he showed up at a respectable hour on Saturday morning with take-out coffees and earned my temporary

gratitude.

Now to drop the reason for my invitation. “I need you to do a favor for me.”

He froze with a cup halfway to his mouth. “You understand I’m your attorney and not your personal assistant, right?”

“Unfortunately, but this will benefit you, too.” We sat across from each other at the kitchen table. This close I could see

what he was thinking as he thought it, which might not be a great thing. “You said your good pal, Detective Nick, was likely

going through my phone records and bank accounts and having me followed.”

“He’s not my—”

“You two are very chummy. It’s unsettling.”

Elias slowly lowered his coffee cup to the table and leaned back in his chair. “I came to talk to you about the bat and you being found in the greenhouse with said bat, and the disinfectant you clearly used right before we found you trying to hide said bat.”

So many said references. “I was looking for said offending item so I could get rid of it.”

Elias exhaled and made a lot of noise doing it. “Don’t say that to anyone else.”

He was missing the point, so I highlighted it for him. “I just happened to find the hidden bat when you and the detective

just happened to step into my yard. Convenient, right?”

“Are you saying Detective Sessions hid the bat to frame you?”

“I wasn’t but I won’t think of anything else now.” It made sense. Detective Sessions wasn’t my biggest fan and solving Richmond’s

murder in a way that painted me as evil would buy him a lot of goodwill in this town. “Don’t look so shocked. If you were

being framed, wouldn’t you do everything you could to throw the scent off you?”

“When the forensic testing comes back—”

“We’ll deal with that nightmare later.” Thinking about everything that could go wrong would paralyze me. I needed to stay

nimble. “In the meantime, I can’t go out and investigate. Not without drawing even more attention to myself.”

Elias frowned because that’s what Elias did when we talked. It fit with the disappointed dad way he had of dealing with me. “Investigate what?”

“Who killed Richmond, what happened to that missing doctor who’s alleged to have conducted Richmond’s surgeries, that August guy, and if the two events are related.” Elias stared at me, so I stared back. “You have to admit August being missing isn’t normal. People who spend years of their lives and tons of money becoming a doctor don’t just walk away from it.”

This time Elias moved the coffee cup off to the side, as if he feared knocking it over. “A boy died. It’s not that surprising

August might want time off to deal with the loss.”

I preferred my version of events. “Or Richmond was trying to hide the truth by either paying August off or threatening him

or, worse, killing him. All those options would explain why August is missing now.”

“Killing him? You’re adding one plus one and getting fifty-seven.”

“That’s a good line.” Back to the reason I invited him over. “We need to find August.”

“We?”

“You need to know where he is and what he knows before Peter Cullen’s lawsuit heats up. There are limits on what I can do

even in terms of computer searches with the detective lurking around.” Being the subject of a murder investigation made conducting

an investigation of my own tough. “That means the footwork falls to you.”

“I don’t agree with your premise or your conclusion.”

“Talk like a normal person.”

He sighed again. Bigger this time. “It would be best if you stayed out of this and let the detective and his team do their

jobs.”

“The bat had blood on it. It was hidden in my greenhouse. I touched it when I found it.”

“You’re sure it was blood?”

“It was my bat and there were new stains on it, so yeah, I’m pretty sure.” I saw the brownish streaks every time I closed my eyes. After years of blocking the memory of blood on my hands, I had a haunting new one.

“So, you want to find August to take your mind off the bat?” Elias asked.

“No. I want to make sure August is still alive and see what he knows because that answer could relate to Richmond’s murder.”

“I don’t see the connection.”

I finished off my coffee before diving in. “Unless the alarm malfunctioned, no one broke into this house that day, which means

Richmond let his attacker walk right in. He was a safety guy. He kept the property locked up and the alarm on. We know from

the security logs that he disabled both an hour before his death as if he was expecting someone.”

“The security video doesn’t show anyone entering the property.”

“So what? The same thing happened the other day when the alarm went off.” I sat forward in my chair, trying to telegraph the

urgency of this topic. “Look, there are only a few people Richmond would have invited in without question. You, his ex and

their kids, Thomas, and possibly this August guy.”

Elias’s eyebrow lifted. “And you.”

“I’m the only one I know is innocent.”

Elias snorted. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

I never invited friends over for tea. Neither did Richmond. That was one benefit of a fake marriage. There was no need to

make fake small talk. We counted on the false belief that we, as newlyweds, wanted privacy. Then we retreated to our respective

parts of the house and ignored each other... except when we didn’t.

“Richmond could have lured August to the house and then August was forced to protect himself,” I said.

“I think we’ve officially crossed the line from nonfiction to fiction.” Elias’s eye roll meant he didn’t understand Richmond

was a killer.

I knew better. “You don’t think Richmond could do something intentional and so awful?”

“As homicide? No.”

To tell or not to tell. The options spun around in my head. The inclination was to keep my secrets close and under wraps,

but I needed Elias as an ally. Even if he was the one who killed Richmond, which seemed like a stretch, he could at least

make sure I didn’t get framed for the deed. That required we reach some sort of understanding.

Rather than rushing in, I tried wading in. “What if I told you everything you know about Richmond is a lie?”

“Be more specific.”

Fucking lawyers. “Okay. What if I told you the whole story about Richmond stopping the shooting at his high school when he

was seventeen was fake?”

Elias stared at me for a few tense seconds in silence. “I’d remind you that we know what happened that day. There’s school

security video. A redacted version ran for years on true crime shows and in that documentary. The footage still shows up now

and then on the anniversary of the thwarted shooting.”

“What did you really see?”

“Two kids shot in a school hallway. One was an innocent bystander.”

I knew the death toll better than anyone. “Zach Bryant. Hit by a stray bullet when Richmond and his baby brother, Cooper, wrestled for the gun.”

“You’re forgetting the part where Richmond tackled Cooper and shot him to stop him from conducting a school massacre. Richmond

picked the safety of the entire school over his brother.”

Elias was wrong. I hadn’t forgotten a damn thing. I remembered every second of that video. “That’s such a great hero story.

It’s a shame it’s not true.”

“What?” Elias leaned in as confusion took over his tone. “How can you know that?”

I studied Richmond. Knew him. Lived with his lies. “I have evidence. Richmond married me to keep me from releasing it.”

The truth sat between us, burrowing a hole in the long-told fantasy Richmond had concocted and the public bought without question.

Every word I uttered, tearing the bonds holding the lie together.

“If you do have something like—”

“I do.” I was in it now and didn’t see any reason to play coy.

Elias’s frown deepened. “If true, you could have exposed Richmond without getting near him. Why go through the sham of a wedding

and all that came after?”

Because I wanted to rip Richmond’s life apart, make him feel helpless and under siege, and the best way to do that was from

the inside. But, in the end, I made my choices because of my mother, her vengeance, and her inability to tell the truth. “I

had my reasons.”

Elias seemed to turn the new information over in his mind, dissecting it and trying to push it aside. “Look, I’ll admit Richmond

could be an asshole but—”

“You help me locate August and figure out who other than me wanted Richmond dead and I’ll tell you every sordid detail, starting with what really happened at the Dougherty house that morning twenty-seven years ago.”

That was the deal. One I never intended to offer, but I also never intended to go to jail, so it was time to adapt.

“You’re saying the entire hero story is a lie.”

“Yes.” Four people died that day. It was time people knew why. “Deal?”

“Deal.”