Page 52

This wasn’t the first time she’d had to rouse him from overindulging.
Nor is it close to the first time that he did the same favor for you.
“Touché,”she told the nagging voice in her head. As she stepped inside, she heard the quiet murmur of the television that was casting the eerie bluish light into the room.
“Merritt?” she said again as a new prickle of anxiety trickled down her spine. For a second she thought she heard footsteps.
Running.
Outside.
But when she stopped and listened over the rapid beating of her heart, she heard nothing.
But the television. The sound must’ve emanated from the television.
She took another step.
Stopped short.
Her heart froze.
“Oh. God.”
First she noticed the dark stains on the carpet.
Then Merritt Margrove. Wedged between the futon and coffee table. She let out a scream and jumped back, her eyes riveted on the unmoving body. He was sprawled on the dirty green carpet, his face pale, a red gash slicing his throat ear to ear.
Blood, so much blood, pooling beneath him, dark red and coagulating. “No,” she whispered, backing up. “No, oh, no . . . no!”
Was there a chance he was alive?
No—impossible.
He was just so . . . dead.
His skin where it wasn’t sprayed in blood was gray, his eyes fixed, no breath rattling from his lungs, no bubbles of red gurgling from his throat where the blade had severed his flesh.
No. No. No!
Her stomach lurched.
Hyperventilating, she backed toward the door.
You can’t just leave him like this! You have to check. There’s a chance he’s still alive.
“He’s not,” she whispered aloud, but forced herself forward, her boot slipping in blood as she reached the unmoving body and bent down. Unable to find a spot to touch on his neck, she reached for his hand and felt for a nonexistent pulse on a cold, cold wrist.
Nothing.
Of course.
She dropped his fingers and leapt backward, but her gaze was fixed on the dead man she had known, themurderedlawyer she had trusted.
Someone had come here and slit his throat?
Why?
Jonas!