by Tracy Weber
I turned and thudded my forehead against my car’s roof.
Argh.
Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe the killer was some psychopath that I hadn’t even met yet. If so, Gabriella’s life wouldn’t be the only one in jeopardy. Dad told me once that when a psychopath commits their first murder, something inside of them breaks. Life loses all value. Their first kill, he claimed, isn’t their last. A psychopath’s first kill is simply a prelude to their second.
My entire body flashed cold. “Crystal, you need to get out of there and call the police. Now.”
“He is the police. And I can’t leave without a car. Where would I go?” She started sobbing. “Oh lord, why did I threaten him?”
“Threatening a psychopath is never—” My mind snapped back to Crystal. “Wait a minute. Who did you threaten?”
“Boyle!” Crystal shouted. “Haven’t you been listening? I threatened Boyle!” Her voice squeaked, hovering on the edge of hysteria. “You and Shannon dropped that bombshell about Boyle and then took off without me. I couldn’t stand there like an idiot while Michael was in danger. Von refused to get involved, so I called the station and asked for Officer Boyle. He didn’t answer, but I left a message on his voicemail. I told him that I had proof that he’d killed Gabriella.”
“Proof ? We don’t have any proof.”
“I know that, Kate, but Boyle doesn’t. I told him that if he ever hurt Michael, I’d make sure he rotted in prison.” She started crying again. “How could I have been so stupid? Boyle’s a cop. He can easily find out where I live. He’s probably at my house now.”
She was right. A police officer—any police officer—could easily obtain her address. If Boyle was the killer, Crystal’s phone call put her in grave danger.
I stared at my car keys, conflicted. Shannon should be halfway to Astoria by now. Hopefully Dale was already there. Michael had three people riding to his rescue; Crystal had no one. Threatening Boyle had been stupid, but she’d been trying to help. I couldn’t leave her stranded at the salon.
“I’ll come and get you. You can stay with Rene and me until we figure this out.”
“Thanks, Kate. Please hurry.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
I made it in four. Or I would have, if I could have found parking. I finally left my car in a not-quite-legal spot four blocks away, pulled Rene’s pepper stray out of my purse, promised Bella I’d be back in a few minutes, and jogged toward CB Cuts.
I didn’t slow down until I reached the salon’s dark second-floor landing. Prickly unease tickled the back of my neck. The No Dogs Allowed sign had been torn from the door; the window it used to cover was shattered.
I moved the pepper spray off its safety setting and squeaked the door open.
“Crystal?”
The formerly immaculate space smelled strongly of rubbing alcohol (courtesy of a broken jar of comb disinfectant) and resembled my kitchen after Michael had baked one of his infamous seven-layer lasagnas. Glass littered the floor. The retail shelves were empty. Bottles of shampoo, conditioner, makeup, and hair spray were scattered everywhere.
The shampoo bowl was filled, not with water and suds, but with a muddy concoction of water, planting soil, chopped ivy, and shredded photos that had once framed the cutting station’s mirror.
Crystal huddled on the floor, sobbing. “My beautiful shop. Ruined. What am I going to do?”
I reached for her hand and pulled her to standing. “Don’t worry about that now. Let’s get you out of here.”
She pointed to her kitten, who was huddled underneath the shampoo bowl, ears flattened against her skull. “Not until I catch Mouse. She’s freaked out and she won’t let me near her. She’ll jump through the broken window and escape as soon as we leave the room.”
Mouse’s eyes flitted back and forth between Crystal and the shattered window. Frightened, feral energy electrified the air around her.
“See? She’s going to bolt the first chance she gets.”
“We can’t stay here, Crystal.”
“I know. Now that you’re here to help, I can trap her in the cat carrier. I need to assemble it in my office. Otherwise she’ll go berserk. Stay here and don’t let her escape, okay?”
A vision of Rene—swollen-eyed, red-nosed, and violently sneezing—flashed through my mind. The question was idiotic, but it popped out of my mouth anyway. “Can’t you leave the kitten behind? My friend is allergic.”
