by Shelly Bell
“And the text? That was from you, wasn’t it?”
Rocking back and forth on her heels, she smiled, blood staining her teeth. “That was to help you. I thought if you brought that to the police, they’d keep Tony in the hospital.” Her face crumpled. “You were supposed to cry on my shoulder. Not Professor Kelley’s. Everything I’ve done was to protect you! You have no idea how far I would go for you. How far I have gone!”
Isabella’s heart stopped. Chills racked her body as if she were submerged in ice.
The siren sounded close by, but the cops would have to park a couple of blocks over and walk the rest of the way. She was no longer worried about Chloe. Now her only concern was whether she would make it off this tower alive. Her pulse hammered in her neck as she prayed the police would get there in time.
She slowly inched her way toward the stairs, careful not to make any sudden moves. She didn’t think Chloe would take it well. “What else did you do to protect me, Chloe?”
Her eyes narrowed. “She had naked photos of you, did you know that? She would’ve told Dean Lancaster about your affair with Tristan, and they would have thrown you out of school. I couldn’t let them do that. I couldn’t let them tear us apart.”
Bile rose in her throat. Oh God. “Morgan,” she said on a whisper. “You killed Morgan.”
Chloe nodded. “After Tristan left, I followed her to her car. I had this knife in my backpack.”
“Why…” She sucked in a breath. “Why did you have a knife?”
“I waited all night for you to leave his apartment,” Chloe said, tears again rolling down her face. “In the morning, after you left, I had to know. I thought…maybe there was another explanation why you spent the night there. I still had that wire on me, and since it had opened the tower door, I tried it on Professor Kelley’s. When I saw the tangled sheets, smelled the sex in the air, I…I just wanted the pain to stop, and I thought I could end it.” She slashed at her wrist. Once. Twice. Fresh red blood spilled down her arm. “I took a knife from his kitchen, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave you. So, I slipped the knife into my bag and left.”
With every word Chloe spoke, Isabella took a step backward, widening the distance between them as she waited for her chance to run.
Chloe got a faraway look in her eyes. “Killing her was so easy. Her back was turned and she was fumbling through her purse for her keys. I came up behind her and plunged the knife into her.” She raised the knife above her head and repeatedly jabbed the air. “Over and over and over.”
Lost in the memory, Chloe took her attention off of Isabella.
Now was her chance.
She turned and bolted for the stairs.
“No!” Chloe screamed, her voice echoing all around Isabella. “Don’t leave me!”
Only a foot from the door, Chloe tackled Isabella to the ground. Stars danced in front of her eyes as the world began to darken around the edges.
Crying, Chloe rolled her onto her back. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
Through the haze, Isabella saw Chloe hovering above her.
What happened?
Throbbing pain like she’d never experienced exploded into her right side, just above her hip. She touched the spot and brought her hand to her face, shocked to see her palm covered in bright red blood. “You stabbed me.”
“You made me do it.” She lifted her knife into the air, blood dripping from the blade. “I’m ready for my happy ever after now. Are you?”
* * *
Tristan raced up the steps of the bell tower, his heart pounding in his ears. Hopefully, those sirens in the distance were in response to Ryder’s phone call to the police.
Tony was here.
So why the hell was Isabella on top of the tower and not with the police? Did Tony have her? Had he chased her up here?
Since getting her message, Tristan had called her again and again, but each time, it went immediately to voice mail. He shivered, struck by the feeling that Isabella was in danger at that very moment. He pumped his legs harder, using every bit of strength to get to her as fast as possible.
He had to get to her in time.
He wouldn’t let her be another one of his failures.
At the sound of a female scream, he flew past the carillon and outside. “Isabella!”
Icy tentacles squeezed his chest at the sight of Chloe standing over Isabella with a bloody knife in her hand, raised and poised to strike.
He didn’t take time to assess.
Without a warning, he tackled Chloe, knocking her backward.
The knife clattered to the ground and skittered away as her head hit the wall with an awful thunk. Chloe’s eyes rolled back and she went limp.
He ran back to Isabella and dropped to his knees. Blood poured out of a wound in her side.
“Isabella? Angel?” He put two fingers at her neck to check for a pulse, and almost cried in relief when he felt it. It was weak, but it was there.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a movement. On a battle cry, a blood-drenched Chloe charged him, her gleaming knife overhead. He surged to his feet as the knife arched through the air, nicking his cheek. He launched himself at her, grappling for possession of the knife, as she screamed in a voice that barely sounded human. With a tight grip on her damaged wrist, he dug his fingers into her wound. She howled in pain and loosened her hold on the knife just enough for him to seize it from her grasp.
Shouts came from the foot of the tower, announcing the police’s arrival.
Chest heaving, Chloe stared at him with intense vitriol before glancing longingly at Isabella. She turned toward the wall and, before he could figure out what she was doing, hopped up on the ledge and swung her legs over the railing.
What the fuck?
He dropped the knife and lunged for her just as she hoisted herself off the edge. He snatched her left wrist with both hands. “Hold on, Chloe. I won’t let you fall.”
