He sank his fingers into his thick hair, gathered some between his fingers, glanced quickly at the knife again.
“Want to know a fun fact about that knife?”
Elizabeth could see him struggling with the revelation. After a moment, it seemed to register. What she was admitting to.
“You . . . you can’t be serious.”
“There it is. I just saw the light bulb go on. Finally. There is a brain in there, isn’t there?”
He glowered at her. “Fuck you.”
He snatched the knife from the couch. Brandished it in front of her.
She cocked the gun.
“Oops. Poorly played. Now your fingerprints are on it. And when the police find your body with that knife in your hands,” she continued, “we can finally put all of this behind us. Put you behind us.”
He looked down at the knife trembling in his hand.
“I should thank you, Boyd. You made this so easy for me. I was expecting at least a little bit of a challenge.”
She calmly squeezed the trigger twice; both shots hit him in the chest.
He crumbled to the Pergo floor.
She walked over to him and looked down.
He looked up at her, holding his chest, blood bubbling up from his shirt, frothy, more pink than red. He blinked a couple of times; then his eyes went still.
She studied him, trying to cement the visual in her mind so she could replay it again later. Then she reached into his coat pocket for his phone. She needed to hide it quickly before the police responded to the gunshots. She couldn’t leave any evidence for them to find.
Now to hide his phone. She ejected the battery and was searching for a good place to hide both pieces when she heard Chelsea begin to stir from her slumber.
No, no, no!
It was too soon.
CHAPTER 37
CHELSEA’S EYES POPPED open, the stink of sulfur burning her nostrils. The odor was immediately familiar to her, reminding her of the shooting range.
She walked cautiously in the darkness, trying to get her bearings. Her head was muddy from the pills Elizabeth had given her.
What had Elizabeth given her?
Whatever it had been, it must have been strong. Once she pulled herself out of the thick fog, she realized she was standing in the living room. She fumbled for the lamp and flipped it on. Her breath caught.
Boyd was lying motionless in front of her on the carpet.
“Boyd?”
He was lying still. Too still. There was blood on his beige jacket.
A bolt of terror shot through her, quickly sobering her. “Oh, my God! Boyd!”
She fell to her knees.
What . . . what happened?
The room shimmering in front of her eyes, she quickly saw that his chest wasn’t rising or falling. She pressed two fingers to his neck and searched for a pulse but found nothing. She tried a second time and got the same result.
Oh, my God.
She peered around. Blood was spattered on one of her yellow throw pillows. Across one of her framed sketches. There was a knife next to Boyd’s hand. Then she saw the gun on the floor.
It was her gun.
Her heart pounded so hard, she thought it might stop. She tried to piece together the puzzle. But the pills were clouding her mind, making it work too slowly.
She heard Elizabeth’s voice behind her. “Thank God you’re okay.”
Chelsea turned to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth! Thank God she was there.
But where had she come from? And how long had she been there?
Hold on. Elizabeth. Had she shot Boyd?
“Thank God you had that gun!”
Chelsea frowned.
“Chels, you had no choice,” she said, her green eyes earnest. “He was going to kill you.”
“Wait. What?” she asked, her tongue thick, heavy.
“He obviously came here to hurt you. What you did was totally self-defense. No one will blame you. You did what you had to do. What you needed to do.”
Chelsea stared at the gun and then at Boyd’s motionless body. Cold dread curled in her chest. Something was very wrong here. More tears spilled down her cheeks. Confused, she shook her head. “But I didn’t . . .”
Elizabeth knelt in front of her, pity in her eyes. She placed her hands on Chelsea’s shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to help you get through this. You’re going to be just fine.”
Chelsea replayed the events in her head the way she’d remembered them. She was groggy, but she knew she’d been asleep. Hadn’t she?
Yes. She was certain.
Well, almost.
She replayed everything that had happened since she’d first smelled the sulfur.
She shook her head. She’d never had the gun. She would have remembered it. Remembered something about it at least, like maybe the way it had felt in her hands.
No, she didn’t shoot him. She knew she didn’t. What Elizabeth was saying wasn’t making sense.
Then she had a thought that soothed her a little.
Maybe this is just a dream. A nightmare. Like the others.
She clenched her eyes shut, counted to five, reopened them. But she was still in the living room. Elizabeth’s green eyes were still on her, expecting her to say she’d shot Boyd.
“I swear I didn’t do this. I never had the gun. I was asleep.”
“Oh, Chelsea. You’re just not thinking clearly. But it’s okay. No one’s blaming you. He didn’t give you a choice.”
Could I have blacked out?
“You blacked out, Chels. You did it while you were blacked out. And you just don’t remember.”
Chelsea studied Elizabeth’s face. Was her left cheek twitching?
Yes. It was.
She was lying.
Why is she lying? Fear turned her insides into ice water. Sirens blaring in her head, she struggled to replay everything she could remember again. She didn’t want to be wrong. She couldn’t be wrong.
She’d smelled sulfur and opened her eyes. When she realized she was in the living room, she’d turned the lamp on and seen Boyd. He was already on the floor, lying motionless. That was exactly what had happened. That was all that had happened.
