myself, I scrubbed a hand down my face and closed my eyes. Instantly, images of him with the brunette popped into my head.
My chest squeezing, I snapped open my eyes. Fuck, it shouldn’t make me feel so sick and cold to think of him with another woman.
Hooking the strap of my purse over my shoulder, I picked up the suitcase and left the room. My insides seized as I began to descend the winding staircase. He stood at the bottom, barring my path.
“We’re going to talk,” he said, his tone non-negotiable.
Refusing to let him see the hurt churning inside me, I gave him a blank look. “Another time.”
“Who sent you the flash drive?”
“I haven’t a clue. There was no note. It was posted to o-Verve and addressed to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go.”
His brow raised. “You don’t want to know who the woman is? You don’t want to know why I was at that club? I know how those pictures must look to you. Collectively, they paint a very ugly image of me—one that clearly had the desired effect, because you want to walk. But none of it is what it seems.”
Yeah. Right. “Like I said, we’ll talk another time.”
“No, we’re going to do it now. We can have the conversation right here, if you like. Makes no difference to me.”
I ground my teeth. “Dane, I’m not in the mood to—”
“She was Hugh’s favorite call girl.”
I felt my lips part. “Excuse me?”
“Even when he was in his later years, plenty of women—young and old—were eager to share his bed because he had money and power. But Hugh wasn’t interested in having a pretty ornament who’d lyingly profess to love him; he said it would be no different than him paying for sex, only he’d have to deal with the aggravation that came with a shallow relationship. So he stuck to high-end call girls, because then at least everyone knew where they stood.
“He developed a fondness for Lacey—she had a shit childhood and got into prostitution because there was nothing that she wouldn’t do to provide for her eight-year-old son. She became his regular. Before he died, he told me he’d be leaving her fifty grand in his will and one of his apartments, but that she could only have those things if she gave up her job as a call girl and went back to school, just as she dreamed of doing.
“He was sure she’d do it, and she did. He made me promise to keep an eye on her, because he didn’t trust that her pimp—who scares the everloving shit out of her—wouldn’t harass her or bully her into going back to that life. The guy liked having control over her, and he hates that he lost it. Whenever things are going to shit, he seeks out his favorite whipping girl. Lacey knows to call me if he makes an appearance.”
I narrowed my eyes, searching his face. He looked and sounded so very sincere. But then, he always did—even when lying his ass off to my family.
“Those photos of me in her living room … I was there because she called to say he’d broken into her home and smacked her around,” he went on. “I was holding her chin while I got a good look at the bruised side of her face—you can’t see it from the angle on the picture. She was lifting her tank top to show me the bruises on her ribs from where he’d kicked the shit out of her. Again, you can’t see those marks from the angle the picture was taken.
“I went to the club the next night because he owns it, and I knew he’d be there. As I’ve done many times before, I beat the shit out of him—I even wrapped my tie around his throat and choked him until he almost passed out. When I called Lacey the following day to tell her I’d dealt with him, she didn’t answer. Thinking he might have gotten to her again, I went to her house and I found that she was packing to leave.
“I snatched a sweater from her hand before she could toss it in the case; I talked her into not running. She knelt on the floor because that’s where she’d set the suitcase—something you can’t see in the picture—and she’d agreed to unpack it. If you want, I can take you to meet Lacey right now; she’ll tell you everything I just told