Silencing Sapphire

by Mia Thompson

  Sapphire gazed out over the city glowing in the sunrise, realizing he was right. Never again would she have to sit through an event and pretend to be someone she wasn’t. Never again would she have to think: Run!

  This time, Sapphire did run.

  “Do I agree with the danger you put yourself in? No,” Father O’Riley said. “But I know how much it means to you, and this is your chance to go be whoever it is you want to be.”

  Sapphire looked at the Eiffel Tower and the ancient French metropolis around its feet, seeing it in a different light.

  Paris was a city of adventure; a place roaring with opportunity for people to come and start anew. The years past dropped off her like weights, leaving only one.

  Aston.

  Sapphire had a strong feeling that he would cross her path again. He wouldn’t give up on her; he never had before. Nothing would stop him. Not Dubai. Not the ocean separating them. On the logical side of her brain, the thought made her want to run faster. On the emotional side, the thought brought bliss.

  Aston would find her. Until that day, she would do something she’d been dying to do. She hadn’t even realized how badly her insides had been screaming for it until now. Sapphire was going to live for her. Nobody else.

  The pain inside her wasn’t gone, but gaining a freedom she’d never had before was remarkably curative.

  “Sapphire, come on!”

  Father O’Riley had grabbed his luggage and was waving at her from inside a trolley.

  Sapphire ran as the cart started rolling, then grabbed the side bar and jumped aboard. She got two seats as Father O’Riley paid their fees.

  She noticed a woman finishing the newspaper about to throw it in the trash.

  “Excuse-moi!” Sapphire said. “Tu as fini?”

  “Oh, mais oui.” The woman passed the newspaper, waving at her to keep it.

  “Merci bien,” Sapphire smiled, then turned to face a stunned Father O’Riley.

  “You speak French?”

  “No one graduates Winchester Private Academy without being at least semi-fluent,” Sapphire said, flipping through Le Parisien. “Well, except Chrissy.”

  Her eyes landed on an article and didn’t stray.

  “Good, then you can navigate us,” he said and sat down. “I’ve got three days before the Vatican expects me. Let’s start with the Loo-ver…Loafer…”

  Father O’Riley’s continuous butchering of The Louvre became one with the background noise as she felt the familiar rush. Her senses sharpened and mind focused. Everything around her vanished; everything but the article.

  Sapphire Dubois smiled, knowing the hunt had begun.

  Epilogue

  William Dubois stared at the woman whom he’d taken from the Beverly Hills Country Club. She knew she was going to die and she couldn’t do anything about it.

  Her body was paralyzed, but her mind was alert. It had taken him years to develop the concoction from hemlock, a plant with immobilizing toxins.

  He turned up the music from the motel’s radio and grabbed his knife. William smiled at the panic in her eyes, happy he’d taken her.

  He’d watched the country club through the gates, hating the fact that he admired the building. He’d spent the last two-and-a-half decades away from luxury, living off nothing but odd jobs to pay for his crappy motel rooms, which had rats under the floors and dead hookers in the walls. They were his dead hookers, but still.

  Watching the people of Beverly Hills always filled him with disdain. He enjoyed catching glimpses of his daughter and ex-wife, but he couldn’t wait to get on the road and have this place that had forsaken him at his back.

  He returned every so often to check on them. It wasn’t until his daughter turned twenty that he noticed her extracurricular activities. She, his little Sapphire, captured serial killers. His people. She’d grown up to become his polar opposite; his enemy.

  Was it a coincidence? Probably not.

  When he left Sapphire and Viv all those years ago, he wanted nothing more than for his daughter to be raised far away from his world. Away from the place where knives, blood, and darkness rose so high in the sky that it was hard to see the sun some days. Yet there she was, diving in headfirst.

  He just happened to show up to the country club on Sapphire’s wedding day. Except, from what he could tell, she never got married. She’d rushed out of the doors and drove past him in the limo, unaware that her father was watching her.

