Chapter Seven
Then
After her last class ended at four, June considered not going back to their apartment. July had asked for privacy. Plus June had a really good book to read, the latest Dick Francis mystery. She’d bought it last weekend but didn’t have time to even crack the spine on it yet.
Or, maybe she should call Mark and see if he wanted to come over to her parents’ house. Except she knew he usually would be studying and then going to bed early so he could get up early Saturday morning to pick them up and come into the gym to help out.
It took June a good ten minutes to talk herself into stopping by the apartment. Yes, July would undoubtedly see through her flimsy excuse of needing to grab her sheets for the wash.
But the rain seemed to be letting up for a little while. And she had to drive almost right past their apartment to go to their parents’ house anyway.
Fuck it. Easing her mind would be worth the ass-chewing July would rightfully give her for invading her privacy.
And if Matt was still there—and they were doing something like sleeping together—then June would be giving July—and Matt—a piece of her mind.
When she pulled into the driveway, she was relieved to see July’s car was the only one parked out front.
Whew.
With her key in hand, she dashed through the rain onto the front porch. She unlocked the knob with her key, but when she went to unlock the deadbolt, which they kept locked even when home, she realized it was unlocked.
“Hey, sorry,” she called out, not seeing July in the living room or the kitchen. “I forgot my sheets. I’ll grab them and get out of your hair.”
She walked past July’s closed bedroom door and hesitated at the thermostat. It felt hot and sticky in the apartment.
June realized the temperature was still set at eighty-two, where July had likely set it when she’d left that morning.
Matt must have been waiting for her, or arrived right when she did, if she forgot that.
She bumped it down to where they usually kept it and headed on to her room.
After quickly stripping her sheets, June realized July still hadn’t said anything in reply.
With the sheets wadded in her arms, June stopped at July’s door and lightly rapped. “Sis? I’m sorry, I forgot my sheets. Do you have anything else for me to take?”
Nothing.
“July?” She knocked harder.
This felt…wrong. June walked back out to the living room, dumped the sheets on the couch, and looked for a note on the notepad they kept on the kitchen counter, in case maybe she’d gone off with Matt or a friend.
No note.
With a growing sense of dread, June walked back down the hall and stopped at July’s door. She reached out and twisted the knob, pushing it open. “Ju—July!”
Her sister lay sprawled on the bedroom floor, her head propped at an odd angle against the low marble windowsill a foot from the floor.
Her face bruised, swollen, bloody.
Eyes open.
The scream locked in June’s throat as she stood there and took in the scene, even not realizing it right then. July had changed out of the shirt and jeans she’d been wearing earlier, the clothes discarded on the bed.
Her jewelry box undisturbed on her dresser.
Two gold necklaces lying on the bedside table, next to her watch.
Her purse sitting on the end of the dresser, and when June peeked inside, she saw July’s wallet there. Pulling it out and opening it, she saw July had thirty-three dollars and change inside it, and her bank card was still there.
This was no burglary.
This was no coincidental crime.
This was a fucker who left, terrified after realizing he’d gone too far, not thinking because of his fear. It also explained the unlocked deadbolt, because Matt didn’t have a key to their place. And July’s keys lay there on the dresser, next to her purse.
June forced her feet to move, even though she already knew.
She knew.
Not only that July was gone, but who took her from them.
That.
Fucker.
June knelt and reached out with two fingers to feel her neck. Her flesh was still warm.
She had no pulse.
“Oh, sis,” she whispered, numb. She started to reach for the phone extension in July’s room to call 911—
Except…
As June stared at her sister’s body, more details snapped into place, slammed home. July’s short fingernails were bloody, one ripped off at the quick. No way Matt couldn’t have marks on him. July was every bit as strong as June was, despite their size. She would have gotten some licks in, for sure.
Every mystery and police procedural she’d ever read or watched flowed through her mind at scary speeds. DNA under July’s nails. Defensive wounds on her arms. Matt would have marks on him. They’d convict him.
But would they render justice?
Real, true justice.
Would he face the electric chair?
White-hot rage coursed through her veins, unstoppable. It felt like her brain snapped back into her body and she rose, knowing what she had to do. Thoughts of going and getting one of her father’s guns was sooo appealing, except she knew that was stupid and would be traced right back to her.
No. This required…
This required a set-up.
First thing—she turned the AC back up to keep the house warmer and slow how fast July’s core body temperature dropped to give June more time to lock in her alibi and set up Matt.
Next—she grabbed July’s clothes that she’d been wearing that day and dumped them on top of the sheets she was taking. Matt must have arrived after July had changed clothes, or she changed while they were talking.
Third—Matt kept some clothes in her dresser. She grabbed a long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants and added them to the laundry pile…after carefully dabbing them in July’s blood.
She’d only been home maybe five minutes, if that, and needed to leave quickly to preserve the timeframe.
Matt would be shaken, scared, and likely vulnerable. If she worked fast, before he confessed to anyone, she could do this. It played out in her mind exactly what she had to do, the plan an amalgam of several different mysteries she’d read, the key elements.
