“I’m not disagreeing,” I said.
“Tonight happened because I knew it would be the last time before…” he trailed off and an icy finger of fear rippled through me.
“Before what, James?” Before I was sent to prison for life? Before what?
“Nicoletta is pregnant. I’m going to propose.”
I closed my eyes. There was the knife through my heart.
“Gia?”
I opened my eyes and stared at him coldly.
“Big deal,” I said. “This was your last fling. You’re making too big a deal over it.”
“Don’t be like this,” he said.
He was looking at me with such uncertainty that I leaned down and hugged him tightly.
“James. What do you want me to say? Congratulations on being a daddy again. Hope you like being married to Madame Butterfly?”
“Stop.”
“You and me? Nothing can ever take away the love we have for one another. I will love you until the day I die,” I said. “But you’re right, we just aren’t good for one another. We need to make sure this never happens again because it makes things way too damn complicated.”
“I love you, Gia. I just can’t be with you,” he said. “I swear, if I would’ve known you were coming back to San Francisco…”
“Please don’t,” I said.
He looked at me and slowly nodded.
“Go get us something to eat,” I said. “And then find the killer because I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to live together. We both know what’s going to happen.”
James opened his front door. But then he paused.
“Gia? That video?”
I swallowed.
“I know how it looks,” I said. “I swear it wasn’t me.”
I looked in his eyes and realized that he didn’t believe me.
I’d thought I couldn’t hurt anymore on this night. I was wrong.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I want to believe you. I mean, I do believe you. But the video. It’s you. It doesn’t make any sense. Gia, I swear you can tell me anything. Even if you did it, we can get you help. We can figure this out. You just need to tell me what really happened that night.”
My heart broke. He really didn’t believe me. He waited and then his face filled with disappointment. He was waiting for a confession I didn’t have to give.
Finally, he looked away. “Thai?”
“Sure,” I said and kissed his cheek like the Judas I was. I turned away before he could see my face.
“No offense,” he said. “But I’m going to set the alarm before I go.”
I nodded without turning around. His suspicion and distrust made it easier to betray him.
As soon as the door closed, I raced to the bedroom. I found a thick black hoodie and some oversized military boots. I tugged them on. I found a backpack in the corner and quickly packed it with a few spare clothing items and one of James’s guns from a shelf in his closet. I slung the straps over my back and raced toward the sliding glass doors leading to his deck.
Outside, I peered down on the street. It was too far to jump without breaking both my legs, but the deck on the floor below was closer. If I hung over the edge and dropped to that one I would be closer to the street. Still too far to jump…although…
I pulled myself over the edge and jumped to the deck below with a soft thud. I remained in a crouch for a second, eyes glued on the empty and dark apartment. When I realized nobody was home, I tried the sliding glass door. Unlocked. I crept through to the front door, holding my breath. Somebody could still be home in the dark apartment sleeping or something. But I made it to the front door and slipped out. Then I raced to the back stairwell and ran down the other two flights to the street. I cracked the door and looked out. James was long gone.
I stepped out into the cold night air and took a deep breath.
Here we go.
Thirty-Four
“I find it next to impossible to believe that Ms. Santella murdered anyone, much less Maxwell Carlton,” the mayor said into his phone as he paced the deck of his Russian Hill apartment.
The district attorney was spouting some nonsense in his ear about motive—something to do with Carlton and Gia both wanting to buy the hotel.
“Nonsense,” Anthony Ferraro said. “I spoke with the owner a few minutes ago. Carlton made an offer and was immediately turned down. The owner has already agreed to sell to Ms. Santella and her partner. It wasn’t about the money. Herr Janson is richer than dirt, Chief. He doesn’t care about money. He wanted to sell the hotel to someone he likes. And he doesn’t like—or didn’t like—Carlton. In fact, he suspects him of embezzling from the hotel.”
Ferraro paced more as he listened to the DA go on.
Finally, he said, “My point is that there is no motive. Ms. Santella is an intelligent and quite rational woman. She wouldn’t murder someone because they made an offer to buy a hotel she was already buying. The whole idea is utterly absurd. Even you have to admit that.”
After another ten minutes arguing and getting nowhere, the mayor finally said, “Don’t fuck this up, Woodman. Like me, you serve at the will of the people.”
He hung up.
“I’m still baffled how that idiot ever got to the position he is in,” he said to the small dog at his feet. “You’d do a better job, Rascal.”
Ferraro picked up the phone again.
“Chief Sandoval, please.”
When the chief got on the phone, there was the slightest moment of awkwardness before they both got over it. They’d dated briefly the previous summer and then decided to be friends instead.
“What can I do for you, Anthony?”
“I don’t think Gia Santella is your perp.”
“Strange that you’re not the only one who has told me this lately,” the chief said lightly. “I don’t suppose your doubt has anything to do with the fact that she
