Authors: Shannon Curtis
Chapter Thirty-One
Deborah stood in the doorway of Gavin’s office, screaming her head off. Ryan nudged her aside and stepped in, but halted at the sight that met his eyes.
Hank stood to the side of the desk, his hands up as he backed away. “I didn’t do anything,” he muttered. Neil stood just inside the doorway, his face turned away.
Gavin Dryden sat in the chair, his head lowered, a silver letter opener stuck in his chest. Blood covered the man’s shirt, looking dark and rusty. He’d been dead for a while.
Deborah was still screaming. Ryan turned around to bark something at her, but Vicky was there, putting her hand on her arm.
“Deborah. Deborah! Stop.” Her voice was low, calm. Deborah stopped screaming, the silence abrupt until Meagan James came up to the door. She gasped when she saw inside the office.
“Oh, dear God.” She crossed to Neil and buried her face in his shirt.
Ryan’s face twisted in a grimace. That was...nasty. It reminded him of the crime scene photos from Karl Kruger’s murder. Multiple stab wounds, a weapon of opportunity.
The Maxwells.
“We need to call the sheriff,” Ryan said quietly.
Vicky nodded and stepped outside the office, toward the reception area.
The other guests crowded around the doorway, making noises of shock and horror. Someone puked. Elliot, Ryan thought.
“Who saw him last?” Ryan asked, looking at the group at large.
Neil shook his head. “I hadn’t seen him this morning. I assumed he’d slept in. He does that sometimes.”
Meagan lifted her head, tears running down her face. “I saw him late last night. I was leaving my office and he was just walking into his.” She shrugged. “He said he had to catch up on some paperwork.” Her eyes darted to the corpse in the chair and she shuddered.
“I haven’t seen him since the session yesterday afternoon,” Kurt said, and the others nodded.
Ryan’s lips firmed. Someone was lying.
Meagan gasped. “You don’t think it was one of the staff, do you? They’ve all left.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “The killer got away.”
Vicky returned to the doorway, her face pale. Ryan frowned and crossed over to her. “What’s wrong?”
“The phone lines are dead. All of them.”
Deborah wailed.
“It’s probably the storm,” Neil said. “It’s pretty brutal outside.”
Ryan looked around the group. They were stranded. Shut up at the top of a mountain in the middle of a blizzard, with killers on the loose. Great. One look at Vicky’s face told him she’d grasped the consequences just as quickly as he had.
Hank shook himself. “Okay, everyone, let’s clear the room. Nobody touch anything,” he said as he tried to herd everyone out. Ryan arched an eyebrow.
“I used to be a deputy,” Hank reminded him. “This is a crime scene.” Ryan knew the drill, and nodded.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Margie said, and clapped her hands over her mouth. She ran down the hallway.
“I’ll go help her,” Jennifer said, and followed her.
“Me, too,” Meagan said, and disappeared.
“We should get everyone back to the lounge and question them,” Ryan told him.
Hank’s eyes narrowed. “I guess we do. How did you know that?”
Ryan shrugged. “That’s what they do on TV. Seems obvious to me.” He met Vicky’s wary gaze. They had to get everyone in the same room, and hopefully uncover who had murdered Gavin Dryden.
Kurt started to turn away, but halted as something caught his eye. “Wait a minute.”
He crossed over to the credenza. The door was wide open, affording a clear glimpse inside.
“Son of a bitch!”
Ryan blew his cheeks out when he saw the contents. A digital recorder sat on one of the shelves, with piles of flash drives stacked neatly on the side. Ryan stepped closer, as did Hank. Each drive had name on it.
“What are these?” Kurt asked.
“They’re recordings,” Hank muttered, bending over to look inside. He let out a low whistle. “There’s even stuff in here with my name on it, but I never sat with Gavin. My session was with Neil.”
Kurt swore. “He’s the one!” he shouted at Paula, who held up her hand.
“It looks that way, baby,” she said, trying to soothe him. Kurt paced a little, like a caged tiger that wanted to rip something to shreds.
Ryan frowned. “What do you mean, he’s the one?”
“Nothing,” Kurt snapped.
Ryan crossed his arms, bulking up his physique. “Try again,” he suggested coolly. “The man is dead, and you seem to know something about him, something personal.”
Kurt put his hands on his hips. “I don’t need to tell you jack,” the man said belligerently.
