“Stop it. Don’t pretend you didn’t know I was doing something wrong.”
“Why would I? Come on—a seventeen-year-old volunteer sent one measly e-mail asking about a Tylenol-Three stash, which you explained. I mean, I know now you were lying, but I didn’t then. I believed you. I dropped the subject. I didn’t even save the e-mail! You couldn’t have thought you were in any danger.”
But he had. And he’d acted accordingly.
“It was a little more than Tylenol-Three. It was Xanax and Klonopin and Tranxene and benzos and oxy. And that doesn’t count the shit that was already in my system. That was just what I boosted from the Oaks that month.”
She rubbed her eyes. “And you fucked with my drug test.”
“I was sure that would jog your memory.”
“There wasn’t anything to jog!” Wait. Rephrase. “In your e-mail you said you were … God, what was it?”
“Reappropriating.”
“Yes! That. You said the patients didn’t need their meds anymore but you’d pass them down to ones who did need them. Like residents who didn’t have good insurance, or however you put it. And I believed you, Pete! Again: seventeen. Not a medical professional. Stuck in a job I couldn’t quit. Resentful and pissy, as only teenagers can be.” Well, teenagers and cats.
All of which was why Danielle had her very own Volunteer Aide Ava name tag: so they could share a job she’d come to hate. Back in the day, she assumed they’d gotten away with it because they were just that clever. She was now beginning to realize they got away with it because Shady Oaks was just that shitty.
“Not only was it just the one e-mail, you and I never even talked about it face-to-face,” she said slowly, as her rusty brain gave up memories she hadn’t sought in years. “I only knew you to say hi to, and I almost never saw you in person. And being constantly doped on all kinds of bad shit didn’t help matters, did it? So you panicked and killed the other teenage brunette who answered to Ava.” Wrong girl. Wrong job. Wrong life. Wrong choice. “But why now? Why drag all this up a decade later?”
“Unfinished business,” he said shortly. “I left and had no intention of returning. I made something of myself. It was all behind me.”
“Behind you? So I take it you found a good rehab facility in Scotland? What’d you do when you got to step nine? How did you make amends to the Monahans?”
“I didn’t need rehab,” was the short (and grotesquely inaccurate) reply. “And then Captain Bellyflopper made the news, and I realized my mistake.”
Damn you, Internet. And Tom had guessed right again. He’d speculated that Becka had appeared in Ava’s life because she saw the emergency-landing coverage. He was wrong about the person, but right about the impetus.
“So you came back for Danielle’s memorial. You knew about it because it’s your family business. And to test the waters, or whatever.”
“Why are you narrating?”
“It helps me think. So when we talked about Shady Oaks, you assumed I was taunting you. Which is why you sabotaged me. You—” She groaned as another realization hit her. “Computer science. That’s how you fucked up my drug test and got into the airline’s intranet. And you lifted my purse, didn’t you?” She remembered losing track of the thing for a few minutes and then Dennis came from the office and handed it to her. “The night of the memorial?”
“I made copies of everything in your wallet,” he confirmed. “You really shouldn’t keep your passwords on your person.”
“My person is none of your business. And you stole my lotion!” No question, the man was a fucking monster. “Don’t,” she added when he opened his mouth. “I don’t want to know what you put in it. And then you poisoned me.”
“What?”
“Knock it off. You know what you did,” she snapped. “I spent half the night throwing up. Giving me a skin condition was bad enough, but leave my food alone!”
“No, that wasn’t me. Probably something you ate.”
“Oh. Well, okay. But the rest of it: not okay, Pete! Why the hell would you do all that? Risk showing your hand like that?”
“To isolate you. To get you alone.”
She shook her head. “I was never alone, idiot. Even if it took me years to realize. You killed Danielle for nothing, do you understand? Not only was she not going to rat you out, I wasn’t, either. Like I said, I believed you.”
“I couldn’t chance it. Stealing drugs is a felony, even if you’re just robbing the dead and demented to feed your habit. It wouldn’t have just been the Department of Health, it would have been the cops and it would have followed me around for the rest of my life. It would have destroyed me.”
“So you destroyed Danielle instead. And ran.” She hesitated, but took the plunge anyway. “You’re pathetic. Oh, what? I’m supposed to be nice to you? I’m supposed to believe you’re not going to kill me if I flatter you and pretend you don’t disgust me? Please. I know you don’t want me to leave this room under my own power. Anyone who’s ever watched a murder mystery would know that.
“And the worst part, Pete, you fucking piece of shit? I was with Danielle that whole last day! You probably only missed me by an hour or so. And then you showed up and—” It was a day for dawning realizations, apparently. “Trying too hard,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. “That’s what the tech said at the crime scene.” She looked up. “You stabbed her and she bled out—I’ll bet you waited until her back was turned, because you’re a cowardly POS. And once she was down, you got creative—but you overdid it. Just like you overdid it with her ashes. And my drug test. You wanted it to look like a random psycho vagrant. Not the local junkie who stole from the dead and then pissed himself when he thought a teenager was going to get him in trouble.”
“You should talk,” he snapped back.
“Hey: this junkie never robbed a dead nursing home resident, didn’t pull an over-the-top murder to cover my theft, and didn’t flee like a fucking coward only to skulk back and play petty tricks to lure me into an ‘alone with the psycho’ moment.”
“It wasn’t exactly fun times for me, either. I threw up in two Ziploc bags.”
“Jesus Christ. What’d you do with Dennis?”
“Why is everyone worried about Dennis?” Pete had the gall to sound wounded, which was as offensive as it was hilarious. “I have no idea where that idiot is.”
“You—you don’t?”
“I needed to get you alone. Why the hell would I want Dennis Monahan hanging around?”
“But you had his cell.”
“I found his cell. And the whole thing was taking too long, so I used it. I’ve got a life to get back to, y’know.”
Wow. He really thinks that. Unreal. And why hasn’t someone walked in or called in the last five minutes?
“So I called his little girlfriend,” Pete continued. “He doesn’t lock his phone, can you believe it?”
“You’re right. This is taking too long. So what now? I’m here. My bodyguard’s down for the count.”