“Just like I remember,” Jessie muttered under her breath.
“What was that?” Kyle demanded sharply.
“Oh, I was just saying that you’re behaving just like I always remembered,” she said, directing her attention to Hannah. “It looks like prison didn’t change him that much. He was always so pleased with himself when he came up with a plan and he simply had to share every detail, whether you cared or not.”
She heard Kyle inhale deeply and knew he was struggling to maintain control. But she also knew he wouldn’t take his next step until he was back in his happy, calculating place. He wanted this to go perfectly. And that meant staying cool. His efforts to regain that cool meant a temporary delay in enacting whatever his plan was. And every delay meant more time for her to find a way out of this. That is, unless he lost it completely and just shot them all.
“How well you know me, my love,” he said, seething under the charming surface. “Just like how you knew me so well when I was killing people and framing you for it, all the while sharing your bed, even knocking you up.”
The memory of just how easily Kyle had played her, how much he’d hurt her during that time, came back in a rush, threatening to overwhelm her. For two years now, she’d blocked out how her own husband had poisoned her, leading to a miscarriage.
Stay focused. Don’t let him manipulate you.
“Not so quippy now, are we?’ he said viciously, before the veneer of coolness returned again.
Hannah shifted on the ground and one of the plates slipped off her mid-back, clanging loudly but not breaking as it hit the hardwood floor.
“Tricky, isn’t it?” he said to her before returning his attention to Jessie. “Here’s how it’s going to go, no matter how much you try to stall by getting me worked up. There’s going to be a horrific scene when folks arrive here tomorrow and it will all be your doing, dearest Jessie.”
“Pray tell,” she taunted. “What’s the genius plan it only took two years behind bars to come up with?”
Kyle’s face contorted and before he could stop himself, the words came out through desperately gritted teeth.
“Shut the hell up or I’ll cut to the chase and slit the girl’s throat right in front of you,” he hissed. “You’re ruining it!”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, realizing her ex-husband wasn’t as unruffled as he seemed. She couldn’t push too hard.
“Thank you,” he said politely before continuing. “You’ve had a rough stretch of late. You smack-talked your superiors in the department and went on a racist screed on Facebook. You were investigated for abusing your own sibling, who was entrusted to your care. You’re dependent on heavy pain medication for nasty burns. Your mentor was murdered, a crime you couldn’t solve. And to top it all off, your ex-husband, who allegedly tried to kill you, was released from prison, sending you into a tailspin of paranoia.”
Jessie didn’t mention that the first two items on his list were his doing and that she’d been exonerated on both counts, even if the public hadn’t fully accepted that. Nor did she note that neither of the next two allegations was accurate. She rarely took the pills and Garland’s killer was sitting in front of her now. Only the last claim had the ring of truth to it.
Kyle smiled cruelly, knowing he’d drawn blood. He happily continued.
“One could understand how that cascading series of events could send you into a deep depression, one you might not be able to pull out of. Friends and colleagues, looking back, would probably wish they’d seen the signs that fateful night, when you returned home, beaten down, in pain, and mourning. You decided it was just too much to bear. They’d be devastated but perhaps not surprised to learn that you killed your own sister and boyfriend, before trying to end your own, now-meaningless life. The note would explain it all.”
Jessie took it all in. It was quite a clever plan, almost poetic in a way. If he could pull it off, it would be quite a coup. He would actually be successfully enacting the scheme he’d plotted once before, when he killed his mistress and tried to pin it on Jessie. Two years later, he’d have completed an even more elaborate version, with her going to jail for not one murder, but two. And not for killing a stranger but instead the two people closest to her.
“That’s pretty good,” she conceded, replying not out of any genuine admiration but because if she didn’t speak, she feared she might scream. “But I was confused by one thing. You said I ‘try’ to end my own life? Do I not succeed?”
“That’s still TBD,” he admitted. “I’m thinking that after I kill Hannah and Ryan, I’ll ‘help’ you take your remaining pain pills. There are a lot of them left. After the one you took tonight, there are still seventeen. I’m no doctor but I’d imagine that could kill you. Or maybe result in permanent brain damage, or not. It doesn’t really matter that much.”
“It doesn’t?” Jessie repeated, legitimately surprised.
“Nope,” he said, pleased that he seemed to have stumped her. “Even if you survive and you still have your faculties, what are you going to do, blame it all on me?”
“I would think so.”
“Good luck. Hannah here will have been shot with your gun. I’m thinking I’ll take Ryan out with a knife from your set. The note will reference your paranoid suspicion that your boyfriend and half-sister were having a secret affair. It will serve as a confession from a woman who never expected to live. Even if you do survive, your protestations that your ex-husband somehow secretly snuck into your highly secure condo, despite police protection, and managed to kill your loved ones and frame you for their murders is unlikely to gain much traction.”
“You sure about that?” Jessie countered. “I know some folks in the FBI who might take my view of things.” But even before she finished saying it, her heart sank at the answer she knew was forthcoming.
“That’s the beauty of it. I’m fully aware of the operation your friend Agent Dolan has going, at least through the end of this week. In fact, I counted on it. He might believe your claims of innocence and accusations of my guilt. But that will only make it all the more painful for him when he has to admit that he has the very evidence that disproves your allegation. He’ll have to show the video of ‘me’ asleep in bed thirty-three miles away at the exact time these murders were committed. It’s delicious, don’t you think? What better alibi witnesses could I have than the FBI?”
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
The panic Jessie had been battling since this began reasserted itself.
Kyle was right. If this went as he planned, it would be like a boulder pushed down a hill. Unless you stopped it before it started down, there was no way to slow its momentum until it got to its ultimate destination.
If she didn’t come up with a way out of this now, then in addition to Garland, Hannah and Ryan would be dead, she would be in prison, and Kyle would be free to inflict whatever sociopathic harm on the world he chose.
Then I guess I don’t have a choice. I’ll just have to blow up the boulder before it gets started.
“Kyle, while I’m obviously appalled, I have to admit that your plan is pretty ironclad,” she said, making every effort to keep any hint of insincerity from creeping into her tone. “But I’m a little confused by one part of it.”