She let her eyes slide over to the gun.
“You shot him,” she muttered, looking up at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth frowned. “What? No, I didn’t. You did it.”
Chelsea shook her head. “No.”
“You took tranquilizers,” Elizabeth said, her face pinched with anger. “So you just don’t remember.”
“You gave me those tranquilizers, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth sprang to her feet and glowered down at her. “Look, you need to just accept what you’ve done. Before the cops get here.”
She felt guilty for questioning Elizabeth. She loved Elizabeth. She depended on Elizabeth. But Elizabeth was lying to her.
“Why are you lying to me?”
The vein in Elizabeth’s forehead pulsed. “You shot him. It was self-defense. What part of it can you not get through that thick skull of yours? We don’t have much time, Chelsea. Quit screwing around.”
Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose and began pacing. After a moment, she whirled around and faced Chelsea again. Her eyes were smoldering. “Look, I do everything for you. Everything. I take care of you. I protect you. I clean up your messes. And what do you do? You go and fuck things up by getting back in touch with Boyd, who I warned you to stay away from and then . . . then . . . when he comes here to attack you and you kill him in self-defense, you want to blame it on me?” She cocked her head and peered at Chelsea. “Just what kind of friend are you?”
Elizabeth had never talked to her like this before. Never. She’d never been angry like this. Not at her. If she believed just one little bit of what Elizabeth had just said, she would have felt awful and would have been quick to apologize. But she knew she was right about this.
“You have no clue everything I’
ve done for you,” Elizabeth continued. “The lengths I’ve gone just to keep you safe all these years.”
Chelsea stared at her in disbelief. So much was wrong suddenly. She felt like her world had completely tilted on its axis.
Elizabeth glared at her. “Now get your story straight because the police will be here soon, and you can’t mention me. You have to tell them you did it. Because you did.”
Elizabeth’s cheek twitched again.
A ripple of fear shot through her.
“Please. Tell me what’s really going on,” she whispered.
“What’s really going on?” Elizabeth screamed. “I saved your ass! I always save your ass!” She leaned in, so close Chelsea could smell her stale breath. “Time and time again. Don’t you see? I had to protect you. You’re too innocent and fragile to do it for yourself!”
Chelsea continued to stare.
“You made me!” Elizabeth screamed. “You’ve always made me!”
You made me.
The words that had been written on the mirror the night of the murders. The same words from the notes.
Elizabeth’s face twisted into something awful. But Chelsea didn’t look away. She couldn’t. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she was frozen.
“Jesus! We don’t have time for this now!” Elizabeth spat. “Right now we need to get your goddamn story together!”
“That night. The message on the mirror. You—”
Elizabeth whirled around.
“Are you not hearing me?”
Elizabeth knelt again. She pressed her hands to Chelsea’s shoulders, and Chelsea recoiled beneath her touch. “Look, the cops are going to be here any minute. Do you not understand how important this is? You can either tell them the truth, that you did this in self-defense. Or you can accuse me. But if you do that . . . if you say that I was here, even mention me at all, I will stop protecting you. And they’ll know all about your episodes. How screwed up you really are. And you’ll go back to the psychiatric hospital for a long time. Trust me.”
What is happening?
Elizabeth was supposed to be her friend. Her rock. It had all been a lie. But why?
Chelsea’s eyes slid back to Boyd’s body. She stared at the dark blood that was congealing across his chest. The blood pooled on the floor around him.
The room began to spin.
She heard Elizabeth moving around the apartment, muttering angrily to herself.
Her head started to pound, and she felt like she was going to vomit. Either she was losing it or Elizabeth was. And she didn’t know which was worse. She was certain she couldn’t get by without Elizabeth. And there was no way she wanted to live if her mind was failing her again.
Her stomach twisted. A few weeks ago, things had been looking up. She’d been so hopeful. Now she’d not only lost Boyd but Elizabeth, and maybe even her mind. She had nothing now. Nothing to live for.
Blood whooshing in her ears, she reached into her bra for the blade. Her heartbeat roared as she removed the cheesecloth and watched it flutter to the carpet. She understood now that, in a way, she’d been waiting for this moment for years.
Her eyes filling with tears, she held her breath and raked the blade hard against the pale skin of her left wrist. She didn’t feel any pain, just heat, adrenaline rushing through her.
Blood slowly spilled down her arm, dripped onto the Pergo. As she aimed the blade for her right wrist, the room began to spin again, and everything grew blurry and just a bit darker. She knew what was happening; she was slipping away again. Like she did before her blackouts.
If she was going to do this, finally do this, and do it right, she would need to hurry. She concentrated on her right wrist and again bore down hard on the blade. This time the blood spilled faster, and she felt herself begin to relax.
Her jaw unclenched, then her shoulders. She lay on her side, the floor smooth against her cheek, and felt the knot in her middle start to unfurl. Her wrists throbbed as the blood pulsed from her body.
The room grew darker.
“Chelsea, no!” she heard Elizabeth shriek from somewhere in the distance, just as everything faded to black.
