Chapter One
IF JAXON HAD HIS PHONE, HE NEVER would have heard it.
If he’d had his phone, he would have had the music up all the way, his senses drowned and his mind a galaxy away. But all Jaxon has on that day’s run is the pound of his feet and his own shallow breath, which is how he hears the wail. An almost animal sound.
He picks up his pace, rounds the corner, and mounts the last rise just in time to see a shape standing at the edge of the cliff.
Jaxon left his glasses back at the castle, but even from here, he can see the figure facing the sea, hands clutching at his chest, head bowed as if in grief.
And all he can think is, Oh shit, he’s going to jump.
“Don’t!” he shouts, surging forward, even though his legs are spent.
He runs as fast as he can, but it doesn’t seem to matter, because time is slowing down, seconds stretching out as the shape, which is now resolving into Malcolm, turns, and Jaxon sees that he’s holding sheets of paper to his chest, because he lets go, and they go flying in the wind, and he steps backward, the loose rock skitters at his feet, and—
Maybe he meant to do it.
Maybe he slipped.
Jaxon can’t tell. He just knows that he’s almost there, his hand literally skimming Malcolm’s, when he goes tumbling back over the edge, and Jaxon’s hand closes over nothing but air.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he stammers, because for a second he thinks he won’t be able to stop, that he’ll follow the other man over the side, but then his heels dig in and he staggers to a stop a few inches from the edge, heart pounding.
And he doesn’t want to look, but he already is, so he sees Malcolm’s body hit the bottom, caught not by white-capped waves but jagged rock.
He’s glad he’s not wearing his glasses now, because his mind won’t be able to haunt him with the details, the places where flesh collides with stone, where vital bits spill out.
Jaxon scrambles backward. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” he mutters, running his hands through his cropped hair, and he’s still trying to steady himself, to wrap his head around what just happened, when he somehow hears another sound, over his raging pulse.
A gasp.
He twists around and sees Millie.
For a fraction of a second her face is perfectly blank, before horror washes over it.
“Oh my god, did you see that?” He starts toward her, and she takes a step back, away, as if she’s scared of him. As if she thinks—
“What did you do?” she asks, and Jaxon blinks, trying to catch up. His brain feels sluggish, his thoughts muddy. Running usually clears his head, helps him think. But his runs don’t usually end with watching someone die.
“Whoa,” he says, putting his hands up. “It’s not what it looks like.”
He’s close enough now to see the tears streaming down her face, the fear bright in her eyes. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
The sun has vanished behind thick, dark clouds.
Jaxon swallows, nods. “I tried to save him,” he says quickly. “I tried. I was finishing my run, and I saw him standing at the edge and I thought he was going to jump and I tried to get to him before—but I couldn’t—”
Maybe if he’d gone faster, if he hadn’t used it all up on his run, if he’d been able to shave a second off that final sprint, he would have gotten there in time. Oh god.
“Mill, you’ve got to believe me.”
She’s shaking her head, as if she doesn’t, her gaze flicking from Jaxon to the cliff and back again.
“You know me.”
“Not that well.”
It stings.
“Well enough to know that I can be an asshole, but I’m not a murderer.”
“Do you . . .” She shifts her weight. “Do you promise that you didn’t push him?”
“Jesus, yes! I promise. Please,” he says, “please, say that you believe me.”
She looks at him. Hesitates, then nods. “Okay,” she says, with a shaky voice, “I believe you.”
Relief floods his body. The air comes rushing out.
“Thank god,” he says, bending double.
“But we’ve got to tell the others.”
And just like that, the panic is back. “Tell them what?” he asks, because they’ve got to get on the same page, don’t they? It was an accident.
Millie chews her bottom lip as the first drops of rain begin to fall.
“That he fell . . . right, Mill?” asks Jaxon, and even though he feels like throwing up, he finds her eyes and attempts a rueful smile. “That’s what happened. So that’s what we’ll say.”
Just then, something catches his eye. The dragon weather vane is spinning with the wind. And just below, a person-shaped shadow is looking out from the top window. Jaxon frowns. “Hey, do you see—”
But Millie’s not there. She’s bolting. Sprinting away from him, and toward the front door.
Fuck.
He tries to beat her to it, but his legs are shot, and she’s faster than she looks.
“Millie, wait!” he calls out, ribs cramping as she flings the door open and disappears into the house.
He finally catches up in the foyer, and she’s heading for the landing, and the gong, but he reaches her at the bottom of the stairs, catches her sleeve, and spins her around to face him.
“Calm down,” he says, squeezing her arms.
