I shook my head emphatically. I panted hard through my nose, glaring at him to communicate my message. Never before had I wanted to curse so vehemently; a slew of the worst and foulest words I could think of flashed across my mind, and I only wished I had the great satisfaction of spitting them in his face.
"Where are they?" he growled again, grinding me harder into the mattress.
I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking this was it. He had one hand clasped over my mouth, the other braced behind my head. with one rough twist, he could snap my neck. My breath came in short, dire pants. I knew it was shameful to wait until now to pray, but I was desperate. Dear God, comfort my dad and Ian after I'm gone. And if this is the end, please let Jude do it swiftly, and not draw out the pain.
When nothing happened, I dared open my eyes. Jude leaned over me, his harsh, raging features crumbling. He shook his head, self-disgust and weariness etched in his expression. He let go of me, grinding his palms into his bloodshot eyes. His shoulders sagged, his whole body trembling as he broke down, silently crying.
He hadn't killed me. I wasn't dead.
I lay on the bed, unable to do anything but cry alongside him. My shoulders shook in great, silent heaves.
"Did you kill her?" I asked.
"Do you think I did?"
"You had her belongings."
Bitterness edged his words. "So now I murdered her? Was it easy to jump to the conclusion, to condemn me as a murderer, or did you wrestle with your judgment a bit first? Given what we shared last night, I hope you spared a couple minutes to weigh my character."
"I saw Lauren Huntsman's dad on the news. He was adamant she would have been wearing the locket the night she disappeared."
"She was."
I swallowed hard. Was it a confession?
”What were the handcuffs for?"
Jude cringed, and I knew he'd hoped I'd forgotten about them. But how could I? What kind of normal person carried handcuffs?
”Did you handcuff Lauren?" I continued. "So she couldn't get away? To make her powerless? Did you drag her up there and kill her?"
"You think I'm capable of terrible things, you've made that clear,” Jude said, his tone halfway between jaded and fatigued. "But I'm not the bad guy you've made me out to be. I'm trying to do the right thing, which is why I'm here now. I'm trying to catch the real bad guy. And to do that, I need Lauren's belongings."
More cryptic explanations. I was getting tired of them. I didn't know what to believe. I only knew that if I made the mistake of trusting Jude a second time, I was not only a fool, but probably dead. He could be tricking me . . . only to kill me and eliminate me as a witness.
"Who was Lauren to you?"
Jude rubbed his hands over his face, and they shook as he did. He bent over, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head, almost like he was being assailed by memories-invisible, bewitched objects that flew at him with painful force.
"I didn't kill Lauren,” he said in a flat, toneless voice. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the shadowed wall. Even in the low light, I could see his eyes were vacant. "She left a message on my phone hours before she disappeared. She told me she was going drinking, and I knew she was baiting me, like she'd done a hundred times before. She wanted me to stop her. My plane had just touched down in Jackson Hole when I got the message, and I wanted to shower and grab something to eat; I was sick and tired of dropping everything to come rescue her. So I ignored her call. For once, I wanted her to clean up her own mess." His breath caught and he looked up at me with hollow, tortured eyes. "Lauren was my sister, Britt. I was supposed to take care of her, and I failed her. Not a day goes by that I don't imagine how things would have been different if I hadn't been so selfish."
Lauren was his sister?
Before I could sort it out, Jude went on. "The police gave up on finding her, but I never did. I had her diary, and I pored through it for clues. I went to every bar, club, pool hall, and hotel in Jackson Hole that I thought she might have visited. My family had been vacationing there for a week before I arrived, so I knew she'd had plenty of time to make her way around. People must have seen her. Someone had seen something. Though I criticized the police for not making any headway, I had a resource they didn't-my family's money. I paid people to talk, and one person, a bartender, remembered seeing Lauren leave his bar with a cowboy. The bartender later leaked to the news that Lauren was seen leaving Silver Dollar Cowboy Bar with a man in a black Stetson, which infuriated me, because I didn't want to tip off the man I was hunting for.
"Based on the bartender's description, I knew I was looking for a man in his early twenties, slim, average height, broken nose, blond hair, blue eyes, and possibly wearing a black Stetson. Then I went back to that same bar every night for weeks, until at last Shaun came in. He matched the description. I learned his name and ran a background check, and found out he'd recently moved to Wyoming from Montana, where he had a record of misdemeanors-petty theft, simple assault, and disorderly conduct. I was pretty sure I had my man.
"I quit college, left my friends and family, moved to Wyoming, and made it my full-time job to earn Shaun's trust. I created a false identity and committed petty crimes and hustled his enemies to prove myself to him. I would have done whatever it took to get Shaun to confide in me. I believed eventually he'd confess to killing Lauren. And then, once I knew for sure he'd done it, I'd murder him. Slowly,” he added in a cold, menacing tone, a flicker of black fire burning in his eyes.
I had recovered sufficiently to scoot backward across the bed silently, so Jude wouldn't notice. It was a sentimental and convenient story. Maybe Jude realized threatening me wasn't working, and was trying a new angle. His story also didn't explain the locket and the stalkerish photograph. Lauren's parents were certain she was wearing the locket when she died. Jude must have been there when she was killed. He'd had to have removed it from her body. Carefully, I swung one foot off the bed, but the floor gave me away. It creaked under my weight.
Jude turned as if startled. I froze. I could scream now, but before Calvin could run up, Jude would have time to land a forceful, deadly blow on my head and slip out the window.
"Keep going,” I urged him gently, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice.
To my astonishment, Jude blinked, and in an almost trancelike manner obeyed my request. "Killing Shaun, if he'd murdered Lauren, was my endgame. He had started bragging about some of his crimes, like blackmailing wealthy married women with pictures he took of them when they were drunk. A little longer, and I was sure he'd tell me about Lauren.