Chapter 23 Selene #2
The bold notes of ground caffeine permeate the air between us as Monique arches a brow at me. “Since when do you let men call you pet?”
I search her tone for any sign of judgment and come up empty, finding only humor and intrigue. “You heard that?”
“Oh, I heard everythinggggg.” She bounces on her tip toes, twisting the long handle on the basket to disengage it from the machine now that my shot is done. “They fuck you good, huh?”
Heat sweeps over my cheeks. “Monique!”
“What?! Y’all had me ready to go back to my room and rub one out.”
I cover my face with my hand. “Please stop.”
“Fine. I’ll leave it alone, but all I’m saying is you deserve it.”
“Deserve what?”
The question comes from behind me, and I turn to find Cal and Beck entering the room.
In their dark jeans and plain t-shirts, they look so casual I can almost make myself believe we’re here on a vacation of sorts, unplugged from the world and focused on each other.
The presence of the guns on their hips dispels that notion, though, reminding me of our current reality.
It’s a hard pill to swallow, but I manage to scarf it down, pushing away the lightness from joking with Monique and the joy of morning sex with Cal and Beck.
“Perimeter check?” I ask, accepting my freshly made coffee from Monique.
Both men nod, coming in for chaste kisses before heading to the sink to wash their hands. Beck grabs a towel from inside one of the drawers, drying his hands and then tossing it to Cal.
“We’re all good,” he assures us. “Did you two eat?”
I take a sip of my coffee. “I just woke up, but I do seem to recall the promise of breakfast in bed that never came true.”
Cal moves to the stocked fridge, pulling out a tray of cut fruit, a carton of eggs and a pack of sausage. “You were sleeping so soundly. We didn’t want to wake you.”
He sets everything down, crouching low to search for pans, bowls and whatever else he needs in the cabinets beneath the large slab of stone.
“I’m sure she needed the rest too,” Monique quips, dancing out of my reach when I try to swat her for making dirty jokes again.
Beck folds a laugh between his lips, bringing the eggs and one of the small bowls Cal produced from the cabinet to the spot in front of him. “The board looks good, Monique.”
She preens. “Thank you! It’s not done yet, but I figured we could work on it after we eat.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Cal says, turning on the stove with his eyes on me. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay,” I tell him, and for the most part I am.
The thought of Leland Marsh in the free world hunting me down is still scary, but it’s not as terrifying as it was yesterday.
Especially now that I know everyone we care about is being guarded by people we trust. Having Monique here is helping too.
Initially, she’d balked at the idea of coming with us, but when we explained that anyone looking for me would more than likely start with her, it wasn’t a hard sell.
I’m glad she came to her senses because I would probably feel a lot less like myself without her.
Cal and Beck study me, measuring my tone and expression. At some point, Monique joins in too, and then everyone in the room is just staring at me, waiting for me to fall apart. I bring the coffee to my lips, taking another sip.
“You can stop staring at me whenever you’re ready.”
Beck is the first to break, turning his focus to cracking the eggs. “Did you check the app for messages from Aubrey?”
My heart sinks at the mention of my husband’s name, and I shake my head. “Not yet.”
Before we left Culture Code, I uploaded a digital monitoring software to all our devices, knowing it wasn’t safe to bring them with us in case Marsh has the help we think he does and could track them, but also needing to be aware of what was happening on them in case of emergencies.
The plan was to have the app up and running constantly, keeping us plugged into the world from the safety of our little bubble, but I’d been avoiding setting it up because I didn’t want Aubrey present in this space in any way.
Beck frowns, capturing me in pools of glittering onyx. “After we eat?”
His offer for compromise in the face of clear disappointment sends warmth skittering down my spine. I hold his gaze, fighting the urge to bite my lip as I nod.
“After we eat.”
The preparation and consumption of our first meal of the day goes by far too quickly, and not even thirty minutes after accepting the delay to check the app, I’m left with no choice but to follow through on my promise.
I sit cross legged on the couch with a fresh laptop from Culture Code’s inventory on my lap while Monique, Cal and Beck collaborate on the board.
It’s nothing like the one I kept in my office despite me giving Monique reference photos for the rebuild, but I don’t have the authority to question her right now, not when my task for the day is yet to be completed.
