Page 41

Which meant what? I thought I knew now where Judge Baldwin had got a lot of the information he’d fed to Troy Colby: Geo.

Milo said, “I had to tell them something. I couldn’t just—”

Leave without telling them anything? Leave them to worry and wonder.

Milo said instead, “It was only a matter of time before we—I—was caught. I had to leave the country.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? You let me think—”

He made a sound of exasperation and threw his head back in a kind of full body twitch of impatience—and that too was uncannily familiar.

“Because you would have begged me to stay. Or begged to come with me.” His expression was a blend of emotions: impatience, exasperation.

A little guilt, too, and I remembered how he resented being made to feel guilty.

He was right, of course. I would have begged him to stay. I might even have begged to go with him, although I’d have known that wasn’t really an option. I certainly would have begged him not to leave me with what we had done. With what I had done for him.

“I loved you.”

I didn’t say it in accusation or to make him feel more guilty than he did. I was honestly bewildered at the realization of how misplaced that love had been.

He shook his head as though he too were honestly bewildered. “We were kids, Keiran. We didn’t know what love was.”

I said, “I can’t speak for you, but I think I knew what love was. Even back then.”

It made him angry.

“I don’t know what you want me to say. Could I have handled it better? Yes. I could have handled all of it better, including— Och, for feck’s sake!”

Och, for feck’s sake

He was never a good actor, but he did always throw himself into the role. I had to give him that.

“I was eighteen and terrified. If you think it was easy to leave everything I knew and create a life for myself in a fucking foreign country, you’re wrong.

I had to build a life out of nothing. My grandparents didn’t leave a college fund for me.

I was depending on scholarships and grants, all of which I lost when I had to flee. ”

It probably had been difficult and lonely and terrifying. His achievements were all the more impressive because of the obstacles. But he’d thrown those obstacles in his own path, and I found myself unmoved.

“Did you kill Troy Colby?”

Milo recoiled. “ Me ? Commit murder? You know Dom was an accident. You of all people know that.”

“Self-defense, right?”

“Right! I accidentally killed him defending myself. How can you even ask me that?”

I said, “It turns out I didn’t know you as well as I thought I did. Were you working with Colby? Were you behind that fucking fake manuscript? Did you get your brother to slash my tire?”

“Slash your— What are you even talking about?” He seemed legitimately dumbfounded.

“Of course not! Are you crazy? You think I’d have anything to do with blackmailing you?

That I’d be in cahoots with someone like Colby?

How would that even happen? I never met the guy till he introduced himself.

I didn’t know about any of this at first.”

My skepticism must have shown.

He protested, “I was just attending a conference. I’d no idea you’d even be here when I signed up. You think I’d have taken the chance of running into you? This was all Judge Baldwin. He’s on this crazy Vengeance is Mine! trip.”

“Why would he come after me? How would he have known I had any involvement? How would anyone ?”

Milo got a very weird look on his face. He stopped blustering and said quietly, “He has my journal.”

“He… What journal?”

“I kept a journal. I always kept a journal. Dom got hold of it.”

“How would Dom—?” I stopped.

How do you think Dominic knew to find Milo in the cemetery that night?

“You and Dom were…together?”

“Yes. Sometimes. It wasn’t… It wasn’t a normal, healthy relationship. He was a fucking trainwreck. He hated being queer. He hated me because he wanted me. And I hated me, too, because I wanted him. Even though I knew he was a lost cause. He was a bastard .”

Milo watched me and when I didn’t say anything—because I literally could not find the words—he threw his head back and yelled, “ What do you want from me ?”

“The truth would have been nice.”

“Listen, Keiran, you had the truth. I did care for you. What we had was sweet. It was wonderful compared to the catastrophe of being with Dom. You were a-a breath of fresh air in my life. I regret what happened. I wish I’d never called you that night.

And I wish even more that I had not asked Dom to come to St. Bibiana’s.

He was supposed to bring my journal, which he’d stolen a week earlier.

Stole it from my bedroom when he broke into our house because that’s who he was. ”

I said scornfully, “You didn’t ask him to come there to get back your diary.”

Milo sighed. “No. That wasn’t why I asked him to come there. And that wasn’t why he came.”

“Was any of what you told me true?”

Of all the times I’d imagined having this conversation—well, I’d never imagined this conversation. Never imagined anything like it.

“It was all true,” Milo insisted. “He did try to strangle me. He was angry after we fucked. He was always angry. That night I was angry, too. I fought back.” He drew a hard breath.

“Anyway. Judge Baldwin found the journal. He had it for years. For years . He knew everything for years. But he did nothing with it. Because he knew his son was a sick fuck and it was always going to end badly.”

Milo’s face worked. “But now, he’s sick. He’s dying. And suddenly, out of the blue, he wants…justice. For a goddamned ghost.”

“Why’s he dragging me into it?”

“You’re in the journal. He could put two and two together. Who else would have helped me that night?”

Yeah. Who else?

Milo added, “Plus, he thinks I’m dead.”

“What?”

“Geo told him I was dead. Let him think…”

I said in disbelief, “Let him think I killed you ?”

Milo nodded. “You were long gone. It didn’t matter.”

“Didn’t matter ?”

“It’s not like anyone was going to the police. Or Baldwin wouldn’t have come up with this crazy revenge scheme.”