Tears flooded Crystal’s eyes. “If she gets loose, I’ll never catch her again.”
I didn’t have time to argue, and I wouldn’t have won anyway. I’d never have left Bella behind in similar circumstances. Hopefully the cat could stay at Shannon’s, at least temporarily. Provided Shannon wasn’t the killer, that is.
This day sucked.
Crystal disappeared into the back room to assemble the cat carrier. I put the pepper spray back on safety, kneeled, and tentatively reached my fingers toward Mouse. The kitten seemed calmer now that her stressed-out owner was out of the room. “Hey there, little kitty. Want to go for a ride?”
The unmistakable screech of a cat carrier’s metal-on-plastic jolted the air, startling us both. Mouse screamed and flew at my face; I yelped and dropped the pepper spray. That damned cat careened out from under the shampoo bowl and skidded across the floor, racing for the base cabinet where Shannon kept the linens. The wooden door thumped solidly closed behind the white tip of her tail.
Dammit! At the rate we were going, Michael would serve twenty-to-life before I got out of this hair salon. I marched to the cabinet, pulled out the towels, and stacked them on the floor.
Fervently wishing I’d worn leather gloves, I kneeled on the floor and reached my arm inside the cabinet. “You don’t want to bite me now, do you, little kitty?”
Mouse replied with a snake-like hiss-spit, but I couldn’t feel her. She must have hunkered down out of my reach. “Nice try, little kitty. But you won’t get away from me that easily.” I lay on my belly and serpent-crawled inside the built-in cabinet, reaching my fingers all the way to the back.
Wooden walls, empty corners.
No warm fur. No sharp claws. No finger-chomping teeth, either. Nothing but a small, hollowed-out space on the left that was filled with loosened insulation and a plastic, cylindrical pipe.
The water line to the shampoo bowl.
So this is where Mouse goes when she disappears inside that wall. She skirts along the plumbing line between shampoo bowl and the cabinet.
I crawled deeper into the cabinet and swept my hand around the hole, hoping to grab her. My fingers wrapped around something decidedly unkitten-like.
What the heck?
The object I grasped was three inches square by a couple of inches deep. A box of some kind. The sides had a rough texture, but something smooth—paper, perhaps?—was affixed to the top. I worked it free from its hiding place and slithered out of the cabinet to examine it more carefully.
I glanced down at the intricately carved jewelry box and suppressed a gasp.
Michael stared back at me.
I recognized the photo from Gabriella’s apartment. Michael on his wedding day. Heartbreakingly handsome. Only in this copy, he was alone. Gabriella had been carefully cut from the photo.
Every fiber of my being knew what Crystal kept hidden inside that tiny hope chest, but I needed to be certain. I glanced around the empty room. No one with me but Mouse, who had scampered through her favorite escape route and emerged from the hole underneath the shampoo bowl again. She glared at me as if to say, Touch me again and I’ll amputate your pointy finger. Crystal was still fiddling with the cat carrier in the other room.
“What do you think, little kitty?” I whispered. “Should I do it?”
Mouse didn’t answer, but her golden eyes clearly said yes.
I gripped the jewe
lry box in both hands and quietly eased open the top.
Gabriella’s wedding band.
Her murderer—who I now knew was Crystal—had indeed stolen it. Turned it into a keepsake. A grisly souvenir. Crystal had killed Gabriella, likely in a demented attempt to win Michael. I suspected she’d trashed the salon, too. But why?
Dad’s voice whispered inside my head. A psychopath’s first kill is simply a prelude to their second.
My mouth filled with cotton. Of course. Crystal wanted Michael. In her disturbed worldview, I was the only person still standing in her way.
I needed to get the hell out of Dodge. Now.
I stood up, tucked the box inside my jacket pocket, turned toward the door—
And came face-to-face with Crystal.
She held six-inch haircutting shears in her right hand. Her left hand was clasped in a white-knuckled fist. “I didn’t say you could snoop around, Kate.” Her voice sounded calm. Too calm.
