I’d bet my last dollar it was Oliver Hollingsworth’s house.
Looks like Charles was, at the very least, a very naughty boy. At the most, he might be a stone-cold killer.
I dialed Tony on one of the burner phones.
“Yo.”
“How tough would it be to get a nanny cam? I need to stick it in this opera singer’s apartment. I think she’s involved with these murders.”
“Give me the address. It’s handled.”
“She’s home now,” I protested. “I’ll go stake her out and then get inside the apartment when she leaves. If you could just buy the nanny cam for me so I’m not on the CCTV cameras—.”
“Address. I got this,” he said, cutting me off.
“But I—.”
“Santella. I said I got this. Give me the address.”
Feeling like a little kid, I obeyed and reeled it off.
“Thanks,” I said and hung up, feeling like I was going to cry.
After so many years of always doing things on my own, it always threw me for a loop when people like Tony stepped in to help. I wasn’t used to people taking care of me.
There had been a few years with Nico when I’d been able to relax and be taken care of, but for the vast majority of my life, I’d been on my own.
It was hard to accept, but right then, I needed to swallow my pride or stubbornness or stupidness or whatever it was, and accept help. I was in over my head.
Thirty-Eight
Charles woke Oliver by sticking his face in the old man’s junk.
Soon, the geezer was clutching at Charles for dear life.
Then Charles flipped the bony body over and stuck it in, pumping away furiously.
After a night with Nicoletta, Charles was proud he could come again so easily.
Luckily, Oliver liked it a little rough. Charles felt as if his revulsion and hatred were barely disguised, but the old guy ate it up. He’d once told Charles that he’d been initiated into the gay world by his opera teacher, who thought sex went hand in hand with physical abuse.
Charles didn’t play that way, but he had slapped the old guy once or twice during sex when Oliver begged for it.
He figured that if the old man had woken in the night and realized he wasn’t in bed, being awoken in this manner would quash any questions or doubts.
Charles was counting the fucking hours until he never had to fuck an old bag of bones again.
Thinking of the millions he was going to inherit made it oh, so much easier. He’d have done a lot worse for money. In fact, as an older teen, he’d done worse—much worse. The things he’d done to other teenage boys now made him sick to his stomach. He blocked most of it out of his memory. He’d done what it took to survive on the streets at the time.
His father had kicked him out after catching him fucking the neighbor boy.
He’d tried to explain that he wasn’t actually gay, that he was going to marry Nicoletta. That the boy was paying him a hundred dollars to suck him off. And that he was going to use the money to take Nicoletta to prom since his father was a cheap fucking alcoholic who wouldn’t part with a dime. But his father hadn’t bothered to listen to any of that.
So in essence, it was his father who made him bisexual. He’d turned what was going to be a one-time thing into a way for Charles to survive.
After Oliver went down to eat his breakfast of a hard-boiled egg and toast, Charles hopped in the shower.
Only then did he allow himself to ruminate over his new problem.
He wasn’t an idiot.
He knew that a van had followed him home from Nicoletta’s place.
It had done a damn good job of trailing him. If he hadn’t been paying attention, he would have missed it.
It was a problem.
Somebody knew about him and Nicoletta.
If it was Gia Santella, it didn’t really matter. She’d been arrested for the murders so far. As far as he was concerned, it was a done deal. There was only one last step to take.
He was waiting for Marshall to give him the okay that the video was ready. Now that she was out on bail, it would have to be tonight.
It was important that he and Nicoletta have a rock-solid alibi for this last murder. If they were at rehearsal with dozens of others, they could not possibly be connected to Oliver’s murder. The Deepfake footage would show Gia committing the murder. Two nights ago, they’d taken the first steps with Nicoletta standing in again for Gia. Oliver had been out at the time, so Charles had laid in bed pretending to be Oliver while the security cameras in Oliver’s house filmed the whole thing. The footage showed Nicoletta coming in the unlocked back door and then going into Oliver’s bedroom. There, she’d placed a pillow over his face. Marshall had said it would be simple to place Oliver’s face on his own in the final footage. Then Nicoletta leaned over and placed the gun square on the pillow. Marshall had said he would be able to grab the actual murder footage from there, showing the gun firing.
Marshall had already tapped into Oliver’s security system. By the time Charles came home and reported finding Oliver dead, the security footage would be replaced with the Deepfake video.
It was foolproof. It was brilliant.
Once the will was executed, Charles would pay off Marshall and then disappear. Without him, the opera would be canceled. He would arrange it to look like he’d been murdered by a crazy person protesting the opera. A week or so later, Nicoletta would follow him, saying she had been ordered by her doctor
