The Girl I Didn't Kill For (Jessie & Nick Book 2)

by Annabelle Costa

  I know that I have to talk to Aileen. As frightened and guilty as I feel, it will be much worse if I say nothing to her. I was about to marry Seth, after all. In only two short months. Aileen was about to be my mother-in-law. What are we now?

  So after the burial is over, I get behind the crowd that has come to speak to her. I wait, even as the cars that came as part of the funeral procession disperse. I wait until I’m finally face-to-face with Aileen Parsons.

  Aileen is not particularly pretty. She has a round, pleasant face with eyes that are a little too close together, and a small, narrow nose with thin lips. Every time I’ve ever seen her, her hair has been pulled back in a graying bun, and today is no exception. Her eyes are bloodshot with big purple circles underneath.

  “Jessica,” she says.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

  I was the last in the line of people waiting to speak to her, so we’re as alone as we’ll ever be. Whatever she wants to say, she can say it without being overheard. I brace myself, waiting for a venomous declaration, so I’m surprised when she says, “Did Seth do that to your face?”

  I self-consciously touch the bruise under my eye, which is still purple, although not as brilliantly so as it was a couple of days ago. I know the bruises are visible on my neck as well.

  I’m not sure what to tell her. I could lie. It seems cruel to allow Aileen’s last memory of her son to be of the beating he gave to his girlfriend. Yet… she should know the truth.

  “Yes,” I say. “He did.”

  She’s quiet. She lowers her eyes and lets out a sad noise that’s something between a sigh and a sob.

  “But I didn’t shoot him,” I add.

  “I know you wouldn’t.” She lifts her eyes again to look into mine. “The police said they thought the mob was involved and… well, it doesn’t surprise me.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  She shakes her head. “He was always in debt. He would come to me asking for money—me. He seemed so desperate. Then all of a sudden, he said he figured the whole thing out.” She sighs. “I worried, you know? Where did he get all that money? I thought there might be something illegal about the whole thing.”

  I try to keep the surprise from my face. Things had gotten much better financially in the last several months—Seth didn’t get hysterical when I spent a little extra money on groceries and he actually took me out to dinner at decent restaurants. I just assumed it was because Seth’s law practice finally starting getting more business. But maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe the money came from somewhere else.

  Except where?

  “I’m sure the police will figure out who did it,” I tell her.

  Although for the first time, I’m not so sure. The police are ready to hang the whole thing on Nick, because he had both motive and opportunity. But the first thing Nick said to me when the police told me Seth was dead was he didn’t do it. I wanted so badly to believe him, but I couldn’t imagine any alternate scenario.

  But now I wonder if there’s a chance he might have been telling the truth.

  Chapter 42

  Nick

  TJ Howard is the best private detective I ever met.

  I’ve used a few of them over the years, but now I use TJ exclusively. He’s a retired cop who knows everyone there is to know, is smart as hell, and also discreet. That’s why I got him in my office, to figure out what the hell is going on.

  TJ knows part of the story already from the papers, but I fill him in on the rest. He listens quietly, occasionally scratching at his close-cropped black hair. He waits until I’m done telling him everything before he comments:

  “Shit, Nick.”

  That sums it up well.

  “Can you help me?” I ask him.

  “I’ll do my best.” He scratches his chin. “Lombardi—he’s not a good one to mess with. I believe he’s capable of doing this to you. But I doubt he did it alone.”

  “You think it was an inside job?”

  “Good chance, based on what you’re telling me.” He arches one eyebrow at me. “You sure about your brother? He had motive and opportunity.”

  “Yes,” I say without hesitation.

  “Fair enough. So who else?”

  “I got plenty of enemies, TJ.”

  “This wouldn’t be an enemy though.” He smiles crookedly. “It would be someone you thought was a friend.”

  I sigh, thinking over my personal life, of everyone I’m close to. It’s hard to imagine any of them could do this to me. “There was this girl I hooked up with a few times… Lori Welch. It didn’t end well with her. She was in my home. She could’ve taken the gun…”

  TJ whips a small notebook out of his pocket and scribbles something down on it with a ballpoint pen. “Anyone else have access to your apartment?”

  “Christ, I don’t know.” This is painful to think about. “My cleaning lady. Her name is Maria Fernandez.”

  He nods, scribbling it down.

  “My parents,” I add with a wry smile. When TJ keeps scribbling, I quickly add, “Don’t write that down. It wasn’t my parents.”

  “Right,” TJ says, “but what if it’s someone who has access to your parents and got the key from their home?”

  “Maybe.” It’s a possibility, but Pop is careful about things like that. “I guess so.”

  “Who else?”

  “Well, I got two assistants and they each got a key,” I say. “Wendy Scott and Christina Cagliari. But… shit, those two have been with me forever. Wendy’s been working for me for six years and I’ve known Chrissy since we were babies.”

  TJ writes it down anyway. “You mentioned Lori Welch. Any other women in your life?”

  “Well, there was…” I swallow. “Obviously, there was the fiancée of that guy. Jessica Schultz.”

  He scribbles it down.

  “Jessie didn’t set me up,” I say.