With a few clicks of my fingers, I’m looking at the phone calls that have come to my phone in the last twelve hours.
Most of the calls are from my sisters, Robin and Jessica, who I assume heard the news from Mama.
One is from my hairdresser, Ms. Diane, and the other two came from Imani’s phone, but I know she and Isis were on the line together.
Their missed calls and the accompanying texts send guilt slicing through me, making it almost impossible for me to appreciate the fact that Aubrey hasn’t reached out to me at all.
I slam the laptop shut and leave it on the couch while I join the others at the board.
“He hasn’t called or texted.”
Cal wraps an arm around me, kissing my forehead. “So, he doesn’t care where you are or who you’re with.”
“Because now that Marsh is out, he thinks I’ll be dead soon.”
“Possibly.”
I shift out of his hold, needing to face him head on. “Possibly? Are you walking back your theory that Aubrey helped Marsh escape, so he can kill me?”
Secretly, I’d been hoping he and Beck would walk back another theory, but I haven’t been brave enough to bring AJ up in conversation with them since the day they planted the awful seed of suggestion in my mind.
Cal catches my fingers in his grip, tugging me back into him. “Of course not. I just want us to consider all the possibilities before we lay this at Aubrey’s feet.”
I’m fairly certain it belongs there, but I decide to follow Cal’s lead, deferring to his investigative experience. “Okay, so the question would be who else does Leland know that would have the motive and means to break him out of a federal institution?”
It wouldn’t have been a small feat, not by any stretch of the imagination, and I doubt there are any people in the world who would risk their lives and freedom to spring a waste of space such as Leland.
“The Brothers?” Beck suggests, handing Monique a sticky note with the words ‘military base’ written on it. She places it above Sutton’s name, and I squint, trying to see the connection.
“Doubtful,” Cal says. “They’re weaker now than ever. If they were going to break Leland out, they would’ve done it when Jacob was leading and Charlie was there to lend insight and support.”
Silence pools between us while Mo keeps muttering to herself.
“Anyone else?” I ask, anxious to turn my full attention to what she’s doing.
Beck shakes his head. “Not that I can think of.”
“Then it must be Aubrey,” I conclude. “He definitely has the means, and his motive is to silence me just like he silenced Sutton. Only this time he’s using someone I have history with to make the story more salacious, which will ensure that he’ll be able to profit off of it for years to come.”
Monique spins on her heels, hands on her hips. “Why didn’t he do the same thing with Sutton?”
My brows dip together, forming a line of confusion. “What?”
“Why didn’t he spin Sutton’s death into something he could make money or gain power from?”
“Because it’s kind of hard to do when he wasn’t even supposed to be speaking to the girl anymore, let alone fucking her. Besides, why would he want to draw attention to her death when he’s responsible for it?”
She gives me a quizzical look. “You believe he had President Sanders killed and then attended his funeral, holding the man’s grandbabies and crying and shit.”
“He didn’t cry.”
But I’m pretty sure there’s a photo or two out there of him holding the most recent addition to the Sanders clan. Monique dismisses my comment with a wave of her hand.
“I know he’ll do it with you. There will be press conferences, interviews and photos of him kneeling at your grave.
He’ll milk it for all it’s worth, so why would Sutton be any different?
I mean, it’s not like orchestrating the murder of your mistress carries more weight than that of the President or your wife, so why wouldn’t he look at her death through the same opportunistic lens as everyone else we think he’s had a hand in killing? ”
The line of questioning shakes something free inside my brain.
An alternative theory floating up from the trenches slowly, appearing on the surface just as Cal’s warning about considering every angle during an investigation echoes in my mind.
From the moment I heard about Sutton’s death, I’d decided that Aubrey was responsible.
I didn’t look past him, just at him, and even when I couldn’t find a single reason why he might want her dead, I kept my focus on him, missing the key difference between her death and all the rest.
I see it now, though.
The hollow look in his eyes. The despair that cracked his features when I described her death. The pure hatred when he tried to choke me for mocking her.
“Aubrey didn’t kill Sutton,” I whisper, disbelief coating my tongue. “He loved her.”