It almost seemed like a betrayal.
“Yes.” His tone was laced with barely restrained hostility. “And that dickface was most of the reason she felt that way. He was hardly ever around and when he was, he treated her like she was his property. Like she was a toy that he brought out for social events and blowjobs. The rest of the time he forgot she even existed. Left her with real strict instructions to not go anywhere, not talk to anyone. I was one of the few on the approved list of friends.”
Now it definitely felt like a betrayal. This was Chris’s version of their relationship. I knew full well how things looked different on the outside. There were things I could say, ways I could defend, but I bit my tongue.
“Oh, and she’d tell me about stuff he liked to do – kinky stuff.” He said the word “kinky” as though it were repulsive.
“Like what?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“God, I don’t remember now. But it seemed like it was some pretty fucked-up shit.” He leaned back and put his arm along the top of the bench. “He’d bring other people into the bedroom. I remember that. Sometimes to watch. Sometimes for big orgies. And he liked to have her blow him in public. The worst, though, was when he wasn’t around. He loaned her out to his buddies. Let them have their way with her.”
It was funny how I hadn’t noticed how straightlaced Chris was until that moment. He was alpha in the bedroom – a little rough, a dirty talker. But besides that, he was straight up vanilla. I’d detached myself so much from my past that I’d allowed myself to think his style was enough for me.
It was blaringly obvious now that it wasn’t. Nothing he’d said sounded especially kinky, and all of it sounded pretty hot. I was irritated at his judgment. I was also unreasonably jealous of a dead girl.
I forced myself to take a breath before I asked, “How did Missy feel about that?” That was the only thing that really mattered, after all.
“How do you think she felt?” He probably didn’t really want to hear my answer. Thankfully, he didn’t wait for it. “It was horrible and degrading. But she wouldn’t fucking leave him either. I could never get why.”
Because she liked it, I thought, but I wasn’t about to go there unless he did. This conversation was about getting insight, not pointing out Chris’s closed-mindedness.
“But she also could have just been paranoid from all the drugs she took. That was another reason she stayed – the drugs his friends fed her. All the time they kept feeding her with coke. Giving it to her before she even asked.”
Wasn’t that familiar? “They do that so she’ll be more into the sex.”
“Yeah. That’s what I always said.” He sounded glad to be validated. “But she never saw it as a problem.”
Another thing I knew way too much about. Amber never thought it was a problem either, and by the time I forced the issue, it was too big of a problem to do anything about. As trite as it sounded, I shared the only wisdom I had for him. “It’s hard to see when you’re in it.”
He nodded but his expression was dismissive. “She fought with him about it though. Fought with him all the time, really. About everything. Fight and then they’d fuck. Sometimes with everyone watching.”
I twisted my lips, trying to stand back and look at the situation objectively. For many sex-driven couples, fighting was simply foreplay. If Missy had really been afraid, I would have pictured her docile and ready to please. The picture Chris painted portrayed her as feisty and willing to speak her mind.
In my experience, those weren’t the signs of abuse.
“They fought that last night, too,” he added, pulling me from my thoughts.
My pulse ticked up a notch. “You mean the night she died? You were there?”
“Yeah. I was. Crazy, right?”
“Um, yes.” This was so beyond what I’d expected when I’d contacted Chris. I reached my hand across the table, grabbed his arm, and pleaded, “You have to tell me more. I’m dying here.” If he’d had any thought of not telling me more, this would change his mind. Chris could never resist the spotlight.
“There’s not much to tell,” he said in a tone that suggested his words were falsely modest. “Reeve used to throw big parties. He was famous for them back then, and that weekend he had a huge one on his compound in the Pacific. Everyone was there – all Missy’s friends. Reeve’s friends. Friends of their friends. And everyone was pretty much drunk or high the whole time.”
He took a long swig of his beer, his eyes catching on a space somewhere beyond me, and I suspected he was lost in memory.
I forgot to breathe, waiting for him to go on.
Finally he did. “That last day, Reeve and Missy went at it from the moment they woke up.”
“Do you know what about?” Though fighting didn’t indicate abuse, it could suggest a motive for murder.
“Everything. Nothing. The clothes she wore. The girls he hung with. His work. He didn’t like how many drugs she did, but like I said, it was his friends who gave them to her. And they fought about his friends. They could hardly stand to be with each other. I’ll tell you what, if she had come home from that trip, he would have dumped her within the week. I promise you.”
“So you think he did it. You think he killed her.” It was obvious from what he’d said, from the way he’d said it, that he thought Reeve did. But I wanted to hear him say it. Wanted to hear him tell me why.
Chris seemed to consider, working his jaw as he did, though I knew he had to have an opinion without thinking about it. Maybe he was considering whether or not to share it.