Leon looked up at him. “Let go of me, Myron.”
“If you attack me again—”
“I won’t. Just let go already.”
Myron waited another second or two, then did as Leon asked. Leon rubbed his arm and stood. Myron eyed him.
Leon said, “You’re here because you think Greg and Fiona were getting it on.”
“Were they?”
He shook his head. “Not from a lack of trying though.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s supposed to be my best friend. But he’s not. He’s just another fucking superstar who takes what he wants.”
“Including Fiona.”
“He tried. Tried like hell. But she’s not like that.”
Myron said nothing. Not his place.
“Guys are always hitting on Fiona,” he went on. “Because of the way she looks. And the whole racial thing. So when I saw you here when you figured I wouldn’t be around…” He shrugged into silence.
“Did you ever confront Greg?” Myron asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “A couple of weeks ago.”
“What did you say to him?”
Leon’s eyes narrowed, suddenly wary. “What does this have to do with finding him?” he asked, suspicious now. “You trying to pin this on me?”
“Pin what on you?”
“You said he’s disappeared. You trying to pin that on me?”
“I’m just trying to find out where he is.”
“I got nothing to do with it.”
“I didn’t say you did. I just want to know what happened when you confronted him.”
“What do you think happened?” Leon countered. “The motherfucker denied it. He made this big point of swearing he’d never sleep with any married woman—especially his best friend’s wife.”
Myron sort of gulped at that one. “But you didn’t believe him.”
“He’s a superstar, Myron.”
“That doesn’t make him a liar.”
“No, but it makes him something different. Guys like Greg and Michael Jordan and Shaq and TC…they ain’t like the rest of us. They got their own thing going. Everyone else is a fucking underling to them. The whole planet is set up to cater to their whims, you know what I’m saying?”
Myron nodded. In college he had been one of those who got to breathe the rarefied air of superstardom. He thought again about the bonds superstars shared. He and Greg had not exchanged more than five words before Greg visited him in the hospital, but there had been a bond. They both knew. Superstars share that rarefied air with very few. As TC had told him, it does indeed isolate in a very bizarre, often unhealthy way.
And with that thought came something of a revelation. Myron took a step back.
He’d always thought that if Greg was in trouble, he’d go to his closest friend for help. But that wasn’t the case. If Greg had indeed stumbled across the dead body and panicked, if he had seen all his problems—the gambling debts, the threat of exposure, the divorce, the child custody case, the blackmail, the probability of being a suspect in a murder—closing in on him, who would he go to for help?
He’d go to the guy who understood him best.
He’d go to the guy who could best relate to the unique troubles of superstardom.
He’d go to the guy who shared that rarefied air with him.
Chapter 36
Myron wasn’t sure what to do next.
In truth, he had nothing more than a suspicion. There was no proof. No real evidence. But it could potentially answer a lot of questions. Why, for example, had Thumper helped set up Emily on videotape? By all accounts, she was not particularly close to Greg.
But she was to TC.
Again the superstar bond. Greg had feared losing his kids in a custody battle. That’s about as big a worry as a person can have. So whom did he turn to for help?
TC.
When Win had leaned on Thumper last night, letting her know that he was searching for Greg, whom had she warned?
TC.
No proof, of course. But it felt very right.
Myron could now put a lot of it together. Greg was under incredible strain—not the best situation for a man of his questionable mental fortitude to be ensnared. What had gone through his mind when he saw Liz Gorman dead on the floor? He’d have to have known that he would be the prime suspect in her murder. As Emily had pointed out, Greg had motive, opportunity, and was at the murder scene. Emily saw that. It was why she set him up. Greg must have seen it too.
So what did he do?
He ran.
Seeing Liz Gorman dead had been the final straw. But Greg had also known that he could not do it alone. People would be looking for him this time. He needed help. He needed time and space.
So whom did Greg reach out to?
The guy who understood him best. Who could relate to the unique troubles of superstardom. Who shared that rarefied air with him.
Myron stopped at a red light. He was close, so goddamn close. TC was helping Greg hide; he was sure of it. But of course, TC was only part of the solution. None of this answered the central question in all this:
Who killed Liz Gorman?
He put his mind on rewind and reviewed the night of the murder. He thought about Clip being the first of the three to arrive. In many ways, Clip was now his best suspect. But Myron still saw big problems with that scenario. What was Clip’s motive, for example? Yes, Liz Gorman’s information may have been detrimental to the team. The information may have even been potent enough for him to lose the vote. But would Clip pick up a baseball bat and murder a woman over that? People kill for money and power all the time. Would Clip?
But there was still a larger problem at work here, one that Myron could not get around no matter how hard he tried. Emily was the one who planted the blood and murder weapon at Greg’s house. That was established and that made sense. Okay, fine. We know who planted the evidence…
…but who cleaned it up?
There were only three logical choices: 1) Greg Downing, 2) someone trying to protect Greg, or 3) the killer.
But it couldn’t have been Greg. Even if you accept the semi-impossible premise that Greg went back into his house after going into hiding, how did he find the blood? Did he just happen to go down into his playroom? No. It was too ridiculous. The only way Greg would have gone down there was if he’d known the blood had been planted.
Myron froze.
That was it. Whoever had cleaned up the blood had known what Emily had done. They didn’t just stumble across it by accident. So how did they find out? From Emily? Uh uh, no way. Emily would be the last person to say anything. Could she have been spotted in the act? Again, the answer was a resounding no. If that had been the case, the bat would have been removed too. More to the point, the blood would have been cleaned up right away —
