by Lisa Jackson
“But not enough to keep you faithful.”
“What?”
“You didn’t love them, or me, enough to keep you from screwing Monica.”
He stared at her dumbfounded. “Hell, are you never going to get over it? I mean, here we are, babe, like, in bed, just having done it and I’ll be ready to go again soon. Goddamn, you’re good.”
She almost warmed under the compliment.
Almost.
“And besides,” he went on, touching one of her nipples with a finger that swirled lazily around the tip, “she’s dead. What the hell does it matter?”
But it did. She pushed his hand away. “I just never understood.”
“I know. I get it.” He was getting angry. “But again? She’s dead,” he repeated. “There is no Monica, there is no baby. Right? Like, ‘poof.’ ” He smiled then, a cruel little grin that seemed off.
“Poof?” she repeated. She didn’t like the sound of that.
“I got rid of the problem.”
And there it was. “What?” she said, hoping she misunderstood, but knowing deep in her heart that all of her suspicions had just been confirmed. Fear slipped through the chambers of her heart, but she had to be certain. “Wait a second.”
“What?”
“You killed her?”
He hesitated, sized her up. “You knew that, right?” he said almost casually, but something in his eyes gave him away, as if he realized he’d tripped up.
“You told me that the killer, the guy who attacked you, somehow got the knife away, the knife Reva stole so you could ‘scare the shit out of’ Monica. Those were your exact words, ‘scare the shit out of’ her. Not kill her or harm her.”
He didn’t respond, just stared at her. But didn’t try to seduce her again.
“So,” Jo-Beth persisted. “So now, what? You’re saying that the attacker didn’t kill her? That you murdered her and your unborn child?” Her heart was jackhammering. That couldn’t be right, could it? She’d always wondered, had a niggling doubt, those horrible little suspicions, but had tried to convince herself that Tyler never would have actually hurt Monica. Oh, sure, she’d known he was going to scare the shit out of her so she’d leave. Jo-Beth had been in on that plan, but this? “Oh, Jesus.”
“You knew. Come on, you and Reva, you both knew. You gave me the goddamned knife.”
“But the attacker? I mean, I thought . . .” She swallowed hard, scooted away from him. He was a killer? A stone-cold killer? “It was a prank. And that the guy, the prisoner, Waldo Grimes, that he came upon you in the chapel and somehow got the knife from you and chased Monica and when you tried to save her, he turned the knife on you and you never knew what happened to her. Isn’t that what you told the police?”
“Yeah.” He was nodding.
“And me? That’s what you told me. Now, what? You’re saying that was a lie?” She was panicking now, scooting away. Tyler, the exboyfriend, the man with whom she’d just made love—no, scratch that—had sex, he was a stone-cold killer? She couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t. “What about Elle?” she asked.
“What about her?”
“Did you . . . What happened to her?”
He lifted a shoulder. “How would I know?”
Did she dare ask? Could she not? “Did you ‘get rid of the problem’ of her, too?”
“No! She wasn’t one! Come on, babe,” he said, slightly irritated. “What is this? Who cared about Elle? It was Monica. She was the problem. Saying she was pregnant and all. You know that . . . right? You told me she was just trying to trap me. That maybe there wasn’t even a baby.”
And then she saw it.
An iota of fear in his gaze, but something more, something deadly. Something akin to the juiced-up, adrenaline-fired rage of a cornered animal. Oh. Dear. Jesus.
“You knew,” he said again, as if to convince them both. “You had to have known.”
“No . . . I . . . I believed you.” Oh, crap, she should tell him she was lying, that of course she knew, that she was just teasing and then get the hell out of the room and away from him.
“Jo—”
“Okay. I was just messing with you. I knew that . . .” But he wasn’t buying it. Oh, damn. He saw through her lie. Panicking, she tried to scoot away but was too slow.
He pounced.
Pinned her to the bed with his weight.
No!
She opened her mouth to scream, but he shoved a pillow over her face and as she struggled, raw terror settled in. Her heart beat crazily, as if it would shoot out of her body. Her breath was trapped in her lungs!
