Page 20 of Ruthless Regret

I should have said something more than just demand she call 911.Anything. But how do you explain something when you don’t understand it yourself? When your best friend is dead, and you’re covered in his blood?

I was frozen in place, my hands stained with blood, my mind too numb to process what was happening.

That’s how she saw me; how the cops found me, even though the media painted a very different scenario of me chasing Ashley through the house.

And from that moment on, I was guilty in everyone’s eyes.

I close my eyes, the image of Jason lying on the floor when I first walked in the room, coming back to me. The way his body was positioned, the wound placements. Like he’d fought until the end, but it wasn’t enough.

Idiot that I was, when he begged to be close to Louisa, I’d lifted him and placed him beside her on the bed. It was his dying wish … how could I say no?

I click out of the photographs folder without looking at them, and open the one with the court transcripts. I don’t need to read the one with Ashley’s name on it. Her statement to the jury still haunts me.

“I walked into the bedroom, and he was just standing there, over them. He wasn’t moving. There was blood all over his hands.”

She didn’t need to say anything more.

The prosecution said it was a crime of passion. The jury didn’t need much convincing after Ashley’s testimony confirmed that she found me there, and they weren’t interested in what I had to say.

I jump to my feet, the weight of it all hitting me all at once. All those years I spent hating Ashley, blaming her for her testimony, for sending me to prison—only to find out that it wasn’t a personal vendetta for her.

What if someone else used her to set me up?

It keeps coming back to that.

Rook’s words ring in my ears again. “Are you sure this is about you?”

No, I’m fucking not. But one thing Iamsure about is that the person who killed Jason and Louisa is still out there.

I stride toward the door, but before I can step outside, I stop.

Am I making another mistake?

The image of Jason when I first saw him on the floor flashes through my mind again—his hand was outstretched toward the bed. And Louisa … her body on the bed, so still. The blood on the sheets.

I can see the blood, as real as if I was right there. I can smell it, coppery and sharp. And the devastation that washes over me is just as strong now as it was back then.

I lean against the wall, closing my eyes.

The attack on Ashley today—someone grabbed her, dragged her outside. And that knife? It wasn’t for fucking show. They wanted to scare her, or worse, kill her. Butwhyher? What does she know?

The smashed windows. The attack on Ashley. It’s all connected. Ithasto be. The murderer is still out there, and my gut is screaming at me that they’re not finished yet.

But they didn’t come for me, they went straight for her. And that screams at me that there’s a piece of the puzzle missing. One that only Ashley has the answer for.

I push away from the wall, step outside, and walk over to my car.

The past and present are colliding in a way that’s hard to make sense of. My head is filled with scenarios, and questions.

Jason was my best friend. Closer than a brother. I knew everything about him. Or thought I did.

Who had it out for him? Who would want him dead? And why did they go after Louisa?

And then there’s Ashley.

Someone wanted her out of the way.

What does she know? What is she hiding? Or worse—what else has she forgotten?

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