  He didn’t blame her for splitting on the groom. The Vanderpilts, though extremely wealthy, were terrible people. Not terrible like William, but terrible nonetheless.

  He thought about following her then a guest screamed Charles was dead. It was his brother, the one who had sacrificed a life with a family of his own to care for William’s.

  Had he the capability, William would have wept. He always liked Charles the most, even when he joined the rest of the family in kicking William out for stabbing the maid.

  What would happen to his ex-wife and Sapphire? Who would take care of them now that Charles was gone?

  Him? Not a chance in hell.

  He felt something akin to—what he assumed was—love for them, but he had proven to himself years ago that he was a killer, and a killer only. A father and a husband he would never be.

  He watched as the young woman with golden curls came out in tears. The Vanderpilt Sapphire was supposed to marry was hugging her to his shoulder. Comforting her as she bawled the way humans did when they got so very emotional.

  William felt the dig in his stomach. The Hunger wanted her.

  She cried harder, and he recognized her. It was Christina Kraft. He couldn’t kill Sapphire’s best friend…could he?

  The Hunger egged him on and explained how easily Sapphire could get a new friend.

  “No.” William tried to hold his ground. He didn’t want to cause his daughter more sorrow. She’d just lost Charles.

  The Hunger muttered, then stayed silent.

  William was just about to jump in his car and leave California when he saw her. She was working her way toward the gates by foot, dialing her phone.

  “Take her,” The Hunger demanded. “Feed me.”

  He couldn’t wait to get out of Beverly Hills, but The Hunger grew too strong and overpowered him. He got in his car and parked around the bend of the country club’s stonewall.

  He could hear her talking on her phone as he waited, hoping she’d tide him over until he got out of L.A. County.

  “You won’t believe what happened at the Vanderpilt wedding…” she said into her phone. “A cop got arrested for shooting another cop, and two people got stabbed to death!” She turned the bend and William readied himself. “Guess who stabbed them!”

  He put his hand on the door handle, watching her through the tainted glass.

  “Sapphire Dubois!”

  William froze, missing his cue.

  “The cops are looking for her right now.”

  He opened the door and got out.

  “My account is going to blow up the minute I tweet this: Heiress Sapphire Dubois wanted for murder!”

  “Excuse me?” He prepared his most charming smile.

  She turned, took one look at him, and melted. “I…I’ll call you back.” She hung up and blushed.

  They all blushed. He had that effect on women. In his profession it helped.

  “So sorry to bother you, but my car won’t start and my phone’s out of battery.” He kept the smile on. “Do you mind terribly if I use yours?”

  “N-no, go ahead,” she giggled and hurried up to him.

  He looked at her as if she was the only person in the world and her breaths grew heavier.

  “Beautiful, they suit you.” He nodded to her ugly earrings. “Do you mind?”

  She let out a nervous laugh and moved her hair away so he could touch her ear.

  William put the needle in her neck. Within a few seconds the hemlock had turned her body into stone, allowing him to toss her in the
trunk.

  He drove her to the cut-rate Motel 6 off the interstate and used one of his fake driver’s licenses to get a room. He got the woman and all her accessories inside, still feeling the adrenaline her words created.

  He’d failed to see the truth in Sapphire all these years. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree after all. It was surprisingly exhilarating. William had never thought he could have both worlds, but if his daughter was like him, he could have it all.

  He kept the woman alive over night, refilling her with hemlock, preserving her until The Hunger was screaming for her. The way it did now.

  Her terrified eyes stared at William as he raised the knife over her stomach and stabbed her. Again and again, he plunged his knife into her, meticulously choosing his spots so that she wouldn’t die prematurely. He had to finish her off by strangling. The Hunger loved the two-for-one, always had.

  He pulled back, out of breath, patting his hair in place.

  “Hrrr,” came from her frozen lips. Her face stayed smooth, but he knew she was in excruciating pain.

  He dragged her off the bed and held her up by the throat, pushing in on her jugular. He watched the panic rise in her eyes and something amazing happened.

  Within her, he saw all of them.