Justice.
But it wouldn’t work if anyone spotted her there when she wasn’t supposed to be. She could say she simply stopped in, grabbed her sheets, and headed out again. Their neighbors across the street worked days, as did the people in the duplexes on either side of them.
Ten minutes after she’d arrived, she was out the door again, refusing to give in to her tears.
There’d be plenty of time for that—later.
After she was safe in Mark’s arms and knew that she’d made things right in a way no legal system ever could.
* * * *
June drove to her parents’ house, disarmed the alarm, unloaded the laundry from her car, started a load, quickly made her preparations in the garage, and turned around and left again. This time, driving May’s car, which she’d left parked there for the weekend after driving their parents to the airport early that morning.
May would have an alibi, being in class until nearly six tonight before going to a wedding rehearsal dinner for her boyfriend’s cousin. Another reason her parents let May take their mom’s car while they were out of town, because it was nicer.
June knew some stores had security cameras. But there was an old feed store several miles south of her parents’ house she suspected didn’t have cameras, and it had a pay phone outside. As the rain slacked off a little, that’s where she pulled in after scouting and realizing her hunch had been correct.
She called Matt’s apartment, hoping the asshole would pick up and not his roommate.
“Hello?” Matt cautiously said. He sounded nothing like himself, which was even more proof to June of his guilt.
She struggled to stick to her plan,
knowing if she fucked up, she could end up hurt or dead herself.
Or worse, in jail without justice truly rendered.
Dead she wouldn’t mind so much, as long as she took the fucker with her in the process.
“Oh, my god,” she hissed. “Matt, it’s me! Something horrible’s happened to June!”
“What? Who is this?” He rightfully sounded freaked out.
“It’s me, July! Please, you’ve got to help me!”
Unlike Mark, Matt had trouble telling the sisters apart when they dressed alike and wore their hair alike. On the phone, he couldn’t tell them apart.
But July’s hair was a little longer than June’s, even though they both wore basically the same hairstyle—long and simple.
When their hair was put up, such as for competition, the average person couldn’t tell them apart.
Matt didn’t reply at first. When he finally spoke, he sounded suspicious. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
“I’m so scared, Matt! Someone killed June! Please, meet me at my parents’ house. Right now!”
If he screwed this up and called the cops instead of meeting her, he would be their number one suspect, regardless. She’d claim total innocence in the matter, the cops would do a welfare check on July and find her dead, and Matt would look like a clumsy killer trying to cover his tracks with a bullshit story.
If he stupidly told his roommate where he was going now—to meet July—it would also make Matt look guilty.
If this backfired on her and the cops happened to show up at her parents’ house before May’s car engine cooled down, June would claim she snuck by and took it that morning and used it without telling her sister, since it was nicer than her own. They all had spare keys to each other’s cars in case of emergencies, so June wouldn’t have had to go into her parents’ house and disarm the alarm.
“Are you sure she’s dead?”
So he had bolted in fear, run as soon as he’d realized what he’d done.
“Yes, Matt, please, I need you!”
“Sh-shouldn’t you call the cops?”
“They’ll think I did it! Please, just…meet me at my parents’ house. Right now. I need your help. I need an alibi. June and I had a horrible fight this morning at the gym. Just…just come over. I’ll tell you about it when you get there. I’m on my way there now. And don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”
She hung up and wiped the phone off with a tissue that she threw into the garbage can on the sidewalk outside the front door before hurrying back to the car. Hopefully he was dumb enough—and desperate and stupid enough to cover his own trail—that he would take the bait.
Only time would tell.
And she’d be eagerly awaiting him.
Chapter Eight
In the recent past
June stared at Mark, knowing in her gut this was bad news but still trying to figure out who they were talking about. Tilly was giving him some sort of intensive update. June could hear Tilly’s rapid-fire words, but not make them out from where she sat. When Mark got off the phone, he stood, holding his hand out to her where she sat on the couch.
“We need to get dressed and leave. Now. Leo was in a car wreck. It’s…bad.”
Fear tore through her. “Laurel? Jesse?”
“They’re okay. They weren’t in the car, just Leo.”
Stunned, she reached for his hand and let him pull her to her feet. They left the house ten minutes later, Mark’s expression dire as he drove, June keeping one hand on his thigh to ground her.
At least it wasn’t an act of deliberate violence, like what had happened with Mac that time.
Or Betsy.
She also didn’t divert his attention asking him questions she could tell he didn’t have the answers to. He’d told her everything he knew.
She’d have to wait until they reached the hospital and talked to Tilly to get the full story. While she felt sorry for Jesse, Leo’s partner and slave, there was someone else she felt even worse for.
Poor Laurel.
June adored Leo’s little girl, who was only six. June loved seeing her when the men brought her with them to the family-friendly vanilla Suncoast Society events. They’d even been to a couple of vanilla family barbecues at Mark and June’s house, and June had taught her a few basic tumbling moves in the backyard.
