Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Gideon
I killed the ignition on my Jaguar, but didn’t make any move to get out, my gaze fixated on the shoreline in the distance. The sun had just begun to rise behind the mountains, casting a glow over the surfers bobbing up and down on the ocean waves.
Was Imogene out there?
I needed to stop thinking about her.
Obsessing over her.
Tonight confirmed everything Henry tried to warn me about.
I hated essentially gaslighting her like I did, making her feel like a shitty person for accusing me of being her long-lost love.
Which I was.
But like Henry told me, I was in too deep. It was only a matter of time before she learned the truth. She was already suspicious. I needed to either come clean or walk away.
I needed to choose between revenge or love.
I chose revenge.
Until James and Liam paid for their sins, I would always choose revenge. It wasn’t even a choice, though. I was a slave to my revenge. It was my master and I was merely a puppet, allowing this desperate need to control me.
To consume me.
It didn’t make walking away from Imogene any easier, though, even if I knew it was for the best. Which was why I’d spent the past few hours driving aimlessly around San Diego, trying to convince myself I did the right thing.
I’d seen firsthand how much Samuel’s death still haunted her. It was selfish of me to pursue something with her when I had no plans for a future. When I was willing to sacrifice myself in order to fulfill my vendetta.
She already lost me once.
I would be a complete asshole if I allowed her to mourn me twice.
With the weight of everything bearing down on me, I opened the door and stepped out of my car. The world was peaceful in the predawn hours, only the faint squawk of seagulls breaking through the sound of the nearby ocean waves.
I slowly made my way up the front steps of my house and slipped inside, expecting it to be quiet.
I should have known better.
As I entered the kitchen, I found Henry by the one-cup brewer, still wearing the same t-shirt and shorts he wore when I left last night.
“Did you sleep in your clothes?” I asked, moving toward him and grabbing a mug from the cabinet.
“That would require sleep.”
“You haven’t slept?” I arched a brow.
“It doesn’t look like you have, either.” He gestured to my disheveled appearance, my shirt still unbuttoned and pants crumpled.
“You know I don’t sleep well in an actual bed.”
After spending four years sleeping on a cold, cement floor, my body had grown accustomed to that. It wasn’t until I spent the night with Imogene last weekend that I’d finally found comfort in a real bed again.
Shouldn’t that have been enough of a reason for me to realize what was important? To forget about this desperate need for revenge and focus only on the future? I was given a second chance in life. Was I just throwing it away?
“I think it’s more than that.”
Sometimes I hated how well Henry could read me. It was why he was the only person I trusted to help me carry out my plan. He could anticipate my needs without me having to say a single word.
And he wasn’t afraid to call me out on my bullshit when necessary.
Like he did yesterday.
“I broke things off with her,” I finally admitted as I pressed the button on the coffee maker and it whirred to life, the nutty aroma surrounding me.
“You did?” His eyes widened.
“You were right. She doesn’t deserve this.”
I didn’t tell him she figured out the truth, but instead of admitting it, I put the blame on her, making her out to be a woman still in love with a ghost.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to confess what I’d done, the guilt still weighing me down. Especially every time I closed my eyes and saw Imogene’s bewildered expression in the seconds before I stormed out of her bedroom. Not to mention the hurt in her eyes as she examined my body, finding the same burn marks as Samuel.
As me .
“That couldn’t have been easy,” Henry offered sympathetically. “You care about her, whether as the man you once were or the man you are now. I’m glad you finally saw the harm you’d continue to cause her.”
I didn’t respond, taking a sip of my coffee and trying to push thoughts of Imogene out of my mind.
“What kept you up all night?” I cleared my throat, needing to change the subject.
He studied me for a beat, but thankfully didn’t press any further about Imogene. “Follow me.”
He headed out of the kitchen and down the corridor leading to his office, the evidence of his all-nighter scattered on the desk in the form of discarded coffee mugs and dirty dishes.
“Remember how James kept looking at his phone today? Or yesterday,” he corrected.
“Sure.” I scrunched my brows, wondering why he thought that odd. “I figured he was just searching for any potential public relations backlash over Alton’s death.”
“I thought so, too. But I never like to assume anything, especially where these assholes are concerned.”
“You have a point there.”
After all, I’d assumed these men were my friends, only for Liam to stab me in the back.
Or, more accurately, shoot me in my abdomen.
“I did some digging and was able to access James’ phone records.”
“I’m not sure I want to know how you did that.” I laughed under my breath.
It was one thing to access a random citizen’s call log. It was another to access that of a United States Senator.
“You don’t.” His lips turned up into a conniving grin, reminding me why I was glad to have Henry on my side. “He made about a dozen calls to the same number in half as many hours. And these calls didn’t start until he was notified of the somewhat surprising evidence found at Alton’s cabin.”
“Who was he calling?”
“The number was untraceable, but lucky for us, James has never been a patient man. Or all that smart. After not getting an answer for the tenth or eleventh time, he made another call. This one to a number that is traceable. Hell, it’s more than just traceable. It’s searchable on the internet.” He typed on his keyboard, and the webpage for a funeral home in Atlanta popped up.
I stared at it for several long moments, my mind spinning. “Maybe he’s planning Alton’s memorial. He did get his start in Atlanta.” I swallowed hard. “We all did.”
“That doesn’t explain the incessant calls he made whenever Liam was out of the room. Which is why I decided to do some digging.”
“I figured you would.”
“The owner of this funeral home is a man by the name of Brian McGuire. He’s been a licensed funeral director for the past fifteen years. But for the ten years before getting his degree in mortuary science, he worked for a company called Aftermath Cleaning.”
His fingers flew over the keyboard once more, and another website popped up on the monitor. But unlike I initially assumed, this wasn’t a normal in-home cleaning service. Their specialty was crime scene cleanup.
Why would James be anxious to speak to this funeral director, assuming he was the owner of that untraceable number?
“Is there a picture of this Brian McGuire?”
“Sure.” Henry clicked a few buttons and a bio page from the funeral home’s website appeared, a photo of a dark-haired man of average build and blue-gray eyes staring back at me. But what caught my attention was the pin on his lapel, a black background with a gold B in elegant script.
A ghost of a memory slammed into me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, placing a hand on the desk to steady myself. I’d seen that pin before. I was sure of it.
“You okay?” Henry asked, his gaze narrowed in concern. “Do you recognize him?”
“I…” I shook my head, blinking repeatedly. “I don’t know.”
“Well, it appears James is planning on paying McGuire a visit. I was able to access the funeral home’s servers and found an email from McGuire to one of his employees instructing her to clear his schedule for tomorrow morning and give the staff the day off due to a VIP client coming in.”
“And you’re certain this couldn’t just be James trying to plan Alton’s memorial?”
Henry arched a skeptical brow at my suggestion. “This is a man who had his chief of staff plan his own mother’s funeral last year. Do you honestly think he’d put in this much effort?”
“I don’t know what to believe right now,” I answered honestly. “But I don’t think we’ll get any answers by staying here.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”