Oh, and he was JJ/Jamie, a code name he took playing Banking the Billionaire. It was all part of the sex games he played with Emma, Naomi, and Rip to try to win the funding for his project. That project being Desmond Defense, the company that created, in Desmond’s own words, the perfect weapon—combat and battle-ready.
One particular passage in the journal gets my attention:
Emma says she’s leaving that cult of assholes for this new man of hers. And yet, she can’t get enough of using her engagement as a role play sex game with me. He goes out of town and we meet, drink wine, and fuck, all while she wears her dress. Well, she starts out in the dress. She promised to find me the money I need for my company launch, but all she wants to do is fuck. That’s what she did to the others. Marilyn said so. Marilyn told me all about it. She recorded Rip, Emma, and Naomi mocking me. I was losing my mind over it, but she knew exactly how to end them. Emma, she said, would be an easy target. She always pops Advil before she drinks. One more time for the history books, was about a win on the Banking the Billionaire Game, but it became a sex thing, too. Fucking so damn good we deserved to be in the history books. So I convinced her we’d fuck one last time—one last time for the history books. I knew she’d expect to drink. And I knew she’d take Advil.
It’s just one of the many ways the journal makes it clear Marilyn controlled Desmond. He was intelligent, but she was conniving. Her real motive is hard to pinpoint, but it seems to have been both personal and financial and when her little circle of peers attacked Desmond and the defense company, they didn’t stand a chance.
And more on Ann. She really was a patsy. Poor girl had no idea what she was involved in. She thought it was all an acting job. I dig for an answer as to how Naomi ended up broke, a question that got lost in everything else, but I can’t find it. There is very little on her murder, either. Which is rather curious.
Eventually, I leave the CSI lab certain that we’ll find out more about Desmond as we dig deeper. I’m not sure this was his first time to kill. And we have a team working to take down Banking the Billionaire. It will be a battle, but one Murphy seems committed to winning.
But no matter what I know about Marilyn, she will always be a hypothetical for me and all of us. We’ll never really get into her head. And while people who knew her can’t believe she was part of this at first, I knew. I recognized the killer in her eyes.
CHAPTER FIFTY
New Year’s Eve comes quickly and yet, so very slowly.
It took years to arrive, if you consider how long Kane and I have been trying to get to the moment of I do. Everyone I love is here, all in tuxedos. A photographer frets over a million photos and my nerves are all over the place. Tic Tac is adorable with a red tie. A five-foot-five rebel of a man, that one. And Murphy hugs me and whispers, “You look like your mother. Glad to see you embracing that part of you.”
I want to punch him because he makes me want to cry.
Bastard.
“And the cakes look good,” he says.
He’s right. They do. There are two cakes, white and chocolate, and flowers around the room. Lilies because my mother loved them. And roses because Kane’s mother loved them. Everything is perfect. Except my mother and Kane’s mother not being here. I don’t miss my father. At all.
And then finally, on a perfect clear evening, as the sun sets behind us, on the glass encased balcony of our hotel room, I join Kane in front of the preacher. His eyes light on me, in my dress, and he captures my hand and leans in close and says, “So damn beautiful.”
And he is so damn handsome in his tuxedo.
God, I love this man.
We face forward and stand side by side in front of a preacher, with those we call family around us. We choose not to say vows in front of other people. What we are and who we are is for us and us alone. But we do say one identical sentence to each other.
“Live together, die together,” I say.
“Live together, die together,” he says.
And then we say “I do” and the preacher pronounces us husband and wife.
We kiss and Kane whispers in my ear, “Finally.”
And this time, I say, “Finally,” as well.
***
An hour later, we’ve taken more photos, eaten cake, and everyone is drinking champagne and enjoying themselves. And there are gifts, lots of silly gifts. Andrew hands us his gift.