by Sarah Fox
“If possible. If he is indeed guilty of murder, we don’t want him making a run for it.”
“Will you let me know what happens?” I requested. “I don’t think I can rest peacefully until I know he’s not going to come after me again.”
Salnikova nodded. “I’ve got your number.”
After we’d exchanged a few more words, Salnikova left the cubicle.
“It’s late,” I said to JT. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”
“I’m not leaving your side until the guy who did this to you is off the streets.”
I smiled at him again. “You really are the best, JT.” I squeezed his hand. “I love you, you know.”
The words slipped out before I realized what I was saying. JT leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, well away from my stitched-up gash. He hadn’t yet straightened up again when the curtain twitched aside and a man dressed in scrubs appeared.
“Time to transfer you up to the ward,” he said cheerily.
I glanced toward JT as he let go of my hand.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he said.
If my words had alarmed him, he didn’t show it. Maybe he’d interpreted the declaration as meaning that I loved him as a friend, as I had for years. That possibility both disappointed and relieved me.
I tried not to think about it, which wasn’t too difficult, thanks to the painkillers flowing through my system. My thoughts became fuzzy and I closed my eyes, fading in and out as the orderly wheeled me onto an elevator and then out onto a different floor. I came more awake once I was settled on a ward with three beds, the one next to me occupied by an elderly lady. The third bed was empty, and I hoped that meant I’d have a peaceful night’s rest.
A nurse bustled around me for a few minutes, but then left the ward.
As JT settled deeper into the chair at my bedside, I whispered, “Are you sure you don’t want to go home and get some sleep? Now that the police are on to Harold, I’m probably safe.”
“Probably isn’t good enough for me,” he replied in a low voice. “I’m staying.”
I smiled sleepily at him. “Thanks, JT.”
“Get some sleep.”
I closed my eyes again, more than happy to do as suggested.
As I drifted off, something tickled at the back of my mind, trying to get my attention, but I didn’t have the energy to grab hold of it and pull it to the forefront of my thoughts. Instead, I gave in to the haze of sleep surrounding me, and the world drifted away.
I DIDN’T KNOW how much time had passed when I opened my eyes again. The chair by my bed was empty and I wondered if JT had finally gone home or if he was somewhere nearby. The ward was quiet aside from the occasional incoherent mumble from my elderly neighbor, and the lighting remained dim, the main source of illumination coming from the hallway beyond the open door. I closed my eyes again, but immediately knew that sleep had left me for the time being.
My headache had dwindled to a dull pain, thankfully, but when I tried to sit up, I discovered that my dizziness hadn’t abated completely. Lying back down against the pillow, I stared up at the ceiling, thinking over the events that had landed me here in the hospital.
Had Harold really meant to kill me? Or did he simply want to scare me?
I suspected it was the former, but either way he’d endangered my life. It still bothered me that he hadn’t had an opportunity to kill Pavlina, but maybe he was in cahoots with someone who’d done that for him. Who though? Olivia?
I had no information to make me think that might really be the case.
Pushing the problem aside for the moment, I considered Harold’s motives. If he’d killed Tiffany—as I now suspected he had—perhaps Pavlina and Ethan had known that to be the case, or had come to believe it. But if that was true, why would Harold wait three years to eliminate them? It didn’t make sense.
Maybe I was wrong about everything. That wasn’t a comforting thought.
Confused and frustrated, I rubbed my eyes, but quickly stopped with a sharp intake of breath. My face was still sore to the touch.
Was I certain Harold was the person who’d run me off the road?
No. It seemed the most likely possibility since he’d watched me as I left the parking lot, but I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure he was to blame.
If it wasn’t him, who else could it have been?
The second most likely person in my mind was Jeb, but as I’d said earlier, my MINI Cooper had been hit by a car rather than a truck. While it was possible that he’d used another vehicle, that seemed like a bit of a stretch.
Who else would have wanted me out of the way?
I thought back to the threatening note I’d received. I wasn’t sure if Harold was responsible for it. I figured it was my research into Tiffany’s death that had worried him, and I’d delved into that after I’d received the note. Although he could have overheard me bring up Tiffany’s name when I was talking to Jeb.
My other suspects were Olivia and Sasha. They’d both had the opportunity to kill Pavlina and Ethan, but were they connected to Tiffany Alphonse in any way?
Try as I might, I couldn’t connect Sasha or Olivia to Tiffany. As far as I knew, they weren’t present at the music retreat.
I sighed with frustration and shut my eyes. They flew open a second later. I finally knew what had been bothering me earlier when my mind was foggy. I sat up—too quickly—and had to wait a few seconds for my dizziness to subside. Once it had, connections formed rapidly in my head.
Tiffany’s brother had been adamant that his sister was murdered, blaming Pavlina and Ethan. I still thought Harold had done the deed—although I didn’t know his motive—but none of that interfered with the theory I now subscribed to. As long as Tiffany’s brother believed that Pavlina and Ethan had killed his sister, that was enough motive for him to want them dead.
I didn’t know how I hadn’t made the connection earlier. I’d never once suspected that Tiffany’s brother was in our midst. But now it seemed so clear.