He pressed harder.
No, no, no! She hit at him with her arms, flailing at him, trying to buck with her legs, doing everything she could, squirming and wriggling, kicking frantically, but he wouldn’t budge.
Her lungs were on fire!
He was going to kill her! Right here. Right now. In this awful bed. In this cut-rate hotel. In this hicksville town.
God, please—
Her lungs ached so painfully. Her eyes bulged. Her heart was going to explode.
Stop! Please, stop!
She tried to drag in a breath. Couldn’t. The world started to go dark and her brain began to shut down.
Stop! Get off me. Let me breathe.
His weight held her fast and her arms dropped to her sides as the blackness overtook her.
Her last conscious thought was a prayer.
Oh, God, please help me. . . .
CHAPTER 35
Averille, Oregon
Now
Bernadette
How did she know?
Bernadette was reading Kinley Marsh’s latest blog post, which Annette had first seen and texted her sister to read. It’s unbelievable. And weird. Annette had posted. It’s like she’s in my head, or was in my head.
Propped up by pillows on the bed, the remains of her dinner, a take-out tuna salad sandwich from a local deli, on the nightstand, her laptop open on her lap, Bernadette had to agree. She read the post, which was all about the finding of Monica O’Neal’s remains. However, more than the usual facts and a little speculation in the “news” story, this was written as if Kinley were closer to the crime, practically investigating the case herself because she had a bird’s-eye view of what had gone on, had been a camper who had resided at Camp Horseshoe when Monica had disappeared.
All of that was true enough, but it was the details Kinley had supplied in the long post, about the meeting in the cavern, the hint of a cover-up, Jo-Beth leading the group to stay in line with their sworn statements, and the talk of a love triangle. The story sounded more like the teenage girl Annette had been than the prepubescent Kinley, who had been around eleven at the time. Also, some of the information was too personal, so she asked herself again: How did Kinley know?
Was it conjecture?
Or piecing together conversations she’d overheard or situations she’d witnessed?
Kinley even hinted that Detective Lucas Dalton might be thrown off the case due to a conflict of interest and, Kinley intimated, inappropriate behavior twenty years earlier.
Included in the post were questions about ghost sightings of Eleanor Brady and if somehow a recent sighting was tied to the discovery of Monica O’Neal’s body. Kinley hadn’t come up with many answers, the blog was meant as a tease, to lead the readers into the next edition of the NewzZone, where Kinley promised more details of the ongoing investigation and what had really happened twenty years before at Camp Horseshoe. She encouraged reader comments and questions, and asked them to weigh in with their opinions.
The post was getting a lot of attention and comments, readers speculating and conversing about the discovery of Monica’s body and the ensuing cold case being reopened.
Sick of the conjecture, Bernadette threw the remains of her dinner into the trash, peeled off her clothes, and stepped into a hot shower. She needed to clear her mind, but that, of course, proved impossible. As the warm water cascaded over her body,
her thoughts turned to Lucas and how passionately he’d kissed her today. Had there been desperation in his touch?
Longing?
Don’t read too much into it.
She dunked her head under the stream and used the hotel shampoo to lather her hair. Why was she focusing on Lucas and a stupid kiss when they knew now that Monica was dead, when Jo-Beth was trying to manipulate them all, when she just needed to make a statement to the police and go back to Seattle?
And return to what?
An empty condo?
A job that wasn’t as fulfilling as she’d hoped?
“Stop it,” she muttered. She was making more of a kiss than it was. For the love of God, was she really second-guessing her whole life because of one innocent kiss?
Innocent?
Oh, come on.
You felt it, Bernadette: The heat. The need. The wanting.
And you were as into it as he was, you’re just not admitting it.
“No way,” she said aloud, but knew she was lying.
Angry with herself, she rinsed her hair, used the minuscule bottle of cream rinse, then rinsed again, all the time refusing to think about Lucas and what a ninny she became around him. What was wrong with her? Acting like an obsessed teenage girl with her first boyfriend? She was a grown woman, an adult who’d been married, divorced, and miscarried and . . . Oh, no, she couldn’t think of the baby now, the lost dreams, the painful way she and Jake hadn’t been able to get past it, had somehow blamed each other.
