“I saw him. He came to the pool. He was acting strange and when I went to leave, he blocked me. I bumped into him, and that triggered a memory from the day I left your hotel suite to go down to my room. I bumped into a guy, and it was him. I’m sure of it.”
She was speaking so fast, I didn’t know what to say or where to start. “Slow down. Tell me what happened at the pool. What did he say to you?” The anger boiled inside of me, wondering if he’d gotten inappropriate. From the way she was shaking and hesitating to tell me, I already knew.
“No, you’re not getting it. He was in Vegas. He had to have known Cindy and Stacey.” The accusation brought my mind to a grinding halt.
“Wait, you don’t think… That’s insane, Luna.” I turned and walked away, unsure what to make of it. Harbor couldn’t have been in Vegas. Not in the same hotel, not knowing he could be seen there. He’d known where I was going.
“You don’t believe me? I’m telling you I’m certain. It was him.” She wanted me to believe her so badly, I could tell from the way the tears welled in her eyes. “I know it’s hard to take in, but he could be another suspect. You have to tell the police!”
“I’ll confront him myself. There has to be an explanation. He’s been gone for a while.”
She shook her head and leaned forward, burying her face in her hands. “He mentioned the murders. He mocked our marriage and compared me to your exes.”
“Harbor is a lot of things, Luna, but I can’t imagine him murdering anyone. It’s a mistake. He was only trying to get to you, and it worked. You need to calm down.” I walked to the bar and poured her a drink.
She glared up at me and took it, but she didn’t drink it. “I understand he’s family, Gabriel, but there was something off about him.”
I threw my arms up in the air. “You don’t even know him; how can you say that?” I realized I wanted her to convince me. I hoped she’d say something so I could stop defending him, but instead she downed the drink and slammed the glass down on the table beside her.
Then she got to her feet, and I realized that she was still cold and shaking and wet beneath the throw. “I’m sorry, Luna. Let’s get you upstairs. You need to change.”
She stormed out ahead of me, and I hurried behind her to stay close on her heels. I wasn’t sure what would happen if Harbor approached her again, but as it turned out, my nephew was nowhere in sight. I got her upstairs and to my master suite and locked the door behind us as she hurried into the bathroom and started the shower. By the time I joined her in the room, she was already stepping into the spray naked, her swimsuit in a pile on the floor with her robe.
I left her there to calm down and decided to turn the bed down for her. She needed to relax, and I needed her to tell me everything. The only way to sort this out would be to talk about it calmly, putting all the pieces together. If she was right and Harbor had been in Vegas, it could throw the spotlight off of me, but what would it do to him? Would it be worth it if she were wrong?
Minutes later, she walked from the bathroom and crawled into bed. Her hair was still wet, but bound up high on her head in a towel. She had my white robe on and the thing had never looked better. “He suggested I sleep with him.”
“Now that, I can believe.” She was gorgeous, piled up in my bed with the robe hanging loose over her breast, offering me a peek of her cleavage, and I wondered how much he’d seen of her in the bikini. “I’ll talk to him about that. He shouldn’t disrespect you that way.”
“You don’t believe me.” She shook her head. “And no, please don’t say anything to him. It will only make things wors
e. You need to trust me and look at the footage from the time I left the hotel. You’ll see he was there.”
“I believe you. As much as I don’t want to.” I sat beside her and stroked her hand.
“This is my nephew, Luna. My flesh and blood and the closest thing I’ve ever had to a son – and you’re telling me that he was in Vegas when all of this took place. I don’t want to believe you because it puts me in the horrible position of thinking he could be the killer, even though I know he couldn’t be.”
“How do you know that? I get that you know him, but as someone who doesn’t have the heart for being partial toward him, he was disgusting and perverse and the precise type who could do something like this.”
“I’m afraid to ask what he said to you.”
She pulled the covers up over her hips and after she got situated, took my hand. “I’m not comfortable explaining. I’m not comfortable with any of this, honestly.” I rubbed her shoulder and she scooted closer to lay her head in my lap as I repositioned.
“He knew them both. He’d also asked me if he could go along to Vegas, but I’d refused him. I wanted a minute away from him and his mother, and I knew he’d only get into trouble while I worked.” I stroked her back as she relaxed against me. “I didn’t expect the speech to go as well as it had and I never intended I’d have anything to celebrate.”
“Or that you’d get married. I guess if you’d let him come along, maybe he could have kept you out of trouble. Maybe he did it to get your attention. Maybe he did it to get back at you. It’s not like I know him, so you tell me, do any of those motives make sense? Would there be anything to gain?”
She spoke quietly, as if she were being lulled into a trance, all of the excitement from earlier slowly fading. Even her hands were limp, clutching the covers as she breathed steady and calm.
“If anything happened to me and I were put away for murder, those two wouldn’t make it. I’d have to make provisions for them, such as a trust, but it wouldn’t give them any greater access to my fortune. I’d still be in control of it.
“As for my position in the business, it is secure no matter where I reside, and there are far too many in line to keep it running. He wouldn’t be in control of anything. He’d be worse off, and his mother would probably end up dead or in the gutter somewhere.”
“But you will still check into it?” She rolled back and stared up at me. “Promise me.”
“The problem is, Luna, I have no choice.
“As much as I’d like to forget about all of this, I’m still a suspect, and I know what Mason would suggest. He’d want me to tell the police about Harbor to take the last bit of heat that’s on me down to a minimum. Besides, withholding could be even worse if they figure it out on their own.”