Seth needed it, despite the fact that she was blackmailing me. But after you came into my life, I paid her to keep quiet. Stupid, but done with the best intentions.”
She reached for his hand. “And before?”
“I avoided her because she developed a crush on me and I wasn’t at all interested. I didn’t tell you much about her because she was just another one of my father’s messes that I had to clean up. She never was anything more to me than that despite her efforts to change it.”
Ember thought about the talk she and Heidi had had last year and how Heidi had stalked Trace to learn more about him, which had been odd then. But now, knowing what linked them, it only reinforced what he said. She really had meant nothing to him.
“Then why did you use her to try and drive me away?”
“Because unlike the other women of my acquaintance, Heidi wouldn’t have misinterpreted my actions because she knew she meant nothing to me.” He looked a little nervous before he asked, “We okay?”
She leaned into him and pressed her lips to his. “Always.”
He moved quickly to bring her mouth back to his for a kiss that she felt all the way down to her toes. He was grinning when he leaned back.
“Why were you sitting here staring at the wall?”
The humor faded from his face. “The police called. They checked the phone records and I’m off the hook for Heidi’s murder.”
“But?”
“They wanted to go through our conversation again, word for word.”
“Why?”
“The timeline again. Our phone records confirm that Heidi called here at three oh eight a.m. The call lasted two minutes. The medical examiner puts time of death at around quarter after to half past three.”
A chill went through her. “Okay, that’s creepy.”
His eyes finally looked into hers. “It gets creepier. The nine-one-one call reporting the murder was made just before three.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, the person who called nine-one-one about the murder was the actual murderer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, but the police have a few theories.”
“And they shared these theories with you?”
“Yeah, I got the sense they were trying to trip me up. But based on what they told me, they think Heidi was blackmailing someone. She went too far and they pushed back. They think that the blackmailee contacted Heidi that night. There’s a record of a call on her phone at two a.m. and I’m guessing it was from a burner phone so they can’t trace it. They’re working under the assumption that he was right in the area, watching Heidi’s reaction to his call. Possibly hoping that if she was working with someone, she’d contact them.”
“And that’s where you come in.”
“Exactly. Whether the police believe I’m involved in the blackmail plot is unclear, but if the murderer really was there, then they’re going to think I was working with Heidi.”
“Goddamn her, even in death she’s fucking with us.”
“Agreed.”
“What’s the other theory?” she asked.
“That she had an accomplice who she double-crossed and they sought payback.”
Trace moved to wrap Ember in his arms. “There’s one person even more affected by this shit than us.”
Her heart stopped. “Seth.”
“He was there in that apartment with no alibi. Based on the police’s theory, he’s their number one suspect.”
Dane’s head rested against the sofa while the drugs coursed through his blood. Lena was kneeling in front of him sucking him off, but surprisingly his thoughts were elsewhere.
Heidi was dead. And he had a feeling he knew by whose hand. That scared the shit out of him. He knew that Heidi had been blackmailing someone in his family, maybe even all of them. She’d believed she had them all wrapped around her little finger, but obviously the blackmailee disagreed. What concerned him was what Heidi had left behind. Could he be implicated in Heidi’s scheme? If so, would the killer come after him?
He had no illusions that he’d been spared because he was a blood relation; in fact, most of the time he knew his biological link to his family only served to piss them all off, including dear ol’ dad.
He’d been following the news and knew that the investigation was hovering over Heidi’s son and he knew from Heidi herself the connection with Trace Montgomery. If he shared what he knew, maybe Trace would uncover who did it before they came looking for Dane.
He was so lost in thought he didn’t realize that Lena had stopped working him and was watching him intently.