All She Ever Wanted - Barbara Freethy [39]
"I can't believe Emily wouldn't have told me she was planning to have sex. I thought we were so close."
"She knew I wouldn't judge her."
"And I would?" Natalie pressed a hand to her head, feeling the beginning of a bad headache.
"Of course you would. You were always trying to protect her."
"I did a terrible job in the end."
"Emily made her own choices."
"Not the choice to fall off the roof. That was a tragic accident."
"Probably."
Natalie didn't like the doubt in her answer. "Probably? You just said you didn't think I had anything to do with it."
"I didn't say it wasn't someone else. I always thought it was a bit odd for her to just fall like that." Madison glanced down at her watch. "Damn, I have to go. I have an appointment." She turned to leave, then paused. "You should watch your back, Natalie. Someone doesn't like you, and that someone went to a lot of trouble to make you look bad. Who knows what else they have in mind?"
* * *
"Natalie Bishop? Are you out of your fucking mind?" Dylan asked, as he handed Cole a beer from behind the bar. After fixing the technical glitch in the virtual-reality room, Dylan and Cole had moved into the main nightclub, which was currently empty.
"Probably." Cole took a sip of his beer. "However, Natalie is involved in all this, and I can't let her go until I get to the bottom of it." He didn't like the knowing glint in Dylan's eyes. "What? You think I still like her?"
"She's the only woman who ever got under your skin."
"That's not true." But as Cole took another swig of his beer, he silently admitted that he couldn't think of another woman who'd made him so crazy and so happy at the same time.
"Maybe you don't want to let go of her now that you've found her again," Dylan suggested, a speculative gleam in his eyes.
"It's just about the book. That's the only reason we're together. She knows more than I do about what went down that night."
"I thought she couldn't remember anything. Has that changed?"
"No, but she knows what happened the day before and the day before that. I have to start somewhere."
"I wouldn't trust a word she says. You should stay away from her. She's bad news."
"You think Natalie had something to do with Em's death?" He couldn't bring himself to say the word murder. "Why?"
"She used Emily to get to you, and when that didn't work, she got pissed off."
"Why would you think she was using Emily to get to me?" Cole asked, confused. "They were friends before I came along."
"Emily told me that she wished the two of you had never hooked up. She was caught in the middle, torn between the two of you."
Cole felt his stomach turn over. "You never said that before, and Emily never told me that."
"I didn't say anything because you were already beating yourself up about not getting to the party earlier. And Em probably didn't want to hurt your feelings."
Cole had never really considered Emily's thoughts about his relationship with Natalie. He realized now that they'd never talked much about it. In the three months before Emily's death, he'd been splitting time between San Francisco, where he was supposed to be working for the family paper, Washington D.C., where he'd actually been hustling a news connection that would land him a job with CNN overseas, and lastly Santa Cruz. When he was in Santa Cruz, he'd spent all his time with Natalie. Conversations with Emily had been sparse and never touched beyond the surface. She'd seemed happy enough, and he hadn't pressed for any more information than what came with her smile. Now he wished he'd done more talking. Actually, he wished he'd done more listening.
"I never meant to put Emily in the middle," he muttered.
"She wasn't mad at you," Dylan said. "She was angry with Natalie. She wanted her to let go and move on. You'd made it clear to Natalie it was over. She was the one who wouldn't take no for an answer—from either of you. She kept pushing Emily to intervene. Who knows what she would have done in desperation?"
Cole