He was dead weight. Not dead, but unable to move on his own.
I heaved his arm over my shoulder, Arthur doing the same on the other side. We shuffled out of the room, turning left rather than right.
“Shouldn’t we go that way?” Every muscle in my body was shaking. I could hardly hold myself up let alone carry the weight of Eddie. I kicked something that skittered across the floor. A gun.
“I think that’s Eddie’s gun.” I started to move but Arthur had it in his hand before I could get to it.
A low moan came from behind us. Steve.
“Jade, I need to take care of this. Make sure Steve doesn’t get up and come after you again. You’ll need to get Eddie walking. Wake him up and move along this wall, straight down about a hundred paces. You’ll see a stone staircase. Go up and you’ll be safe.”
Another moan, this time it sounded like my name. There was a clatter, like he was trying to get up. Fuck, if anyone could take a blast from a shotgun and get the hell up, it was Steve. I felt a moment of relief that he wasn’t actually dead, which was strange because I kind of wanted to kill him myself.
“Arthur, there’s a kid in the archive room, unconscious, he might be dead too. You need to get help just in case.”
Arthur mumbled something and then let Eddie go, his full weight descending on me. We both slid to the ground. “Just keep moving. I’ll take care of Steve.”
“Eddie!” I shook him. I pinched his cheeks. I even slapped him. “Wake the fuck up!”
“Jade?” He roused, strained to look at me.
“Eddie, I need you to get up and walk with me. We have to get out of here, okay? I can’t carry your weight alone.”
Eddie tried to nod, started hacking and then pulled his legs under himself and pushed. We rose together, him bracing against the wall and me, both of us struggling to move.
I could hear mumbled discussion behind me. Arthur trying to reason with Steve? He’d figure out a way to get Steve subdued, bandage him up. I needed to get Eddie to safety and call for help.
We moved slowly but steadily and finally the staircase that Arthur had told me about came into view. There was a door at the top, light from the room blanketing a pathway forward.
I had a foot on the bottom step when I heard the second shot. It echoed down the passageway. Eddie and I both stopped; we both looked back. My heart thudded painfully. I couldn’t go back there.
“We need to get up these stairs and call for help.” I snapped my head back to the door, focused on my goal. “One foot up, Eddie, come on, help out. We’re almost there.”
With effort I got Eddie almost to the top the stairs when Arthur suddenly appeared, offering his arm for support. We cleared the doorway, stumbling as a group into the warmth.
Confusion crashed into me when I realized where I was. “This is your house!”
Arthur helped me lay Eddie down on the floor in his study. He deposited his shotgun on his desk and closed the bookshelf door to the passageway entrance.
“How are we in your house? Where’s Steve? What the hell is going on, Arthur?”
Arthur grabbed my shoulders. “Honey, you need to trust me, okay? Steve is dead. He got my shotgun away from me and I had to kill him.”
“Oh my god!” I sputtered, my mouth suddenly dry, bile rising. “He’s dead?” Some part of me detached right then and there. I couldn’t believe it. And yet, it was all that I believed.
“I had no choice.” Arthur’s face was pale, drawn, his eyes tearing.
“They’re going to fry you for this.” Dread flooded me. I’d lose them both. Steve and Arthur in one fell swoop. “They’ve been gunning for a reason to throw you in jail!”
“Yes, this certainly doesn’t look good.” Arthur nodded, calm but for the tears glistening in his eyes. “Leave things to me, okay?”
“What can you do? How do we fix this? You can’t make someone undead. They don’t come back. Did you try CPR?” I choked on my words. “Is Steve really gone?”
“He’s gone, Jade.”
I lowered my head, tears fighting for release. My world was ripping apart. My body aching, my heart shredded. “How can we fix this?”
Arthur kissed my cheek, startling me out of my dark thoughts. “Trust me?”
I gulped, looked up at him and nodded. “Yes.” I looked down at Eddie, who was unconscious again. “He needs medical attention.”
