Chapter 88: REOPENING THE CASE

Dean.

I can’t believe that Lace thought I would be angry with her for not telling me she hired a private investigator to prove me innocent without my knowledge. If anything, Lace hiring Dan fills me with joy. She loves me enough to prove I am innocent. There is no way I will ever give up on Lace. And if she had to leave me, I would fight to win her back until I had the last breath left in my body. I gaze at her drying her eyes with the paper towels the restaurant provides and wish that the rest of our lives is smoother than the last few days of our lives.

I did what I needed to protect her since she moved back to her parent’s home. I reduced the number of security guards I had watching Lace’s apartment. And I also hired a private investigator to watch the apartment building to see who may be spying on it, or staking it out. I don’t plan on telling Lace that just yet because I don’t want her to freak out.

I have to tell her about my visit to Dr. Jordan so that she stops feeling so bad for what she has done. “I have something to share with you,” I tell her.

Lace looks worriedly at me. “Is something wrong?” she asks.

“Relax. And no, nothing is wrong. I am fine.” I lean across the table so that she can hear me when I whisper. “I consulted with my psychologist.”

Her eyes widen. “And?”

“I remembered enough for her to advise me to ask the detectives who initially worked on my case to get in touch with her,” I tell Lace. My heart races when I mention the hypnosis. I just wish I could recollect what I revealed to Dr. Jordan in that session.

Lace gasps. “That is the best news!” she exclaims, “did you inform your legal team?”

I nod. “I told my father. He contacted the detectives who worked on my case. I guess he is waiting to hear from them.”

“Maybe he already heard back from them,” Lace says, “do you want to call him and check?” she asks me.

I shake my head. “No. Once I know that the case is officially reopened, my life as I once knew it is over. I become a suspect again.” I sigh. “The media attention to the case got pretty crazy the first time around.”

“I am so sorry you have to go through this for a second time,” she says.

“It’s going to be okay because this time I know I didn’t do it,” I tell her. “I feel it in my bones and in the core of my heart. The first time I was so overwhelmed by Dana’s death that fear clouded my judgement. Now I clearly recall sitting in the back seat with Dana while Jason drove.”

Lace gasps again. “This is excellent news.”

“Yeah, but I still need to wait for the detectives and see if they are willing to talk to Dr. Jordan.” I run my fingers through my hair in frustration. “I just wish that I remembered all of this after the accident happened. I wish I hadn’t been so angry with my parents when my parents suggested therapy in the first place. I would have never had to have lived with Dana’s death tormenting me every minute of every day for the last couple of years.”

“If you had done all of that, your life would have played out quite differently, Dean. Maybe I would have never met you…”

I smile. “The universe would have found a way to bring you into my life.” Just as I reach over to squeeze her hand and reassure her that I would have searched for her for the rest of my life until I found her, my phone rings.

“Who is it?” Lace asks.

“My father.” I take a deep breath and answer my phone. “Hi, dad.”

“Dean, you need to come down to the police station immediately. Dan and I are here with the detectives who initially handled the case,” my father says, “and they want to talk to you.”

I shiver. “I am on my way.”

“What’s going on?” Lace asks me.

I place two hundred dollars under the plate and take her hand. “I need to go down to the police station.”

Lace rushes to her feet. “Let’s go.”

As we walk out of Maggie’s Eatery, I pray that Lace doesn’t leave after she hears about my past and some of the other stuff I did before Dana’s death. “Whatever the detectives discuss about this case isn’t going to be pretty,” I tell her, “so I will understand if you want to leave at any point.”

She nods. “I understand but I want you to know that I am not going to leave you. I also want you to know that I have been a fan of romance novels and romance movies all my life. I own every Nicholas Sparks book that he has ever written. And one thing that had taught me is that love isn’t pretty. Relationships aren’t pretty and smooth sailing. Life isn’t easy. So if you think for one minute that I am going to leave you alone in that police station for one moment because of one difficult phase in your life, then you are wrong!”

I pause before we sit inside my car and hug Lace hard. “Thank you for believing in me,” I tell her, “thank you for loving me and believing in me.”

“I will never stop doing that, Dean, I promise,” she says and holds me just as tight.

***

Jason – The Villain.

Lace and Dean are no longer living at her apartment. Where the hell are they? I searched other apartment buildings in Manhattan and didn’t find any mention of a couple fitting their description who recently moved in. Dammit. Lace turned out to be much smarter than I anticipated. I wish Dean had never met her. He has changed so much since he met her. Regrettably, I have to admit that Lace changed Dean for the best. She made him a better man.

And left me a bitter one.

Think, Jason, think. I have to come up with a plan to find out where Dean is and what he is up to. He didn’t meet me for the game and he never bothered calling me again. Does he suspect that I was behind his downfall all along? Does he know that I am the one who framed him for Dana’s murder?

Sweat drips down my forehead. Lace is a smart one and Dean fell hard for her on the first day he met her. I wish he hadn’t met her. I wish Lace hadn’t written that blog post that led him to her. She ruined everything by falling in love with Dean and showing him that he could live life on his own terms and build his own career without his parent’s help. But now that it is done, I have to work harder to come up with a plan to get Dean to fall harder than he has ever fallen in his entire life.

My phone rings while I am trying to draw a mind map to help me figure out my next master plan.

“Jason?” the voice on the other end questions.

What in the actual fuck? “Lance?” No. this can’t be happening.

“Yeah,” Lance says, “did you hear the news yet?”

My blood runs cold. “What news?” I ask.

“The cops are reopening Dana’s murder case. They say they have new evidence,” Lance says.

“Who told you that?” I ask. I cannot believe that any of this is happening right now.

“My contact at the police station. Dean’s father was at the station this morning with his legal team and a private investigator.” Lance lets out a long groan. “Dude, I thought you took care of this situation. You told me you had everything under control.”

I shake my head. “I will get this situation under control,” I promise him. I have no idea how I will achieve that if Dean’s father is in the picture. I never liked his old man. He was always too smart for me.

“Do what you need to, man. I am not going down with you. And if any cop shows up on my doorstep I am turning you in,” Lance says and hangs up.

Now I am really screwed. Lance is the only one, apart from myself, who knows the truth about what happened that night. After the accident, Lance’s billionaire parents arranged for him to move to Dubai and run one of their five-star hotels there. I do not have enough money to book a flight to Dubai and take care of Lance so that he never tells anyone what happened that night. What do I do now?

Maybe I should have killed Dean instead that night.

Then what fun would my life have been all these years? Oh, how I enjoyed watching Dean squirm and stress out over who was sending him those threatening notes. Little did he know that I faked my concern. I hated him for stealing Dana from me. I fell in love with her first. I was the one who introduced them and then he stole her from right under my nose by flashing his money and taking her out on fancy dates to fancy hotels. I will not rest until I destroy Dean and make him feel the pain I felt. I will take Lace away from him no matter how long it takes so that he can feel what I felt when he took Dana away from me permanently. Until his father and his legal team figure out a way to find me, I am not going to be easy to find to help them prove Dean was innocent all along.