Killing Me Softly: A Thriller Romance Novel [FIRST DRAFT]

Chapter 23

I shut off the world for a while as I listened to Theo tell his side of the story. He was relaxed and staring straight up at the ceiling, telling me everything from top to bottom.

"When I first met MJ, I fell in love with her. Much like everyone else did," he began.

Jealousy was to be expected of me during his story, but I put on my journalism hat and listened intently to every word he had to say.

"I didn't want a girlfriend at first, but she wouldn't let me get past it. MJ being MJ, she never took 'no' for an answer. She wanted me the moment she first saw me. She told me that," he said, and I was thinking, Me, too, Theo. Me, too!

Theo chuckled to himself briefly. "I didn't know what to think of her, this small, determined blonde girl. She kind of scared me a little. She was so fierce."

I remembered. Flashbacks of Mary Jo entered my mind, especially of her with Theo and how envious I was of her.

"They didn't lie at her funeral, you know. MJ really was quite the little lady. Beautiful. Talented. Dragged me to church every Sunday. Everybody loved her. Everybody," Theo said and paused. He chewed on his bottom lip briefly in thought. "When I asked her to marry me, I knew what I was getting into. I can't say I didn't."

"What were you getting into?" I asked.

He sighed. "Multiple dimensions of hell."

My heart sank. I feared what I would hear next.

Theo dryly gulped a few times before speaking. "Little did I know I would bear the brunt of it. I was so young and naïve back then. We were supposed to have our happily ever after, but then I met her half-brother Donnie Styles."

Oh god. Donnie. I had forgotten about him briefly until now. "What about Donnie?"

"Right off the bat, you know what he told me? That he owned her," he said and scoffed.

"Owned her?"

"Yes. I'll never forget. The first time I met Donnie, he shoved me into a closet, grabbed me by the throat, and told me he owned her. That no matter what I did or said, he was always going to be watching her...and me," he said with a tightened voice as if he were suppressing the urge to cry, or perhaps it was rage.

"My god." I couldn't help but gape at him.

"Donnie said if I wasn't careful, he was going to end me when I was least expecting it."

"Did you tell detectives this?"

"Yes. I've told the detectives everything about Donnie. Everything, and they still haven't found anything on him. He's 'too clean,' they said. But, I know what that means. He probably paid somebody off somewhere along the way."

"Are you saying...you think Donnie did it? That he's the one who killed Mary Jo?" I asked the ultimate question.

Theo swallowed harder. "Yes, I do," he said with a rasp. "I honestly do."

Shit, I thought and shook my head. "And what makes you think that?"

"Because she was supposed to meet him that night. That 4th of July. At his beach house down in Corpus. She got so pissed at me. We got into a spat about Donnie while we were packing for a weekend at the beach, and she took off in her Cadillac CTS. Without me. She was so pissed at me. Calling me sick for what I'd said."

"What did you say?" I asked as my heart raced more by the second hearing the story.

"I...well...I..." Theo struggled to say. "I accused her of...of sleeping with him."