Precocious and funny, Laurel reminded her a lot of herself and July at that age. Even looked a little like them.
Leo and his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Eva, were going through a protracted divorce. Eva didn’t want to get divorced, but Leo had been forced to admit to her he was gay and wanted to move on. Then he’d met Jesse.
And now…
When they arrived at the hospital and found the waiting room, June was relieved to see Tilly, Landry, and Cris already there with Jesse and Laurel. June assumed the other woman was Eva.
As soon as Laurel realized they were there, Laurel started sobbing and reached for June. Torn between wanting to know more about Leo’s condition and the little girl in desperate need of comfort, June opted to hold Laurel, trying to soothe her as best she could.
Meanwhile, she studied the woman Jesse introduced as Eva. She looked…broken. Leo had always spoken in very careful terms about her, especially in front of Laurel. June respected him even more for that, and tried to stay charitable toward the woman.
Laurel made the rounds of other familiar friends who arrived, like Ed and Hope, and Ross and Loren. Then, Tilly, Eva, and Jesse were called back into the ICU ward by a doctor.
June cuddled up against Mark. “I hope he pulls through this.”
He draped an enormous arm around her. “Me, too, baby. Me, too.”
* * * *
Mark didn’t have a medical degree, but he knew enough from what Tilly’d said—and more from how she looked and sounded saying it—that this was very grave.
The three of them had emerged from the ICU, and Laurel was currently sitting in Cris’ lap. Eva now looked more than shell-shocked, which made Mark’s heart sink.
“Can I go see Daddy now?” Laurel immediately asked when she spotted them.
Tilly and Jesse took her back while Eva slumped in the chair she’d previously occupied, her stare glassy and focused on the floor.
She is not in good shape.
More from what Leo hadn’t said than what he had shared, Mark suspected this woman had a deeply troubled past. What else could explain how long it’d taken Leo to carefully extricate himself from her, and his refusal to speak ill of her, even when Laurel wasn’t around?
They’d been gone for a few minutes when an older couple hurried into the waiting room, looked around, spied Eva, and aimed straight for her.
From the look of fear in Eva’s expression when she spotted them, Mark prepared to stand and intercede.
“Where’s Laurel?” the man angrily demanded. “Let’s get her and get out of here.”
Eva stood, as did Mark, June, Cris, Landry, Ed, Ross, and a few other men and women in their Suncoast Society family. “You shouldn’t have come,” she weakly said.
Mark stepped in to take up the space Landry had just vacated by stepping next to Eva. “And you two would be?” Landry drawled.
The man glared at Landry. “None of your business. This is between us and our daughter. Mind your own business.”
“Ah, but you see, Eva is our business.” Landry spoke to Cris in a clipped tone, something that Mark suspected was French. Cris turned and bolted for the ICU ward doors.
Mark stepped up next to Landry. Landry was already several inches taller than the guy, and Mark had Landry beat by nearly a head. Mark crossed his arms over his chest and practiced his best scary Dom glare as he stared down at the man, who finally backed up a step.
Ed also spoke up. “I’m Leo’s attorney, and Laurel isn’t going anywhere right now until we know more about his condition.”
Mark didn’t fail to notice how Eva tried—and failed—to argue with her father and mother.
; Then Tilly burst into the pile from somewhere and physically put herself between Eva and the man, backing him away with a threatening tone.
“Mister, you’d better step yourself back about five feet unless you want to see what I’m made of.”
Mark swore Landry muttered something that sounded like, “That’s my girl.”
Eva’s mother spotted Laurel in Jesse’s arms near the ICU door and headed that way. “You. Give her to me. Right now.”
Mark actually had to reach out and grab June’s arm, almost missing her before reeling her in. “Stay,” he ordered.
“But Da—”
“Stay.” He didn’t know if she was carrying. Frankly, this was not how he wanted to find out.
Jesse turned sideways, putting himself between Laurel and her grandmother.
“No, Gramma. I want Uncle Jesse,” Laurel said.
“He is not your uncle! You come here to me right this instant.”
Mark was having trouble keeping June next to him and desperately worried he might have to bodily pick her up off the floor to keep her from running in and hurting the older woman.
“No! Leave me alone I want Uncle Jesse!” Laurel’s piercing scream shocked Mark and silenced the waiting room.
Then the grandfather tried to get into the act, and that’s when Eva finally found her balls and ordered her parents to leave Laurel alone.
And Mark put together in his mind what he thought the real problem was.
Mark forced June to sit in a chair as he followed the others over to flank Jesse and Laurel and create a buffer between them and the older couple while they once again focused on Eva, with Ed also jumping into the fray.
That’s when two hospital security guards showed up. Eva, Ed, Ross, Tilly, and Landry herded Eva’s parents into a conference room just off the waiting room while Tilly issued Jesse a silent order with an outstretched palm to wait there with Laurel.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Mark found June and gave her a silent head tip that she could join them.