  Her expensive hairdo, accessories, and dress screamed of the people who’d abandoned him. He pushed harder, feeling his anger grow, then ease as the life drained from her. To think he’d avoided the Beverly Hills people all these years.

  She took her last breath, and William shoved her dead body back onto the bed. He picked through her thick Louis Vuitton wallet.

  “Great. I was running low on cash, so thank you…” William studied her ID. “Eloise.”

  Eloise Parker. 2053 N. Beverly Glen, Beverly Hills, California, 90210.

  The perfect lair.

  William’s direction had changed and his new future played out for him.

  He wouldn’t leave until his daughter had joined his world. He would take Sapphire under his wing and show her everything she needed to know about The Hunger that ran through her veins.

  William Dubois smiled. The prodigal son had returned. His revenge was just beginning.

  Acknowledgments

  First of all, I’d like to thank that warm night in April of 1986. Without it, my parents might’ve never felt frisky, I would never have been born, and would never have gotten the opportunity to thank all these wonderful people.

  I, like a fool, forgot to do acknowledgements for the first book in the Sapphire Dubois Mystery Series, so please consider the following to be for both Stalking Sapphire and Silencing Sapphire.

  Had I not started with the inappropriate story of my own conception, I would’ve started by thanking the person who changed my life forever and made all this possible. To my dear agent, Elizabeth Kracht, who has gone above and beyond her job description with me and Sapphire. Liz, when I think of a strong, modern woman, I think of you. You’re a role model and I look up to you immensely. I’m well aware that many authors claim their agents to be the best. Obviously, they only think so because they’ve never encountered the complete package of kindness and force that is Miss Kracht. I, undoubtedly, have the best agent in the world.

  Thank you to Mary Cummings, my freakishly talented editor at Diversion Books. Mary, I’ve never come across a person who understands story and character as well, and as fast as you do. I often find myself wishing I could keep you around for the whole of the writing process, but, apparently, kidnapping is illegal.

  Thank you to the marketing and publicity manager at Diversion Books, Angela Craft, also known by her superhero name: the social media savior. Many of the amazing things that have happened, pre and post-publication, are because of you. Thank you for always answering my questions and for rescuing me when I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.

  Thank you ALL at Diversion Books, the kindest and coolest publishing house in New York. A special, giant thanks to Sarah Masterson Hally!

  Thank you to my husband, Chadley, who read, read again, and read the manuscripts some more. You’re my rock, my best friend, and my life, without your support and creativity none of this would’ve happened.

  To my parents, Ylva and Mats, who moved mountains to send me halfway across the world so I could chase my crazy dream: Thank you for never once telling me to give up, be responsible, and get a real job. Tack!

  To my sister, Linda, aside from that one time you tricked me into eating horse food, you have always been the best big sister. Thank you for reading and loving my stories—especially the bad ones—and for cheering me up after rejections.

  Big thanks to my husband’s family, the whole Thompson clan. Faye and Bruce, you’ve fed us, sheltered us, and pulled us out of way too many binds. Skylar, my fabulous niece, your input on Stalking Sapphire made a world of difference.

  Thank you, tack, to my third grade teacher in Sweden, Kerstin Truedsson for telling a nine-year-old she should be an author; your words stuck. Thanks to my grandparents, Mormor, Morfar, Farmor, Farfar. I have a feeling you’re supporting me from The Great Beyond. Thanks to ALL my bosses and coworkers—especially the lovely girls at Binion’s—for you encouraging words and for putting up with my general peculiarness.

  Lastly, thank YOU dear reader! Whether you just picked up the sequel or came back after reading Stalking Sapphire, I’m so glad you did. I wish I knew your name so I could thank you personally but, until I gain psychic powers, just know I’m eternally grateful that you chose to come along on Sapphire’s adventures.

  Connect with Diversion Books

  Connect with us for information on new titles and authors from Diversion Books, free excerpts, special promotions, contests, and more:

  @DiversionBooks

  www.Facebook.com/DiversionBooks

  Diversion Books eNewsletter