For some reason her calm certainty infuriated him. "Goddammit, Jo, I did."
"Then why don't you remember it?" she asked calmly.
"I must have been in a blinding rage," he said at once. It was the only explanation he'd been able to come up with after all these years. Not that he'd thought about it often. He'd been so horrified by what he'd done that Nicholas had done his best not to think about it at all until the night he'd met Jo. Since then it was constantly in the back of his mind. What he'd done, why he'd done it, how he'd ruined his chances to be with her.
"Nope, you weren't in a blinding rage," Jo said with certainty, snapping his attention back to her with disbelief of his own.
"Well I sure as shit wouldn't have killed her if I hadn't been in a blinding rage," he snarled.
"Nicholas," she said patiently, shifting to kneel beside him on the bed. "Think about what you're saying. You saw her and were angry because she looked like your Annie, was pregnant like your Annie, but was alive when your Annie wasn't. Your anger was natural, and if you'd told me you'd struck out at her right there in the parking lot, one angry shot that had killed the woman, I might have believed you'd killed her in a blinding rage. But that's not what happened. Supposedly, in this blinding rage, you transported her to your car, got inside, drove her to your place, and took her down into your basement and killed her… without ever coming out of your blinding rage. Without remembering a thing about it until you opened your eyes and peered down to find her dead in your lap ?" She shook her head. "Nope. Didn't happen that way."
Nicholas merely stared at Jo blankly as she suddenly sat back and looked thoughtful, and then she asked, "You say Decker was shouting your name? That's what woke you up?"
"I—Yes," he said on a sigh.
"He did it then," she decided calmly, and as Nicholas began to shake his head, she said, "Yes, he did. He took control of you and took you both back to your place and killed the woman, set her in your lap, and then released his control."
Nicholas closed his eyes wearily. "Decker didn't do it, Jo. Decker wouldn't kill a mortal. He's a rogue hunter, he protects mortals and immortals alike. He wouldn't kill anyone but rogues."
"Yet you would," she asked dryly, and pointed out, "You were an enforcer too."
"Yes, but I was grieving, my head wasn't on straight. I was—"
"Controlled," Jo said firmly.
Nicholas wished he could agree with her and say that was what had happened, but shook his head. "Immortals can't be controlled."
"You said you can read each other's thoughts just like you can mortals," Jo said at once. "Perhaps an older immortal can also control a younger one. Decker probably—"
"Decker is younger than me," he interrupted. "And yes immortals can read each other, but only a very new turn can be controlled. I was centuries old."
"You're sure about that?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
Nicholas ran a hand through his hair and nodded solemnly. "Yes. It would take a three-on-one to wipe my memories and control me—three older immortals working together to do it. The minute you try to erase or bury an immortal's memories, the nanos will be trying to bring them back to the surface. They have to be buried and reburied over and over again. It takes days, and it was still the same night when Decker got there. I wasn't controlled, and I didn't have my memory erased," he assured her regretfully.
"Then you were drugged," she decided promptly.
"Jo," he said wearily.
"Stop fighting me and help here," she snapped. "You're wallowing in your supposed guilt. Stop that and use your noggin. It just doesn't make sense, Nicholas. You apparently risked getting captured and killed earlier in the summer to help Dani and Stephanie, and then just the other night you did it again to save me. I was a complete stranger and I presume Dani and Stephanie probably were too, but you risked losing your own life to save us. That doesn't sound like a man who would kill a woman just because she looked like your life mate." She paused to suck in a breath and then said, "Honestly, you'd be more likely to control the woman and keep her to play house with and pretend your Annie was still alive."
Nicholas frowned at her words. "But she was in my lap."
"But you don't remember how she got there," Jo said at once. "Does that seem right to you? How did you get her there? What happened to the gift for Carol? Did she say anything to you to set you off? Did she cry and beg for her life? Did you take control of her and keep that control as you drove to your place? And why the basement?"