The Lover’s Promise (No Exceptions #3)(24)
Author: J.C. Reed

With a new rush of fear my feet came alive. Within seconds I reached the bathroom. My fingers curled around the green brush, holding it up. But there was no need. The hair strands shimmered bright red, the color of chili pepper—a hue so strong it stood in direct contrast to the cream granite tiles in the background.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered slowly, feeling like I was going to lose my mind. “How is this possible?”

I didn’t know any other woman with such a bright hair color. Not in my circle of friends, nor at work, and I doubted Jett either. Unless Gina had risen from the dead and came to haunt him, finding her hair in Jett’s bathroom felt surreal.

Maybe Jett’s hired a prostitute. Ever thought of that?

A prostitute with hair as red as fire. And a love for burlesque dresses. Sure, it was a possibility I couldn’t discard, but still…what were the odds?

Suddenly anxious to leave, I turned around, ready to walk out. It was in that moment that my eyes noticed a tiny, shiny bundle on the floor. It was almost hidden behind the door, out of view from the hall, but in the glaring lights of the bathroom it reflected the light beautifully.

My heart skipped a beat as it dawned on me what it was. Then it began to beat rapidly. It was a woman’s necklace. There was no mistaking it for anything else. It was the same silver butterfly necklace Gina had worn during our night out, its wings ringed with small green stones. First the dress, then the hair, now the necklace.

With my heart hammering in my chest, threatening to jump out of my rib cage, I bent down to pick up the silver pendant. My fingers shook so hard I had to force them to be still as I turned it around, peering at it from all sides. The first thing I noticed was that dark brown rust covered half of the polished metal. The second thought was that the same brown stain diminished the luster of the green stones. Only rust didn’t look like this, which could only mean…it was caked blood.

The realization that the necklace was covered in Gina’s blood hit me like a freight train. Feeling another wave of dizziness washing over me, I closed my eyes as a shaky breath escaped my lips. “Oh, my God.”

I dropped the necklace in shock, then retreated several steps, clasping my hand over my neck, hoping it would stop me from choking on the sheer magnitude of what my find could mean.

Jett can’t be a killer. He can’t be.

His face, his smile, his hands, the way he had touched me…based on all those things I couldn’t believe he would do something so horrible—stabbing Gina, snatching the necklace, and then running her over. He was a cheater but not sick. Besides, he had no real motive, or at least I couldn’t imagine one.

My thoughts trailed back to our worst fight to date. I could still hear all the anger and despair in his voice that morning when I confronted him about the secrets he had kept.

Look, I get that you’re pissed at me, but it’s just…complicated. You need to trust me.

What if Jett was so deep in shit he couldn’t tell me? What if there was something I was not seeing?

I looked at the brush again, then at the necklace.

The poem, Gina’s belongings being everywhere—something just didn’t add up.

Something was wrong. So very wrong.

If only I could pinpoint what it was.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered for the second time, trying to connect the dots. Hundreds of thoughts raced through my mind, each one more confusing than the other. A shiver ran down my spine as I left the bathroom and returned to the living room, taking in the mess with renewed interest.

If the chance—even so small— existed that Jett was in trouble, maybe even killed Gina, would he really have all this stuff everywhere?

Surely no killer would be so stupid as to leave a victim’s things lying around in his home. Especially not a man as successful and renowned as Jett. Not when he already knew he was a primary suspect.

Something else bothered me.

If the police had searched Jett’s place, wouldn’t they have gathered all of Gina’s belongings for a concrete DNA analysis. The fact that the necklace stained with blood was left behind could only mean they had never been here in the first place. Either that or they had turned a blind eye to glaring evidence.

Which of the two options was the truth?

I had no idea but I was sure of this: the pulled out strand of hair was Gina’s. The clothes and necklace were hers as well.

None of Jett’s stuff seemed to be missing, only my things.

No person, and surely not the dead, could move into anyone’s apartment between the time Jett spent the night with me and the time of Gina’s death. Even if the letter was his and I still didn’t know what Jett’s intentions were, I couldn’t believe he would be so negligent and scatter evidence around for the world to find.

I reckoned what I was about to do could get me into more trouble, but I felt that I had no choice. I needed to rescue him, for if it wasn’t the police who searched the place, who did?

Before I could change my mind, I dashed to the bathroom and threw the necklace in a bin bag, followed by everything else I could find that linked Jett to Gina. This was an emergency.

This was what my gut feeling was telling me to do and I followed it through to protect not just Jett but the baby inside me.

I just hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.

Getting all of Gina’s belongings into one huge bin bag seemed to take me forever, but at 9:05 a.m. I was finished. Throwing the heavy bag in the trunk of my old Volvo, I was grateful I had decided to drive rather than take a taxi. It was an old thing, whose annual repairs cost me more than using public transport. But as graduation gifts went, I loved it to bits. There was nothing more exhilarating than feeling free to drive anytime anywhere, no matter how long it took me to get through the nightmare traffic in NYC.

Today, however, my gratitude reached a new peak because, the next thing I knew, I’d be transporting a dead body and a shovel in the trunk.

Seriously? Was I already considering burying a body for Jett—just because I was so happy he hadn’t moved in with another woman in the meantime?

I cringed inwardly.

What was wrong with me?

Suddenly hiding a dead girl’s belongings in the back of my car didn’t feel so justified anymore. It felt illegal, and a hell of a lot of trouble.

Angrily, I slammed the trunk, then slumped into the driver’s seat and turned the heater on, hoping it would help me stop the unease bubbling up inside me.

Just do this and then you’ll see how that goes, Stewart. Once you have answers, you’ll come up with a next step.