“I’ll take care of everything, sweetheart. I need an hour.”
I bit my lip. “I think he’s dying. He can’t wait for an hour.”
“I have a first aid kit in the bathroom upstairs. Go and fetch it. Do what you can. We can’t call the police for a bit, not until I take care of some things.”
“What things?”
Arthur paused, contemplating me. “I found stuff in Steve’s office the other day. Things that could get him into a lot of trouble. I took them, planned on confronting him about it but he’s been avoiding my calls. Now I know why.”
“What kind of things?” I crossed my arms. “Arthur, tell me.”
“It would be better if I showed you, honey.”
36
Eddie didn’t wake up for a week, and there I was, confined to a hospital room again, watching over him. He looked bad. His face was healing but the bruises—the damage that Steve had done—would leave lasting marks. He’d come in and out over the past few days, never fully rousing, mumbling incoherently and moaning. No one could say for certain if Eddie would even wake up the same man as before. Possible brain damage, one doctor had said.
His partner had told me all about the rape charges Eddie had faced. Steve had been right in one regard—Eddie had been running from his past and the police union had been helping him cover it up, just not the way Steve had suggested. Eddie had been at a party. Drinking too much. Off duty. An underage girl who looked older than she was had come on to him. Lured him. Bill gave me enough details so I could hunt down the story. Find pictures of her. See for myself. She’d found religion shortly after Eddie had been cleared and had since gone on to blog a confession of her lies for all to see. Part of a twelve-step program toward cleansing her soul or some shit. Whatever the case, Eddie was no rapist. Steve’s jealousy had blinded him to any other truth.
I was just coming out of the bathroom—not for guest use, I know, but technically I probably should have still been in there myself—when he opened his eyes and moaned out some kind of greeting.
“Eddie!” I tried to contain the thrill at seeing him awake but I just couldn’t. Not when I felt responsible, when I was carrying a lot of guilt about what had happened. And if I was really being honest, I felt damn happy to see some life in him again.
“I’m not dead,” he croaked, trying to smile, wincing when his injuries pulled. “Ouch!”
I leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Which seemed to surprise both of us.
I cleared my throat, feeling my cheeks get hot. “Sorry, got a little excited there.”
He reached out and motioned for my hand, which I gave him because, well, why the hell not? “Don’t apologize. I’m happy to see you again. I thought…” He gulped, shifted his eyes away.
“Yeah, I know. Hey, you want something to drink?”
He seemed lucid, aware, not brain damaged. I sucked a breath and let it slide out slowly.
He nodded as he turned his head back toward me. Relief on his face. I poured some water into a Styrofoam cup and angled the straw so he could sip. He drank the whole thing.
“Better, thanks,” he said with an attempted smile.
“You’ve been out for a week,” I said as I set the cup down. “Wasn’t sure…”
“If I was waking up?” Eddie shifted a little, winced. “Yeah, kinda feels like I shouldn’t be awake right now.”
“You need some pain meds? I can get the nurse.” I jumped up ready to go.
Eddie shook his head. “Nah, not yet. I want to be awake for a bit.”
I sank back into my chair. “Okay.”<
br />
“What happened down there? The last thing I remember was hearing a shot. Is Steve dead?”
I sucked in another deep breath, let it go slowly. My heart hurt. It really did. I’d loved Steve in a fucked up kind of way. I hated him too. But I didn’t want him dead. “He was shot.”
Eddie speared me with a hard look. “Who shot him? You?”
I gulped. “No.” Now was the time for convincing. Follow the story. Remember what Arthur told you. “You did.”
Eddie frowned, his eyes wide. “How the fuck did I shoot him?”
I shrugged, slipped my gaze to his hands. “You’re a hero, Eddie. You saved my life.”
“Jade,” he sounded lost, confused. “I don’t remember anything.”
I looked up, locked eyes with him. “You got your hands free, found your gun and shot him.”