She sagged against the plastic enclosure. So that was it. Somehow in all of this, Lucas represented hope. “You are a fool,” she said, and turned her face to the spray, letting the water rinse her scalp and body. She had a home, a townhouse in Seattle, and a job teaching little ones; her life was full. She didn’t need a man to complete it. That idea certainly hadn’t worked with Jake, and she knew full well, from past experience, it wouldn’t work with Luke.
“Get over it,” she said, and twisted off the tap, then stepped onto a thin bath mat before belatedly switching on the fan and toweling off. Refusing to think of the feel of Lucas’s lips on hers, the scrape of his stubble against her face, or the smell of him, so earthy and male, she used a dry towel to clear the mirror, combed the tangles from her hair, and pulled on her pajamas.
She’d catch the news, read for a while, go to sleep, and then, in the morning, talk to Detective Dobbs and leave Averille, Lucas Dalton, and the ghost of Camp Horseshoe forever.
She’d just started brushing her teeth when she heard a door slam against a wall with a bang; then Annette’s screaming practically shook the walls.
“Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh my God!” Annette screamed.
What in the world? Bernadette rinsed her mouth, then entering her bedroom nearly ran into her sister. “I can’t believe it!” Annette cried, her face drained of all blood and contorted into a mask of horror. Dressed only in panties and her bra, she was holding her cell phone in one hand. “Have you seen this?” she screamed, shaking the phone. “Have you? Oh, dear God.”
“Seen what? No—why would I?”
Annette twisted the phone in her hand and shoved it toward Bernadette’s face. On the small screen was the image of a woman dressed in white, lying in a coffin, a white rose folded in her hands, her eyes closed. Elle Brady.
“What is this?” Bernadette whispered, disbelieving.
“It’s Elle!” Annette screeched. “And see what the sender wrote? Look at the damned text.”
YOU WILL PAY had been typed in bold caps.
“Dear God.”
“What the fuck is that all about? And why is there a picture of Elle?” Annette demanded, freaked out of her mind. “What?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” Stunned, Bernadette stared at the picture. “This . . . This could be a fake. Someone’s sick idea of a joke or—”
Her own cell phone pinged. She snagged it from the nightstand and saw the image of Elle in the coffin. She, too, had received a copy of the gruesome message. Someone knew their cell phone numbers.
“You too?” Annette asked, her eyes rounding. “For the love of God, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but panicking won’t help. You need to calm down.”
“Oh, right. Look, I can’t! This is no joke,” she said, holding the phone up and shaking it as if in so doing, she would make Bernadette understand the gravity of the situation, which was pointless. Bernadette got it. “What does that mean, anyway? ‘You will pay’? Pay for what? Why? Because of frickin’ Elle? This is insane! What the hell’s going on?” Annette was yelling, practically hyperventilating.
Bernadette dropped her phone on the bed and grabbed her sister by the shoulders. “Stop it!” Her fingers dug into Annette’s skin. “Pull yourself together.”
“Are you kidding? Do you see what someone sent us?”
Dragging her sister toward the bathroom, Bernadette pushed her face so close to Annette’s she could almost smell her sister’s panic, saw the raw fear registering in her eyes. “Stop it! Right now. Or, I swear, I’ll slap you. We have to figure this out!”
“But, but, but—”
Bernadette shoved her sister into the shower and as Annette gasped, she yanked the phone from her hand, then turned on the faucet full blast. Icy water sprayed the tiny enclosure, immediately drenching all of Annette and half of Bernadette.
“Whaaaat! No! No! You bitch!” Annette sputtered, blinking and coughing. “God. Damn. It!” Outraged, she shrieked, “Are you out of your freaking mind?”
“Not me. You.” Bernadette released her, then backed away from the shower.
Annette, dripping and glaring daggers at her older sister, scurried out of the small enclosure to drip on the bath mat and floor.
