He swallows. “You paid Nathan Butler a visit.”
“Yes, to discuss Beau. To talk about how toxic this relationship is.”
Lawrence recoils, clearly shocked by this news. “When?”
Dexter’s eyebrows become heavy, like he’s wracking his brain, thinking. “I don’t know, sometime last week.”
Toxic. He’s probably right. Poison. But James’s poison has cured me. And now there’s this poison threatening to send me plummeting into a dark pit of helplessness again.
“And while you were there,” James goes on, “you turned on the burner phone I’ve been tracking since the night Jaz Hayley was killed.”
“What?” I gasp.
“Rubbish!” Dexter screeches. “You’re fabricating shit to clear your own ass.”
“Why?” James asks, calmly. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you killed Jaz! You’re there in the footage, it was you.”
My eyes widen. “How do you know about that footage, Dexter?” I ask, unable to comprehend what’s unfolding.
“Footage?” Lawrence asks. “What footage?”
“The footage Dexter had hidden for years. The footage that would have proven Mom’s death wasn’t an accident.” I slump in my chair, stunned.
“The footage,” James says, moving forward slowly, “that you obtained from the tattoo store by the car park before forensics moved in.”
I stand, trying to get some feeling back in my limbs. “Beau, sit down,” James warns.
“Dexter, what have you done?” I move toward him, trusting—hoping—that the years I’ve known this man will prove our suspicions wrong. We had it wrong with Nath, so maybe—
“Beau,” James yells.
Dexter’s face turns from the usual softness I’ve come to know and love, to a hardness that doesn’t suit him.
“Beau!”
I’m grabbed and whirled around, being pulled back into Dexter’s chest, and the gun in my hand is quickly gone. “Okay, let’s all calm the fuck down,” he says, backing up, taking me with him. James’s nostril flare so hard. His body visibly tenses. I want to tell him not to worry, that Dexter won’t hurt me. But I can’t. Especially now. “I’ve spent years wondering who the man in that footage was. The man who dragged Beau away from the vehicle. The man who tried to save Jaz. Years!” He laughs, tightening his hold of me. “And then he shows up on my fucking doorstep trying to seduce my niece? Who the fuck are you?”
“Dexter?” Lawrence murmurs, crumbling before me. “Dexter, why?”
“Because I was told to!” he yells, starting to shake against me. “It was Jaz or me.”
Him or my mom? “Jesus Christ, Dexter,” I whisper, my throat tight.
“The Bear,” James says, his voice ice. “Who the fuck is The Bear?”
“Back off,” Dexter warns, jolting me. “No one knows who he is. I get information, I’m paid. I get an order, I do it, or I die.”
“You’re going to die anyway.”
“Oh my God, Dexter!” Lawrence cries. “What have you done?”
I’m moving, being walked backward. He’s heading for the door into the yard, the door that’s still open from Ollie’s grand entrance. “Why, Dexter?” I murmur.
“Because she figured it out. She knew I was—”
“Corrupt,” James grates, his jaw pulsing.
“I was told to deal with it. So I did.”
“No,” Lawrence screeches, his hands in his hair, utter disbelief plastered all over his face. “No, no, no.”
“By manipulating the service record of her car,” James says. “Suggesting she was smoking. Manipulating all of the fucking evidence.”
“I was in the car, Dexter,” I whisper, a lump in my throat forming. It’s suffocating me.
“I didn’t know you would be!”
“But I was!” I yell, my heart cracking. This man has been a rock to me. Hugged me, talked me through endless panic attacks, calmed me. And he’s the cause of my misery? I look at James, my eyes welling, knowing what this means.
And I see it. The look in his cold stare. Never have I been more thankful that our relationship has been so heavily based on talking without saying a word. One flick of his eyes to mine. The rage. The purpose.
I throw my head back and drop to the floor as soon as Dexter loosens his hold of me, and all hell breaks loose, guns firing, Lawrence screaming, James charging forward.
“Fuck!” The door slams, and I shoot up from the floor, seeing blood smeared all over the jamb, but there’s no Dexter in sight.
“Beau,” James barks, checking me over, his attention split between me and the door.
“I’m okay,” I assure him, still patting myself everywhere, waiting for the pain to kick in. Two shots were fired. Only one of them hit Dexter. James. I look up, expecting to see red, but there’s no blood.
He swings the door open, bracing himself to fire again, just as Goldie and Otto come charging into the kitchen, armed and ready.
“Over the back wall,” James says, and they disappear as fast as they appeared, going after Dexter, while James hurries over to me, checking me over with panicked eyes, feeling everywhere, checking my legs, my chest, my face.
“I’m fine,” I assure him, as he yanks my shirt up my body. And it hits me. The pain. The pain and dizziness.