CHAPTER 38
LANG BANGED THE steering wheel impatiently with the heel of his hand as he tried to maneuver through Boston’s snarling traffic. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony streamed through the car’s speakers as he looked out at Boylston Street jammed with honking cars.
His police light was flashing, but there was no place for any cars to go. Lang weaved on to the shoulder and gunned the engine. He hit Chelsea’s number on speed dial again, but just like every other attempt, he was sent right to voice mail. Either she was on the other line or her phone was turned off.
Shit!
He felt an urgency to warn her about Elizabeth. Until he got to the bottom of who she really was, he needed Chelsea to stay away from her.
Lang looked up from his phone, and his eyes widened. He slammed on the brakes and swerved, barely missing a startled pedestrian.
Christ!
Goose bumps broke out along his arms at the near miss. He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a man waving his fist in the air.
“Shit. Sorry, buddy,” he muttered.
As he inched closer to Chelsea’s apartment building, he reviewed every inch of the case in his mind again, trying to put the puzzle pieces together. But so many still didn’t fit.
First, the evidence against Ethan. What did they have on him that wasn’t circumstantial? His semen found inside Christine. His fingerprints on the knife block that the suspected murder weapon had been taken from. The fact that he had disappeared right after the slayings. Yes, Ethan being the perpetrator was certainly plausible—and until now it was the best they’d had to go on. But Lang was all but certain that body in the pond was Ethan’s. And it didn’t look like he accidentally drove into the pond. So while Ethan still couldn’t be ruled out as the murderer, he could definitely be ruled out as the one who had been threatening Chelsea with the notes. And if Ethan hadn’t been the murderer but in fact another victim, the real killer had been much smarter than they’d previously suspected.
Then there was Boyd. Boyd didn’t have the makings of a murderer. He was much too anxious. Too afraid of getting caught to taunt Chelsea with notes and threats. He couldn’t even lie about an affair without breaking into a sweat.
Even without the airtight alibi, Katherine had never been a viable suspect, although he knew there was more to learn from her. And he planned to. As soon as he found out what was going on with Elizabeth . . . who was now his main focus. Until now, he hadn’t been that interested in Elizabeth Jessup. She had been just another i to dot and t to cross. But the facts that no one by that name ever worked at the psychiatric hospital and that her phone was out of order brought her to the top of his list.
While Elizabeth certainly could have been the person leaving the notes, Chelsea said they hadn’t met until after the murders. But with her memory issues, maybe that wasn’t true.
But . . . if Elizabeth had been Christine’s and Amy’s killer, why would she now be Chelsea’s closest friend? Could it be guilt? A way to keep tabs on her in case her memory suddenly came rushing back? And what would have been her motive to kill those girls? What was her connection to everyone?
Also, why leave the notes? After five years of nothing? What triggered the need to torment Chelsea?
He needed to speak to Elizabeth.
Immediately.
He quickly parked around the corner from the apartment building. As he was heading into the building, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. It was Garcia.
“Lang,” he answered.
“It’s Garcia. Wanted you to know we ran a full check on Elizabeth Jessup. There’s no record of her. Anywhere. DMV. Police reports. IRS.”
Lang’s pulse kicked up another notch. “So the name’s probably an alias.”
“Appears that way.”
L
ang drew his weapon and gave Garcia his location. He requested backup; then he climbed the stairs to apartment 6D. Once he got there, he knocked on the door loudly and waited.
No answer.
He knocked again.
Again, no answer.
He heard someone on the stairwell. He lowered his weapon and was backing away from the apartment when the door to the stairwell flew open and a man appeared, holding a bag of groceries. Seeing Lang’s weapon, the man’s eyes widened.
“It’s okay. I’m police,” Lang said.
“What’s going on? Is everything okay?” the man asked.
“Do you know the woman who lives in this unit?” Lang asked, motioning with his chin to apartment 6D.
The man gave him a funny look. “It’s vacant. No one’s lived there for almost two years now.”
Blood surged through Lang’s veins. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m positive.”
Lang’s heart pounded harder. Something was very wrong. He turned to go back down the stairs. As he hurried toward Chelsea’s apartment, he heard shots ring out from somewhere below.
CHAPTER 39
TWO DAYS LATER, Lang knocked lightly on the door of Chelsea’s hospital room. She turned her head and gazed at him. Her face looked pale and drawn beneath the fluorescent lighting. A nurse was at her bedside taking her blood pressure.
Lang had found her in her apartment out cold, both wrists slashed, lying on the floor, close to Boyd Lawson’s body. Since she’d been rushed to the hospital, he’d visited twice, but both times she’d been sedated heavily and sleeping. Luckily, Garcia had been able to speak with her last night.
Garcia told Lang that Chelsea reported she’d let Boyd into her apartment, and he’d tried to attack her with a knife. Garcia said so far, it appeared to be a clear case of self-defense.
Lang pushed the door open and smiled at Chelsea. “I hear you’re staying another day or two for observation?”
Chelsea blinked at him, her face expressionless.
The nurse greeted him and stepped out of the room.
Lang walked closer to Chelsea and held out the bouquet of lilies he’d bought at the gift shop downstairs. “I brought you a little something.”
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