And this close, he can see every detail etched into her face. Can see the cogs turning and knows what she’s about to do. He tries to put a hand over her mouth, but it’s too late. She’s already started to scream.
The sound tears through the foyer, bouncing off the walls.
“Goddamn it, Mill,” he snaps, gripping her tighter.
“Let go!” she shrieks, and he has to fight the urge to shake her. They had a deal.
“Don’t be like this,” he pleads.
“Get your hands off her.” Priscilla’s voice cuts through the chaos like a whip, and it turns out a scream is just as good as a gong, because when he looks up, they’re all there at the top of the stairs: Cate, hands to her mouth in shock; Kenzo, holding what looks like an antique ax, freed from one of the walls; and Priscilla, eyes blazing and arms crossed.
Jaxon lets go, and Millie stumbles backward, breath hitching. He puts his hands in the air as Cate hurries down the stairs toward Millie, who’s sitting on the bottom step.
“I can explain,” he says.
“Get away from her first,” warns Kenzo, but Jaxon ignores him, because Cate’s rubbing Millie’s back, and she’s dragging in dramatic breaths like she’s about to have a panic attack, even though he’s the one with a reason to freak out.
“Hey, hey,” he says, lowering his voice. “Three green things. Find them. Look around.”
He does it with her—scanning the foyer, letting his eyes land on a potted plant, a pair of boots, Cate’s sweater—and by the time he looks back to Millie, she’s breathing normally again.
Which is weird, but also kind of impressive. He’s never recovered that quickly.
“Now,” says Priscilla. “What the ever-loving hell is going on?”
“Malcolm,” says Millie, sniffling, and Jaxon flinches as she says, “He’s dead.”
Even without his glasses, Jaxon can see the horror roll over the group. Priscilla’s hand flying to her mouth. Cate’s mouth falling open.
Kenzo shakes his head in dismay. “What happened?”
Suddenly Millie won’t meet his gaze. “I saw Jaxon—”
“I didn’t push him!” he cuts in, but Kenzo lifts the ax in warning. “Hey, you’re not talking right now.” He looks back at Millie. “Go on. Tell us what you saw.”
Millie takes a shallow breath. “Malcolm was standing at the cliff’s edge. Just past the bench. Facing the sea.” Her gaze flicks toward the floor, and he thinks, Believe me. “And then I saw Jaxon running at him.”
Only he was running toward, not at, and there’s a big fucking difference between the two, but it’s okay, he tells himself, because he didn’t do anything wrong and—
“And then he pushed Malcolm over the edge.”
“Goddamn it, Mill! That’s not what happened, and you know it!” Jaxon doesn’t remember moving toward her, but his body must have twitched in that general direction because suddenly Kenzo’s standing in his way, a look like Try it, and Jaxon remembers how much he hates guys like Kenzo Gray.
Guys who don’t even have the decency to be insecure about their looks, or their work, whose heads aren’t full of static and shitty voices telling them they’re nothing, because they had nice, happy childhoods with parents who told them they could be whatever they put their minds to, and moms who didn’t get hooked on oxy after foot surgery and dads who didn’t fuck off to other families.
Guys who never had to become somebody else.
“That must have been so awful,” Cate murmurs to Millie. “I can’t even imagine—”
“She’s lying!” Jaxon cuts in. “That’s not what happened.”
Kenzo and Priscilla exchange a glance, and they’re acting like he’s not even there, which is so fucked up, considering he’s the one who tried and failed to save a man. Who watched him plummet to his death. He doesn’t deserve this.
“I tried to stop him.” He looks around. “Please, you have to believe me.”
For a moment, no one speaks. Then Priscilla looks past Jaxon to Kenzo.
“Do you think he could have jumped?”
“From grief? Or guilt?” asks Kenzo.
Cate frowns. “You really think he could have killed his wife?”
This is a lifeline; Jaxon knows he should grab it with both hands. Change his story, say that he’d seen something in Malcolm’s eyes—desolation or resolve or some combination of the two. He knows he should say whatever it takes.
But he can’t do it.
Even if Malcolm was an asshole. Even if he tried to accuse Jaxon of pushing Sienna down the stairs.
Kenzo said he thought the man was searching for a suspect to save himself, but Jaxon doesn’t think Malcolm killed his wife.
He’s known men willing to hurt women—hell, his father was one—and Malcolm didn’t have it in him.
“He didn’t kill Sienna,” he says.
Millie’s eyes go wide. “How do you know? Unless you did that, too.”
Jaxon rolls his eyes. “Seriously?”
“What? You’re the one who talked about improving the odds! Knocking out the competition.”
“It was a joke!” he shouts, throwing up his hands. “I make shitty jokes when I’m anxious. So sue me.”