“It’s your fault Isabella’s dead! I can’t let you get away with it!” Dangling from one hundred feet in the air, she looked down at the ground. “No, don’t kill me, Professor Kelley!”
She twisted in his grip and then she was gone, leaving his hands empty and bloody.
She screamed all the way down. A scream that seemed to go on forever before a sound too terrible to process reverberated in his ears as she hit the ground.
Chloe was wrong.
Isabella wasn’t dead.
She couldn’t be.
He raced back to her, finding her lips blue and her skin so pale, he could see all the veins beneath it. He pressed his hands over her side to stem the bleeding. “Isabella? Angel? Come on. Wake up. Wake up for me, baby.”
Her eyes fluttered. “Tristan?”
She spoke so quietly, he’d almost thought he’d imagined it.
“You’re safe,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’ve got you now.”
“It hurts,” she whispered. “It hurts so much.”
If he could trade places with her and take her pain, he would. He’d die for her, didn’t she understand that? “I know, Angel. Just hold on a little longer and we’ll make that pain disappear.”
Her eyes opened wide in panic. “Tristan? I can’t breathe. I can’t…”
He kissed her forehead. Her cheeks. Everywhere he could. “I love you, Angel. I love you so fucking much. Do you hear me?”
Isabella stared at him, eyes unblinking and fixed. Her chest wasn’t moving.
“Isabella?” No. no. no. She’s not breathing. “God no.” He started chest compressions. “You are not going to die. I won’t let you, do you hear me? I refuse to let you die.”
“Step away from the girl.”
He barely bothered to glance at the police, not caring that they had their guns pointed at him. Nothing mattered but his Angel. He wouldn’t stop administering the chest compressions.
“No. She’s not breathing,” he shouted, sweat dripping off his brow. Or were those tears? “I can’t leave he
r.”
Hands fastened onto his shoulders and yanked him away. “You need to give the EMTs room to do their jobs.”
Someone pulled him away from Isabella. He turned and, fists flying, clocked the officer in the nose. Another officer pinned his wrists behind his back as he twisted and swung and fought to return to his Angel’s side. “I…No. Damn it. Let me go. Isabella. Isabella!”
The EMTs swooped in to take his rightful place.
As the police dragged him away kicking and screaming, he heard the words that shattered his world into a million pieces.
“I can’t find a pulse. We’re losing her.”
Twenty-Nine
Alone in the interrogation room, a handcuffed Tristan sat at a small table. They’d charged him with assaulting a police officer and obstruction, allowing them to hold him for seventy-two hours while they combed through the evidence and tried to figure out how to pin Morgan and Chloe’s murders on him.
It had been hours since he’d been here, and no one would tell him a damned thing about Isabella. They’d entered him into their computer system, treating him like a criminal. Subjecting him to fingerprinting and evidence collection and having his mug shot taken. They’d traded his bloodstained clothes for a gray jumpsuit.
He hadn’t even gotten to make a phone call yet.
The police walked leisurely around the station, in no hurry to do anything other than drink coffee and talk about the Detroit Lions game.
Head pounding, throat aching, and eyes burning, Tristan had done nothing but silently pray for Isabella. The image of her lifeless body lying on the cold, hard concrete was burned onto his retinas.
Chloe was right.
It was all his fault.
If he hadn’t broken up with Isabella, none of this would’ve happened. She would’ve been with him instead of on top of that tower.
Because of him, she could be dead.
There would be no absolution.
He’d never forgive himself.
The door to the room opened, and a portly officer entered.
“I want to know the status of Isabella Lawson.” After all his yelling and raging, Tristan’s voice came out raspy and hoarse.
The cop plopped down on the chair. “Why, want to make sure she can’t finger you?”
Tristan slammed the table with his fists. “Fuck you. I didn’t hurt her.” Somewhere inside, this guy had to be a shred of humanity. “Please. Tell me she’s alive.”
The cop paused, scrutinizing him as if he were a bug on the windshield. Then he nodded once and put his hands out in front of him as if attempting to placate Tristan. “She’s alive. That’s all I know. Maybe if you answer all my questions, we can make a call over to the hospital for an update.”
Fuck that. “How ’bout I answer your questions once you tell me how Isabella is?”
“Doesn’t work that way,” the cop said gruffly. “You have a few choices.” One by one, he ticked off a finger. “You can make this complicated and drawn out, refusing to answer our questions, and then you’ll never find out what you want to know. You can invoke your right to an attorney and all questioning will stop, once again, delaying information about the girl. Or you tell us everything I want to know, and I’ll make that call. The ball is in your court. What’s it going to be?”
Goddamn it. For Tristan, there was only one choice. “I’ll answer your questions.”
“Good. That’s good.” The cop signaled to someone behind the tinted window. “This interrogation is being videotaped under Michigan law. Mr. Kelley, have the police read you your Miranda rights?”
“Yes.” Twice.
“And you have waived your right to an attorney at this time?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. Mr. Kelley, can you tell us what happened on the Edison Tower this evening preceding the death of one Chloe Donahue?”
