Page 15 of Into The Rabbit Hole
There was a knock on the door. When it opened, Detective Fray camein.
“Hi,” he said and looked at them both. “I heard what happened and came straightaway.”
“Thanks detective,” Ben said. He spoke like he knew him, so she figured her assumption of them meeting was correct. “My wife has a few things she’d like to tell you if you have time to talk. I have to prepare forcourt.”
“Of course, but while I have you both here, I needed to talk to you about thefinger.”
Ben narrowed his eyes. “What aboutit?”
Detective Fray looked at him then back at Regina. “Does the name Jackson Donovan mean anything toyou?”
Ben froze when he heard the name and Regina’s heartbeat sped up. Jackson Donovan was Ben’s right-hand man. Way back when they first got married, Jackson did everything with, and for, Ben. That was who she overheard him talking to when she found out about the oilrig disaster. It was Jackson. Jackson falsified all the documents in relation to that to make it look like Ben had done everything he was supposed to, and that that accident was a legitimate, unfortunateone.
Jackson did all the dirtywork.
The last thing she heard of him was years back when he was imprisoned for rape and attemptedmurder.
“The finger is his?” Ben asked withcaution.
Detective Fray nodded. “Do you knowhim?”
“He used to work for me.” The freaked out look on Ben’s face gripped her, highlighting the seriousness of thesituation.
Regina thought back to her meeting with Cora, who was still investigating the technical side of the matter. Cora was the first to imply that the finger was a message. It seemed like she was right. The finger was definitely a message,indeed.
From the look on Ben’s face, she realized that the message was forhim.
* * *
Chloe
* * *
She felt ashamed of herself.
Truly ashamed of herself. Wade was her soulmate, the man she loved with everything inside her, but she turned her back on him when he needed her the most. Jumping ship at the first sign oftrouble.
The thought brought more tears to her eyes and she could barely see the road ahead ofher.
Not wanting to alert anyone of her situation with Wade, Chloe had stayed in a hotel last night. She’d called her parents after she booked her flight. Then she switched off her phone, not wanting to speak to anyoneelse.
What a bigmistake.
She’d gotten to the airport only to be greeted with a news broadcast that Wade, her Wade, had been charged with murderingMerissa.
Charged.Actuallycharged.
It was only then that she’d switched on her phone and received a host of voice messages from everyone. Regina, Taylor, her parents, and God, even Wes. They all knew what had happened and she’d knownnothing.
She was perhaps the one person who should have known what was happening to her boyfriend. It was pitiful that she didn’t, pitiful that she thought of herself first when she’d gained knowledge of the hardest and worst thing that had ever happened tohim.
How could she have left him?How?
And the worst thing was, if she hadn’t left him, none of this would be happening. None ofit.
He would never have gone to Merissa’s house. She didn’t know what happened, but in her heart she knew that Wade would never have done anything to harm Merissa. He didn’t kill her. She didn’t need to be told details to know that part. Especially given all that had happened over the last few weeks with thispsycho.
It had to be them. Even though Merissa appeared to be working with this person, Chloe was willing to bet her life that something sinister must have happened to her because of that. Something to hurt Wade, which this definitely was, and Chloe had helped them put her love right into thetrap.