The lack of motive had bothered her, but with the knife that had been used on Alyssa in his office, there was no reason to think Miles Joseph wasn’t responsible for Alyssa’s death.
The killer had used Kate’s fear to drive her into his arms and had set up the evidence to lead back to Joseph’s computer. Then he silenced Joseph before the man had gotten the chance to tell Kate the truth.
At Alyssa’s funeral, the killer had pretended not to have known about Alyssa’s rape, but he’d drafted the complaint against Reverend Pierce prior to her murder.
Kate hopped up into the Hummer and left the music off as she headed back to the suburbs. She tried to reach Jaxon, but he didn’t answer his cell phone. He was probably forty thousand feet in the air, on his way to Aruba. She left him a voicemail message explaining her theory and told him she was on the way to his house.
A cool calm descended over her.
She needed to see the picture of Alyssa with Jaxon and Nick again. She finally realized what it was about the photograph that had bothered her. Alyssa had been wearing a collar, but it couldn’t have been from Jaxon because it was before they’d entered a Dom/sub relationship. That meant she had still belonged to her Master at the time the photo had been taken.
And her gut told her it had been Nick.
Chapter Nine
AS IF ON autopilot, she parked the Hummer in Jaxon’s garage and noticed that his Explorer was already gone. Just as she feared, he’d already left for Aruba.
She let herself into his house, and then, as Jaxon had done two weeks ago, she went upstairs, but rather than go to Alyssa’s bedroom, she marched straight to Jaxon’s.
Her eyes burned as she lifted the photo and zeroed in on the collar around Alyssa’s neck.
She’d never wanted to be more wrong.
“I always loved that picture,” Nick said, standing right inside the bedroom, blocking her exit.
Her heart stopped and her breath caught in her chest.
She’d thought Jaxon’s gated driveway would keep her safe, but apparently Nick also had a remote to open the gate. Hadn’t she learned anything after going to Miles Joseph’s office without backup?
A frisson of fear raced down her spine at the sight of him. Gone was the Nick who’d bought her ice cream and hung out in her kitchen while she’d made them coffee. This Nick looked as though he hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, his pupils tiny pinpricks. His white dress shirt and black slacks were wrinkled and his hair uncombed.
The man she’d idolized was unraveling like a spool of thread.
She clutched her purse to her chest and smiled, trying to play dumb. “What are you doing here?”
He shook his head. “Oh, Kate. Let’s not pretend you haven’t figured it all out. It demeans our relationship. I’m here because I heard every word of your conversation with Hannah.” He took a step closer, and she saw the sweat beading his brow. “I’ve been following you since you began your internship. Every night I’d sit in the firm’s parking structure, watching to make sure you made it to your bike without harm, and then I’d tail you as you drove to your hovel of an apartment. Someone obviously needed to look out for you, or who knows what danger you would’ve found yourself in.”
How had she not noticed him following her the last few months? She thought back to his appearance at the bar the night he’d assigned her to Jaxon’s case. She’d been shocked when he’d admitted to observing her for an hour before he’d interrupted her night out with the other interns. The idea that he’d done it for weeks without her knowledge made her skin crawl.
Now he stared at her with his eyebrows raised as if waiting for her to say something.
“Am I supposed to thank you for stalking me?” she asked.
“I hear sarcasm in your question, but to be honest, that’s exactly what I’d hoped for.” He reached into the pocket of his pants and whipped out a butterfly knife.
Nausea swept through her, her stomach clenching and her throat tightening. “Thank you,” she said.
He nodded once. “It’s been my pleasure to take care of you. You’ve been alone for far too long.” He glanced at the picture of Alyssa.
Her phone rang from inside her purse, and she sent up a silent prayer that it was Jaxon letting her know he was on his way. That he hadn’t left for Aruba.
Maybe Nick wasn’t too far gone. If she could get him talking, she could figure out how to reason with him. The man she’d known couldn’t have been a total lie, could he?
She squeezed her purse to her chest a little tighter and gestured to the photograph with a jab of her chin. “How long had you been Alyssa’s Master when you fixed her up with Jaxon?”