There was more to the story than that. Hours of interviewing by the police after much coaching by Arthur. We’d spun a wicked little tale about Steve, about the attack and about Eddie killing Steve with his service revolver. It was all a lie. But the other version would put Arthur in jail and that was not something I could allow.
As it was, Arthur still had a spotlight on him, but his lawyer was keeping the investigation on the down-low, threatening lawsuit for harassment after so many false accusations in the past. Things were simmering. Evidence was not cooperating, and without Eddie leading the investigation, no one else at the precinct, not even his buddy Bill Bean, wanted to pursue the case any further than they had to.
The reality was that Arthur had killed Steve while they’d struggled over his shotgun. He’d taken out Eddie’s gun and used it to kill Steve. Luckily, it had been Eddie’s gun and not mine that Arthur had used. That was much easier to spin our story around. Arthur had taken care of everything. He’d dug out the slug that had been in Steve’s shoulder and shot him again with Eddie’s gun to cover the track marks. Then he’d dug that one out too in an effort to save the man’s life. Or at least that’s what he told paramedics when they’d arrived. Either way, he’d done enough damage to the wound to prevent forensics from finding traces of his shotgun slug.
He’d taken care of Eddie, too, somehow getting gunshot residue on his fingers. He was a brilliant man. I’d always known that. He’d thought of everything. Had painted Eddie as the big hero detective and had saved himself a prison sentence—me too for being an accomplice. Perhaps it was morally corrupt, but as far as I was concerned, it was the only possible version of the story.
I understood. I supported it. Arthur, on the other hand, was a wreck because of it. Not sleeping. Barely living with himself. He’d broken up with Helen. Gone on leave. Was not functioning. It was scaring me.
The police had swallowed it. They ran with it actually, making connections to the other murders. Even with Kiefer Jones in a holding cell with a supposed confession, it didn’t take much for them to see things differently. It turned out that Steve had links to all of the dead girls beyond the things that Arthur had found, the horrible things that he’d shown me.
Made a ton of sense too. I saw for myself, could testify in fact, that Devin Bells had told me she was being privately tutored by Steve. That they seemed to have some kind of relationship outside of the classroom. I believed it. He’d had sexual relationships with all of the girls at one point or another. I believed that too. My history with him had proven that he had no boundaries when it came to sex and students. The media had gotten a hold of the whole story. Psych Prof taking advantage of his mentoring role, manipulating and sometimes terrorizing young, innocent girls until they had sexual relationships with him. The story was thanks in part to my suggestions and brief statements, which had spun it way out of police control. More girls had come forward claiming sexual aggression from Steve.
With the evidence Arthur and I had planted, the police seemed all too eager to lay it on Steve. It was easy for them too. A nice pre-packed case solved. Kiefer had recanted his confession, saying that he had been in distress and high when he’d made it. His lawyer had argued that without the confession, there was no other evidence tying Kiefer to the crime. And despite their best efforts, they still hadn’t found a crime scene anywhere. Just more false leads. All signs pointed to Steve.
Even so, they hadn’t yet made it official, were probably waiting for Eddie to wake up and see if he could corroborate some of the things we’d said. With the media in a frenzy still, I didn’t think it would take long for the case to be settled for good. There were no holes that I could see and Arthur had handed them their murderer with evidence attached. We’d obliterated Steve’s reputation, but he was dead so what did it matter? A killer was off the campus and everyone felt safe again.
“Your actions ended the life of a murderer,” I said with conviction, with venom. “Steve was responsible for killing those girls.” And fuck if I didn’t feel like a total idiot for not seeing that sooner. Obviously I didn’t know as much about the men in my life as I thought I did. Or perhaps I was just too blind to the reality of violence and danger surrounding me.
Eddie did a double take. “What?” He shook his head. “He wasn’t even on my radar. Not for the murders, anyway.”
