Justice cursed softly. “So young.”
Wretched grief welled up. Every time Cat thought about it, about a young girl scared and alone and desperate, it broke her heart all over again. That poor, poor girl. How badly had she suffered?
And if the ones responsible found her, would Cat suffer the same fate?
Leese interrupted that thought by rubbing her shoulders. “Do you know how and why she was killed?”
The memory made Cat shiver. “From what I overheard, Georgia was hired to waitress at a private party on the island. Because she was offered so much money, she agreed—but only to waitressing. She didn’t understand that the offer came with certain expectations regardless of how she’d feel about it.”
“Like?” Leese asked.
This was the tricky part, where she had to dance around the truth without revealing too much. “One of my stepfather’s more influential friends—” a name they’d all recognize, if she shared that much “—wanted her for...more. She agreed, to an extent.”
As Cat spoke, the words came faster, more strained, matching the frantic beat of her heart.
“But I guess he took it too far because at one point Georgia wanted to leave.”
“You’re sure?” Justice asked. He scratched his left ear, thinking aloud. “If she said yes to something—”
Cat almost lost it. She jerked around to face Justice, wanting, needing a little violence. If he’d been closer, she might have slugged him.
As it was, Leese held her back when she started to lunge forward.
Fine. She still had her voice, and by God, no one would rob her of that. “She agreed to sex with one man. She said no to others joining them, and she obviously said no to being a sideshow. And no, as far as I’m concerned, always means no.”
Eyebrows shooting up, Justice said, “I agree one hundred percent, honey, so spew the venom elsewhere. Rapists are at the top of my list of scum of the earth, right up there with child abusers. I was just going for clarification. How do you know what happened? Were you there?”
“Oh God, no.” She shook her head hard. If she had her way, that damned island would be blown to pieces. “I know Georgia refused, because that’s what they said.” The turbulent mix of anger and panic descended on her again. “They joked, laughing over how she wanted to leave but saying it was already too late for that and they couldn’t let her, so they...they killed her.” She squeezed her eyes shut, horrified anew at the blasé discussion of cold-blooded murder.
They’d talked about ending an eighteen-year-old girl with the same lack of empathy they’d have given to an annoying fly.
“Shh.” Leese turned her into his embrace and his big hands moved up and down her back. “Take it easy.”
Until he soothed her, she hadn’t realized how badly she trembled.
No one spoke and by the second she felt more like a wimp. She knew Sahara watched them with wide-eyed incredulity, and that Justice was confused by his friend’s familiarity. By letting Leese comfort her, she was putting his job at risk. He couldn’t get in trouble over her.
Somehow she had to get it together.
But it was a struggle. Georgia Bell had been gone for months now, but for Cat, the horror was fresh, as if it had happened just yesterday. The cut felt raw and still far too painful.
A steadying breath helped a little. Trying to compose herself, she levered away from Leese’s comfort. If this was her time of confession, she needed to get through it.
Leese kept his hands on her upper arms and dipped down a bit to look her in the eye. “How do you know all this?”
In the quietest of whispers, she confessed, “I overheard it all.”
Leese’s hands tightened. “And the killers know it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“See,” Justice said, his hands out, “this is what I was trying to get to, the deets on how you know what you know.” He grumbled low to himself, “Accusin’ me of supporting abuse. That’s bullshit.”
He looked a little wrecked that she’d ever misunderstood, so Cat gave him an apologetic nod. “They were all in Webb’s boathouse, only I didn’t expect to find anyone there.”
Leese barely breathed. “Webb too?”
She nodded. “It was too late in the season to take out the boat and it’s not like Webb or his buddies like to fish. But we’d gotten that early freeze and I wanted to capture everything in photos to paint it later, maybe even to use as a project for the class, to show them how the ice sparkled and...” Dumb. So very, very dumb. None of that mattered now. “Anyway, when I got close I heard people talking. That didn’t make any sense to me because no one used the boathouse in the winter. At first I listened, trying to figure out who was there. I was going to report them.” To Webb, who she’d figured would run them off. She’d been such a fool.
“That’s what most people would do,” Leese assured her.
“If only it had been vandals, or someone just trespassing. But it wasn’t. By the time I understood what they were talking about, it was too late.” Over and over they’d said her name, Georgia Bell, a young lady who’d been used, and then murdered.
As if she was no one important, as if her death didn’t matter.
To them, she’d been an expendable girl, easily discarded.
“I was standing there, I guess almost in shock, when they stepped out and...saw me.”
Leese tightened his jaw.
“There was no place to hide. I was in my black coat, jeans and boots, standing in the white snow. It’s not like they could have missed me. I tried to bluff, like I hadn’t caught anything important. I tried to act surprised to see them, but welcoming.” As usual, because she knew them all, had met them many times. Closing her eyes, she said, “But I guess they could still tell. They looked at each other as if coming to some silent agreement.”
Hand to her throat, Sahara asked, “An agreement for what?”
“To get rid of me too. To remove the possibility of me telling anyone what I’d heard.”
Gently, Leese said, “You can’t know that for sure.”
But she did. “Webb looked...” Devastated. Destroyed. But still resigned. “I could tell he wouldn’t defend me. Or maybe it’s that he couldn’t. I’m not sure.”
“Because you don’t know for sure if he’s involved,” Justice said.
“I would never have believed it if I hadn’t heard them all talking. They admitted having Georgia killed, her throat cut—” What level of horror had that young girl faced? “—her body disposed of on the island. When asked, Webb agreed to help provide alibis for them. The plan was that he’d claim they’d been with him, at his home, the weekend Georgia went to the island.” Believable, since the men had been to his home before. “I’d say that makes him pretty damned guilty.”
Leese nodded. “Agreed.”
“But how would that cover all their tracks?” Justice asked. “They had to get to the island somehow, right? There must be records...”