She paused and sucked another raspy breath of air.
“It wasn’t like anyone was pushing them to find Clara either. She didn’t have rich parents. She didn’t have anyone. Just me.”
I glanced quickly at Katy.
The slow but deliberate movements her hand was making behind her back told me she had the knife out and was sawing through the rope. I wondered how long that would take.
I also wondered how long I could keep Sally and Isabella’s attention.
“Did anyone else know of this place?” I asked.
“Those girls found this spot, when they were looking for a burial spot,” said Sally. “They brought me here with them when they dug her grave. There was nothing I could do. She was already gone.”
“You didn’t tell anyone? The police? Martha May?”
“Those girls threatened me,” said Sally, her eyes welling up again. “They told me they’d do the same to me if I told anyone.”
For one brief moment, I felt a twinge of sympathy for this woman.
She’d been fourteen or fifteen, a lost, orphaned kid with no one to turn to. No parents, no family, bullied and outcast by her classmates, and her best friend murdered right in front of her eyes.
It took me a second to remind myself she could also be a serial killer. I gripped my gun tighter. I couldn’t let my guard down.
“What a horrible tragedy,” I said. “What did you do after that?”
“What choice did I have?” she said, frustration laced in her voice.
“She came back, that’s what she did,” said Isabella, popping another gum bubble. “Gawd, you’re dumber than I thought.”
So Katy and I had been right. Sally had unfinished business in the school, and she had returned seeking justice.
“You came back for revenge,” I said. “But your classmates are gone, and these kids have nothing to do with your friend’s death.”
“They’re all still a bunch of snotty bitches, aren’t they?” said Sally, glaring at me through her tears.
“Why pick on Brianna? She’s just a kid,” I said.
Sally didn’t hear me, lost in a world of her own.
“There were three of them that night,” she continued in an emotionless voice. “One is the CEO of a big media company in Chicago. The second married a congressman, and the pack leader is now the head of a big venture capital firm in Boston.”
She glared my way.
“Do you think any of them will pay for what they did?”
My mind whirred, trying to make a connection. Suddenly, the first conversation Katy and I had with Martha May came to mind. The principal had been trying to explain her dilemma about the missing girl.
“Her father and her aunt sit on my board and made a seven-figure donation to the academy last year.… Her aunt is an alumna of this school….”
I’d been so focused on Brianna’s father, I’d forgotten her aunt sat on the board too, the same aunt who was supposed to come to the board meeting on Friday.
“What’s the name of the pack leader who killed your best friend?” I asked. “This woman who heads the venture capital firm in LA?”
Sally glowered.
“It’s Becky Madison, isn’t it?”
Silence.
“You did all this to get back at Brianna’s Aunt Becky.”
Chapter Sixty
“Becky Madison is coming over for the board meeting on Friday,” I said. “That’s when you were planning to do something with Brianna.”
Silence.
“You wanted Becky to suffer the same way you did when you lost your friend.”
Sally scowled.
“How long have you been planning this?”
More silence.
Sally was looking over my shoulder now, like her mind was elsewhere.
“This is what happens when you stay nice and quiet,” she said. “Clara and me were the good girls. We never stepped on anyone’s shoes. We even let them push us around. We were foster kids from the wrong side of town. They hated that we were here. They stomped on us, like we were mud rugs. They made fun of us. Then, they killed us.” She paused to take a breath. “When Clara died, I died too.”
No one spoke for a few seconds.
I desperately wanted to look at Katy to see how she was progressing, but I didn’t.
Not yet.
Instead, I kept my eyes sweeping the room and out the window as discreetly as I could, just in case there would be more unwelcome visitors.
“Was Clara the only girl who got killed?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “They bullied a lot of girls.”
“Martha did nothing to help?”
“She hates scandals of any sort. Brushed everything under the carpet. She said Clara ran off because that’s what foster kids do and everyone believed her. She even paid the police chief to keep it quiet. I heard them talk in the glass house. It was like Clara had never existed. I hate her.”
“Me too,” said Isabella with feeling. “I hate that witch.”
I turned to the girl.
“Isabella, why are you here?”
Her face darkened.
“Don’t you dare give me that you-better-be-in-class-young-lady talk,” she snarled.
“That’s not what I said. What I mean is, why did you get involved with this?”
She shrugged and looked away.
“What’s in it for you, Isabella?”
For the first time since I met her, the girl looked unhappy. Her shoulders stooped, like my simple questions had pricked her confidence, letting the air out slowly.
She flicked her hair angrily and looked away.
At seventeen, she was still a girl, and she had already been exposed to more crimes than any teen should have. Did she realize what she’d got herself involved in?
Watching her, I suddenly got the answer to the question that had been nagging me ever since we visited Brianna’s room.
“It was you who left that message on the bathroom wall, using Brianna’s nail polish,” I said. “And it was you who slipped that note under our door.”
Isabella merely pouted.
“It was you who sent that email to Brianna’s aunt. Her laptop wasn’t locked, so you got in and sent a quick message so her family wouldn’t worry if they didn’t hear from her. You even asked her aunt to bring her mom’s black pearls,” I continued. “That was pretty brazen of you.”
