Chapter Twenty
“So, you wanna tell me why you were interested in the kidnapper of the late Nightingale heir?” Jude takes a sip of his coffee, not even bothering to greet me as he swings the door of his place open.
“I told you, I’m helping Henry—or whatever,” I add quickly, shrugging.
“Yeah, but you asked about it before Henry brought it up to you.” Jude sets his coffee mug down on the bar of his Art Deco style house. “I’m not buying it, Luca. Henry might play into your fa?ade, but I don’t. You’re acting weird.”
“Maybe I’m just curious,” I reason, knowing that even sounds worse. The truth is, I don’t know how the fuck I’m acting, because I can’t get my shit straight anyway. All I can think about right now is the hell that’s going to be coming for me. I don’t know when I decided I wasn’t going to kill Emma either, but here I am. Not killing her.
And putting up with her mouth.
Then again, I might’ve been a dick, too. I don’t know, but her fucking sympathy for her ex-husband rubs me the wrong way. It’s obvious he has something to do with it.
“Look, I haven’t told Henry of my suspicions with you, so if there’s something you need to tell me, I suggest you do it,” Jude levels with me. His reddish blond hair is disheveled, like he hasn’t been sleeping. I wonder if it’s because he’s been spending too much time out and about—or if he’s pulling late nights for Henry’s old lady. “Just tell me the truth.”
Wouldn’t you like to know?
“I don’t have any truth to tell,” I scoff, pulling out a chair at his messy bar and taking a seat. “But I do wanna know what you can tell me about Kyle, the divorce attorney, and Jared, the ex-husband. Henry said there’s some kind of connection between them. I wanna know what it is.”
Jude’s eyes narrow. “You’re dodging me, but okay, I’ll bite—only for the sake of Henry though.” He folds his arms across his chest. For some reason, I think he’s a little more muscled up than before, like he’s been hitting the gym or something.
“Go on,” I urge with a nod.
“So, the divorce attorney is a wash, I think,” Jude says, scratching the uneven stubble on his chin. “He did some legal work for Jared a few years ago, but it was on behalf of Emma. It was just helping him set up his business—nothing suspicious.”
“And the husband?”
“That’s where things get…strange.” Jude eyes me in a way that makes my stomach knot up. “I was able to tap into the Ring Camera footage. I watched this confrontation take place between Emma and Jared. He was begging for her to get back with him.”
I nod, pretending like I didn’t watch this from the woods outside her house. “And? Sounds like typical relationship drama.”
“Yeah, well, Emma threw a wine glass, but you’re right. It is pretty normal drama, but then…”
“Then?” I’m on the edge of my seat now. How did you cover up, Manny? Jude is a better tracker than damn near anyone.
“Then the footage gets weird.” Jude’s voice is monotone. “Would you like to see it?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll entertain it,” I joke, but it doesn’t land the way it usually would. I don’t even feel like the same guy I was before Emma.
Jude gives me a funny look as he leads me to his cave at the back of the house. I glance down at my watch as I follow him. It’s been too fucking long. I bought Emma clothes and shoes, and then came here. I’ve burned nearly four hours with all the drive time. I should’ve left Major downstairs with Emma.
But I was pissed at her.
Well, I was jealous. I’m still jealous, and I don’t understand it, really. I shouldn’t be jealous. I don’t want to love her. I don’t know how to love. The closest thing I’ve had close to love is the fucked-up relationship I had with my mentor—adopted dad—whatever he was. Something broke that connection after Emma showed up in my life.
“You gonna just stand there or…?” Jude cuts into my thoughts. “The video is already pulled up.”
“Sorry, lost in my thoughts.” I shake my head and step into the darkened room. I don’t understand why the IT type of guys like to sit in the fucking dark. Jude’s sitting in front of a wall of computers, but the video is pulled up on the monitor right in front of his face. I squint down at it, just thankful the camera isn’t pointed in the direction of where I was stalking.
“So, here it is,” Jude smashes the space bar, and I watch the familiar scene play out. “It’s really just a confrontation between them—a pathetic one, actually. Emma is really detached emotionally, and Lydia said it was how she copes with things. She pushes people out, and she knew that she was going through it.”
And now she plays fetch with my dog in the yard.
I chew the inside of my cheek as I watch the wine glass shatter on the sidewalk. Even from the grainy footage, Emma looks striking. I’m partial to her unconventional, messy kind of beautiful. She’s the girl who’s flawless in her chaos, and I’m drawn to the storm inside of her.
“Yeah, so now she goes inside,” Jude says as Emma heads back to the house. “And Jared leaves, presumably.”
Presumably? I don’t say anything as the footage shifts. Please Manny, tell me you did a good job. Please. My partner’s techniques can be careless, and while the average detective might miss it, Jude won’t.
“Right here,” Jude points to a blip in the time stamp. “The count is off.”
Shit, shit, shit.
“It’s been replaced.”
“Yeah? Or the time stamp could be shit. That happens with these cameras all the time.”
“Sure, I always consider that,” Jude says as the video continues to play. “But then there’s this.”
