Sugar Free (2 page)

With the gun ready to fire, I hold it out before me with a sure grip, round the side of the desk, and point it down toward the ground.

JT lies there on his back, eyes open but not seeing anything, the letter opener sticking crudely out of his neck and a pool of blood starting to form under him where it's starting to well and push its way past the object that made the hole in the first place.

JT's dead.

My rapist is dead and I feel like my life has just been ruined.

Fuck, I hate hearing these details. She was almost robotic in her retelling, as if she was reciting merely from a bad memory she tucked deep away so as to protect herself, and it was too painful to bear repeating.

“All these months, I wanted him dead,” Sela whispers in a voice laced with pain and regret. “But now that he is…I don't want that. What the hell have I done?”

I can't stand it. I'm pissed she put herself in that position, but the depth of her anguish is making my hair stand on end. JT deserved her retaliation, but she's not seeing that right now.

Right now she needs validation that her soul hasn't been tainted. That she was merely ensuring her own life would continue and defending against someone else's attempt to take it.

Pushing away from the desk, I turn to see Sela staring at me with tears pouring down her face and eyes so burned out by grief that they're streaked with redness. I can't fucking stand it, and in two strides, I have her in my arms and lifted from the floor. As I cradle her gently, I tell Caroline, “I'm going to get her cleaned up.”

“Beck,” Caroline says cautiously. “Wait…it was self-defense. We need to call the police. It's bad enough she left the scene, but you cannot go cleaning up evidence off her.”

I turn from my sister, noting Sela's head lying heavy on my shoulder as tiny hiccups echo periodically. Caroline rushes to the office door, puts a hand on the knob, and holds up the other. “Just wait a second…”

“Open the fucking door, Caroline,” I growl at her. “Yes, it was self-defense, but how does Sela prove it? Once they find out that JT raped Sela, there's a damn good chance they'll see that as nothing but a motive for murder. In fact, it will seem more likely since she went there with a gun in her purse.”

“But she did nothing wrong,” Caroline implores me, even as she twists the knob and opens the door for me. She knows I'll just do it myself. I slide past her, being careful with Sela's body in my arms.

“I know she didn't do anything wrong, but do you think the justice system will see that? The police and DA want convictions, not a messy death with no evidence to support self-defense. I'm not willing to take that chance.”

“She has bruises.”

“That they'll say were caused by JT merely defending himself,” I say bitterly. “Again, not willing to take the chance they won't see it our way.”

“There will be physical evidence at his house connecting her,” Caroline says as she follows me down the hall to our bedroom. “Prints or some shit like that. That's always how they get the suspect. With forensics.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I say as I head straight into the master bath. I hear Caroline close the door behind us, and I have to assume Ally is still happily occupied in front of the TV. Fuck if I want her to see Sela covered in blood. “But I plan to rectify that situation as soon as I get Sela taken care of.”

“Beck,” Caroline snaps at me in irritation. “Don't put her in that shower until we talk about this. This is Sela's decision, not yours.”

“You're right,” I say softly, and lower Sela to the tiled floor. Her feet touch solidly, but I keep my arm around her waist, because she looks like a delicate breeze would blow her away. One hand goes to her cheek and I get her attention by tilting her face up so she looks at me.

“Sela,” I tell her with a mixture of authority and empathy. “I don't think it's a good idea to go to the police. You'd never be on their radar. They have no clue about your history with JT. I'm going to do everything in my power to ensure they don't find that he's dead.”

“But she looks less guilty if she goes to them now,” Caroline points outs.

Sela's eyes never leave mine. She never considers Caroline's words, but I feel the need to clarify. “Baby…if they come after you, you still have the truth of what occurred. That will always be there.”

Caroline makes a frustrated noise but turns away from us, almost as if she's giving us privacy. She knows she's said her piece and she also knows that even though Sela has the truth of what happened on her side, the mere fact she didn't report it right away will be held against her.

But I can't risk it.

Sela has more motive for murder than anyone on this planet. She'll be a district attorney's wet dream as a murder suspect. Hell, until just weeks ago, Sela
was
planning to murder JT. Too many things could go wrong.

“The letter opener's in my car,” Sela murmurs. “I wanted to get rid of it but didn't know what to do.”

“I'll handle that,” I tell her, my thumb stroking her cheek. I'm going to handle so much more than that, but she doesn't need the details.

“Then I'll do what you think's best,” she says softly, her shoulders sagging as if she can't handle one more burden.

I lean in, give her a soft kiss on her lips. Chaste. Reassuring.

She can count on me.

“Take your clothes off,” I instruct Sela as I stride over to the huge walk-in shower and turn the water on. She complies immediately and without any regard for Caroline, who now stands in the doorway, watching us both with a nervous bite to her lip.

I gather up the clothing…the gray hoodie that I have no clue where it came from, blood-soaked T-shirt that leaves her skin rusty brown when she peels it off from the sheer volume that leaked through and dried. Sela disrobes like a robot, eyes almost dead. I take each piece of clothing from her, balling them up tightly, and when she's completely naked, I put my free hand on her lower back and gently urge her into the shower. She complies with no hesitation, stepping under the hot spray, and I try not to notice the immediate swirl of blood around the tile flooring as the water hits the remnants of JT that are left on her body.