She said nothing, but her face said everything. I was right.
I’d have bet the only reason she had befriended Brianna was to make it easy for Sally to kidnap her. Stealing the jewelry was a bonus to the affair.
One kidnapped girl. Three murders. And a jewelry heist that threaded through it all. It was a mysterious web that wove around this private academy, and it was far more complex than I’d imagined.
“Tell me about Brianna’s sapphire pendant,” I said.
“How do you know about the pendant?” said Sally, her eyes narrowing.
Gotcha again.
“Katy and I found it when we searched her room.”
Sally turned to Isabella with an accusatory look.
Isabella shrugged.
“I looked everywhere, I told you,” replied the girl. “That stupid little bitch put it somewhere no one could find.”
“Sounds like they found it,” snapped Sally.
“They got lucky,” snapped the girl back.
Sally glared at Isabella. Her demeanor had changed in seconds. She was no longer the saddened woman mourning her dead friend. Her back straightened and her jaws tightened. She was all business now.
“I’m not a fricking detective,” said the girl in a whiny voice. “I did my job like you guys told me to.”
You guys?
Did that include Nick, the resident jewelry thief? Was he the one Sally was waiting for?
“We paid you to do it,” growled Sally. “You got paid and failed.”
Brianna moaned in her corner.
/>
The kidnapped girl had never left my peripheral vision. I’d kept one eye on her, praying she didn’t need immediate medical attention and would live through this.
“What did you do to Brianna?” I asked, turning the conversation back. “Is she drugged? Is she going to be okay?”
Sally laughed.
“Oh, she’ll live all right,” she said. “Just a few sleeping tablets and a bit of cocaine to disorient her.”
I looked from Sally to Isabella and back again.
“Where do you get the drugs?” I asked.
“Nick can be okay when he wants to,” said Isabella, examining her nails. “He’s getting expensive, but he always gets what we ask.”
It all made sense now. All Sally had wanted was revenge, but Nick had inserted himself into this affair when he saw an opportunity to make money.
So Katy’s instincts had been right.
“He gave you the key to Brianna’s room, didn’t he?” I said, turning to Isabella. “So you could find the jewelry and send her aunt a reassuring email. Kill two birds with one stone, except you didn’t find her pendant.”
Isabella gave a nonchalant shrug, like she didn’t care, but her face had turned a slight pink.
“What about that diamond earring?” I asked. “The one you dropped when you came to New York, Sally. Who does it belong to?”
“An Indian student. From a maharaja family or something like that,” replied Isabella, a scornful look on her face. She was trying hard to disguise her discomfort, but I could see right through. She was nervous and didn’t know when to shut up.
Sally glared at her but didn’t say anything.
“How many girls have you targeted so far?” I asked, trying to sort this out in my head.
“It’s not like they can’t afford to buy fancy pieces,” said Sally, her face hardening even more. “They go to Tiffany’s as often as I go to the corner drugstore.”
“Once the families find out their expensive pieces go missing in this school, won’t they complain? That would ruin the school’s reputation.”
Sally’s eyes flashed.
I hit a nerve. I was finally getting at the truth.
“Why do you think I agreed to Nick helping me?” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I want Martha May to know what it’s like to have no one care for her stupid school,” said Sally, her face dark and angular. “I want her to feel alone. I want her to feel the shame and anger of losing everything she lived for.”
“You want the school to shut down and for her to lose her job,” I said, as the picture became clearer in my mind. “That would break Martha May. This school is her whole life. Once that’s gone, she’ll…”
“Die with shame. A miserable and lonely death.”
I stared at Sally.
I’d been blinded by Martha May’s selfish personality, and Ruby and Tom’s sickening midnight capers, so much so that I’d thought one of them had been behind all this.
They were all morally bankrupt, but I was now sure the killers I was searching for weren’t them.
“It was you who killed Sam,” I said, keeping my voice even.
“He knew about this place,” she replied. “I didn’t want anyone coming here. This is where Clara is buried.”
“But he kept quiet for years.”
“He was scared of Martha,” said Sally, scowling. “Too scared to make waves, but he knew too much, and he was going to talk to you. I couldn’t have that.”
“And Cathy?” I said, feeling numb. “How did she die?”
“That was easy,” said Isabella. “Sally put some cyanide in her Mickey Mouse mug and she falls down like a dead tree.”
So Sally was in the kitchen. Did Nick see her there? Was he protecting her?
“But why did Cathy have to die?” I asked. “Whatever did she do to you?”
“She knew what those girls did to me and Clara,” said Sally, venom creeping into her voice again. “Always wringing her hands, like she was everyone’s friend, trying to do good, but she never helped us when we needed her.”
“You asked her for help the day Clara was murdered?”
“I cried and begged and pleaded,” said Sally, tears coming down her cheeks. “She never cared for us. Said she was too scared to do anything. Said she didn’t have any power to help us.”