My heart throbs in my temple and I rub at it, preparing for what I know is to come. I tense my jaw as Emma’s car backs out of the driveway. I know who’s behind the wheel, and I already know I’m fucked. Royally.
“So, she leaves?”
“I don’t know,” Jude says carefully. “We didn’t see Jared leave, either.”
“Was his car parked out of view?”
“No,” Jude backs up the video. “You just missed it in the frame.”
Oh fuck. Manny missed it.
“Right here,” he pauses the video at the end of the confrontation. “Here’s his car.” Just in the corner, the front of an SUV is visible. “Keep your eye on it.”
I already know what’s going to happen. The video plays until the blip in the time stamp, and the car remains there through the blip. However, as soon as Emma’s SUV appears, the front of the SUV disappears in another blip. The footage has been written over, and Jude knows it.
“Clearly, someone manipulated the footage—and they didn’t think about Jared’s car there in the drive. It might be enough to slip past police, but this is a rookie mistake.”
It’s a fucking Manny mistake, is what it is.
“So you think Jared did it?”
Jude shakes his head. “No, I was able to hack into the CCTV footage. I caught him at a gas station less than five minutes after their encounter. His car wasn’t there when it said it was.”
“I can take care of him anyway,” I reason. “He seems like a dick.”
Jude raises a brow. “He’s obsessed with Emma. He cheated on her with his secretary but broke it off as soon as Emma found out. They were having some serious troubles, apparently. That’s what Emma told Lydia. Jared was desperate to get her back. The more digging we’ve done, the more it appears that Emma projected some false issues in order to cover for the fact that she was drowning in grief.”
“That’s a ballsy accusation, considering her husband was dipping his dick in someone else,” I snap as I suddenly fight the urge to smash Jude’s face through the monitors.
“Wow, you got a moral compass now?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I growl.
“Look, I’m not saying that Jared is a good guy. I think he’s a piece of shit, personally. However, Lydia has shifted. She wonders if Emma did something reckless to escape from life—and look at this.”
I run my hand over my face, knowing I could set this all straight if I just told Jude the truth. But something clamps my fucking mouth shut.
“Listen,” Jude starts a news video, and I force myself to listen.
“Emma Nightingale, the sole heiress of the Nightingale fortune, has disappeared. A source close to her says that mental health issues may have played a role. Her attorney, Kyle Watson, maintains that her mental state was fine. However, our source says she was dealing with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder after her mother passed away in 2018. The investigation is still ongoing, but rumors have been swirling that she may have committed—”
“Who’s the source?” I smash the pause on his keyboard before the video finishes. It’s a load of bullshit, but it is what it is—and I sure as hell wasn’t responsible for this blip of slanderous misinformation.
“No idea,” Jude says. “Lydia thinks maybe it was Jared. He’s reached out to her multiple times, expecting Emma to show up in California.”
And then what? She shows up murdered in California? What are the actual fucking instructions to Manny? He said they needed DNA to prove she’s dead, obviously. Damnit, I need to ask him.
I rub my eyes, fatigue pummeling me like a fucking ton of bricks. “This all just sounds like a clusterfuck, Jude. I don’t know what to tell any of you about it.”
“Yeah, well, I think someone has the answers. And you know what else I think?” Jude turns his chair to face me.
“What’s that?” I ignore the scrutiny written all over his face.
“I think someone fucked this up.” He folds his arms across his chest. “I think there was a plan in place, and it went haywire.”
“Or,” I reason. “Maybe it went exactly as it was supposed to, and she’s laying low, waiting for the shitstorm to pass along with her divorce.”
Jude tilts his head. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I shrug, letting the silence hang.
Jude’s jaw tenses as the air grows charged with the unspoken. “Luca, why did you want to know about Ronaldo Vitalia? Because he wasn’t even around when Victor passed away. He died three years before—and by then, he wasn’t even near Victor’s place in New York.”
“Just a connection,” I grunt. “Bad information.”
“Yeah, bad information about the kidnapper of Emma’s grandmother.” Jude’s voice grows cold. “And Manny really likes to run his mouth when he drinks, you know.”
“He comes up with some weird shit.” I don’t have to lie about that one. Manny is known for his stories, blended with fiction and fact.
“Yeah, I was at The Den when he was talking about you railing a pretty ginger from Georgia.”
My palms begin to sweat. “There’s a lot of gingers in Georgia.”
Jude falls silent for a few beats. “Did you kill Emma Nightingale? And did the plan get fucked because of Henry and Lydia?”
I shake my head. “No.” But the plan did get fucked up.
“If you’re lying, and you think that you can cover your tracks with all the misinformation and shitty cover-ups—that scream Manny—you’re going to catch a wrath that I won’t protect you from.”
I nod, just as my phone starts to buzz in my pocket. “I’d never ask anyone to protect me.” I pull it out, seeing a text from Manny.
On my way to Vinita. See you in 10 minutes. We have to wrap this up ASAP. I already called Ivan.
I read the message, panic slipping into my body. “I have to go.”