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was always the problem. There wouldn’t be a business without me. You were a workhorse and a dreamer, but that’s all you were. Do you remember how much you talked about starting your own firm? But it took me pushing you to make it happen. Then, once we did, you didn’t want to do anything. You wouldn’t take a single risk. I suggested we look at turning our firm into a full-fledged advertising agency and you said no. I said let’s at least try a couple radio spots with our smaller clients, test the waters, and you said no. You’d found your sweet spot publishing ads online and that’s all you wanted to do. It was intolerable. You wouldn’t even agree to take out a loan so we could expand our sales team. There was so much money to be made if you just took a risk and you didn’t care. I couldn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now. When Catherine came to me, I guess I saw an opportunity to get you out of my way too.

“Only for me, a DUI wasn’t going to do it. So when Catherine and I met with Elise and Rick to hand over the money, I said it had to be drugs. Cocaine or heroin, preferably. Something serious enough to carry real jail time. I figured if anyone knew where to get their hands on something like that, she would. I thought it’d be a lot easier to pull off, too. Plant some drugs on you, tell a cop you’re carrying. I needed to create enough controversy that you wouldn’t have any choice but to step down for a while. Believe me, Liam, it would’ve been worth it. I would’ve made you so much money if I could’ve just gotten you out of my way.”

“But that’s not what happened.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Did you kill Elise?”

The Night of the Murder

Elise Watson

Elise watched Eric Ricci cash out his chips and then she did the same. Liam was still at Ava’s. So was Rick. But they didn’t need to know what she was up to. She bowed out, claiming a headache, and neither seemed suspicious.

She caught up with Eric in the parking lot, called his name to get his attention.

Eric turned around. He looked annoyed. He’d had a bad night and lost a lot of money.

“Where are you off to?” she said.

“Home.”

She smiled in a flirty way. “You want some company?”

“Aren’t you dating Liam?”

“He doesn’t have to know. So?” She was sure he’d say yes. She’d been watching him watch her, and even though she hated herself for what she was about to do, she convinced herself it was necessary. Rick had threatened to make sure Liam found out about her past if she didn’t do what she was supposed to. But as long as she could give him a new target, a way to justify all the trouble he went through to make this con work, she believed he’d leave her alone.

The whole thing was over quickly. Eric went to take a shower. Elise got out of bed, quietly dressed, and crept across the apartment to a small office, formerly a second bedroom. The entire apartment was a shrine to Eric’s career. Framed posters for movies he’d been in and baseball cards with his face on them hung on the walls. Talk about narcissism. Elise wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

When they had arrived, she had asked if she could use his laptop for a couple of minutes to check her email. “We’ve got this big thing for work and . . . well, I don’t want to bore you with the details. It will only take a second.” She tried to keep the story simple and hoped he wouldn’t ask a lot of questions. He told her the password, urged her to hurry up, and kissed her neck. Her skin crawled, but she committed the password to memory and used it again to log in now.

She plugged the USB stick Rick gave her into the back of the laptop and the software began installing itself. A black box opened in the center of the screen and row after row of text appeared in it, too fast to read. Elise had no idea how long it would take and there was no progress bar to tell her how far she was from done. She paid close attention to the sound of the shower and from time to time glanced over her shoulder to see if she was alone. She worried she wasn’t going to get away with this, but then the installation finished. The word “Complete” appeared at the bottom of the black box and the box closed on its own.

Before she could pull the USB stick out of the back of the laptop, she heard Eric ask, “What are you doing?”

Elise spun around. He was standing in front of her with a towel wrapped around his waist. All her senses heightened and she went on red alert. Halos formed around the overhead light. The flowery smell of the Herbal Essences shampoo Eric used turned her stomach. The shower was still on, the water hitting the tile like a hard rain. She didn’t miss it. The cue she was listening for had failed her.

Elise stumbled over her words, desperately trying to come up with an answer. She fell back on the same lie she’d used before, only this time, Eric didn’t buy it.

“You weren’t checking your mail. What was that? What were you doing?”

Elise wanted to run, but Eric was blocking her path to the door, so she stayed completely still, watching him, ready to react to whatever he did next.

Eric moved in close. The smell of the shampoo grew stronger, almost making Elise gag. He pressed one hand down on the top of the laptop and closed it. The laptop automatically powered down. “I said, what were