“No one has power in the school,” said Isabella. “Except for precious Martha May.”
“What about Jayden?” I said. “What did he do to you? He wasn’t around when you were students.”
“Did you have a crush on him or something?” said Isabella, sticking her tongue out at me.
I ignored her.
“He was nosing around too much,” replied Sally. “He found this place. Said he was on a hike one weekend, but he was snooping.”
“He came here?” I said in surprise.
“I told him to not tell anyone. I told him what happened to Clara. I even showed him the grave. But I caught him looking in the window. I swear he saw Brianna.”
“Did he threaten to tell Martha?”
“He didn’t like her. He didn’t trust her. Was scared of her like everyone else.”
“He got fired the morning he died,” I said. “He was no longer a threat to you.”
“Sure, he kept his mouth shut while he was here,” said Sally. “But I knew he’d talk soon as he left the school. I couldn’t have him do that.”
Chapter Sixty-one
“It was you who shot Jayden,” I said, as the puzzle pieces snapped into place. “It was you who took the old guard’s gun, and it was you who shot him in the head.”
Sally blinked rapidly and looked away.
“But who rammed him with the truck? You were at school when that happened, and so were Tom and the principal,” I continued, talking more to myself than her. “That leaves Ruby, Nick, or someone else who was missing from school at that time.”
A rustle in the corner made me turn.
Brianna had woken up and was trying to sit, moving lethargically, like she was pushing through water.
“Hey, honey,” I said. “Are you okay?”
She pulled herself upright and looked around groggily, clutching the sheet to her chest. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.
“We’ll get you home soon,” I said. “Just hang in tight, okay?”
“I wanna go home,” replied the girl in a croaky voice, like she hadn’t had a sip of water for days.
“Why don’t you let her go?” I said, turning to Sally.
“Why the hell would I?” said the woman, glowering at the girl, then back at me.
“Why should she pay for what her aunt did to your friend?” I said. “She never hurt you. Do you think that’s fair?”
“Life’s never been fair to me,” she snarled.
“Please?” whispered Brianna, still disoriented, giving me a pleading look with her dazed eyes.
“My foster parents kicked me out of home at eighteen when they stopped getting social services,” said Sally, ignoring the girl’s pleas. “Not like they cared. Do you know how I took care of myself?”
I shook my head.
“I scrounged in the bins behind Walmart for scraps of food and I slept on the streets for four whole months. I worked three jobs to put myself through college.” She gave a disgusted look Brianna’s way. “To them, I’m nothing. Clara’s nothing.”
Sally wiped her face with the back of one hand, which was still holding her revolver.
“The only reason Martha hired me was because she felt guilty. All I had to do was drop Clara’s name when I came to talk to her, and I got the job. She knew I knew.”
“Sally, why don’t you let Brianna go, and we’ll figure out how to bring justice to Clara,” I said.
“Justice? As if anyone’s going to care for a lost orphan who died almost ten years ago.”
“You can ask for an inquest to start.”
“An inquest?” she spat the words out. �
��Ten years later? You think that will ever happen?”
“There are many other avenues we can explore, all of them better than keeping a kid captive. Keeping Brianna here is only going to hurt your case. Who knows, if you let her go, even Martha may try to help you, if for nothing else, to save her own reputation.”
“Ha! If you think that woman’s going to lift a finger for me, you’re dumber than I thought.”
“That’s what I said,” came Isabella’s snarky voice from the side.
“You think anyone will care one iota about what happened to Clara so long ago?” said Sally, one hand waving in the air, still clutching that gun.
“I was near the lake the day after Clara died. I was crying under a tree. Martha didn’t see me, but I heard her and the police chief in the glass house. She told him to wrap up the investigation quickly so the semester can continue without a scandal. She gave him an envelope. I saw it. Sam saw it too. You think I didn’t know what was in it?”
She glared at me.
“She told him Clara was a runner. A runner! Can you believe it? Do you think that too?”
“No,” I said, with a shake of my head.
“That was such a bare-faced lie so the school’s reputation won’t get muddied. If they only knew. If they knew Becky Madison and her bitches killed her….”
Sally broke into sobs.
No one spoke for a while.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Katy’s hands were still behind her back but she was no longer making cutting motions. She caught my eye and gave me an imperceptible nod.
She’s free.
Sally still had two weapons on her, but her arms lay limp by her side now, as she sobbed and swayed in place.
I had to think fast.
Katy was ready and had her Tanto knife.
Brianna was awake.
I turned to Isabella.
“Can you get some tissues for Sally?”
Making a surly face, she pushed away from the wall and stomped over to a side cabinet to pull out a roll of toilet paper.
Isabella shoved the roll in front of the older woman’s face. I waited for Sally to blow her nose and catch her breath.
“Hey,” I said, softening my voice. “I get how you feel about Martha May. She treats us horribly too. We’ve seen how she talks to her staff. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you when you were a student here.” I paused. “I believe you, Sally.”
Merciless Crimes: A Thrilling Closed Circle Mystery Series (Merciless Murder Mystery Thriller) Page 25