He Will be My Ruin

I’ll sleep well tonight. I can feel it.

CHAPTER 47

Maggie

December 23, 2015

“She was fucking obsessed with me,” Jace mutters. “Pages and pages of diary entries about me, about how much she loved me, about how perfect I am for her, about how I’m the one.”

“I knew there was another diary,” I whisper in triumph, even though it seems silly now to be so happy about that. My limbs are beginning to feel tingly, like I might not have complete control of them if I try to move. At least it’s taking longer than I expected for these drugs to sink in.

I’m not dead yet.

“And it told me everything I needed to know. She had turned our short relationship into some fairy tale with a happily ever after. We were already getting married, in her eyes. And then when we broke up . . .” He shakes his head. “She completely lost it. Between the phone calls and the constant crying . . . You should see what she wrote in there about me, about never giving me up. And every time I told her that it was over, she’d start bawling her eyes out. It was only a matter of time before that turned into anger and revenge. Plenty of other women like that have brought down powerful men before. They’re the irrational ones who turn bitter and call up the media to try and destroy your reputation when they finally realize they’re not going to get what they want.”

“Celine would never hurt someone she loved. Or thought she loved.”

“Bullshit. She threatened me that night.”

“She didn’t mean it.”

“Stop protecting her,” he snaps. “You didn’t see her. You didn’t have her crying her eyes out all over your shirt. The woman was insane. Next thing I know, she’d be tag-teaming with that British asshole and blackmailing me again. She was a whore, nothing more. And I wasn’t going to let her destroy my life. Or my family’s life. She should have been honest from the start.”

“So, when you went there that night, did you plan on killing her?”

“No!” He shakes his head. “I was going there to get the Ming bowl that she phoned me about and keep the peace. You think I’m some kind of cold-blooded murderer. I’m not.” He takes his time capping the empty pill bottle and dumping it into a bag. “I just did what she was going to do anyway, and then made sure I didn’t leave my fingerprints. Her medicine cabinet was full of drugs. She had probably already taken enough to kill herself that night.”

“Just like I was going to do this?” I lift my arm to point at the empty glass, but my movements are sluggish.

“You should have just minded your own business. Just like that sick fuck Grady. He deserves to be punished, even if it’s not for the right crime.”

“They’re going to catch Grady eventually. Aren’t you worried what he’s going to tell them when they accuse him of murder?”

Jace looms over me, pausing to watch. I’m sure he’s gauging how far off I am. How long before he can leave me and be sure, just like he did with Celine.

I open and shut my eyes slowly a few times for impact.

He turns his attention back to the nightstand, now opening up the other ziplock bag. “Grady won’t be talking to anyone, anymore.”

The meaning behind his words hits me like a punch to the chest. I gasp. “Oh my God.” Grady isn’t in the wind. He isn’t using his technical prowess to escape any nets.

He’s dead.

“You killed him, too?” My chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.

“What do you care? If he hadn’t videotaped and blackmailed me, your best friend would probably still be alive.”

I don’t know why I care, but I do. The last time I saw him, it was through a window, when I told him to go to hell. I wouldn’t give him a chance to explain. Maybe he would have admitted to everything, and I would have turned my attention back to Jace. Maybe this wouldn’t be happening right now.

“You set him up. Everything in his apartment.”

“Just her phone and the vase. The creepy ‘Celine’ box of pictures and panties was all him.”

“And the phone call?”

“People will agree to do just about anything when they think it may save their life. You wouldn’t believe how many of those manufactured fake dragon vases are out there. I started looking for one as soon as I realized you had Celine’s paper records, just in case I needed a decoy. And now, when this story hits the news, everyone is going to be checking their mother’s closet for a fifty-million-dollar vase.”

Fifty million dollars. “Is that what you think it’s worth?”

“That’s what the private collector who has the other one is willing to pay me, in cash, if we avoid auction houses. That Asian appraiser friend of Celine’s helped me locate him. Of course now I’ll have to wait awhile, and use an anonymous front man for media purposes, and give that person a cut, too. I can’t have my name tied to this after you’ve had your PI all over me. It’ll raise too many questions.”

“Where’s the vase now?”

“In a hidden safe in my office.”

I missed that entirely. “So you knew it was Grady who blackmailed you all along?” Where the hell is Grady right now? Did Jace pump him full of drugs, too? My eyes graze over his knuckles, bruised and raw. He said that was from boxing. I’m guessing that was a lie.

We’ve fallen into a strange, calm conversation now, like two friends in the dark and quiet night, as the drugs course through me. He seems almost relieved. It probably has something to do with confessing all of his crimes to a soon-to-be dead woman. “Not until I read Celine’s diary. I was waiting for him to come back to me, to threaten me again. I wasn’t going to do anything otherwise. With Celine dying, if something happened to him, it might raise suspicions. So I kept my distance and hoped it would all dissipate. Then you came along and ruined everything.

“I used you as an excuse to meet with him. I told him that I had information for him.” He smiles as he reaches into the ziplock bag and pulls out a few hairs. Holding them up to the light, I see the dark brown color.

Grady’s hair color.

Jace releases them and they float onto the floor next to the bed.

He’s planting evidence.

“That’s not going to be enough,” I argue, though I have no clue.