“No, God forbid anyone try to handle this through legal channels. So now what? Geo’s planning to kill me so that I can’t disagree with his version of events?”

“Of course not!” Milo seemed authentically indignant.

“He slashed my tire in the hopes I’d drive off a cliff. Did he kill Troy Colby?”

“You’re crazy. My brother wouldn’t slash your damned—”

The door to the master bedroom flew open and banged against the wall. Georgi Argyros charged out like a bull rushing into the arena.

Him , I would have recognized anywhere. Anywhere I could get a good look at him. Big and burly, with a face like a much-pummeled boxing glove. There were more grooves in his face, his shaggy hair was silver now, but those were the only real changes.

I’m not sure why, until Geo showed up, it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d placed myself in a dangerous situation. Maybe because I hadn’t placed myself in the situation, so much as sleep-walked into it.

Despite everything, despite hearing Milo’s self-serving excuses, despite knowing Milo was capable of violence, I hadn’t been afraid. Shocked. Sickened. Saddened. Not afraid. When Geo burst out of the bedroom, I was afraid.

In fact, I’d always been wary of Geo. Not that he’d ever done or said anything threatening to me. But something about the way he looked at me, his grim silences always reminded me of my father.

“ Why would you tell him that? Why would you talk to him at all?” he shouted. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”

“It’s over ,” Milo shouted back. “For chrissake! How many times are we going through this? You’re on the security cameras .

It’s done . This is what I’ve been trying to tell you.

There is no way out . The only thing left is to come up with a believable reason—that doesn’t implicate me—for why you thought drowning that asshole was a good idea. ”

I felt unobtrusively for my cell phone—and realized I’d walked out of my hotel room without it. I went cold. The only way out of this suite was the foyer door, and Geo and Milo were blocking my access.

“How about because he was going to tell him .” Geo jabbed his finger at me.

“So what? He can’t go to the police! He’s as culpable as I am.”

I hadn’t thought Milo could say much more to shock me. The realization that he understood perfectly well the jeopardy he’d placed me in—oh, maybe not at first, maybe not back in the day—but for a good long while, was like getting punched in the gut.

“Like hell!” Geo was glaring at me. His face was scarlet with fury. His eyes were red-rimmed black holes. “I’m not confessing to anything.”

“Yes. And you know why. Otherwise, there’s an investigation and I get dragged into it. And then the money stops. You want to ruin Ma? You want to ruin Thea and Cora and Zoe? You want to destroy our whole fucking family?”

I was increasingly afraid of how this was going to end.

Milo clearly thought he was winning the argument.

But Geo had never been a big brain kind of guy.

He did not look to me like someone who was going to let cooler heads prevail.

To me, he looked like someone who would kill me and, if he saw no other way, his brother, before he’d go back to prison.

It was not a quiet confrontation, though, and as I listened, ears straining for any sign that neighbors were getting concerned, I thought I heard the low murmur of voices down the hallway—radio static, clipped commands.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

“I did this for you,” Geo insisted. “My little brother. If his Honor knew—”

“The hell, Geo! I never asked you to do any of this. You did it all to keep the money flowing. Well, that still holds true.”

Someone knocked with practiced force on the suite door. Milo and Geo froze. Finn called loudly, “Keiran, are you in there? Answer.”

Even as my heart leaped in relief, Geo tried to grab me. I jumped back, putting the length of the glass coffee table between us. “Finn! I’m in here!” I yelled.

“Open the door!” Finn called.

Uh, sure. There was nothing I’d have loved to do more.

“Help!” I yelled.

“We throw him off the balcony. No one can say it wasn’t an accident,” Geo hissed. He nodded at the sliding glass door to the side of me.

Milo goggled at him. “You’re insane. No. You’re not laying a goddamned hand on him. There are cops all over this hotel. That’s Finn Scott out there. His boyfriend. His boyfriend who used to be a cop. It is over .”

No, it was not wishful thinking. Booted footsteps pounded closer, hard soles thudding against plush carpet. Someone barked, “This one—open it.”

Geo made another lunge for me and, heart pounding in alarm, I shoved the table forward full force with my foot so that he crashed down on top of it. I heard the glass break.

A voice shouted, “Police! Open up!” followed by a louder thump—then a bang as a shoulder—or possibly a small battering ram—hit the door.

Milo turned, sprinted across the tiled entrance hall, yanked open the door, and scrambled out of the way as the door slammed inward.

A stream of uniformed officers flooded in, weapons drawn. Shouts filled the suite: “Hands where we can see them!”

Finn followed the first rush, striding into the room. He was pale, grim-faced as he scanned the room with hard eyes. He saw me hovering near the small beige sofa with my hands up.

I stumbled forward to meet him and he grabbed me, gave me a little shake, and folded me into his arms. “What the hell was that about?”

I shook my head. Why does any idiot in real life or in fiction think it’s a great idea to confront someone they believe capable of betrayal and violence?

Finn was clutching me so tightly I could barely squeeze out, “Annotation complete. Ending pending.” Apparently, editor-speak for I thought I was going to die thank you for saving me.

Milo pointed at Geo, being lifted off the shattered tabletop and dragged to his feet.

“That’s the one, lads! Broke in here ramblin’ mad—I’ve been tryin’ tae talk him into givin’ himself up!”