“When I first overheard your proposal, I thought it was the perfect way to escape being me for a minute. Everywhere I go, people know who I am. Don’t get me wrong. Since I was a little boy, I had dreams of playing professional baseball. I wanted that fame and notoriety. Wanted to have my face on billboards and merchandise. Wanted to have fans scream my name as I stepped onto the field.” I licked my lips. “But there’s so much about living in the spotlight they don’t tell you. That nothing can possibly prepare you for.”
“I get it.” She offered me a sympathetic smile. “I mean, I can’t entirely understand what it’s like, since our situations are vastly different. But I can tell you I wasn’t prepared for my name and face to be plastered all over newspapers and on television screens after…” She trailed off, searching for the words. “Well… After everything that transpired.”
I reached across the table. Clutching her hand in mine, I attempted to offer her some sort of comfort, reminding her that part of her life was behind her. And if I had anything to say about it, that was where it would remain.
“But something about you,” I continued, running my thumb along her knuckles, “makes me want to talk about these things. Maybe it’s because you’ve been through some serious shite yourself. I don’t know. All I do know is that from the beginning, from the minute I first laid eyes on you… You make it not hurt so much, Julia.”
She parted her lips as my confession hung in the air between us. Then she smiled. “You make it not hurt so much, too, Lachlan.”
I stared deep into her emerald eyes, so many emotions swirling within. Now that we’d lowered our defenses, she had no problem allowing me to see the pieces of herself she’d locked away, probably for years. Did she see the same when she looked at me?
The thought should have petrified me.
But it didn’t.
“Claire wanted to talk to me about Piper. About the night she died,” I said, pulling my hands from her. “That’s what caused our argument.”
“Piper’s your former girlfriend, correct?”
It didn’t escape my notice that she referred to her as my former girlfriend, not my ex. Calling her my ex insinuated some sort of conscious decision to end things. Some sort of closure.
I never got that.
Never got to say goodbye.
“Claire didn’t think Caleb, the guy they arrested, was responsible. She claimed the attacker was still out there, which I didn’t want to believe. So I got angry. Told her nothing good would come out of bringing up that night. But now…” I blew out a breath. “I’m pretty sure she was right. That this guy is still out there. That’s why she wanted to talk to you. See if her theory panned out.”
“What theory is that?”
I leaned toward her, confusion crossing my brow. “She didn’t tell you?”
“She tried to talk to me about Nick. About him potentially being connected to a bunch of recent crimes…” Her voice trailed off as she looked past me. I could practically see the puzzle pieces snap into place. Then she whipped her wide eyes back to mine. “She thought Piper’s death had something to do with Nick?”
I nodded.
“But how? You said Piper died five years ago. Nick was in prison at that time.”
“She didn’t say unequivocally that Nick was responsible. Just that he was somehow connected.”
“How?”
“The date. July tenth. That was the date Piper died five years ago. It was also the same date one of your husband’s victims took her own life five years prior. A woman named Evelyn Price, a social media influencer. Just like Piper. This similarity struck Claire as odd, so she started looking into suicides. She found a pattern. A woman with the same profession as one of your ex-husband’s victims was found dead of an apparent suicide on the same date.”
Her jaw dropped as she processed this. Apparently, Claire hadn’t gone into this much detail with her. I wondered what else Claire hadn’t shared with her.
“But Piper didn’t commit suicide, right?”
“You’re right. She didn’t. It was a home invasion. I made the same argument to Ethan when he told me Claire’s theory.”
“Who’s Ethan?”
“He helped my sister with research for her podcast. Paid me an unexpected visit this afternoon to share what he knew. Made me stop and think about what could have happened if I weren’t there. Ethan seemed to think that was why this guy didn’t leave when he realized I was home. Why he knocked me out to the point it was a miracle I survived. Same with Claire, who’d stopped by unexpectedly and was stabbed in the stomach. He had to kill a social media influencer on July tenth and make it look like a suicide. It was a ritual. An obsession. He could have easily killed Claire and me, yet didn’t. We weren’t part of his ritual.”
“Why didn’t she go to the police with this?”
“She did, but they said any connection was tenuous, at best. That they couldn’t build a case around mere coincidence. She needed something more concrete, which was why she was desperate to talk to you.” I sighed. “Ask you about the jewelry.”
A gasp fell from Julia’s mouth, eyes flinging wide, every muscle in her body stiffening.