She stepped toward me and, with a grunt, swung again. I ducked.
I didn’t have to will myself to keep fighting, to keep facing her down. That came automatically, on instinct. Something in my mind was whispering to me—telling me to stay alive, telling me I would persevere.
“If you hurt me, things will just be worse for you,” I said, while I slowly backed away from her, inching closer and closer to the steep embankment.
“It’ll be worth it,” Rita said through gritted teeth.
I needed to make a move before I slipped down into the water. My instinct screamed at me, Now!
I faked a move forward and let Rita waste her momentum swinging that metal bar through the air. When the rotation of her torso passed me, I moved in. I grabbed the tail of her T-shirt and, mimicking the move I’d seen the Wreckers perform in irony, I pulled Rita’s shirt inside out, over her neck and shoulders.
When her arms and face were smashed together in the tangled shirt, I jammed my hands and one shoulder into her, pushing as hard as I could.
She tumbled down the embankment, with a crunch along the way, and a splash at the bottom.
I leaned one arm on a tree, gasping for breath and staring down into the blackness. I couldn’t see Rita or the creek. I could only hear the gentle splashing sound I’d heard every day since I came to Austin.
Part of me worried that she could have broken her neck or that she might drown in the water. I actually had an impulse to climb down into the creek to check on her.
But my instinct to stay alive was stronger. Rita had tried to kill me, so I couldn’t go near her. Shivering now, I started walking back to the inn, where I could call for help.
| Twenty-Two
The last time I was out past midnight, I was in an emergency room. But tonight, there was no way I could just go to bed after my strange romp in the woods. So when Kara invited Colin and me to the Trash Bash after-party, we said yes.
After I’d made it back to the Bluestem, I called the police, then Colin. I led police and medics back to where I had left Rita in the creek. They hauled her out of the ravine, fully immobilized on a backboard. Even though she wasn’t able to walk out of the forest under her own power, she must not have been injured too badly—we could hear her cursing and complaining all the way to the ambulance.
The uniformed officers, who were following Rita and the medics, could barely hide their laughter at her temper tantrum.
Meanwhile, Kruger was out on leave—which might have had something to do with his botched case from Louisiana undergoing a federal investigation. A different detective took my statement, then headed toward the hospital where Rita Myer would be treated before going to jail.
The first time Kara texted me about the party, I told her no thanks—it had been a crazy night. But then Mia and Angel started texting me. They texted Colin, too. So we gave in and said yes. We were leaving the next day, and this would be our only chance to say goodbye.
Colin waited in the cottage’s kitchenette while I showered and changed. I hadn’t asked him to stay with me, and he didn’t make a big deal about it.
The after-party was at InkRage. When we found our way to the back room, Angel was there, handing out frozen drinks.
“I’ll be right back with a no-booze version for you, Jae,” Angel said.
She gave Colin a cherry-red drink, handed a lavender one to Shannon, then walked out of the room.
“So, did you really wrestle Rita to the ground?” Jenny asked with a laugh. “Shannon’s brother is a clerk at the police department. He heard all about it.”
“She probably body-checked her,” Kara said, smiling and throwing an arm around me. “I knew you were a derby girl at heart.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly like that,” I said. I went on to explain what had happened.
“Oh! Do you think Lacey is going to jail? As, like, an accomplice?” Mia asked.
“That’s the part I don’t get,” I said. “Why did she give a false alibi for her aunt? Were they really that close?”
“I don’t think Lacey knew Rita was the killer,” Shannon said. “Maybe she thought her aunt was home alone and she just wanted to give her a better alibi.”
“Maybe,” Kara added with a shrug. “She really seemed loyal to both of them.”
Kara, sitting on a work table, didn’t look up from her phone while she spoke.
“Have you heard from Neil yet?” Jenny asked.
Kara shook her head.
She was still looking down at her phone when she said, “And I really don’t want to.”
The room fell silent.
“I know I have to talk to him again, but… I’m not sure how to say what I need to tell him?”
“What’s that?” Mia asked.
“That it’s over,” Kara said. “He left me. He left me all alone—sitting in jail. How can I be in a relationship with someone who does that? How could there be any trust now, after that?”
“Aww, maybe he thought he was protecting you,” Mia said. “Or, like, maybe a survival instinct took over and, I don’t know…”
Kara looked up at Mia, her eyes heavy with tears. “Don’t make excuses for him. I’m not.”
Mia stepped forward and hugged Kara. Jenny and Shannon joined the hug, too.
“Don’t worry, Kara,” Mia said. “We’ll get you through this.”
Colin glanced from the women to me, then back to them. I wasn’t going to join in their emotional moment, even though I probably would have been welcomed by the women. Good reporters have to keep some semblance of a professional distance from their subjects. If they didn’t, every news story could read like a love letter.
Besides, we were leaving soon.
Angel came back into the room with a drink for me. When she noticed Kara wiping her eyes, and the other women returning to where they had been sitting, Angel handed Kara a tissue, whispering, “Aww, here, sweetie.”
Kara shook her head. “I always knew Neil was innocent, but I really didn’t expect Rita to be the one who murdered Harris. I mean, there were so many people who hated him.”
“Me neither,” Shannon said. “But now that Rita’s caught, I can see it. Not only were there tons of cheating issues with those two, but the money issues must have been really bad.”
“Yeah,” Angel agreed. “She was always shilling different pyramid scheme stuff—vitamins and jewelry and self-tanners. Half the players on the Violent Crown had to unfriend her, it got so ridiculous.”
“I know signing up for those things isn’t cheap,” Mia said. “Someone tried to get me into the skin care racket, and it was a grand just to get started. I was like—no way.”
“So she had a get rich quick mentality?” Colin asked.
“Well, nothing gets you richer quicker than cashing in your husband’s life insurance plan,” Shannon said.
“Don’t forget about the cheating,” Angel said. “It could have been a crime of passion, too.”
“Probably a little of both,” I added.
Colin and I stayed for another hour. He seemed to notice when my adrenaline rush from the night finally wore off and I started to crash. I couldn’t stop yawning.
“Come on, Jae, you better get me home,” he said.
I’m not sure if it was the emotions of the night, or the tequila-loaded tatt-o-ritas, but Colin was unusually affectionate, keeping an arm around me while we said our goodbyes and made our way out to the door.
Colin’s injured ankle was still preventing him from driving, so I had the keys.
After we buckled in, Colin asked me, “Are we ever going to, you know, talk about us?”
He smiled at me sleepily, his lips stained cherry-red from his drink.
I smiled, too. “We are,” I answered. “But how about not tonight?”
“Okay,” he said, looking serene. “We’ve got a long flight to Boston tomorrow.”
He yawned and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes.
“Yep,” I replied softly.
“Boston, tomorrow.”
| Author’s Note
Thank you to Dj Hendrickson and Emily Nemchick for editing this book. Thank you to Deranged Doctor Design for cover design and Write Dream Repeat for formatting.
Thank you to anyone who read this book. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to leave a review.
For more information about Lucey Phillips and other works by this author, please visit luceyphillips.com
Table of Contents
Titlepage
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Author's Note
Assignment Austin Page 16