  He arches that one eyebrow again. “You sure about that, Nick?”

  “I’m sure,” I say through my teeth.

  “Because out of everyone, don’t you think she had the best means to do it?” TJ’s dark eyes meet mine. “Think about it. She shoots her fiancé, who it sounds like things weren’t going so good with anyway. She has one of Lombardi’s guys put a few bruises on her to get you riled up. And she knows you well enough to know first thing you’d do was run right over there. Perfect set up.”

  I just stare at him.

  TJ grins at me with a mouth full of bright white teeth. “You wanna hit me, don’t you, Nick?”

  My jaw twitches. “Yeah.”

  “Look,” he says, “it’s my job to ask these questions. You don’t know who did this to you and you don’t want to believe the worst of anyone. But somebody framed you, Nick.”

  “It wasn’t Jessie.” I know it with every fiber of my being. Maybe she believed the worst of me, but I won’t do the same to her.

  TJ shuts his notebook. “I think I got enough to go on for now. I’ll get a report to you in the next couple of days.”

  I nod, confident that TJ will be able to come up with the information I’ve been looking for. Even if it’s information I don’t necessarily want to hear.

  Jessie

  It’s the first time I’ve been back in the old apartment since Seth tried to strangle me here.

  I go immediately after the funeral is over—I can’t wait an extra minute. There’s yellow police tape crisscrossed over the door, but I pull it off, fit my key into the lock, and head inside. I nearly expect to find police officers still lingering around the place, but nobody’s here. The apartment is empty.

  I look down at the carpet in the living room. There’s a large crimson stain where Seth had bled from the back of his head, and then lines made in the carpet by Nick’s tires. I wonder if he died instantly when the bullet penetrated. Did he lie on the floor, the blood gushing out of him, knowing he was going to die? Does that happen when you get shot in the head? Or is it instant death?

  I never ask
ed Nick how it felt when he got shot. The bullet had penetrated his abdomen and there had probably been a fair amount of bleeding. I wonder if he thought he was going to die. It must have been terrifying. As scary as it was when Seth’s hands were wrapped around my neck.

  I avert my eyes from the blood on the carpet and head to our bedroom.

  Seth and I kept our finances separate. We each contributed a share of the rent and utilities, and I paid for most of the groceries. There were months when Seth said he was short and I paid the entire rent. I didn’t count dollars and cents. We were partners—we were going to be married.

  Except now I think he was keeping secrets from me.

  I look around the room, trying to figure out where Seth would have kept his financial documents. I check the dresser by our bed, but that doesn’t turn up anything. I look in his sock drawer—nothing. I even check under the mattress, because it seems like that’s where people keep important secret stuff in movies. But apparently not in real life.

  I start digging through the closet. I check some of the shoeboxes at the bottom, but I find only shoes. I find a photo album that’s just photos and no financial papers. Finally, I open up a piece of rolling luggage, and find a manila envelope wedged between two white towels.

  Paydirt.

  My hands are shaking as I rip it open, unable to take the time to work the metal clasp. I pull out a thick pile of papers and start digging through them one by one. I’m not any type of financial genius, but when I sort through all these documents, there’s one clear conclusion that I can draw:

  Seth owed money.

  More money than I would ever have guessed. On top of his college and law school loans, he was borrowing money to keep his practice afloat. If I had known, I would have told him to sell his practice and get a real job years ago. Thank God I’m not on the hook for any of these debts—they will go away with his death.

  What disturbs me more is Seth’s mother said he had stopped asking for money—he’d found some other way to get it. What did that mean exactly?

  What if…

  God, this seems so far-fetched but…

  What if he borrowed money from the wrong people in order to pay back his bank loans? What if he defaulted on his loans and they decided to kill him? And Nick was an easy target to pin it on?

  Is that possible?

  I’ve got to talk to Nick.

  Chapter 43

  Nick

  The last time I was at Tootsie’s, I was one of the most important businessmen in the whole goddamn city. Tonight I’m a criminal out on bail.

  I’m going to enjoy myself though. I’m going to watch the show, because it’s probably going to be one of my last. I don’t have any definitive plans yet to leave the country, but as soon as Chrissy gets her hands on my phony passport, I gotta start making arrangements.

  Tonight is one of the nights Jessie is supposed to be singing, but she called out for the week. Understandable, in light of what happened. Even after I leave town, I hope she keeps singing at my clubs. She’s got real talent—it shouldn’t get wasted.

  The girl singing now is a typical Tootsie’s girl—skinny and blond and young, with impossibly large fake boobs barely restrained by her flimsy black dress. I can see a hint of a nipple peeking out, and I bet I’m not the only one who notices. The girl can’t sing worth a damn, but nobody here cares. She’s okay. I don’t want to cover my ears or anything.

  “Nick?”

  I look up and see Lori standing in front of me in that string bikini, holding a tray with my beer on it. I didn’t place the order with her, but somehow she finagled to get my table. I wonder if she’s going to let me have it for dumping her for Jessie. Not that we were in a relationship where dumping would have been required to end it—we were just messing around.

  “Hey, Lori,” I say.

