And while he considered, I considered too. Considered whether or not anything Chris had said made a difference to me. He’d painted Reeve as possessive, commanding, powerful, particular. All of that only turned me on. Even if Chris gave me proof that Reeve had killed Missy, pushed her off the cliff in a fit of passionate rage, would that matter?
No. It probably wouldn’t.
Reeve was right. I wasn’t scared enough.
Chris stood and went to the window, remaining silent so long I decided I’d crossed the line in my questioning. I cleared my throat, wondering if I should apologize or if it was time for me to go.
Before I could decide, he spoke. “The last time I saw her was around three in the morning.” He stared out over the courtyard. “Reeve was nowhere to be found and she was going on and on about how she was going to find him and tell him. Tell him ‘what she’d done.’ I don’t know what it was. She kept saying it was a secret. She was pretty drunk. And high. And I was too. She wasn’t making sense, but no one was at that point. So I didn’t pay attention. Even though she was worked up. And agitated. Maybe scared too.”
He turned back to me, leaning one shoulder against the window frame. “Do you know what I did then? While she was freaked out and afraid? I went to bed. I was sleeping while she was desperate. I was sleeping while she maybe struggled. Maybe cried and screamed. Sleeping while she fell to her death.”
Chris squeezed his eyes closed tight and it seemed I should maybe say something. Except I had no idea what that would be.
And I was too lost in guilt of my own. What was I doing when Amber needed me? I wondered. When she maybe struggled. Maybe cried and screamed. When she maybe found her death.
“I woke up late the next morning.” Chris’s voice brought my focus back to him. “And I didn’t have time to look for her to say goodbye before I caught the boat back. If I’d tried, maybe the search for her would have started sooner. Maybe people would have been questioned before they went home. Before it was too hard to remember what was said and who was there. Maybe I would have remembered more of what she said in her crazed state. Maybe I could have been more helpful if I’d tried to recall things then, instead of two weeks later when the police approached me. I’ll never know.”
“You can’t live on what if’s,” I offered. It sounded as hollow as it felt.
He ignored my comment and sat back down with a finger pointed to the sky. “But those circumstances, those mistakes on my part don’t change what I do know – that there was something that was off. Something big.” He was fired up, intense. “Even when the Coast Guard tried to tell me I didn’t remember things correctly. When they told me my story couldn’t be corroborated, I never changed my tune. She was upset about something. So, yeah. There are people who say she probably fell. Because she was a mess and it was dark and no one was paying attention to anyone anymore. But you want to know if I think he did it? Yes. I do. Without a doubt. She told him something that he didn’t want to know, and I don’t know what it is, but I believe in my gut that’s how it happened. So he silenced her. No, I didn’t see him do it. No, I can’t prove it, but he did it.
“And if by some crazy chance he didn’t actually push her off that cliff, it was still his fault she died. All his. It was his fault she was there. It was his fault she was in a mood that sent her away from the house, away from safety. It was his fault his fucking friends kept feeding her coke like it was water. It was his fault that she thought she had to stay with a douchefuck like him. He took a precious human and he turned her into used, Emily. Turned her into a possession. He ruined her and then he killed her.”
It was a beautiful moment, in so many ways. Watching a man speak with a conviction that I’d never seen. Hearing the desperation and pain under words of accusation. It was a testimonial. A baring of his soul. And instead of finding myself in it – instead of wondering whom I could blame for Amber, wondering if I would blame Reeve – instead of looking in the mirror for once, I looked at Chris.
And I saw him. Saw what he was really saying. “You loved her,” I said, the realization complete now that I spoke it.
“Of course I did.”
“I mean, you were in love with her.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I guess I was.” He leaned back, letting the admission drift from him freely.
“Damn.” I wasn’t sure if this changed his story or not. Did it make it more tragic? Did it bias his blame? Did it mean anything to my interpretation of the details? “Did she know?”
A grin danced on his lips. “I told her every chance I got.” His somber expression returned. “Which wasn’t as often as I would have liked when she was with Reeve. We were hardly ever alone. Always with those Greek cronies of his.”
“His bodyguards and staff, you mean.” I hadn’t been out in public with Reeve yet. Once I was, would I even get the chance to dig where I needed to? Or would Anatolios always be on my heels? “I hear he’s never without them.”
“And he definitely never leaves his women without them. If not them, his friends.”
“The ones who fed Missy the coke?”
“Yeah.”
As of yet, I hadn’t seen any of Reeve’s friends. It was possible he’d removed himself from the drug world after her death. Though Amber would also have been attracted to those kinds of friends. Maybe he just didn’t think he needed that to keep me around.
Or maybe I had seen them around and didn’t realize it. “Who are his friends? Celebrities? People he works with?”