“I’ll be right there.”

“Thanks.” She slapped her phone closed. “Trulo is coming.”

“That’s good.” Malone eyed the bloodstained carpet. After the paramedics left, Malone squatted before Gigi. “I’m sorry to have to ask you this now, but you know how this stuff works. I need to know what happened while it’s still fresh in your mind.”

Gigi nodded and seemed to summon the strength she needed to get through this. “I, um, I left for a minute to go get my mail at the other end of the parking lot. It was my fault. I left the door unlocked. I know better.”

“It’s not your fault, Gigi.” Cam sat next to Gigi on the bed and put his arm around her. “None of this is your fault.”

“What happened then?” Malone asked.

“When I came back in… She was standing in the foyer with a knife. I was so shocked that I couldn’t move for a second. She started screaming at me to get upstairs. ‘Take me to the bedroom where you fuck my boyfriend,’ she said. She pushed me up the stairs.”

Cameron closed his eyes and went very still.

Sam was almost as concerned about him as she was about Gigi.

“She took me by the hair and dragged me down the hallway. Wh-when we came in here, she cut my clothes off me.” She gestured to the pile of shredded clothes on the floor. “She said she wanted to see what was so special about me that he wanted me and not her.” Gigi’s hands shook as she folded them in her lap. “She said she wanted to know if my pussy was tighter than hers.” Gigi swallowed hard. “She… She put her fingers in me.”

“Fucking hell,” Cameron whispered.

“I let her do what she wanted while I waited for an opportunity to get away from her. She touched my breasts and my bottom. She said she didn’t understand what he saw in me when she was so much prettier and sexier than me.”

“No,” Cameron said. “No.”

“She told me to get on the bed, and that’s when I grabbed my gun from the bedside table drawer. When she saw that I had it, she laughed and said, ‘You wouldn’t dare shoot me.’ I said, ‘You don’t think so?’ She came at me with this crazy look in her eyes and the knife in her hand, and I realized she was going to kill me unless I killed her first. I fired and hit her in the chest.”

“You did what you had to do, Gigi.” Dani wiped away tears. “You survived.”

Cameron got up suddenly and left the room.

Sam went after him. “Wait. Cam. Stop.” She grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. “This is not your fault.”

“How is it not my fault? I tried to tell her we should take a break because Jaycee wouldn’t let it go, and now…”

“It’s not your fault, Cameron,” Gigi said from behind them.