“The police found evidence at his house, trophies of some sort. That’s what I read in the paper.” I shrugged, doing my best to feign nonchalance. The trophies had been legit—the things that Arthur had shown me that he’d found in Steve’s office and removed, hoping to counsel Steve into confessing his crimes. But he’d been too late to stop Steve from kidnapping Eddie, too late to prevent the things that happened later. Arthur had the trophies and he’d asked me to help him, so I had. I’d taken the evidence over to Steve’s apartment and planted it while Arthur had done other things to make sure he didn’t go to jail. To make sure that the police saw what they needed to see. We did it methodically, used gloves, made sure we left no trace of ourselves where they shouldn’t be. “All your attention was on Arthur and it was Steve who was evil. I told you, right?” There was an edge to my voice that I tucked back. “Besides, Arthur saved your life too.”
“Arthur did?”
I nodded. “He heard the shots, cut me down, pulled us into his place and called for help.”
“I don’t remember that.” His frown was deep, his eyes moving like he was processing everything I was telling him.
I leaned forward. “He took us through the passageway to his house.”
“And saved my life?”
I nodded.
Eddie leaned back, resting his head on the pillow, closing his eyes. “This is a lot to take in.”
I took Eddie’s hand. “You’re a hero, Eddie. You saved my life.” I kissed his cheek again and smiled when he opened his eyes. “I owe you big time for that.”
He chuckled, the sound ringing with exhaustion. “Damn right you do.”
“I’m sorry about everything.” And I was. I felt a lot of remorse for the role I’d played in it all. I should never have gotten involved with Eddie again. I’d put him in danger and then, in order to save Arthur, I’d left him lying on a blanket in Arthur’s study while we did what we’d needed to do. He could have died many times because of me.
He gave me a sweet smile and stretched his hand to mine. “You don’t have to apologize. I know you care about me. I know that none of this is your fault.”
I nodded. I cared about him. I did.
“I need to rest for a bit.” He closed his eyes again and let out a long sigh. “I’ve got a wicked headache.”
“I’ll let the nurses know.” I stood and gave him another kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got some errands to run. Need to stop by Arthur’s house and check on him. He’s not doing too well with all of this.”
Eddie nodded but didn’t open his eyes. “Come back later, okay? I’d like a few more of those kisses.”
I smiled despite myself. “You can count on it.”
37
I’d texted Arthur on the way over to his place, making sure he was in the mood for a visi
t. His response hadn’t exactly been enthusiastic.
I guess you’d better come.
Not the best sign that he was doing well. And he hadn’t been. With losing Steve… I paused in my thoughts. By killing Steve, he’d cut out a part of his heart. He was suffering a million times more because he’d made a choice. He’d ended a life. It was heavy and my heart ached for the burden he carried. Whatever I could do to ease some of that I would, even if it meant sitting in silence next to him while he stared at the TV.
When the time was right, I’d coax him out of the house. Get him back into shooting. Replace his grief with a distraction. Just as he’d done for me many times before.
I walked into Arthur’s house unannounced. I mean, he knew I was coming and had unlocked the door but I didn’t call out when I got there. I knew where he’d be and headed straight down there to find him.
His living room in the basement held a massive screen TV and surround sound so I wasn’t surprised to hear the boom of music coming from the speakers. The walls were vibrating as I walked down the carpeted stairs.
“Arthur,” I said, raising my voice high enough for him to notice.
He was seated in his leather recliner, the feet rest up. He glanced over at me and tried for a smile. It fell short, big time.
He was watching an old western, a firefight started. He reached over, picked up the remote and muted the sound.
“Are you hungry, Arthur? You want me to pick you up some food?” I sat in the chair on the other side of the room, scanning the area as I did.
The place was a mess. Food wrappers everywhere, beer cans discarded on the floor. It looked like a frat house. Arthur didn’t look too great either. His face was unshaven, dark stubble made him look rough, unkempt. His hair hadn’t been brushed. His eyes were bloodshot.
He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”
“What can I do to help you?” I was lost, uncertain of how to fix this. How to make Arthur see himself as a hero instead of a villain. He’d killed a man, yes, but he’d done it to save me and Eddie and countless other victims that Steve might have gone on to murder.
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