I softened again. Damn my weak heart.
“Listen.” He sighed, rubbing the top of his head. “I really like you, Samira, and I haven’t felt like this about a woman since . . . well, since Melanie.”
I pressed my lips, watching his eyes burn with sincerity. Damn. There was no way he could have done it. No way. He loved her—I could tell by the photos that were posted of them. I could also tell right now, with how he talked about her. That, or he was a damn good liar.
“You swear?” I whispered.
“I swear,” he promised.
I loosened my grip on the kit. “I’m sorry, I’m just . . .” I sighed. “I’m sorry, Roland. I saw those articles about you, and I freaked out a little. I shouldn’t have judged you without hearing your side of the story.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s human nature to guard yourself after finding out something like that.” He smiled at me.
“I just . . . why would they say that about you?”
“I ask myself that question every day.” His feet moved as he shifted his weight. “The day that I met you was her birthday,” he murmured.
My eyes stretched. “Oh. That’s why you were having a bad day?”
“Kept thinking about her.” He shrugged. “But you were a good distraction, bloody finger and all.” He smiled and I couldn’t help but laugh. When his face turned serious again, he asked, “Do you think I can take you somewhere? It can be public, if you want. We don’t have to be alone. I just think I really need to talk to you about this, so that you don’t have the wrong idea of me. Even if you decide you never want to see me again, I’ll understand. I just don’t want another person in this world to think of me as this vile man who is ready to kill.”
I swallowed hard, then I glanced over my shoulder, noticing Ben and Shelia’s silhouette. They were dancing arm in arm. They did that sort of thing when they drank too much. Ben’s mom had put him in salsa classes once so that he could dance at her wedding. He’d never forgotten the moves.
My eyes swung back over to Roland’s and he had this hopeful yet completely worn-out look about him. He was probably so tired of defending himself to people, and here I was, adding even more fuel to a fire he couldn’t put out.
“Sure,” I said, finally releasing the kit and closing my car door. “But let’s not go out where everyone can see and bother us. I’d rather talk in private.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There was a reason I wanted us to talk in private. For starters, you didn’t talk about murder in public, especially when so many eyes could be watching and ears could be listening. Secondly, I needed to digest what was going on and how I felt about the entirety of the situation. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe any of the stories that’d been fabricated about Roland.
Roland took me to his place but we didn’t go up to his condo. Instead we hung out by the pool, which was vacant. The blue water rippled with the pool lights, casting a blue glow on both of us. He took a seat in one of the chairs at a table and I sat across from him, keeping my bag perched on my lap, the kit still inside. I didn’t think he was guilty, but I could never be too sure about my own judgments lately.
“I’m sorry for sneaking up on you,” he said.
I smiled. “It was a good way to get my attention, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah.” His eyes shifted down to the tabletop. “So . . . ask me anything.”
“About your wife?”
“Whatever you want.”
I studied his face, the seriousness in his eyes, and then looked away, toward the pool. “Okay . . . umm . . . so what really happened to her?”
“She drove over a cliff.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “I ask myself that every day—why would she do something like that? She never seemed suicidal to me.”
“I read somewhere that you were at a golf resort or something when it happened . . .”
“I was.”
“How soon did you find out about her being . . . dead?”
“Not soon enough. I played a round of golf the morning she died, not knowing that she was dead, and was called twenty-two hours later, once she was identified.”
“Wow. I’m so sorry, Roland.”
He shrugged.
“Do you do drugs?” I asked.
“Never have and never will. My father did them heavily. I don’t touch any of it.”
“So why did they find heroin in her toxicology report?”
“I don’t know the answer to that, honestly. I’ve never seen Melanie do drugs of any kind. Did she drink? Sure. But never drugs.”