Unexpected Rendezvous

Chapter 36

Leigh's POV

I stare at Andre, immobile with confusion, until he shakes his head in mock exasperation. "You seriously have no idea, huh? Well, I'll say this for her, she has all of you fooled. She's always been good at putting up a front."

Andre grabs hold of his suitcase handle and spins it. I unfreeze and sprint forward until I'm between him and the door. He tries to dart past me, but I move with him, my arms are spread wide. "You can't leave until you tell me, Andre. I won't let you. People are in real trouble."

"Oh, for fuck sake," Andre groans, but his eyes cut towards the clock on the mantel. He has to know I won't physically restrain him, but I'll dance like this for hours if I have to. "It's Kamille, you idiot." The name means nothing to me, and it must show on my face, because he adds, "Kamille Purcell. Coach Purcell. My fiancé, remember?"

That startles me into silence, and Andre tries again for the door. "No, wait!" I say, blocking it once more. "Coach Purcell is a drug dealer? How? Since when?"

"Kam only told me about it six months ago, but it's been a couple of years," Andre says. "She was small-time at first, using stolen prescription pads. Then demand got high enough that she started involving more people, and bringing drugs in from other countries. Now there's a whole network of suppliers and dealers."

That's a lot to take in, especially since I'm having a hard time moving past the first sentence. "She told you six months ago?" I repeat, feeling as though I'm suddenly looking at a total stranger. "And you didn't turn her in?"

"She's my fiancé," Andre says, like that's all the explanation I should require.

"So you...what? Just decided to go along with it?"

He makes an impatient noise in his throat. "I don't have time for this, Leigh. Kamille is framing me, don't you see that?"

My jaw drops, because I absolutely do not. "She is? Why?"

Despite the total lack of accountability he's shown so far, I'm hoping he'll tell me that he was about to go to the police. But he purses his lips and says, "If I had to hazard a guess, it's probably because my indiscretions caught up with me."

"Your indiscretions?" I repeat. "Do you mean..."

I'm about to finish that sentence with "me", but Andre cuts me off with a sigh. "I've been involved on and off with a few women, and it's possible Kamille saw some texts she shouldn't have."

I stare at his suitcase. "So are you running away with...one of them?" I ask. I almost say J, but I'd rather not explain how I know that initial.

He wrinkles his nose. "God, no. It's not like I was serious about any of them. Ultimately, they were just another distraction."

Just another distraction. That would probably hurt if I had time to think about it, but follow-up questions are piling up too fast for me to dwell. "So how was Coach Purcell framing you? Did she put that list in your day planner?"

Andre heaves a sigh. "Probably, but that's the first I've known about that. Things started feeling strange a couple days ago, when Kam kept asking me if I was going to be at the studio this morning, at 10 o'clock like usual. It was weird, how insistent she was about the time." He twists the engagement ring on his finger, and for the first time, I notice how flashy it is. "I thought she was trying to spy on me. So I decided I wouldn't show up, even though all I was planning to do there was sketch. I actually did go to that spin class. I kept waiting for Kamille to check in, to follow up with more questions about the studio since she'd been so fucking interested, but she didn't." He cocks his head at me, appraising. "You did."