Page 4

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I think about where we are. I never, ever wanted to come here. When our good friend Emeric reported the transfer of Constantine’s detainment, I almost had a stroke realizing he did a full circle and returned back to Florida. This penitentiary has no business housing a Death Row inmate, but as far as I’ve heard, Constatine’s skated solely on good behavior.
In other words, he’s bullshitting the system. Whoever he got in good with at the Supermax put in a good word, and eight years after the case closed he returned to Florida. I was in Denver by then with Vinny building our club into something wonderful, and the only reason I knew about Alastair’s transfer was through Emeric. He moved back to Florida to try and reach out to his brother, but in the end they couldn’t reconnect.
My gaze lifts to the name detailed above every door:Citrus Grove Penitentiary.They changed the name since I was young, to fit in with the changes in mental health.
“I understand this is hard,” Jensen says, and I snap my gaze to him again. I want to smack the fake sympathy right off his face, his blue eyes seeming far too empathetic to be real. I eye the FBI badge hanging from his breast pocket, and he’s got a stereotypical look about him for a Fed. He’s dressed in a clean-cut suit and dapper haircut with a hard part and buzzed sides to match. He’s just as put together as Sterling, but my old enemy doesn’t seem to have a single ounce of pity for me. I guess he’s moved past that in the last fifteen years.
Where Jensen is neat, Sterling is appropriate. His suit isn’t perfectly tailored to fit his body, and he’s bulkier than Jensen. No gel holds Sterling’s hair in place, and he’s left it wild and unruly on top of his head. He shifts around as Jensen speaks, and I catch highlights of red in his dark hair that makes me think of the boy from years past. “We need some information about Alastair. His habits. Things he would’ve shared with those he was intimately close with.”
Despite myself, I blush at what he’s hinting. When he got locked up, my relations withAlastairbecame national news. A boy loving a girl is nothing out of the ordinary, but when my husband loved me too it became a scandal.
The only good thing Alastair did in the end was keep quiet about Vinny. He shattered what they had before he tried to kill me, and he left that out of his reports. Either that, or Edwin didn’t find the information important enough to ever document.
I’ve heard all the rumors. At one point the voices saying godawful things about the three us were the noises that filled my head almost all the time following Alastair’s arrest. When my mind grew silent, after we escaped the media and the reporters, cops, and agents, I could breathe again. Constantine’s place in my life made things infinitely more difficult than they ever needed to be.
And then he almost ended me.
“Ask his nurses,” I growl. “Or a doctor maybe? Someone that’s seen him in the past fifteen years.”
They exchange a glance, and it’s Jensen who speaks again. “Alastair isn’t very forthcoming.”
“I don’t think I really knew him at all,” I snap, peering between them. “Or did you decide to forget that he betrayed me?” My eyes slip over Sterling for a moment, trying to picture him in place of the manic agent who spearheaded Alastair’s case in the beginning. “Your father would be disappointed. He didn’t waste time asking repeat questions and involving people he didn’t need to. Do you even know what you’re doing, Sterling?”
Sterling’s jaw ticks and I know my arrow hit its mark. “I’m making sure we find a solution to the copycat.”
“And when was the first death?” I continue, leaning in closer. “December? It’s been two months. How long does the FBI need a trail to go cold before the case is considered inactive? I’m surprised the agency even looked into this if there’s only one death and you know Constatine can’t be the killer.”
Instead of snapping back, he reclines in his chair again and studies me. Jensen is quiet too, and it makes me annoyingly nervous to suddenly be faced with their silence. They’ve pestered and pushed to see what we would give since arriving at the penitentiary doors, and now they are quiet?
I can’t help wondering what they see when they look at me like this. A broken woman or a survivor?
“The victim, Lisanna Estrada, warranted our concern because of specific details about her death,” Jensen says slowly, glancing between us. “Details we thought you might be privy to since you have felt the cut of Constatine’s blade before. Perhaps you remember something now that you’ve seen the news reports?”
Those reports are hard to miss. My only saving grace is that my club, the safe space I created with Vinny, is unrelated to all of this. Other than using it as a form of leverage against us the club itself has no connection to this case. Our names are not mentioned in reports since the copycat is a new case, so no one realizes yet that the co-owners of Sins and Secrets and a convicted serial killer all have a jaded past.
Licking my lips, I ignore Jensen’s question and ask one of my own. “So has there been another victim since Estrada?”
A blanket of silence settles over the three of us, and I can tell I won’t like their answer. Sterling responds, meeting my gaze after a moment. “Not yet, just more information on Estrada. She had a whole life before it was cut short, and her family wants to riot over this. They won’t take her death sitting down.”
“Good for them,” I grumble, sitting back again. “If there’s only one death so far that’s not quite a serial killer, now is it? You need to find someone else to question about this. I haven’t spoken with him since the day he was arrested.”
I stand, gripping the edge of the table, ready to go, but Sterling continues speaking. “You get letters from him. Both you and Vinny. From the time he entered the prison system. You might pretend Alastair doesn’t exist but he’s never forgotten you.”
For a moment, the intense memory of flames and pain rock through me, and I step back from the two men. It’s a phantom feeling, the pain shooting through my body and out again in just a few seconds, but it’s enough to send me back to when I was eighteen.
I hiss out a breath, and slowly the two men stand. I don’t care what they have to say. “I’m done here.”
Jensen nods and rounds the table, his persona a bit more comforting than Sterling’s. I’m not sure how long we’ve sat in here but it all amounted to nothing. “We appreciate you traveling all this way with your husband, Mrs. Surwright-”
“Ajello,” I snap again, and Jensen side eyes Sterling. I don’t particularly care that it isn’t my legal name. It hasn’t mattered to me much until now, because I didn’t plan to ever return to Florida.
He sighs. “Mrs. Ajello. We’ll be in touch. We suspect that Alastair knows more than he is letting on, and we might need to speak with you-”
“You’re not going to get anything from us,” I interrupt, turning my attention to Sterling. He’s still seated as he studies me. “We haven’t spoken toAlastairsince before he was arrested. Not even in court.”
Sterling is quiet for a moment, watching me with curious eyes before he shakes his head. “I’m not looking for the response returning to Citrus Grove elicits in you. I want to see how Alastair feels about his two lovers returning home, Joelle.”
I sneer and turn away, pointing to the door. There’s some security measures in here since inmates usually take visitors in these rooms, and the man outside looks between the three of us. “Open the damn door before I start screaming.”