CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE MOLLY #2
I inclined my head. “I would’ve cared thirty minutes ago.
I would’ve been jealous, not insecure, but yeah, jealous because you’re insanely gorgeous.
Or I would’ve started that way, then shut down and blocked it off until either Ashton noticed or one of my friends noticed and gave me a pep talk that I do, in fact, ooze amazingness.
Also, so you know, I’m not normal. I don’t waste energy on being down in the dumps.
I mean, yes; thirty minutes ago, I might’ve considered booking a day in the Misery Airbnb, but that was thirty minutes ago.
” I motioned around the room, doing it with my gun, the one Ashton gave me.
“Thirty minutes ago, Ashton told me he loved me. And thirty minutes ago, the place where all my loved ones are at is under fire. Someone broke in here, and they shot guns at people I loved. That was thirty minutes ago. Whatever this is”—I motioned between her and me—“I don’t give a fuck about. ”
Her eyes caught on it and held. She frowned, a little bit.
There. Right there. She was looking at the gun, and she was annoyed. That was it.
She wasn’t scared, but she’d been a whole lot of scared when Ashton first showed up with the gun and barking orders. Now, she was cozying up to me for what?
I gestured to her with my free hand. “What are you doing?”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” Nea said.
And at the same time Nurse Sloane whispered, “Nea.”
I frowned at Nurse Sloane, who was standing by the back desk and looking down at a pile of pictures. Then my phone started ringing.
Thinking it was Ashton, I pulled it out as I got up. “We’re safe—”
“Get out of there! Now!”
Not Ashton. I had to look at the screen, seeing the unknown-caller identification. “Dad?”
He cursed. “I’m coming to you. Did you have to go so far fucking north of the city? Get out of there. Now!”
“Dad? What are you—are you driving here?” But I was moving to Nurse Sloane because she wouldn’t stop staring at whatever was on Ashton’s desk.
“I got everything, honey. Everything. I know who’s behind everything.”
“You know who killed Kelly?”
Everyone’s head snapped in my direction.
“What?” a few asked.
I was ignoring them, only focusing on my dad. “Do you know who killed Kelly and Justin? That’s what I asked you to find out, remember?”
“Honey—”
The line went dead.
“Dad?” I waited, but nothing. The call was gone.
“Was that your dad?” Sophie had come over, her eyes on my phone.
I tucked it away. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What was he saying?”
I frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, but—”
“If she doesn’t want to talk about her dad, especially in these circumstances, leave her alone.” Pialto moved up, touching Sophie’s arm, his gaze on me. He steered Sophie away. They went back to the desk Nurse Sloane had been studying so intently.
I nodded, letting him know I was fine, but I wasn’t. I was suddenly so tired. And worried.
Ashton was still out there. Jess. Trace. It’d been quiet except for an occasional gunshot, and quiet again. I couldn’t handle the silence. I felt like my skin wanted to come off my bones.
“Your father knows who killed Kelly? Jess’s friend?” The question came from Nea, who was staring at my gun.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She lifted her gaze to me, her eyes narrowed, focused. “That’s what he was trying to find out? Who killed them?”
I frowned at her. “Yeah. Why?”
“Nea.” Nurse Sloane was coming around the desk, fixated on her friend. “Don’t—”
Nea shook her head, her eyes looking a little panicked. “He knows. He knows, Sloane.”
“Nea, don’t—”
Her voice hitched up. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
She’d said that before. My body went cold at her words. “What wasn’t?”
“Um ...,” Pialto said from behind me. “What are these?”
“What?” I glanced back. He was staring at the desk, at the pictures there.
Nurse Sloane stepped away, coming toward me. Her face was stricken. Pale, like she’d seen a ghost. “Nea.” Her voice was so low, like a warning.
“Molly.” From Pialto again, more insistent, more alarmed. “These. What are these?”
I held up a hand. “One second.”
Something was happening. Something between Sloane and Nea.
Something ... why did my stomach take a nosedive?
Dread started lining my insides.
“Molly!” Pialto said it again, sharper.
I looked his way, seeing he was holding a picture, and he was slowly lifting it. “What is this?”
“It’s—uh—Ashton brought pictures for me to look at.”
But the picture he was holding up to me. His eyes were darting from it to Nea and back again. A deep frown on his face.
That picture.
He kept looking from it to Nea and back.
He was confused, but me—dread was lining my organs.