I pretended ignorance, which wasn’t much of a stretch. “I wasn’t snooping. I was trying to catch Mouse. She ran inside the cabinet.” I hoped against hope that Crystal wouldn’t check underneath the shampoo bowl.
Crystal’s eyes darted to the shampoo bowl, then fixed steadily on me. “Nice try, Kate. Mouse is right where I left her. I really am afraid she’ll try to escape, though. I scared her half to death when I broke the window.”
My voice squeaked. “You broke the window?”
“Playing dumb doesn’t suit you, Kate. My damsel-in-distress story was pure genius, don’t you think? I couldn’t figure out how to get you alone. Your asinine theory about Boyle gave me the perfect idea.” She raised the shears toward my chest. “I hated to vandalize the shop, but I needed you to believe that I was in danger. Otherwise, why would you meet me, much less go off alone with me? You certainly won’t be coming back for any more haircuts.” She grinned at her own joke.
Then she frowned at the kitten. “I’d planned to take care of you outside, but Mouse wouldn’t let me catch her, and she’ll escape if I leave her here alone with the broken window. And now you know that I killed Gabriella. You’ll probably scream if we go outside.” She paused for a moment, as if thinking. “I guess I’ll have to do it here.”
My stomach did back flips. If what she’d done to Gabriella was any indication, Crystal’s version of “taking care of me” involved a dozen or more blows to the head. I had to get away from her, but how?
Mouse’s tail flicked up and down as if she was trying to get my attention. My eyes flitted to the rhinestone-covered vial on the floor next to her. Rene’s pepper spray. If I could somehow manage to get to it …
Crystal spoke in a monotone, clearly reciting a story she’d told herself hundreds of times before. “Michael was mine until that sorceress Gabriella put a spell on him.”
“A spell?”
“Once he met her, he couldn’t see me.”
Ah, yes. I knew that syndrome well. I called it The Rene Effect. Part of me felt sorry for Crystal; I knew how demoralizing it was to be lost in another woman’s shadow. I had news for her, though. There was no magic involved. Just the inescapable magnetism of unflawed beauty.
Crystal touched the point of the shears to my throat and pulled the box out of my jacket pocket. “Gabriella never deserved that ring. It should have been mine. No matter. It’s my turn now.”
I edged toward the shampoo bowl, millimeter by millimeter. “Your turn?”
“My turn to have Michael. I knew Gabby’s spell would force him to come back, so I stayed close to her, waiting. Hoping that when he did, he’d see me again.” She twirled a lock of pink-blonde hair around her index finger and pulled. Blush-colored strands floated to the linoleum. “But he didn’t, so I had to get rid of her.” Her eyes were flat, her expression absent. “It worked. You were there this afternoon. He saw me. He talked to me.” Her lips trembled upward. “He hugged me.”
I opted not to point out that I’d seen him flinch first. “Did you know that Michael had asked Gabriella for a divorce?”
“Not until the night of the spaghetti dinner. Like I said, Gabby told me on the drive home that Michael had been seeing someone else—you. She said she still loved him but it was time to let him go.” Crystal’s eyes deadened. “I told her to text him and tell him that as soon as she got home.”
Poor Gabriella. Even in her final hours, she was forced to live a lie. To pretend that her scam marriage was real. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I said, “You knew Michael would never see that text.”
“Michael dropped his phone during the scuffle with Gabriella in the parking lot.”
“And you stole it?”
“Not exactly. I was planning to give it back later. I thought ‘finding’ his phone would give me the perfect excuse to see him. I answered Gabby’s text pretending to be Michael and asked her to meet at the beach.” The right side of Crystal’s mouth lifted into a creepy half smile. “Man, was she ever surprised to see me instead of Michael.”
“You didn’t have to kill her. Once she divorced Michael, she would have been out of your way.”
“She never would have gone through with it. She would have hypnotized him again.”
I risked a glance at the pepper spray, still lying on the floor eight feet away, next to the shampoo bowl. Mouse arched her back and fluffed out her tail, ready to make a run for it. Please, kitty. Please don’t bolt now. Please don’t draw attention to the pepper spray. If you’re a good kitty, I’ll make sure you get a great new home. One without a crazy lady.
