Constance (Constance #1)(58)

It made for one hell of a compelling story. She wanted to like him. He came off as humble and self-aware, and it was easy to see why he’d been so popular with fans. But now that he’d been accused of murder, the media was using that same narrative to cast him as a controlling abuser with a dark side.

Con put her LFD on the nightstand to charge and lay there in the dark for a long time wondering what her original had gotten herself into. She’d known she was in danger, and she’d known about Laleh. That meant she had to know who was orchestrating the whole thing. But how she knew, that was the real question. Con was missing something essential. Hopefully, Levi Greer knew more than he had told her. Tomorrow, she would pay him a visit in jail.





CHAPTER NINETEEN


One at a time, the visitors passed through a full-body scanner and were patted down. Con had been worried that someone at the jail might recognize her, but her presence didn’t seem to raise any eyebrows among the guards. She and the other visitors were let into a utilitarian meeting area of brute metal tables and chairs all welded crudely to the floor. The visitors spread out around the room to give themselves the illusion of privacy. They’d all had to check their LFDs on arrival, so there was nothing to do but sit and wait. An hour ticked by, then another.

Just when Con started to get concerned, a sad claxon sounded. At the back of the meeting room, a door opened. Prisoners in orange jumpsuits shuffled out. Last was Levi Greer. Where the rest of the prisoners wore only handcuffs, his hands and ankles were yoked with chain to a thick belt at his waist. When she’d met him, he’d looked exhausted. Now he looked about as beaten down as she’d ever seen a man.

A guard led him over by the elbow, but when Levi saw who was waiting for him, he drew back. For a moment, Con thought he would simply turn around and retreat to his cell. But then either curiosity or the inertia of the guard dragging him forward got the better of him, and he let himself be seated opposite her.

“You want to hear something pathetic?” Levi said, drawing a deep breath. “I kept telling myself that the police were lying. You know? Screwing with my head. Some kind of game. It had to be, right? But you saw her? With your own eyes? It’s really true?”

“It’s true.”

Levi leaned heavily against the table as if he needed help carrying the weight of her words. His shoulders begin to shake. Con searched his face for any sign it was an act. She needed more than an Oscar-worthy performance to be convinced. So she sat there feeling like God’s own bitch and let him cry himself out.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, lowering his face to dry his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“We had a deal.”

“Oh right. Yeah, we did.” His voice flat, affectless, drained of any fight. “What do you want to know?”

“Why didn’t you ask me for the GPS coordinates?”

That hadn’t been what he’d expected. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, your wife is missing. And you don’t once ask for them.”

“I told you to give them to the police.”

“Yeah, you did. But if it was me? And someone I loved was missing?” She was thinking about Zhi now, imagining if he’d gone missing for a week or longer. How she’d react if someone showed up who knew where he was. “No way I tell you to take it to the cops. I wouldn’t have let you out of my sight until I had the GPS. I’d have put a gun to your head if that’s what it took. But you let me walk back out of your house like you’d ordered Girl Scout cookies. And then the detective said you went for a drive or some shit?”

“Yeah, I did. Up into the Shenandoah like I said. David—the man who adopted me—used to take me up there to decompress whenever I needed to get away from things.”

“You have to know how that sounds,” she said.

“Oh, you think I don’t know?” he said, showing her his shackled wrists. “Did you ever read Macbeth in high school? This Scottish king, he has one of his rivals murdered, guy named Banquo. Then Banquo’s ghost starts haunting the king. Doesn’t say anything. Banquo, he just stands there. Staring. Judging. Kind of like how you’re looking at me now. Except I didn’t do it. But I still got to deal with her damned ghost accusing me of hurting her.”

“I want to believe that.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“So what happened?” Con asked.

“Damned if I know. Why do you think I drove up to the mountains yesterday? None of it makes any sense. The first year? Best year of my life. She was in such a sad place when we met. But after a few months, she really came out of it and seemed happy. At least, I thought she was, I don’t know. Everything just seemed on the upswing. Things were really clicking for me with the team. She was busy with her music, writing all these new songs. And we got married. Didn’t make a big deal of it, just went to the courthouse. Sort of the last thing either of us expected, but it felt right. We were even talking about selling the house and moving downtown. Man, she hated the burbs, but I guess you know that better than me, right?”

It was like catching a few stray bars of music and trying to imagine the entire song. Her need to know the story in more detail was unbearable. But visiting hours were brief, and she had too many urgent questions to indulge her curiosity now.

“What changed?” she asked.