Chapter 8 - THE MAN DECLAN TRUSTED MOST
“You told them.”
Camille did not raise her voice.
Gavin looked as though he wished she had.
“Yes.”
Declan kept the gun trained on him.
“Why?”
Gavin looked at the photograph of Elise.
“Because by then I didn’t know how to stop.”
“That answer is getting old.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Declan stepped closer.
“You watched my wife leave this island the next morning.”
Gavin’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“You knew Moretti knew she was investigating.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I didn’t know they were going to kill her.”
Camille laughed softly.
There was no humor in it.
“You keep saying that as if ignorance is innocence.”
Gavin looked at her.
“It isn’t.”
The answer disarmed her for half a second.
Gavin continued.
“Elise was dying. They paid for a treatment in Switzerland that insurance wouldn’t touch.”
Declan said nothing.
“It bought her four months.”
His voice became rough.
“Four months where she could eat dinner with me. Four months where she could sit outside. Four months where she remembered my name without morphine turning everything into fog.”
He looked at Tessa’s imaginary presence as though she stood with them.
“When you love someone who is dying, four months can look like the whole world.”
Camille understood that better than Declan wished she did.
“But every dollar came with another request,” Gavin said.
“When Elise died, I thought I was free.”
Moretti showed him otherwise.
They had bank records.
Photographs.
Security logs.
Enough evidence to destroy him and make Declan believe the betrayal had lasted years.
“So you kept going,” Declan said.
“Yes.”
“You stole my father’s ring.”
“Yes.”
“You gave them access.”
“Yes.”
“You told them Camille was asking questions.”
Gavin closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Declan’s finger tightened near the trigger.
Camille stepped between them.
“Move.”
“No.”
“He destroyed our lives.”
“And killing him won’t rebuild them.”
“He helped put you in a hospital bed.”
“I know.”
“He watched me bury people who weren’t responsible.”
“I know.”
Declan stared at her.
She came closer.
“Don’t make another grave for me.”
The words hit him like cold water.
For two years, Declan had treated violence as devotion.
A body for a body.
Pain for pain.
Camille was asking him to prove that love could be something else.
His gun lowered slightly.
Gavin saw it.
Not relief.
Shame.
Camille asked, “Did you alter my medication?”
“No.”
Declan raised the gun again.
Gavin did not flinch.
“I covered it up.”
“What does that mean?” Camille asked.
“I discovered somebody was increasing your sedation.”
“Who?”
“A security contractor Moretti had placed through one of our outside vendors.”
Declan swore.
“You approved every contractor.”
“Yes.”
Gavin continued.
“When I realized what was happening, I had already lied about too much. If I exposed him, he would expose me.”
“So you let it continue,” Camille said.
“For months.”
Her face went blank.
Gavin nodded.
“Then Aris began bypassing the normal deliveries.”
Dr. Aris had apparently started carrying medication himself.
That was how Camille’s nervous system finally began clearing.
“When did you realize I was awake?” she asked.
“Three weeks ago.”
“Tessa.”
“Yes.”
Gavin had seen Tessa leaving the west wing outside scheduled hours.
He had reviewed a camera segment he thought everyone else missed.
Camille had crossed the bedroom.
Walking.
“I knew Moretti still had people watching the estate.”
“So you bribed Tessa.”
“I tried to make her disappear.”
Tessa had interpreted it as a threat.
It had been both.
“If she took the money and left, Moretti might think she knew nothing,” Gavin said.
Camille looked disgusted.
“You don’t get to call that protection after using her sick mother.”
“No.”
Again, he did not defend himself.
Declan stared at the recorder.
“The two men killed here today.”
Gavin looked at him.
“They knew about the bomb.”
Declan’s blood ran cold.
“The argument over port taxes was staged.”
“Partly.”
“Moretti was cleaning house.”
“Yes.”
“And my arriving early?”
“Nobody expected it.”
That explained the timing.
Moretti believed Declan would remain in Seattle until evening.
Gavin had expected to reach the estate first and move whatever evidence had been hidden there.
Instead, someone hit him inside the security hub.
“One of Moretti’s contractors?”
“Yes.”
“The person who locked the west wing?”
Gavin nodded.
“He saw Camille.”
Now the stakes changed again.
Camille understood immediately.
“They know I’m awake.”
“Yes.”
Declan looked toward the warehouse entrance.
“Then we leave.”
Gavin shook his head.
“It won’t end if you run.”
“I’m not running.”
“You need what’s in that recorder.”
Declan picked it up.
Gavin continued.
“And my testimony.”
“You expect mercy?”
“No.”
“What do you expect?”
Gavin looked toward Camille.
“A chance to stop protecting the worst thing I ever did.”
For a moment, the warehouse contained only rain.
Then Camille asked the question nobody had asked correctly.
“If Moretti believed the car would be Declan’s, why did that voice say I made myself part of the problem?”
Gavin’s face changed.
Declan noticed.
“What?”
Gavin looked at Camille.
“The schedule I gave them originally was Declan’s.”
“Yes.”
“But after your meeting, they changed the plan.”
Camille stopped breathing.
Gavin’s voice became almost inaudible.
“They weren’t trying to kill Declan.”
Declan stared at him.
May you like
Gavin finished.
“Camille was always the target.”
