Page 128 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

Alex, still hopeful, was getting the books ready for review. That’s when he realized that money was missing—a lot of it.

“How much is in the bags?” she asked.

The black duffels were sitting in the bedroom.

“There’s a little under a million dollars.”

She walked over to the window, looked out into the vista. Like this, they could live on that money forever. She steeled herself to ask the question she most needed answered.

“Did you kill Alex?”

She had to know. If the answer wasyes, then Maverick was one thing. If it wasno, he was another. Maybe she could love him either way, but she wouldn’t know unless he told her the truth.

“No,” he said, walking over to her. He spun her around and took both of her hands. Her ring cast glittery rainbows on the wall. “Look at me. I swear to you, Idid notkill Alex.”

Did she believe him? Or did she justwantto believe him so badly?

“Then, who?”

“I don’t know. But the truth is that if Alex and I were out of the picture, all our shares and the money would go to Hector and Gustavo. Hector was with Chloe. He was the last person to leave the hotel that day. So maybe that was the plan. Ruin me, kill Alex when they realized he was going to cover for me, and take Extreme to BoxOfficePlus. They’d all be rich—even Hector with his small share. Like megarich.”

“It makes a twisted kind of sense,” she admitted. The logic was off, the risks were too high. But if you were stupid, you might think it could work. Hector and Chloe wanted to be the new Maverick and Angeline of Extreme.

“Except in the process, they destroyed Extreme,” he said. “Now it will be one of those stories—a great thing that was ruined by scandal, murder, fraud. BoxOfficePlus, with their whole woke, squeaky-clean image, won’t touch Extreme now. Without the deal, the company is bankrupt. Hector, the only one standing, gets nothing.”

His eyes filled then; he turned away so that she wouldn’t see. But she pulled him back and wrapped her arms around him.

“They’re gone,” he whispered. “Everyone’s gone.”

He meant the guys, but also his audience, all the people that fed him back the version of himself he’d needed to survive. Who was he without that? Without Extreme? Angeline supposed they were about to find out.

“It was Hector. Hector killed Alex,” she said.

He looked up at her.

“Think about it,” she said. “You’re right. He was the only one there after we went to the site.”

Maverick considered it.

“Maybe there was a fight,” she said. “Maybe it was an accident.”

She remembered how Hector had cried in the trailer. Had it been an act? Or had it been true grief, remorse, or even shock that Alex was dead? She knew Hector—or thought she did. She couldn’t see him murdering anyone in cold blood, even for money.

It was hard to recast him. Hector, the mom of Extreme, to Hector, killer, destroyer, betrayer. But everyone had their secret selves.

* * *

Now she swam deep, the water murky. Sometimes when she was down here, she saw things. Figures in the dark. Just a play of shadows and light, she guessed. But sometimes she was startled by their size, their closeness. Today, there was nothing, just that swirling gray.

She emerged finally, drawing a big breath of clean air.

Maverick was standing on the end of the dock. How long had she been down?

But he wasn’t looking for her. He was looking out into the distance.

A boat approached, still far off in the distance. But close enough to see the flashing red light and the wordPoliceemblazoned on its side.

Angeline emerged from the water, climbing up the slim ladder, and walked naked up the dock to go get dressed. She knew they couldn’t run forever, that eventually they’d have to return and face everything broken they’d left behind, try to piece it back together. Pay the bill that had come due.

As the boat drew closer, she heard the wail of its siren.

Ready or not, it seemed to say,here we come.

* * * * *