  “I can’t believe you remember my name.” There’s a bitter edge to her voice, which I probably deserve.

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  She shakes her head. “No, I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t give you a hard time. I heard what happened to you.”

  It’s an interesting choice of words. What happened to you. Most people would have said they heard what I did. Ninety-nine percent of people, including Jessie and my whole goddamn family, assume I’m guilty. Is Lori the only person who didn’t immediately jump to that conclusion?

  “Thanks,” is all I say.

  “And I just want to say,” she adds, “if you need a sympathetic ear, I’m a good listener.”

  Lori is good at a lot of things, but a good listener? Well, maybe. I shouldn’t judge.

  “I’ll be okay,” I mumble.

  “You sure?”

  I look up at Lori’s smooth, unlined face. I’m not gonna lie—it wouldn’t be so bad going home with her. But right now, the only woman I can think about is Jessie. Even after she walked out on me, it would feel wrong going home with anyone else. “I’m sure.”

  I set out for my apartment at close to midnight. I’m exhausted, but I know I’ll lie in bed again, unable to sleep. I haven’t gotten a good night of sleep since I found Seth dead on the floor in his apartment. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to sleep through the night again.

  As I drive past the front of my building on the way to the parking lot, I nearly crash into the curb when I see who’s leaning against the side of the building. It’s hard to miss all that golden hair, even when she’s got a trench coat wrapped around her to conceal her body. I pull over fast, forgetting for a split second that I can’t leap out of the car and run to her. You’d think after all these years in a chair, I wouldn’t get impulses like that, but I still do. And it’s always a punch in the gut when I realize I can’t. Instead, I roll down the window.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask her.

  She leans in close so that I can just barely hear her and whispers the words, “I believe you.”

  Chapter 44

  Jessie

  Nick shoves his wheelchair to the backseat so I can get into his car with him. He can’t seem to do it fast enough. At first, I think he’s going to pull into the garage, but instead, he keeps driving. He turns a corner about half a mile away from his building until we’re sitting in a dark alley. Then he kills the engine.

  If I were with anyone else aside from Nick Moretti, I’d be terrified right now. But I’m never scared around Nick. Even when I thought he might be a murderer. He would never hurt me, no matter what.

  He turns to look at me. Even with everything going on right now, Nick’s dark eyes make my body tingle everywhere. I want to lean forward to kiss him. There’s no man in the world as attractive as he is—I was an idiot to try to make it work with anyone else. Once Nick stopped calling me, I should have joined a nunnery.

  “Talk,” he says. “What’s going on?”

  I don’t even know where to begin. “I think Seth owed a lot of money. Like, a lot.”

  He tilts his head to the side. “To who?”

  “To the bank. At first.”

  “At first?”

  I nod. “Then the loans suddenly… went away. And I don’t know why.”

  Nick takes this in, his brows knitted together. He stares down at the steering wheel, shaking his head. “You think some loan sharks killed him.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “It’s possible,” he admits. “But there’s a lot it doesn’t explain.”

  “Like?”

  “Whoever hit Seth timed it perfectly.” He frowns at the windshield. “They killed him fifteen minutes before I got there. How the hell would they know to do that?”

  “Maybe it’s a coincidence?”

  “Yeah, maybe.” He lets out a sigh. “I don’t know, Jessie. But… I’m not sure it even matters.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He rakes a shaky hand through his short, dark hair. “I mean that whoever’s setting me up did a fucking good job. I need to get out of the country—permanently.”

  “What?” I ca
n’t believe what I’m hearing. “But you’re innocent!”

  “Yeah, who cares?” he snorts. “Look, Jessie, what jury would believe I didn’t do it? If I don’t run, I could end up spending the rest of my life in prison. Shit—one day was enough.”

  I try to imagine Nick ending up behind bars. I can’t. I always assumed if he ever got in a jam, his connections would be enough to get him out of it. But clearly, he doesn’t think that’s the case. I can see he’s genuinely scared.

  I reach out and take his hand. His palm feels rough against mine from all his years of pushing the chair around. “If you leave the country, I’m coming with you.”

  His eyes widen. “Jessie, you don’t have to…”

  “Yeah, but I’m gonna.”

  Nick seems to be at a loss for words. He stares at me for a second, then grabs me to pull me closer to him. I feel his lips on mine and I melt against him. There’s no chance I could let this man get away from me again. Wherever he goes, that’s where I’m going. End of story.

  And then we’re full on making out. In his car in a dark alley, but who cares? I feel his fingers lacing through my hair at first, then going up the back of my blouse, touching my bare skin to make me shiver. I yank his dress shirt out of his pants and do the same, feeling the taut muscles in his chest under my fingertips. He’s so freaking sexy. I’ve wanted to do this for so long—nearly twenty years.

  He doesn’t explicitly say it, but I recognize sex in a car is not something that could possibly be easy for him, especially in the front seat. It doesn’t matter though. We both stay above the belt, his fingers on my breasts, abdomen, and back while I touch him in all the ways I used to dream about when I was in high school. Our lips never part—we’re kissing each other like the ship is going down. Like this could be the last time we ever see each other, although that won’t be the case. Not this time.