Page 130 of You Know Why

I put my fingers in my ears and bend my head to my lap like Four does when he doesn’t want to answer me. It’s childish, but I have to stop my heart from exploding in fear. If this is who I think it is . . . no one is safe. Not me, not the cop, not my kids, not my sister, not my husband.

“He’s dead,” I whisper. “I mean, I thought I saw him in the hospital, and I thought he had his hands around my neck at one point, but it was a hallucination. The nurse said I was alone in the room. It can’t be him.”

“Say the name aloud, please.”

“Alex.”

“Alex who, Brooklyn?”

“Alex Durov. But he died ten years ago. I saw him die. Roger killed him.”

“What?”

My mind touches on the memory gingerly, like probing a sore tooth. The cold river. The vodka. The blood. Alex’s laugh, so warm and inviting. The picnic blanket. The gun. I can’t help fidgeting. I don’t want to remember this.

“Let’s start again. And be straight with me this time. Both of our lives depend on it. Tell me about your relationship with Roger Bandolier.”

I want to trust her. But I have to be careful here.

“You already know I worked for the show. I traveled with them all over the world for two years. Roger himself . . . he was an absolutely amazing chef and mercurial person, a total star. I didn’t have a relationship with him, outside of being the staff photographer.”

“Where were you the night he died?”

“Detective, what does this have to do with my husband?”

“You don’t know? Or you don’t remember?”

“Neither. Roger died years ago. Well before I met Trey. The two aren’t related at all.”

“That’s not entirely true, is it?” The detective crosses her legs and sets a file on the coffee table. “Bandolier died on a shoot in Thiviers, France. He partied late into the night after the last day of shooting and overdosed on cocaine. The autopsy showed that coke was laced with fentanyl.”

“This is not a secret, Detective. Roger had a terrible problem. He did drugs indiscriminately. Whatever could be procured and delivered and ingested. Coke, amphetamines, heroin, MDMA. Alcohol, if no other escape could be found, but he preferred the stronger stuff. They did a whole documentary on it.”

“Yes, but who provided him with the fentanyl-laced cocaine he took the night he died? Who snuck it into France? Maybe a young photographer? Whose father has a record of drug trafficking?”

I freeze.

“It was a terrible situation, I’m sure. To have provided the drugs that killed your boss. Of course you’d run. Of course you’d need to lie low. So you went to Mexico, and lo and behold, met Andrew. What did you tell him about your time on the show? About all the places you traveled? Did you tell him about the drugs, and how you shuttled them from country to country? How your father would mail them to you, and you’d pack them in your bags, and because Roger Bandolier was who he was, customs didn’t search as thoroughly as they might have?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Brooklyn, we know you provided Bandolier with the drugs that killed him.”

“You know nothing. This is bullshit. I didn’t have anything to do with Roger’s drugs.”

“Then explain it to me. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me about Alex Durov. Help me. If you help me, I can help you. I’ll show you everything I have about Andrew—Trey—and Chloe. We can solve these cases together.”

I watch this woman who seems so sincere, who has answers I need, as well. Calculate. Trey should be here soon, right?

Assuming that was him texting me. If Alex is alive, anything could be happening.

That thought chills me to the bone. He’s alive.

“Alex was my boyfriend. We were having a picnic by the river.” My voice sounds mechanical, even to me. “A little party to celebrate the end of the shoot. That wasn’t unusual. And Roger found us there. At first, he joined us, did a little blow, and drank some vodka. Also not unusual. And he wanted more, and more. Alex cut him off, said he’d had enough.

“But he was jealous of Alex. He’d always wanted me for himself, had been hitting on me relentlessly for months. Honestly, I was getting ready to quit the show because it was just too much to deal with. Roger never did anything halfway. It was all or nothing, always.

“And that day, because he couldn’t have me, he wanted more drugs. It wasn’t me, it was Alex. He was providing the whole crew with whatever they needed. He had a source in Europe, and he used my photography equipment to stash baggies in the lining so we could move it across borders.”