Ethan had recognized someone—Tiffany’s brother—who’d attempted to disguise himself.
Alexander Alphonse.
There were several nicknames for Alexander. Alex, Lex, Xander . . . and Sasha.
Why Sasha had waited three years to avenge his sister’s death, I didn’t know, but at the moment that didn’t matter to me. Whoever had murdered Tiffany, I knew now that Sasha was responsible for killing Pavlina and Ethan.
I glanced at the empty chair next to my bed, wishing I hadn’t suggested that JT go home. Snatching my phone off the bedside table, I sent him a text message.
I don’t think it was Harold who ran me off the road. I think it was Sasha. He’s the brother of the girl who was killed at the music retreat years ago. And he’s still on the loose!
I sent him another message. I’ll get in touch with Salnikova.
Now that I’d checked my phone, I knew it wasn’t quite four-thirty in the morning. Even if she’d tried to question Harold that night, the detective could be in bed by now, sleeping soundly. Still, I needed to try to get in touch with her. Although Sasha had been questioned initially along with the rest of us, I didn’t know if he was on the detectives’ radar anymore, especially since I’d focused their attention on Harold.
As I scrolled through my list of contacts, searching for Salnikova’s name and number, quiet footsteps came across the ward toward me. The curtain blocked my view, but a man’s hand grabbed it and swept it aside.
“JT?” I said hopefully, but as soon as the name was out of my mouth, my hope shattered and my mouth went dry.
Sasha stood at the foot of my bed, a pillow in one hand.
I opened my mouth to scream as he lunged toward me. I barely managed to make a sound before he slammed the pillow into my face, knocking me down against the bed. Panic coursed through me li
ke an electric shock and alarm bells rang in my head, shrill and frantic.
Sasha was smothering me.
I couldn’t breathe.
I fought and struggled, trying to push the pillow off my face, trying to pound my fists against Sasha.
He kept the pillow firmly against my face.
My flailing limbs grew sluggish. The alarm bells in my head faded.
As consciousness slipped out of my grasp, I heard a scream.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
SHOUTS SEEPED INTO my limited, hazy sphere of awareness.
I drew in a deep breath and the darkness obscuring my thoughts leaked away. It took me a second or two to realize that I was breathing, that I was alive, the pillow no longer smooshed against my sore face.
“What’s going on in here?” a female voice asked sharply.
“He was trying to smother Midori. Is she breathing?”
That was JT’s voice, underscored by fear. I opened my eyes to find a female nurse hovering over me.
“I’m okay,” I said.
I’d meant to say it loudly, but it came out as a whisper.
“She’s all right,” the nurse told JT as she checked me over.
Another nurse appeared and the first one called out, “Get security in here!”
The second nurse took off at a run.
Ignoring the fact that the first nurse was trying to take my pulse, I sat up. I hadn’t seen JT at first, but now I spotted him on the floor, holding Sasha pinned down, face-first.
“JT?” I said, still a bit dazed. “I thought you’d gone home.”
“I was just stretching my legs. When I heard a scream, I came running. You’re really okay?”
“I am,” I assured him.
I was about to ask who’d screamed when my elderly neighbor piped up.
“Oh, he’s a naughty boy. A very naughty boy!”
The nurse at my side turned her attention to my neighbor. “Yes, Mrs. Dixon. No need to worry.”
“Creeping into my bedroom in the middle of the night!” Mrs. Dixon tsk-tsked.
“You’re in the hospital, remember?” the nurse said in a soothing tone.
Mrs. Dixon’s voice faded into incoherent mumbling.
On the floor, Sasha struggled to free himself, but JT held him firmly in place. Moments later, two security personnel showed up. They took charge of Sasha as JT and the nurse explained the situation.
“We’ll get the police here,” one of the security officers said.
Sasha sent a chilling glare my way as the officers led him off out of sight.
I sagged back against my pillow and closed my eyes with relief. I was safe.
“Dori?” JT took my hand.
I opened my eyes and smiled at him. “What a night, huh?”
The concerned furrow across his forehead smoothed out and he grinned at me. “I wouldn’t mind a little less drama next time.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He gave my hand a squeeze and settled into the chair by my bed. I explained about Sasha, expanding on the information I’d sent in the text message he hadn’t seen, and recounting how I’d only realized that Sasha was Alexander in the seconds before he appeared at the foot of my bed. As I finished telling him everything, uniformed police officers showed up, and I had to go through the story all over again.
Salnikova also appeared eventually, but I allowed her colleagues and JT to fill her in. Now that I’d recovered from my panic and the hullabaloo that had followed Sasha’s attack, exhaustion had me in a firm grip. I answered a few questions when prodded, but I soon drifted off. Aside from a groggy moment when a nurse checked on me, I didn’t wake up again until after ten o’clock in the morning. The police had disappeared long ago, but JT was still by my side.
After a visit from Dr. Tremaine, I was declared fit to go home. JT drove me to my apartment and only left after I’d assured him several times over that I was fine and that all I wanted to do was rest. I canceled all my violin lessons for the next two days and watched TV for a couple of hours, but then I crawled into bed and fell asleep, not waking until the next morning.
