Page 81 of Carbon

Boy, he’d really got into this role-playing game, hadn’t he? The way he spoke, I could almost imagine hehadkilled someone before.

“Angelica’s hair on Beau’s pillow?”

“The unknown subject could have taken it from her head and then planted it before he left for the night. Where did he steal the knife from? If it was in the cottage, our unsub would have had practice at picking the lock before the night of Angelica’s death.”

“He had a key,” I blurted, and everyone turned to stare at me. Oh, shit.

If I’d thought Black was scary before, the way he looked at me now meant I wanted to wither and die.

“How exactly do you know that?”

22

Itried to answer Black, but no sound came out. After a hasty swallow, I managed a broken whisper. “Angie had Beau’s keys in her hand when we found her.”

“When we found her? I thought you found her alone?” Black asked.

A tear rolled down my cheek and plopped onto the shiny wooden table. “Beau was with me. We found her together.”

“And why was he with you?”

“We were downstairs in the pool house, uh, talking.”

“The kind of talking that doesn’t require many clothes?”

Now I couldn’t speak at all, so I just nodded.

“For fuck’s sake. Why the hell didn’t you tell us this before?”

“I was scared, okay? I don’t want Beau going to prison, because I’m sure he didn’t kill Angie. He was as shocked as me when we found her.”

Black spoke through clenched teeth, anger rolling off him. “Start again from the beginning, with the truth this time.”

“I met Beau in the pool house just before midnight, and we...we had sex.” Oh, heck, could this be any more embarrassing? “Twice. Then I decided to sneak back to his cottage and spend the night with him, only I needed to phone Angie first because the last time I arrived back late, she got worried. But when I called her, the phone rang upstairs, and we went up and found her.”

“And when you got home late the last time, were you with Beau again?”

I nodded again.

“In the pool house?”

“The garage. We fell asleep on the backseat of Father’s vintage Cadillac.”

“So this was a regular thing?”

“Sort of. Only after Mother’s parties. For the last five, we met up afterwards.”

“And who instigated this?”

“He did.”

“How?”

“He sent me a text message asking me to meet him.”

“And even though he was the janitor, you agreed?”

“I didn’t know who he was at first. It was sort of a surprise?”

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