Ryan shrugged. The man was big, but he’d learned over the years that the bigger they were, the faster they cracked. “Fine.” He squatted down and rifled through the drives until he could pull a few with Kurt and Paula’s names on them.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Kurt protested.
“You can either tell us, or we find out another way,” Ryan said.
Kurt put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder to stop him.
Ryan grabbed the guy’s hand and flipped it over, yanking him down hard and fast. Kurt cried out as he fell to his knees, trying to keep his thumb from breaking.
“Don’t ever touch me,” Ryan said mildly. “So, what’s it going to be? We listen to all of these recordings, hear everything, or you tell us what we want to know.”
“Fine, fine,” Kurt gasped. “Someone’s been blackmailing me. It was something I mentioned to Paula in private, so I couldn’t figure out how anyone else knew.”
Hank approached, standing over them. “What was it?”
“I...” Kurt grimaced, “I forced a girl to have sex with me once.”
“You mean you raped her,” Hank corrected, frowning fiercely. Ryan twisted the thumb he held just a little harder.
“Ow, no! All right, yes.”
Ryan let him go, flinging his arm away in disgust. There was no excuse for forcing yourself on a woman. Ever.
He rose to his feet, and Kurt clutched his hand to his chest, panting. Ryan started toward the door. “Let’s get everyone back to the lounge.” It was crunch time. He had to find which one of these couples was the Maxwells.
“You make me sick,” Hank said.
“I know,” Kurt said in a small voice. “You told me that at the time.”
Ryan paused, tilting his head to the side.
Huh?
Hank frowned. “What?”
“You were the one who questioned me.”
* * *
Jade held the stall door open as Margie threw up her breakfast. Odd, how people could do the cruelest things, yet still be so squeamish.
She eyed the other woman in the bathroom as she ran water over some paper towels and hurried back to the hunched over Margie.
Oh
,
be still my bleeding heart
.
Jade smiled coolly as the woman held the damp towels to the back of Margie’s neck. She was a complication. Jade wanted some alone time with Margie, and this woman stood in the way. Well, she’d deal with her, then with Margie. Excitement rose in her, and she had to bite her lips on a giggle.
“How’s that?” the woman asked Margie. Margie nodded weakly before she bent over the toilet to heave again. The woman stood back and grimaced, backing out of the stall.
Jade adopted a sympathetic expression. “We might need more to clean her face,” she suggested.
The woman nodded and turned to the sink.
Jade stuck her foot out, and the woman tripped as she passed. Her arms flailed as she tried to regain her footing, and she knocked her head with a sick thunk against the sink under the mirror, collapsing senseless to the floor.
Jade blinked.
That had been easier than she thought it would be. She was expecting a fight. She shook her head. Sometimes the simplest ways were best.
Margie started to straighten, and Jade moved quickly. She grabbed Margie by her chignon. Margie cried out in surprise and tried to stand up. Jade grappled with her, forcing her head lower.
“How fitting. You flushed my life down the toilet, now I get to flush yours,” she said through gritted teeth.
She shoved Margie’s head into the toilet, pushing it below the sickly mess she’d made of it. Margie struggled, batting her arms back over her head, scratching at the hands that held her head.
Jade smiled. This was like a baptism. Washing away the sins of the woman. At least then she’d be clean. Jade’s eyes narrowed. Jade, on the other hand, would never be clean. When Margie did what she did, her parents had looked at Jade with revulsion, as though she was some cheap, dirty whore. They were shamed by her. They, like everyone, had believed Margie, not Jade.
Jade’s hand tightened, and she pulled Margie’s head from the porcelain bowl.
“Please, stop,” Margie spluttered, trying to brace herself against the toilet rim. Discolored liquid dripped down her cheeks and chin, and her mascara made grotesque dark streaks down her face.
“Funny, that’s what I said at the time,” Jade said conversationally. “No, please, stop,” she sang in a little-girl voice. Jade’s lips twisted, and she shoved Margie’s head down again, into the sick refuse that filled the bowl. The gross mess didn’t perturb Jade. She’d seen much, much worse after she’d left college. She’d become the very thing her parents had accused her of. All those nights on the streets, spreading her thighs for any man who wanted a piece of her and was willing to pay for it, knowing she was better than them, but needing the money, frustrated at her own helplessness.