He flinched. Watching that girl plummet one hundred feet to her death would plague him for the rest of his life. “When I arrived, Chloe was standing over Isabella with a knife in her hand, and Isabella had a wound to her abdomen.”
The cop frowned. “Let’s back up a moment. How did you come to be on that tower?”
“Isabella called me and left a message to meet her there.”
“Do you meet all your students on top of the bell tower?” the officer asked, raising an inquisitive brow.
Tristan didn’t respond, not willing to state the nature of his relationship with Isabella. It wasn’t relevant.
“See, when you don’t answer, I’m forced to use my imagination to fill in the blanks.” The cop leaned forward in his chair. “Would you like me to tell you what I think, Kelley? I think those girls knew you had killed your wife, so you decided to get rid of them before they had the chance to report it to the authorities.”
Tristan growled. “That’s not what happened.”
“Then tell me what did.”
The door opened, and another officer poked his head in. He pointed at Tristan. “His lawyer is here.”
Shocking Tristan, Isaac strode into the room. “Questioning is over. My client is invoking his right to remain silent.”
Tristan had forgotten that Isaac had gone to law school and passed the Michigan bar back in the day. As far as he knew, his mentor had never practiced. Guess there was always a first time.
A muscle ticked in the cop’s jaw, but he didn’t argue as he left Isaac and Tristan alone.
“How did you know I was here?” he asked, unable to look his mentor in the eye.
“Ryder called me a few minutes before I received a phone call from the Edison president informing me there had been an incident on top of the bell tower involving one of my professors and one of my students.”
His chest tightened. “Isabella? Is she…”
“She’s alive. Her body went into shock from the blood loss, but the knife didn’t hit any major organs. They gave her a transfusion, and the last I heard, she was in serious but stable condition.”
Relieved, Tristan blew out a breath and ran his hand down his face. Thank God she’d recover. The world would have been a dark and dismal place with the loss of his Angel.
“Who is she to you, Tristan?” Isaac asked.
Keeping his gaze on his hands, he shook his head. “Believe me, as my boss you don’t want to know.”
“I’m not here as your boss, damn it,” Isaac said firmly. “I’m here as your friend.”
Tristan pressed his lips together.
Isaac settled into his chair as if he were at home rather than in a police station. “Let me tell you a story. About five years ago, I had an affair. I’m not proud of it. At the time, Cassandra and I were essentially separated. We shared a home but not a bed. Rarely a meal or even a conversation. We’d become strangers. I tried doing everything I could. I suggested therapy, taking a vacation, having a re-commitment ceremony, but she refused it all. I thought I’d lost her. In a moment of weakness, I slept with a student’s mother. Over the next two months, we met several times, but it didn’t make anything better. It was just sex, and it turns out, that wasn’t enough for me. I needed my wife. When I finally realized that, I ended my affair, and this time, I didn’t ask Cassandra to go to therapy. I forced her to go.”
Tristan didn’t understand what this had to do with him, but he played along. He lifted his gaze from his hands to look at his mentor. “Did you find out what had caused the rift in your marriage?”
“Years ago, when Cassandra and I learned that we couldn’t have children, we both agreed that it was okay. That we were enough. And it was, until her friends started becoming grandmothers. Then for the first time, she regretted our decision not to adopt. She felt like a failure as both a woman and my wife.” He smiled. “Ridiculous, I know. Except, I get it. I’m the third generation to have a presence on this campus, and the legacy ends with me. I had hoped…”
“What?” Tristan prodded.
“That maybe you’d discover your love for teaching and consider staying on
at the school. Maybe even work toward becoming a full professor or go into administration. Carry on my legacy.”
Tristan was shocked. It had never occurred to him that Isaac had ulterior motives for offering him the position at Edison.
“Anyway,” Isaac continued, “I never did tell Cassandra about my affair. But someone else knew.”
Tristan didn’t have to ask. The answer was there in Isaac’s eyes.
“Morgan.”
His friend dipped his chin. “Yes. She had me followed around the time of your divorce. Why, I have no idea. But she’s held it over me, asking for a little money here and there, waiting for the time to use it fully to her advantage.”
Tristan recalled Morgan’s taunts that Isaac wasn’t a saint. “That’s why you met her for breakfast when she was here. She’d decided it was time to call in her marker. What did she want?”
Isaac’s eyes hooded in shame. “Fifty thousand dollars.”
So that’s how she’d gotten the money to pay for her attorneys. He should’ve known it was nothing legal.
“I was weak,” Isaac continued. “Cassandra and I had finally found our way back to each other. I feared if Morgan told her about my affair…” He shook his head. “Because of that, I gave in to her blackmail.”
For a millisecond, Tristan considered the possibility that Isaac had killed Morgan, but the thought died as quickly as it had arrived. “Why are you telling me all this, Isaac?”
A little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Because as smart as you are, there’s one lesson you haven’t learned.” He steepled his hands and leaned forward as if about to divulge the world’s greatest secret. “No one is perfect. Not even me. Does knowing my weak moments make you think any less of me?”
“No. Of course not,” he bristled.