“So here’s how I think it went down.” Graves tapped her fingertips together, her attention seemingly on the strenuous drills below. “Cross cut you off, started seeing an old flame. That served two purposes—it made Barker relax, and it wiped out Cross’s motive. Why would he kill a man over a woman he’d dumped? He set that up pretty well—he didn’t tell you. You strengthened the lie with your honest reactions.”
Her foot started tapping along with her fingers, her slim body radiating restless energy. “Cross doesn’t hire out the job. That would be stupid. He doesn’t want the money trail or a hit man who could rat him out. Besides, this is personal. You’re personal. He wants the threat gone without a doubt. He sets up a last-minute party at one of his properties for some vodka company of his. Now he’s got a rock-solid alibi. Even the press is there to snap pictures. And he knows precisely where you are and that your alibi is rock-solid, too.”
My fingers clenched in the towel. My God . . .
The sounds of bodies hitting the mat, the hum of instructions being given, and the triumphant shouts of students all faded into a steady buzzing in my ears. There was a flurry of activity happening right in front of me and my brain couldn’t process it. I had a sense of retreating down an endless tunnel, my reality shrinking to a tiny black point.
Opening her bottle of water, Graves drank deeply, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’ll admit, the party tripped me up a bit. How do you break an alibi like that? I had to go back to the hotel three times before I learned there was a fire in the kitchen that night. Nothing major, but the entire hotel was evacuated for close to an hour. All the guests were milling on the sidewalk. Cross was in and out of the hotel doing whatever an owner would do under those circumstances. I talked to a half dozen employees who saw him or talked to him around then, but none of them could pinpoint times for me. All agreed it was chaotic. Who could keep track of one guy in that mess?”
I felt myself shaking my head, as if she’d been directing the question at me.
She rolled her shoulders back. “I timed the walk from the service entrance—where Cross was seen talking to the FDNY—to Barker’s hotel a couple blocks over. Fifteen minutes each way. Barker was taken out by a single stab wound to the chest. Right in the heart. Would’ve taken no more than a minute. No defensive wounds and he was found just inside the door. My guess? He opened the door to Cross and it was over before he could blink. And get this . . . That hotel is owned by a subsidiary of Cross Industries. And the security cameras in the building just happened to be down for an upgrade that’s been in the works for several months.”
“Coincidence,” I said hoarsely. My heart was pounding. In a distant part of my brain, I registered that there were a dozen people just a few feet away, going about their lives without a clue that another human being in the room was dealing with a catastrophic event.
“Sure. Why not?” Graves shrugged, but her eyes gave her away. She knew. She couldn’t prove it, but she knew. “So here’s the thing: I could keep digging and spending time on this case while there are others on my desk. But what’s the point? Cross isn’t a danger to the public. My partner will tell you it’s never okay to take the law into your own hands. And for the most part, I’m on the same page. But Nathan Barker was going to kill you. Maybe not next week. Maybe not next year. But someday.”
She stood and brushed off her pants, picked up her water and towel, and ignored the fact that I was sobbing uncontrollably.
Gideon . . . I pressed the towel to my face, overwhelmed.
“I burned my notes,” she went on. “My partner agrees we’ve hit a dead end. No one gives a shit that Nathan Barker isn’t breathing our air anymore. Even his father told me he considered his son dead years ago.”