All those disgusting things she’d done. A cheap and filthy slut, her father had called her.
But not Simon. No, Simon loved her. Always and forever. He’d rescued her, pulled her out of the slums. Cleaned her up and dried her out. He understood her. Completely. It hadn’t been her fault. It was Margie’s fault. Margie, and the others. Thank God for Simon.
He’d come up with the whole idea, really, that night when he found her in the bathtub. He’d saved her life with his plan. She didn’t know what she’d do without her hero. She was doing this for Simon, for her. For all the years of pain this woman had caused. She and Simon weren’t victims anymore. No. They were getting their own back, stealing back what had been stolen from them.
“You’re not going to tell any more lies,” Jade rasped. She felt like God, all-powerful. She was like a divine retribution. Strong. Determined. Disciplined.
She frowned as she glared down at the back of the woman’s head. No, this wasn’t good enough. She couldn’t see the life leave her eyes. She wanted Margie to know. She wanted to see Margie’s fear, her despair. Just like she’d feared and despaired, that night long ago.
Bitch
.
She hauled Margie from the bowl and flung her back out of the stall. Margie landed roughly on the tiled floor. She coughed, big, hoarse, racking coughs, spewing filth and water from her mouth.
“Please, stop,” Margie said weakly, holding her arms up as if she stood a chance of defending herself.
“How does it feel, Margie? Nobody here to help you. All alone.” Jade followed her down on to the tiled floor, straddling Margie’s wet body. “You brought this on yourself.”
“Why are you doing this?” Margie sobbed, trying to bat Jade’s hands away as Jade grasped the woman’s head.
“Don’t lie to me now, Margie. You know what you did.” How could she still act innocent? Didn’t she know that Jade knew better? She lifted the woman’s head and slammed it back against the hard floor. Margie cried out. Jade wanted Margie to admit it, to plead with her, to apologize to her. She wanted Margie’s confession. “Tell the truth, damn it!”
“What did I ever do to you?” Margie wailed, trying to fight her off.
Jade frowned. “You lied, damn it. You ruined my life!” She slammed the woman’s head again, feeling a satisfactory crunch of bone. If she hadn’t spread her toxic lies, Jade’s life would have been completely different. It was Margie’s fault.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Margie gasped weakly, her trembling hands clutching at Jade’s sleeves. Jade froze.
No.
Oh
,
no
. Her face. Damn it. Jade slammed her head again. She leaned closer.
“Look at me, damn it. Look at me.” Surely she would sense who she was dealing with?
Margie hiccupped, her gaze blank. She didn’t recognize her.
“You told them I asked for it,” Jade said, her voice low and guttural, hurting her throat as she forced the sound out. “You told everyone that I wanted him to do that to me.”
Margie’s head was shaking, and it took Jade a moment to realize it was her own hands that were trembling. Margie frowned and looked up at her, blinking sluggishly.
She still doesn’t get it
. Jade firmed her lips and let go of the woman’s head to raise her hands to her own face. Damn it. She faintly touched the scar that trailed down her hairline. At this moment, she hated her new face, hated the triumph it had stolen from her. “Think Berkeley. Do you know who I am now, Margie?”
Margie blinked, and her head lolled from side to side as she tried to shake her head, tears streaming down her face.
“No,” she cried.
Jade slapped her across a cheek with vicious force. “Yes, you do. I’m Jade, Margie. Jade. Remember me? You told everyone I liked it when Mike raped me. That I asked for it.” Rage welled up in her as she remembered that night, of Mike’s hand across her mouth, covering her cries as he assaulted her. She remembered Margie’s face as she’d stumbled out of the bedroom, trying to make her way past the other partygoers. She remembered Margie’s disgust.
Margie screwed up her face. “I—I don’t understand.”
Jade hit her head against the floor again, because the stupid woman was pissing her off. “You went to a frat party. You saw Mike drag me into a bedroom, and you told everyone I wanted it, that I liked him.”
Jade leaned closer. “You lied.”
Tears tracked down Margie’s temples as she gazed up at Jade with glazed eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Jade sat back for a moment. She’d apologized. She’d said she was sorry. Jade tilted her head, frowning as she considered the woman beneath her. Her face was a mess, blotchy, speckled with muck, stained with mascara. Her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils were tiny fixed points in a sea of murky brown. She was a broken woman, so far removed from the ice princess of their college days.