to react to the news that she was alone in a dark room with a murderer. The exit signs glowed from what looked like a mile away.
“He let you into the locker room with him that night. You killed him.”
“It wasn’t part of the plan, believe me.”
“What was the plan?” She turned her head and even that small motion made her nauseous. If she could make it out of the ring, she might find cover behind the columns of body bags flanking the red carpet, but she wasn’t going to outrun a bullet. As she stared into the dark rows of bags, they seemed to be moving of their own accord. She closed her eyes.
“Are you still investigating, Nora?”
“Managing my expectations.”
He laughed once, a warm, genuine sound that made her go cold. “God, I love so much about you.” She heard him stand up and move closer. “The gym was the only option now that the situation has … evolved. I need to know everything, and that requires time and privacy. This is the ideal place, actually. Draw the blackout shades, disengage the security cameras, turn off the badge sensors on the doors, and we have a perfect interview room. It’s soundproofed, because Strike gyms are never a nuisance to our neighbors, and the ring is disinfected daily. Cleaner than a hospital.” He breathed out a satisfied sigh. “Ask and Strike will provide.”
Nora rocked herself to all fours, letting her head hang heavy and biting down on the urge to whimper.
“Take it easy. There’s an ice pack next to you.”
She opened her eyes again and saw it, sweating in the spotlight. Applying it to her arm, she braced herself and rose to one knee. The room spun. She moved the ice pack to her head.
Gregg watched her with tender detachment, like one would a wounded sparrow floundering on the ground. He held the gun in one hand, pointed at the floor. He wasn’t going to use it, though, not yet. He said he needed to know everything, and that meant she had leverage. She still had time.
“He confronted you about the money?”
Gregg didn’t answer.
“Was he blackmailing you for more than you’d agreed, or did you frame him, too? Was he an innocent party in all this?”
“Innocent is a strong word for most people.”
The cold focused her, steadied her, but she closed her eyes again and sat back on her haunches, pressing the ice pack harder, wishing she could bury it inside her head. “Logan confronted me, too.”
She heard him move and when he spoke again, his voice sounded closer to the ground, on her level. “What happened, Nora? You can tell me.”
Slowly, she did. She told him about Logan finding the email and recruiting Corbett, the chain of transfers across the Caribbean, and how Corbett had—in a fit of conscience—moved the money beyond even Logan’s reach. And then, how Logan had responded to his ultimatum by cracking his skull against an alley wall.
“She surprised me in the middle of the woods near my house. She’d come there two nights in a row, waiting, wanting me to recover the money for her.” Nora lowered the ice pack and stared straight into Gregg’s eyes. “I didn’t plan to hurt her.”
He moved closer, an arm’s length away, still holding the gun at his side. “Don’t think it’ll upset me if she’s dead. If you killed her. I’d be the last person to blame you.” He crept nearer, a bald appeal stretching across his face. “Can’t you see how alike we are, Nora? You would protect your company, too, if you had a partner who was trying to throw Parrish away. You know you would.”
She forced herself to inch forward, mirroring him. “What happened with Aaden?”
The story came haltingly at first, short statements she had to coax out of him, but once he got going the details began pouring out: his simple cocktail napkin plan, Logan’s birthday trip and the Nassau account, Magers Construction, deposits Aaden wasn’t supposed to be able to trace, everything that led up to a gunshot in a locker room. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. The ice pack turned warm in Nora’s hand.
When he finally finished, he looked exhausted.
“I drove back to the Rochester hotel. I got rid of the clothes I’d been wearing and that’s when I realized Aaden’s badge was still in my pocket. It should have been in the locker room with him. I didn’t know if the police would notice it was missing, but by the