“For the love of God!” Gasping and shivering, Annette looked like she might tear her older sibling limb from limb.
Bernadette tossed her a fresh towel. “Go change,” she said, already thinking ahead. “We need to talk to the others, see if anyone else got the message.” Still holding her sibling’s phone as Annette, fuming, but at least no longer frantic, toweled her face and shoulders, Bernadette studied the message again and checked the menu of people to whom the text was sent. “Yeah—it looks like everyone got one.”
“Why?” Annette was starting to calm down as she dabbed at her face with the towel, her hair hanging wet and lank to her shoulders.
“Don’t know.”
“To scare us?”
“Obviously.”
Annette met her sister’s gaze in the mirror. “Well, then: Mission accomplished.” She took in a deep breath and snatched her phone from Bernadette’s hand just as another text came in. This time Bernadette’s pinged and she scooped it up from the bed to read a new series of messages:
Who is this? Reva demanded of the mystery number who had sent the text.
Nell chimed in: ID yourself.
Sosi: OMG this is so sick. Who are you?
Jayla wrote on a separate thread that didn’t include the unknown number, or the person who sent the text: I’m so freaked out! Can’t believe this! Who would do this? Is it really Elle? Meet in Jo-Beth’s room? Accompanying the text was a nervous-looking happy face, teeth clenched along with six praying hands.
Bernadette typed a response. Yes. 5 min.
“Okay, we’re meeting on the third floor,” she said, stripping out of her pajamas and finding her jeans, bra, and long-sleeved tee.
“I see.” Annette’s gaze was still glued to the screen.
Snapping her hair into a still-damp ponytail, she said, “Let’s move it.”
“I’m going!” Annette was already out of the bathroom and hurrying through the door connecting the two rooms.
From the corner of her eye, Bernadette saw her sister change into a dry bra, underwear, and yoga pants. Annette towel-dried her hair to the point that it stuck out crazily. “Who sent that damned text?”
“Don’t know.” Bernadette stared at the screen of the phone. “But
it’s weird, y’know. The only person who hasn’t checked in is Jo-Beth. I mean, it doesn’t look like I did because I answered on your phone, but everyone else is freaking out. Not Jo-Beth.”
“What does that mean?”
“Maybe her phone is off. Or out of battery life.”
“I guess.” Annette yanked on a cowl-necked sweater. “Ugh, I’m still wet.”
“You’re fine. Let’s go.” Grabbing her purse from the bed, she started for Annette’s room, then checked to make certain her door was locked. It was supposed to lock automatically, of course, but the hotel was old, the doors not seeming all that secure. As she passed into Annette’s room, she found Lucas’s name in her contact list, then hit the call button.
Annette applied some controlling gel to her hair and then gave up to follow Bernadette into the hallway. She spied the phone in Bernadette’s hand. “Who are you calling?”
“Lucas.”
For once her sister didn’t argue, roll her eyes, or make some stupid remark as they climbed the stairs to the third floor, where they found Sosi, Nell, and Jayla gathered around the door of room 302. Bernadette hung back and when Lucas’s phone went to voice mail, she left a brief message: “It’s Bernadette. Call me. It’s urgent.” Then she hung up and joined the others.
“She’s not answering,” Jayla said, pounding on the door. “Jo-Beth!” she called. “Hey!”
“She’s obviously not here,” Sosi said.
Across the hall, the old elevator rumbled to a stop. The second the doors rolled open, Kinley and another woman strode into the hallway.
“Get back, please,” the woman ordered. Dressed in a navy suit with a name tag reading JACQUI SIMMONS, MANAGER, she was holding a pass key in one hand and looked scared to death. Grimly she headed straight to the door of Jo-Beth’s room, while next to her, Kinley was ashen-faced, appearing shell-shocked.
“What’s going on?” Nell demanded.
“I said stand back,” Jacqui ordered again. “Security’s on their way.”
“Security?” Sosi whispered, her eyes rounding. “Why?”
Bernadette said, “What the hell is happening? Is something wrong with Jo-Beth?” She thought of the text they’d all received with its ominous message: YOU WILL PAY.