Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“So you’re telling me you didn’t hear a gunshot?”
The officer stands on our front porch, his posture relaxed in a way that feels practiced rather than natural, his eyes sharp despite the casual tilt of his head. There’s something about the way he looks at me that makes my skin tighten, as if he’s already decided I’m worth watching.
I shake my head, forcing my voice to stay steady despite the pressure building in my chest. “We didn’t hear anything until the scream.”
“The scream?” His eyebrow lifts slightly, not quite disbelief, but close enough to feel like it. I can feel the weight of his attention moving over me, searching, measuring, waiting for something to slip.
“We were eating breakfast out back,” Bennett says evenly, stepping in beside me with that calm, grounded tone he always finds in moments like this. “We heard Chrissy scream and came around to the front.”
The officer glances from our house to Phillip’s, his gaze lingering on the distance between them as if calculating something. “So no gunshot. Just the scream.” He pauses, then shifts his focus back to us. “Did you know your neighbors well?”
The question lodges somewhere in my throat, sharp and unwelcome. There are too many answers to it, none of them safe.
I think he killed my best friend.
I swallow it down.
“As well as you do after living next door to someone for ten years,” I say, keeping my tone neutral, careful.
He nods once, jotting something down in his notepad before sliding it neatly into his breast pocket. “We’ll need a formal statement. Since you were the ones who responded first.”
He directs that at Bennett, but his eyes keep returning to me, circling back like I’m the part of the equation that doesn’t quite fit.
I feel it settle over me like heat, like a spotlight I can’t step out of.
My chest tightens, and I have to focus on breathing evenly, on keeping my expression composed.
“One more thing,” he adds, almost casually. “How long has Ms. Chrissy been living with the victim?”
The victim.
The word lands strangely.
Phillip as a victim feels wrong, like something misaligned. But then again, a man lying dead in his own front yard, his skull shattered into the grass, fits the definition whether I like it or not.
“A few weeks,” Bennett answers.
The officer nods again, his gaze flicking briefly past me, scanning the yard, the house, the edges of the scene as if something might reveal itself if he looks long enough.
“Do you think she did this?” The question leaves me before I can stop it, sharp and immediate.
He turns back to me, one eyebrow lifting, a flicker of interest breaking through the neutrality. “Too soon to tell,” he says with a small shrug, his mouth tightening into something that almost resembles a smile. “We’ll be in touch.”
And then he’s gone, stepping off the porch and back into the controlled chaos unfolding across the lawn.
For a moment, neither Bennett nor I speak. The silence between us feels different now, thinner, stretched tight with everything we’re both thinking but not saying.
“This isn’t going to be good,” Bennett says finally, his voice low. “Two dead in a month. A mistress. A motorcycle club. It sounds like one of those books you read.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction,” I murmur, though the words feel hollow as they leave me.
Across the street, I catch movement. Tara, Caroline, and two of the other women are already gathering, their heads bent together, their voices low.
I don’t have to hear them to know what they’re saying.
I can almost feel the shape of it, the speculation, the quiet certainty forming before any real facts have surfaced.
It was the mistress.
It’s always the mistress.
What did you expect?
My chest tightens as something else settles in.
Whitney.
Her death is already slipping, already being overshadowed. A violent murder in the open will eclipse a yacht explosion, no matter how suspicious it was. The narrative is shifting in real time, redirecting itself toward something louder, bloodier, easier to consume.
Phillip, even in death, has taken center stage.
“I hate him even more now that he’s dead,” I say, the words quieter than I expect but heavier for it.
Bennett exhales sharply and turns toward the door. “Don’t say that too loudly.”
I don’t respond. I don’t care if anyone hears me.
Inside, the house feels different, as if something from outside has followed us in. I lock the door behind us, the click louder than it should be, before turning back toward him.
“Do you think Chrissy could have done this?” I ask, the question pressing forward now that we’re alone.
“I don’t know why she would,” Bennett replies, moving toward the back patio to gather the dishes we abandoned earlier.
“Really?” I follow him, my voice tightening. “You don’t think she might be after his money?”
“I don’t know,” he says, glancing back at me. “You know her better than I do.”
“Maybe it was a fight,” I press, the need to make sense of it clawing at me. “Something that escalated. A crime of passion.”
“Or maybe it wasn’t her at all.” He carries the plates inside, setting them in the sink before leaning back against the counter. “The club didn’t exactly look friendly the other day. Butch seemed pretty angry.”
“Yeah,” I say softly, wrapping my arms around myself as something colder begins to settle in beneath the surface.
Bennett watches me for a moment, something unreadable in his expression, before a faint, almost amused curve touches his mouth.
“You know,” he says, his tone light but edged with something that doesn’t sit right, “after your little performance on Phillip’s porch last night, I have to ask… did you kill him?”
The question lands harder than it should.
For a second, I just stare at him, my mind struggling to catch up. “What?” I let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Bennett, are you serious?”
He shrugs, but his eyes stay on mine. “You were angry. You threatened him. And now he’s dead. It’s not that crazy of a thought.”
A chill slides down my spine, slow and deliberate.
It should be absurd.
It is absurd.
And yet, something flickers at the edges of my memory, something I’ve buried so deeply it almost doesn’t feel real anymore.
The night of the debutante ball.
The life Whitney and I took.
A secret so carefully contained that even Bennett has never touched it.
Maybe it isn’t as impossible as it sounds.
I force a laugh, lighter this time, pushing the thought away before it can take root. “You know I didn’t kill him.”
“I do,” he says, though there’s a hesitation there, small but undeniable. “But if anyone saw you threaten him and tells the police…”
The implication hangs between us.
“You could become a suspect.”
My stomach drops.
I hadn’t thought about that. About how easily the story could turn, how quickly my anger could be reframed into something else. I was so focused on confronting him, on forcing the truth out into the open, that I didn’t consider what it might look like from the outside.
“Do you really think they’d believe that?” I ask, my voice quieter now.
Bennett exhales, his tone softening again. “I don’t know. But you need to be careful. If they start digging, they’re not going to stop where it’s convenient.”
I nod slowly, the weight of it settling over me.
He’s right.
If I’m going to keep pushing, if I’m going to find out what really happened to Whitney, I can’t afford to lose control like that again. I’ve already stepped into the spotlight. One wrong move, and I could be the one they’re looking at instead.
“Do you think we’re safe?” I ask after a moment, the question slipping out before I can stop it.
Bennett studies me, something shifting behind his eyes. “You don’t?”
I shrug, though it feels hollow. “I don’t know anymore.”
He pushes off the counter, turning slightly as he considers me, then the house, then the world beyond it. “Do you really think this was random, McCullough?”
A shiver moves through me at the sound of my full name on his tongue.
“Maybe,” I say, though even as I say it, I don’t believe it.
He watches me for a beat longer, then shakes his head once, almost imperceptibly.
“Hardly.”