The Sinner (Notorious 1)

“My father just told me the truth about having a partner and…Vanessa’s involvement in the theft. He’d been taking the blame himself for seven years.”

“Who the hell cares?” I cried. “No offense, Juliette, but the particulars don’t matter.” I stalked up to Matt, getting as close as I could stomach. “I don’t want you here.”

“You should know, Savannah.” His eyes were sad, careful, and suddenly I knew I needed to brace myself. “Your mother has been in New Orleans most of the past five years.”

I swayed and looked to Margot, who sat cold and still as a statue. “Did you know that?”

Margot shook her head.

What did it matter, I wondered, hysteria buzzing along my nerve endings. New Orleans? The Moon? Six feet underground? My mother was gone to me.

But somehow, as much as I wished it didn’t matter, it did. That Vanessa was only a hundred miles away stung like salt in an old wound.

“I’m sorry, Savannah,” he whispered. “I know—”

“You don’t know anything.” I suddenly turned and left because I couldn’t stand to look at him any longer.

Pulling back my hair, wearing my sternest clothes, surrounding my heart in cement—none of it worked. I was broken. Hurt. And all I wanted was him gone.

9

MATT

I watched Savannah leave with my gut in my shoes. She was an ice queen, the warm vibrant woman who’d melted under my touch last night miles underneath her frigid exterior.

You did this. Because you were so stupidly hell-bent on your own course you didn’t see the truth, just like you were with the buildings in St. Louis.

Just like I always was.

What is wrong with me? I wondered, staring blindly out the door. What is missing in me that I can’t see the pain I cause?

I wished I could change the last twenty-four hours.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I whispered, knowing Savannah’s two guard dogs were hungry for my flesh.

“Sure,” Juliette said, her sarcasm like being raked over hot coals. “Because women love it when you lie to them and then sleep with them.”

“We didn’t sleep together.”

“Well, you did something,” she said. Juliette stalked toward me, every inch of her a police chief. Her hands on her waist—inches, I noticed, from her gun. “Do as she says,” Juliette whispered, her green eyes like steel. “Leave before you bring any more trouble to this house.”

Then she was gone, leaving me alone with Margot. My comrade from last night’s poker game was nowhere to be found. Instead she watched me, steely-eyed and unreadable.

There was no point in trying to justify myself to these women. I’d done so much damage, was in a hole so deep, there was no getting out.

“I’ll pack and be gone in an hour.” I wasn’t three steps before Margot stopped me.

“I would like those files,” she said, holding out her hand. I didn’t see any reason not to give them to her, other than my sick desire to keep that photo of Savannah for myself, a talisman against the lonely, ghost-ridden days ahead.

I put the files in Margot’s elegant hand and she flipped through them, her face betraying nothing.

“I assume you investigated your father’s partner with the same thoroughness?” she asked, tucking the files under her arm.

“My investigator couldn’t find any trace of him. Anywhere. He’s vanished.”

“His name?” There was no sign of the Southern flower in Margot at the moment. She was all business. Cold business.

“Richard Bonavie.”

She nodded sharply, her lips white at the edges. “Do you know his relationship to Vanessa?”

I nodded. They’d been married, Richard and Vanessa. And now, judging by Margot’s reaction, my suspicions were dead-on. “Richard Bonavie is Savannah’s father.”

“I assume you will keep that information to yourself,” Margot said.

“I’m leaving,” I said, “I don’t see how it—”

“I hired you to do a job,” she said and my jaw dropped.

“You want me to stay?” I asked. “You can’t be serious.”

Margot stood, her gambler’s eyes taking me apart piece by piece. “We gave you a deposit on your work.”

“I haven’t cashed the check,” I told her. The last thing I was going to do was take their money. “I was never going to. I’ll tear it up and pay you more, give you a bigger budget. I can send a crew down here and you’ll have a back courtyard that magazines will be calling you about.”

She shook her head. “We don’t want more people here,” she said. “And I’m quite sure Savannah wouldn’t want your money.”

“Well, she certainly doesn’t want me here, either.”

“She did last night.”

I gaped, feeling like a teenager caught with my pants down.

“Stop acting like a virgin,” Margot said. “You’re here, you’ve been paid and there’s still work to do. You’ll stay until it’s done.”

I shook my head. “This is not a good idea.”

“You’re going back on your word?” she asked, making it seem like going back on my word was somehow worse than what I’d done.