Turning to Caroline, I lean in and whisper, “When she's done, you get her dressed and into bed. Then you pour every bit of bleach I have in this condo down that drain, you hear me?”

Caroline's eyes widen in fright, and because she was so adamantly against this, I think she'll complain. Instead, she just nods her head, and I know that our course has been set, she's on board with me and Sela. She may not agree with the way I'm handling things, but she'll help to protect the secret we're slowly creating, one lie at a time.

I walk out of the bathroom, acutely aware of Caroline following me. When I hit the hallway, she murmurs so Ally can't hear us. “What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to JT's house and I'm wiping that place down so there's no trace of Sela. Then I'm going to make sure these clothes and the letter opener never are found.”

“I'm scared, Beck,” Caroline says in a quavering voice, and I immediately feel crushing guilt that she's been dragged into this.

“It'll be okay,” I reassure her, pulling her into me for a tight hug. She clings to me desperately and I press my lips to the top of her head. “I promise it will be okay.”

But right now, I feel an impending doom over us all.

The letter opener and bloody clothes can wait. Potential prints and DNA cannot.

I went down to Sela's car, using the extra key fob I kept secured with my Audi's key to gain entrance. She wasn't stupid…having apparently grabbed paper towels from JT's house to wrap the murder weapon in. This told me she had presence of mind after it was all said and done. It also told me she ventured into other parts of the house that would have to be cleaned up.

But it was late Monday afternoon, heading into early evening, and to my knowledge, JT wouldn't have any visitors. I should be able to slip in, wipe everything down as best I could, and leave without anyone being the wiser.

I briefly thought of disposing of the body, and while I haven't completely ruled it out, I'm not sure that's a good use of my time. More important, getting rid of bloody clothes and a small letter opener won't be hard. Disposing of a full-grown male body is another matter, and it only increases my chances of getting caught. I need a quick in and out, and hope to God I'm able to leave nothing but a cold body with no evidence that will point Sela's way.

I drive to Sausalito, my brain on overdrive trying to mentally walk through everything I'll need to do to clean his place up. Before I left, I had Sela go over everything in a bit more detail with me as she was drying off from the shower. Caroline was in the laundry room, in search of Clorox that I was pretty sure I had.

According to Sela, who seemed more in control of her emotions but spoke in a detached sort of way, everything happened in the den. I was sure I had her exact path and every potential item she could have touched. She confirmed she also went into the kitchen and grabbed paper towels to wrap the letter opener in so she wouldn't get any blood in her car, as well as snagged a gray hoodie sweatshirt of JT's from the coatrack in the foyer. It wouldn't take me long to wipe shit down, but I was not looking forward to the bloody scene.

Sela said there was a lot of blood.

I can't imagine how much is left behind, because it seemed she had all of it on her body.

The thought makes me shudder, but I'm resolved.

I can do this to protect Sela, and that's all that matters.

In fact, maybe wiping down the place isn't going to be good enough. Maybe I do need to suck it up and package JT's body in one of his expensive silk woven rugs, lug it to my trunk, drive him deep into Mount Tamalpais State Park, and leave him for the animals to pick apart.

I could do that.

For Sela.

The miles melt away under my heavy thoughts and before I know it, I'm crawling down JT's street. It's fairly dark and only illuminated by high-end landscape lighting of the houses that sit secluded by privacy plantings. The lots aren't big, but the neighborhood is well established and the bushes and other plants give each home a protected, enclosed feeling.

This bodes well for me.

It should help me get in and out without being seen.

The road takes a meandering turn east, where it starts running parallel to Richardson Bay, and as I come out of the curve, I immediately see the pulsing flare of blue lights. Before I can even see JT's house in the distance, I know those are the lights of police cars.

I know they're at his house because they've been alerted to a murder that's occurred.

It means I'm too late.

I slow down as I observe three police cruisers sitting in front of JT's house about three hundred yards in the distance. A few neighbors stand out in the street, their bodies nothing more than black shadows against the lights of the Sausalito Police Department.

“Fuck,” I mutter as I turn right into the nearest driveway, my heart thundering madly in my chest with newfound anxiety.

JT's been found and now the shit's going to hit the fan. I've officially lost all control over the situation.

I glance down to the console clock and I figure I'll be getting a phone call before too long. Perhaps even a visit from the police.

Of course, they'll contact his parents first, but I'll be next as a close family friend and business partner. It will probably be a visit. They're going to come see me because I'm one of the people who knows him the best, and I'm also going to be an automatic person of interest because I stand to get an entire multimillion-dollar company free and clear with his death.

I slam the Audi in reverse, and with my pulse pounding so hard I'm afraid I'll stroke out, I force myself to calmly ease off the brakes and coast slowly out of the driveway. I turn back and head the same way I came in, my eyes flicking constantly to my rearview mirror to see if anyone notices me turning away.

Will they recognize my car?

I'm too far away for anyone to see my license plate, but probably not too far to identify the car's color, make, and model. If just one cop happens to see me, notes my maneuver, and thinks it's suspicious in any way, they'll match the car up to me.