Wish You Were Gone(67)

“I came into the city that night to go to the gala with Darnell,” Gray said slowly, in as calm a voice as she could muster while her heart was frantically pinballing around her chest. “When I stepped off the elevator, I heard the shouting.”

“They were already fighting when you got there?”

“Yes. I followed the voices to James’s office and arrived right when Darnell hauled off and punched James.”

“Oh my God!” Lizzie said unhelpfully. “Why? I can’t imagine Darnell hitting anyone.”

Gray and Emma locked eyes, but Emma said nothing.

“I know. That’s what I thought,” Gray said, her rib cage tight. “I couldn’t believe my own eyes. But James had clearly done something to set him off.”

Set him off. She wanted to take the words back the moment she said them. She knew how they sounded, and braced herself as Emma and Lizzie exchanged a look. In that brief moment she tried to discern whether Lizzie knew—whether Emma had broken her promise—but no. She knew Emma would never betray her. In that way, Emma was definitely the better woman.

“Gray, you don’t think Darnell was the one who was at my house that night, do you?” Emma said. “That he—”

“No. No way,” Gray said, shaking her head. “Darnell couldn’t kill someone, let alone his best friend. No matter what he’d done.”

“Are you sure about that?” Lizzie asked venomously. The question in Emma’s eyes asked the same thing, except it was far more loaded than Lizzie’s words, because Emma knew. Emma had seen.

The truth was that Gray had no clue what Darnell had or hadn’t done that night. He very well could have been this mysterious person Emma was so keen on finding. But even if Darnell had been there—if he and James had rekindled their argument in the driveway—there was no way he could murder anyone. Darnell had once hit a deer on the side of the road and felt sick about it for a week. If he’d hurt James, Gray would know. Unless, of course, he didn’t remember. But that possibility was so slim—and so awful—that she refused to consider it.

Gray shot Lizzie a look that should have stopped her heart cold in her awful little chest, then turned to Emma—focused on her best friend. “Yes. I’m sure,” she said in her firmest voice. “Darnell did not kill James.”

Emma pushed her hands up into her hair and stepped away from Lizzie, pacing toward one wall and then the other.

“So what were they fighting about? What would make Darnell hit him?”

Gray took a deep breath. She looked over her shoulder toward the memorial, which was starting to sound more and more like a party as the alcohol was drained and the voices grew louder. Would it even matter to Darnell if she told the truth now? Or, at least, a version of the truth? It was over. With James gone, there was nothing for him to lose.

“James was poaching clients. Some of the big ones,” she said quietly. “He was planning to leave the business and set up his own shop.”

“What?” Emma breathed.

“He would have destroyed the business, Emma,” Gray continued. “And you know how much it means to Darnell—to my whole family. The boys would have lost their jobs… And Dante never got his degree. He’d never get another position in the business if we went under. And all their employees… they’re like family to Darnell.”

“Oh my God,” Emma said. “This is insane.”

“When Darnell found out, he felt so betrayed,” Gray continued. “You know how those two were. When they went into this together all those years ago, it was supposed to be a partnership all the way, so this…”

Emma looked as if one stiff breeze would knock her over. “When was this supposed to happen?”

Gray cleared her throat. “Soon. And from what Darnell has heard in the days since James passed, he was apparently setting up shop in Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles?” Emma repeated. She locked one arm around her own waist and pressed the heel of her hand into her forehead. “This is not happening. How did I not know about this?”

“I don’t—”

“Shit, Gray. Is there anything else about my life you want to tell me?”

That was when it hit her full in the chest. Darnell didn’t have anything to lose anymore from the truth coming out, but Gray did. Emma was looking at her as if she, herself, had been the one sleeping with James. The mysterious, possibly nonexistent person who had been there that night to coax him out of the car, slip his necktie off, throw it in the hedges.

“No,” Gray said, looking Emma in the eye. She decided to leave Derek out of it. There really was no reason to share his role in all of this. “That’s really all I know.”

For a long moment, none of them spoke. A round of loud, male laughter went up inside the owner’s suite.

“I would have told you about it. Obviously, I would have,” Gray told Emma. “But then James died, and it seemed…”

“Moot?” Emma supplied sarcastically.

“Not exactly. I just didn’t want to cause you any more pain.”

Emma’s expression morphed into one of disgust. “I can’t believe you, Gray. I’m an adult! I don’t need you deciding what I can and can’t handle.”

“You really do have to control everything, don’t you?” Lizzie added.