“Gabriella was pregnant.” I couldn’t keep the accusation out of my voice. “You murdered an innocent child.”
“She told me,” Crystal huffed. “All of this time she claimed to be madly in love with Michael, and then when she realized I’d never let her have him again, she changed her story. Like being an incubator for Boyle’s parasite spawn would save her. She stole Michael from me and then cheated on him? She claimed Boyle was violent—that she was planning to run away.” Crystal snorted. “I’ll bet. Straight to Seattle. Back to Michael.” She frowned. “Now the only person left in my way is you. You’re just like her. Michael is blinded by you, too.” Crystal reached up and ran her fingers across my locket. “I saw you touch this when I mentioned him the other day at your haircut. He gave it to you, didn’t he?” I didn’t answer, which was evidently the reply she expected. “It’s mine now.” She ripped the chain from my neck.
A shuffling sound came from the stairwell. Crystal turned toward it, accidentally lowering the shears.
That was my chance, and I took it.
I raised both palms to her chest and shoved, knocking her off balance. I dove for the pepper spray.
Mouse assumed I was coming for her. She flew at me, yowling, and sank fourteen of her twenty-four claws into my flesh. I ignored the searing pain in my hand and wrapped my fingers around the pepper spray’s canister.
“Don’t hurt her, you monster!” Crystal screamed. “She’s just a kitten!” She raised the scissors overhead, ready to strike. Mouse careened through her feet toward the linen cabinet. Crystal tripped and stumbled toward me.
Looking back, I’m still not sure which one of us would have prevailed. I kid myself that I was about to subdue Crystal, but truthfully, I’d probably still have been trying to get the pepper spray off safety when Crystal plunged the scissors into my jugular.
Looking forward, it doesn’t matter.
The door slammed open and a deep voice boomed, “Police! Drop your weapons!”
I threw the pepper spray on the floor. Crystal’s scissors clattered next to it. Officer Boyle kicked both weapons out of reach but kept his gun trained on Crystal.
“It was you. This whole time I blamed Gabby’s husband, and it was you! How could you kill Gabby? You were her only friend.”
Crystal backed away, hands in the air, golden heart
dangling between her fingers. Boyle crept menacingly toward her. “Gabby was my—” His voice broke. “She was pregnant, with my child.” His grip on the gun tightened. “You. Killed. My. Child.”
All of my emotions, all of my fears, flipped in an instant. I wasn’t afraid for Michael anymore. I wasn’t frightened for myself, either. I was terrified for Crystal. I used my most steady, soothing yoga voice. “Officer Boyle, she doesn’t have a weapon anymore. Her hands are up, just like you asked.”
He didn’t respond.
“Crystal isn’t a threat,” I reiterated. “Please, lower your weapon.”
For a long, painful moment, I didn’t think he heard me. In fact, I’m still not sure that he did. I honestly don’t know what kept him from shooting. Maybe his police training kicked in. Maybe he realized that I was a witness. Maybe Gabriella’s spirit yelled from the afterlife, ordering him to stand down.
Whatever the reason, his shoulders finally relaxed. His grip on the gun did, too. He ordered Crystal to turn around. When she complied, he kicked her feet apart and cuffed her.
Boyle called for backup. Officer Alex arrived fifteen minutes later and took Crystal into custody. Other than a discrete nod as we passed, she didn’t acknowledge me or our recent conversation.
When Boyle returned to the hair salon, I was on my knees, talking to Mouse through the metal grid of her cat carrier. “Okay, kitty. Thanks for finally letting me catch you. We got off to a bad start, but since you foiled Crystal’s plan to kill me, I figure I owe you one. You’re stuck with me, at least for now. Someday you might even like me.”
Boyle handed me the locket. “I pried this from Crystal’s hands, but it’s obviously yours. It has pictures of your boyfriend and dog in it.”
“It doesn’t have to go into evidence?”
“Not if I never found it.” He shrugged. “I figured it might be important to you.”
“It is. Thanks.”