Wish You Were Gone(68)

“Back off, Lizzie. This has nothing to do with you,” Gray snapped, glad to finally have an excuse to tell her off.

“Don’t talk to her that way,” Emma said. “Lizzie has been more of a friend to me than you have. At least she listens to me. At least she doesn’t think her way is the only way.”

Emma’s words were like a gunshot to Gray’s heart. Emma was her oldest friend and Gray was Emma’s. She would do anything for the woman—and had. All Lizzie ever seemed to do was take, take, take in her relationship with Emma. She called for advice, to cadge cookware, to ask Emma to watch Willow, to borrow money. Gray refused to believe that Emma’s friendship with Lizzie had anything on her friendship with Gray, and she was not about to let Lizzie take Emma away from her.

“Emma, let’s just go somewhere alone and talk about this,” Gray began. “You have to let me explain the—”

Emma drew herself up so straight and so proud that Gray stopped talking. “I don’t have to do anything.”

She took Lizzie’s hand and stormed off, but paused halfway to the door and looked back. “Oh, and I want my husband’s computer back. You see that it happens.”





DARNELL


5:30 p.m.

7 hours and 45 minutes before the accident

The office had all but emptied out, everyone going home to change for the party or running out to grab drinks together beforehand, having changed in the restrooms already. Darnell loved these days, when the whole company had an event to attend. The vibe in the air had been festive all day, and when the assistants and associates got all dressed up and cologned and perfumed, it made him feel young again, watching them gatheHe stood outside on the cornerr into groups and laugh and talk on their way to the elevators. He loved having his own company, loved having the ability to give these opportunities to kids just starting out. In a way, he felt like all his employees were his kids. He felt responsible for them and their education in adulting, as they called it. When one of them left to pursue another opportunity, he felt proud as well. If you love something, set it free and all that jazz.

He really had to get up from behind this computer and start getting ready himself. Gray would be here any minute, expecting him to take her out for a quick drink and a quiet chat before the mayhem. But he couldn’t stop staring at the PI’s latest rundown on James. The man was up to something. Darnell could feel it in his bones. There had to be a pattern to these extra meetings he was taking. Something he was missing. Maybe if it weren’t for these debilitating headaches, he’d be able to see it. Even now, he felt as if a giant boxer was pounding repeatedly on the inside of his skull, radiating pain from his brow bone across his cranium to the back of his neck.

There was a quick rap on his door. Derek. He had his own way of knocking. “Come in, son.”

Derek stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He’d already changed into his tux. He seemed jittery, but then, of his two boys, Derek was the one who was always moving, always fidgeting, always in motion.

“What’s up, kiddo?”

“Dad,” Derek said. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

By the time his son was done telling his story, the blood was roaring in Darnell’s ears. Here it was. The answer. It all clicked inside Darnell’s mind in a rush of white-hot ire.

“How long have you known about this?” Darnell asked.

“A while,” Derek answered vaguely. “I’m really sorry, Dad. I just didn’t know what to do. And Mom said—”

“You told your mother?”

“Kinda.”

“And you got all of this from Zoe?” Darnell said. “She knew about it?”

“No. I mean, she just figured it out. Don’t be mad at her, Dad. It’s not her fault. And at least she told me everything she overheard, right?” He gulped, and Darnell could see in his face how much this girl meant to him. There would need to be a conversation about fraternizing on the job. But not now. “You’re not going to fire her.”

“Don’t worry about Zoe,” Darnell told his son. “I have bigger things to deal with.”

He flung open the door to his office but looked back at Derek. “You did the right thing, telling me.”

Derek gave a grim nod and then Darnell saw James, red-faced, gunning for his own office at the back of the open area. Sonofabitch looked pissed off already. Well, his day was not about to get better.





LIZZIE


Lizzie couldn’t sleep. In her entire life, she had never felt this much rage, and she didn’t know what to do with it. Willow’s lights were out; the house was silent. It was well after midnight, Lizzie and Willow having spent some time at Emma’s house with her and the kids after the memorial, making sure Emma had settled, which she had somehow done. Probably the crash after a five-hour-long adrenaline rush. Meeting all those people, accepting their condolences, interrogating the JMs, and then that fight with Gray.

Really it was no wonder she’d passed out before Lizzie had even closed her bedroom door. But for some reason, Lizzie wasn’t coming down the same way.

Who the fuck did Gray think she was? Keeping all those secrets about things that directly affected Emma’s life? Not that Lizzie had never kept a secret. She’d even kept one or two from Emma. But this was different. This was life or death. As much as Lizzie liked and respected Darnell, she didn’t believe Gray for a second when she asserted that Darnell couldn’t have killed James. There had been something in her eyes as she said it—fear? Uncertainty? A combination of the two? Emma might not have picked up on it, but Lizzie had. Darnell was dangerous. Even his wife knew it. Maybe this was why Darnell and Gray seemed to be having issues—why Gray was tracking Darnell’s every move. Maybe Gray was covering up for her husband, or afraid he was going to kill again.