“Let’s focus on the present,” I say. “Fine, let’s say Fiona killed Elias. Remember, I’m being accused of two crimes here, not just one.”
“Lawson,” Angelo mutters. “Maybe Fiona killed him, too.”
“But you said he was murdered at the Club and no women were allowed at the Club that night,” I remind him.
“Wait,” Leah says. “Daniel Lawson’s wife thought her husband’s murderer was a woman, right?”
“Yes,” both Angelo and I answer.
“And she thought that because she smelled perfume on him.”
“Right,” I confirm.
“Well, I know a man who wears perfume,” Leah says. “Owen Reed.”
My gaze narrows. “What?”
“I’m pretty sure he was wearing the same perfume Fiona was wearing. Lots of it.”
I shake my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if Owen is gay,” Leah says. “Which he is.”
“No way.”
“Yes way,” Leah insists. “I’ve been thinking about it, about the night of the Ball. He didn’t really touch me. He just tore my belt off, and he slapped me. Slapped, not punched. And he said something about my mascara. What straight guy comments on that?”
I don’t think I ever have.
“And then at his apartment, he had all this weird, disgusting stuff, and I remember reading an article once about a gay guy who’d just come out of the closet and he said one of the things he did to hide the fact that he was gay was to do manly stuff. Owen’s apartment was way too manly. And also, he had a magazine in his office featuring the year’s hottest businessmen. Not richest or most successful, hottest.”
Angelo lets out a whistle. “Now we know why Owen Reed was disowned by his father.”
I look at Leah. “So Fiona murdered Elias and Owen murdered Lawson and they’re both working together to frame me?”
Leah shrugs. “Maybe. I hate to think of Fiona as the villain here, but she did seem insistent that you were guilty.”
“But she still helped you sneak into Owen’s apartment?” I ask.
She gives another shrug. “Maybe that’s why she knows Owen’s apartment so well. Because they’re partners in crime. And maybe she warned Owen that I was coming. That’s why I didn’t find anything.”
“So she was just pretending to help you,” Angelo says.
“By the way, there’s one more thing.” Leah lifts a finger. “Thomas Heath told me that he had it on very good authority that you were guilty.”
“Thomas?”
“I was in his office.”
“So you went to Owen’s apartment and Thomas’s office?”
“I didn’t sneak in there. The guards brought me there,” Leah explains. “Anyway, it seems someone has him convinced that you’re guilty, and that someone might be Fiona. I saw her lipstick on one of the glasses in his shelf where he keeps his bottle of scotch.”
“And she’s been to his apartment a lot lately,” Angelo adds. “And I mean a lot.”
“Apartment?” I turn to Angelo with a confused expression. “I thought he lived in a house.”
“He has a house and an apartment,” Angelo says. “His wife lives in the house.”
I nod. “I see.”
And the apartment is for having affairs, like one with Fiona.
Angelo clasps his hands together. “So it seems we have our culprit. Fiona Sinclair.”
“What we have are speculations and circumstantial evidence,” I say. “We need something more solid.”
“Like a confession?” Leah asks.
I look at her. I can tell there’s an idea brewing inside her mind.
“What are you thinking?”
She touches her chin. “I think… I might have a plan.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Leah
I sure hope this plan works.
I wait in Fiona’s living room for a good ten minutes before she shows up. When she does, she doesn’t look happy to see me.
“What are you doing here?” she asks me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know.” I get off the couch. “I came because I need your help. I have no one else to turn to.”
She snorts. “I’ve already helped you.”
“And also to warn you,” I add.
Her eyes narrow. “What?”
“You’re right,” I tell her. “Men are capable of despicable things. Gavin did murder Lawson, and he tried to kill Elias, too.”
Fiona’s eyebrows arch. “He told you that?”
“After I found out, I ran away. He wants me to stay with him. He said we’d be a family, but I don’t want to live with someone like that.” I stand in front of Fiona. “Let’s run away. There must be a place you know where no one can find us.”
“What do you mean ‘let’s’?” she asks. “What exactly were you going to warn me about?”
“Gavin plans to put it all on you.”
“What?”
“He knows you’re the one who told the Council about Nadine,” I tell her.
Fiona’s eyes grow wide. “No way. There’s no way he could have found out.”
But she’s not denying she did it.
“And he’s already spoken to Owen,” I add. “Owen has already agreed to work with him.”
Fiona shakes her head. Panic glimmers in her eyes.
“Impossible. Owen would never do that. He would never betray me.”
Ah. So she admits they’ve been working together.