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Mace
Mace wasn’t sure if meeting with Julie was a good idea. He didn’t believe a word that she told him over the phone, and he definitely didn’t want Brooke in the same room with Julie. He worried that Julie would end up ruining her chances with Brooke, and he was so close to convincing her to give him a chance. She all but agreed to go on a date with him once he was cleared, and if Julie could clear his name, so that could happen, then this meeting would be worth it.
Brooke had helped him pack up his meager belongings and load them into her car. They found a place around the corner from the motel with a perfect view of his room. If Julie showed up, they would be able to see if anyone else was with her, waiting to ambush him.
“You know, you don’t have to go in with me,” Mace said. For the last ten minutes, he had been thinking about ways to get Brooke to let him talk to Julie alone.
“No fucking way are you going to meet with her alone, Mace,” Brooke insisted. God, she was sexy when she cursed. There was something about seeing the buttoned-up lawyer come undone around him. She was being herself around Mace and he loved it.
He chuckled and she shot him a look telling him that she wasn’t amused by any of this. “Have you considered that Julie could very well be a suspect in Reece’s murder?” she asked. Honestly, he hadn’t. She was with him for most of the night—well, except while they were closing up the bar. He was back in his office, doing paperwork, and he assumed that Julie was cleaning the bar and floors. Mace never imagined that she’d be up to something as nefarious as murder while he was working on his bank deposits for the next day.
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Mace admitted. “I don’t know when she would have had the time to clean the bar after closing and murder Reece Childs out in the parking lot.”
“Where were you while she was closing down the bar?” Brooke asked.
“I was back in my office, doing paperwork and getting the bank deposits ready for the next day,” he said.
“So, you weren’t with her the entire time then?” Brooke asked.
“No,” he breathed.
“Reece was murdered between 11 pm to 1 am. Was she with you during that period?” Brooke asked.
“Not the entire time,” he admitted. “Julie came back to my office around midnight.” Mace left off the rest of what he was going to say about what happened next between them. He had already told Brooke all the sordid details.
“She would have had time to go out to the parking lot and kill Reece before coming to your office. Did anything seem off about her?” she asked.
“No, not really. I didn’t know her very well. She had just started working at the bar a few weeks before. I’m not sure that I’d know if she was acting off at all,” he admitted. Mace really wasn’t helping his image with Brooke. She didn’t seem to flinch when he told her all the sorted details, but he was pretty sure that those details didn’t win him any points with her.
“Do you really think she could be the one who killed Reece?” Mace asked.
Brooke nodded to the motel where Julie was waiting outside his door, gun in hand. “I do,” she said. They watched as Julie banged on the door and when no one answered, she tried the handle, and finding it open went into his room. Julie walked back out of the room, standing in the parking lot, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.
Mace’s cell phone rang, and he didn’t even have to look at the caller ID. “Julie,” he breathed.
“I’m at your motel and you aren’t here. I thought that we were supposed to meet,” she said.
“We were, but then, I got the feeling that you weren’t on the up and up with me, and I left,” he said.
“How could you say that about me, Mace? I thought that we shared something special,” Julie lied. She was in the parking lot, gun still in hand, and he wanted to laugh.
“We did not share anything special, Julie,” he admitted.
“This is that woman lawyer’s idea, isn’t it? She’s convinced you that I wasn’t good for you because she wants you to herself. You can’t trust that bitch, Mace,” she spat.
“Don’t call her that,” Mace growled, “she has nothing to do with any of this.” He looked over at Brooke and damn it, she looked worried. She was always so in control that seeing her this way broke his heart.
“You’re wrong,” Julie screamed into the phone, “but that’s not your fault. She has brain washed you against me. But once she’s out of the way, you’ll remember how much you love me, Mace.” Brooke’s gasp filled the car, and he was sure that Julie would be able to hear her. “So, she’s with you now,” Julie said. She wasn’t really asking. No, she was telling Mace that she knew that they were together and when Julie threatened to get Brooke out of the way, he believed her.
“Think this through, Julie,” Mace said. “Brooke and I aren’t even together, so why go after her? What would it change if Brooke was out of the picture?”
“It would change everything,” Julie insisted. “I have thought this through already, Mace. Your lawyer has to go, and then you‘ll see that things will change for the better.”
“You won’t get close enough to touch her, Julie,” Mace said. “I won’t let you.”
“Always the hero, Mace,” Julie taunted. “I’ll find you both and if you get in the way, I’ll kill you too. Please don’t make me do that. I really do like you, Mace.” She was crazy and arguing with her while sitting just feet away from her was a bad idea.
“Got to go,” Mace said, ending the call while Julie screamed at him to stay on the phone with her. She got into her car and took off down the road, in the opposite direction from where they sat.