While I nibbled at some toast, I responded to a text message JT had sent me an hour earlier, checking in to see if I was okay. I told him I was fine and still resting, and then I texted Mikayla, giving her a bare outline of what had transpired after I’d left the theater the other night. Shortly after I’d finished my breakfast, my phone rang. As soon as I saw Detective Salnikova’s name on the screen, I snatched up the device and answered the call.
I spoke to the detective for close to twenty minutes, pummeling her with questions over the phone line. Once she’d patiently answered all my queries about the investigation, I changed subjects.
“Is there any word on how Detective Van den Broek’s daughter is doing?” I asked.
“She had surgery yesterday,” Salnikova replied. “She’s not out of the woods yet, but we’re all hoping she’ll be okay.”
“So am I.” My gaze fell on the brand-new teddy bear sitting on a shelf across the room. I’d bought it from the hospital’s gift shop after I was discharged. “I have a present for her. If I drop it off at the station tomorrow, would it be possible to have it passed on to Detective Van den Broek?”
“Yes, of course. That’s kind of you.”
“I’m afraid I judged him unfairly.”
“Don’t worry too much about that. You couldn’t have known about his personal circumstances. And like I said before, he’s not exactly Mr. Congeniality at the best of times.”
That made me feel a bit better, but not a whole lot. We exchanged a few more words before ending the phone call. Minutes later, I received a text message from Mikayla.
I need details. Can I come by after work?
Sure! I wrote back.
I got dressed, but then flopped across my bed and fell asleep again. My apartment buzzer jolted me awake hours later.
Groggily, I left my bedroom and answered the buzzer. Mikayla had arrived, and a minute later she appeared at my door.
“Oh my God,” she said, her eyes going straight to the stitches near my hairline. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Positive.” I stepped back to let her into my apartment.
“It was really Olivia’s assistant who ran you off the road and tried to smother you at the hospital?”
“Yep.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You can say that again.”
I made us a pot of tea and we settled into armchairs in my living area.
“I had no idea he was a killer,” Mikayla said, with a shake of her head. “I thought he was just a cute hipster.”
“I know. But that was part of his disguise, along with using the nickname Sasha. Apparently he normally goes by Alex and doesn’t wear glasses. He typically looks much scruffier too.”
“But he was the brother of Pavlina’s best friend. She never recognized him? I know glasses work for Superman but . . .”
I shrugged. “Maybe she did before she died, but maybe not. Ethan recognized him, though. Eventually, anyway.”
“So he was avenging his sister’s death?”
“That’s what he thought.”
“But why now? Why not years ago?”
“Apparently he was in jail for a couple of years on drug charges. I guess once he was free he decided to track down Pavlina and Ethan.” I took a sip of my tea before continuing. “He was always convinced that Tiffany was murdered. She was terrified of water, and all along he insisted that she never would have gone into the lake of her own accord. But she was drunk at the time, so the police didn’t take his concerns too seriously.”
“But he was right.”
“About the murder, yes,” I said. “But not about who’d killed her.”
“So it w
asn’t Pavlina and Ethan?” Mikayla said, surprised.
My text message hadn’t covered that part of the story.
“Nope. I’m pretty sure it was Harold Dempsey, and the police think so too now. Apparently his wife went to the music retreat with him, skiing while he worked with the musicians. When the police originally looked into Tiffany’s death, there was a rumor that she might have been with a mystery man that night. Harold and his wife both claimed they were together in their hotel room the entire evening, but now she’s come forward to say that wasn’t the case.”
“Why now after all this time?”
“Apparently she recently found out that he’s been having an affair. Now she believes he was also having an affair with Tiffany back then. At the time of Tiffany’s death, he asked his wife to lie about his whereabouts, supposedly because he was out for a nighttime jog and wanted an alibi to avoid any bother or rumors. But now she thinks there was more to it. Tiffany tried to approach her at one point during the retreat, but Harold intercepted her. His wife believes Tiffany was going to tell her about their affair, and that’s why Harold killed her. According to Detective Salnikova, his wife is filing for divorce. And the police are reopening Tiffany’s case, so it sounds like he’s in trouble on more than one front.”
Mikayla took a moment to absorb that information. “So Sasha . . . Alex . . . whatever his name is—he didn’t end up avenging his sister’s murder after all.”
“Nope. Pavlina and Ethan had nothing to do with it.”
“Wow.” Mikayla paused to take a drink of her tea. “And then he tried to kill you. Twice. Talk about scary.”
“Terrifying,” I agreed. “He didn’t like that I was asking questions, checking out his alibi, and snooping into things.”
Apparently he’d ranted to the police about my nosiness, a tirade that had lasted several minutes, but I didn’t bother to mention that part.
“I thought maybe Sasha had left me a threatening note that I found in my bag, but it turns out Harold did that. He probably overheard me talking to Jeb about Tiffany and got nervous. But I kept looking into the past after I found the note, and he knew that. If Sasha hadn’t tried to kill me, Harold might have given it a go.”