Page 86 of Z For Butterfly Man
How sick is Blake, my partner for fifteen years? How could I not see it all this time? “But the hotel must have security cameras. You would have known.”
“He called in a favor to have the hotel footage wiped. It’s what he’s good at, making evidence disappear. He used to do that when he was on the force.”
“I know. That’s how he got your ex-husband convicted of murder.”
“Here’s the thing. He didn’t know about the hidden camera I installed myself above the hotel room door.”
“You have him on camera? That’s enough to—”
“That’s not all I saw that night.”
“Now? What else?”
“After Blake put the note, he looked like he heard something, someone. He was startled and left quickly. But I saw it on the feed. There was someone else in the hallway.”
“Who?”
Her hands fold together in her lap. “A young man. He was just standing there, watching from the shadows. When Blake left, he walked to my room and looked at the door, at the note.”
“Do you recognize him?”
She nods pensively. “Zacarías Cáceres. He was one of my students, years ago, in Miami. He looks much different from before, but I know it’s him. I never forget a face, especially my students’.”
“What was he doing there?”
“Reid,” the fear in her eyes sends my protective instincts haywire, “no one knows what I’m about to tell you, and you have to promise it’ll stay between us.”
“I promise.”
“You’re one of the few people who knows about the Aaron West scandal.”
“I never believed a word of it. You’d never do that. Obviously, he was a disturbed bastard. Thank God he died.”
“Well, I don’t think he OD’d,” she says carefully. “I think he was murdered.”
“What are you talking about? Why do you think that?”
“The night Aaron died, I’d arranged to meet him. I know it was stupid, but I was desperate. My intention was to trick him into confessing that he’d been harassing me. I had a plan, and Blake was in on it. He set me up with a wire and everything. But when I got to the parking lot… Someone was already in the car with Aaron.”
“Who?”
“Cáceres.”
“What? Were they friends or something?”
“Cáceres didn’t have any friends. He was a sad, lonely boy, and very, very creepy.”
“You think he killed West?”
“I think he gave Aaron the drugs that killed him.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t know at the time. I didn’t even know Aaron was going to die. That night, I hid and watched from a distance, saw Zacarías give Aaron something, realized it was drugs when Aaron snorted it, and then Zacarías left. I didn’t want to go on with the plan. Being in the same place alone with Aaron when he was high… But then Aaron started seizing, and then foaming at the mouth… I didn’t know what to do, so I ran.” She trembles. “I ran because I was terrified, and then the dead man’s switch triggered and my life came apart.
“I was twenty-six, had barely survived a brutal beating and a divorce, watched a boy die, lost my job without a chance of ever getting it back while living in a city that labeled me a predator. And Blake was there with a solution and a ring and a way out of Miami, and I took it because I had no other options.”
I wrap my arms around her and pull her closer to stop her shaking. “It’s okay. Calm down. It’s gonna be okay.”