The room was suddenly shrinking in size.
I felt the ground starting to shake under me. It was going to get pulled out from under my feet. I knew it. I felt it coming. I was transfixed by that photo Pialto was holding up. I couldn’t make it out, not all the details, but it was of a woman. Red dress.
It was the woman from outside of Octavia.
It was the picture I’d been looking for, and Pialto had it.
And he was staring, confused, at Nea.
The dots were slowly connecting. Horror began to fill me.
I began to turn, slowly, feeling as if I were moving in mud.
His eyes were jerking from me to the picture to Nea and back again, and again, and again. “I feel like this is important. Why do I feel that? Why do you have a picture of her ?” He nodded at Nea.
But Nea was saying right next to me, as if he hadn’t spoken, as if she hadn’t even heard him, “None of this was supposed to happen how it did. None of it. I fell in love, and I shouldn’t have, but I did.
He’s a bad guy. I’m trying to tell you, to explain because I was hurting after Ashton.
You have to see that. You have to understand that.
When you’re so lonely, and then you think you’re getting sunshine, only to have that sunshine taken away .
.. you’ll do things to replace it. Things you’re not proud of. Things you regret.”
“Nea!” That was Nurse Sloane.
Pialto’s gaze was solely focused on Nea.
She added, also a whisper, “He’s not the good guy.”
“What?” I was so confused. “What are you talking about, Nea?”
She looked torn, looking at me. Stricken. “I thought I loved Ashton, but he ripped my heart out and then—my guy came after, and he filled me up, but I was wrong. My guy filled the void that Ashton had left behind. I think ...”
My bad feeling turned into dread.
“Nea,” Sloane hissed again.
Nea wasn’t even seeing her. She wasn’t seeing Pialto. I didn’t think she was even seeing me anymore. It was like she was seeing something else, someone else.
I held my hand straighter, now moving away, turning. Walking backward. Putting space between Nea and me, holding my gun firmly. The safety was still on.
I didn’t want to take it off.
I needed to be safe. Smart.
People I loved were outside, but people I loved were in here.
Nea was almost talking to herself, her head looking down.
“I was so stupid, but I was a doctor. And my parents. I wanted to make them so proud of me. I worked so hard for them. I was ambitious. Naive. Trace’s father came in, and no one seemed concerned about how he ended up in the ER.
I raised the question, asking if I should call the police.
The next day, my patient is gone and Ashton was flirting with me in a coffee shop. ”
Oh, god. Ashton. My heart sank.
She kept on, a second tear falling, “I had no life in medical school. Undergrad. Med school, biology, chemistry, anatomy and physiology, none of it came naturally to me. I had to study, for hours. I didn’t go to parties on the weekends.
I didn’t get wasted after my finals. I studied for the next exam, the next class.
I studied ahead, and it’s all moot now, but I need you to understand. ”
I blinked, looking around, but it seemed she was solely focused on me. “Understand what?”
I was trying to understand what she was telling me, even if it wasn’t making sense. She was saying something . I had to figure it out.
“I was lonely. Sometimes, you get so lonely . You sacrifice so much. Give up so much, and then you get a glimpse at something you never had, and you only want that . I only wanted that. To not be lonely. When Ashton asked me out, I fell for him. I didn’t know better.
I couldn’t read the signs that he wasn’t into me, that he was using me.
I’m so pissed at myself for caring, for still caring.
” She closed her eyes, and she almost started talking to herself.
“He showed up again, but not to ask for another date. He educated me”—she was sounding bitter—“on who he was. On who Trace was. On how I should never call the police if any of their victims end up in the hospital, or I’d learn the true meaning of what Mafia meant.
He intended to scare me, but he just hurt me.
I asked around, learned the real deal about the mob.
They exist. They operate where I work. I needed to get with the program.
I learned. I got with the program. I never told a soul.
I never raised another alarm about anyone who mysteriously showed up when the security cameras were on the fritz, or when there was a look from one nurse to the other.
It’s always the same look. The same knowing look.
Sloane wears it in eighty different shades.
The nurses always know.” She looked at Nurse Sloane. “You always knew.”
“Nea.” Nurse Sloane took a step toward her, saying softly, “Please stop.” A lone tear slipped down her face.
Nea was shaking her head, her eyes not in this room. They were elsewhere, seeing something else or seeing someone else. A tortured expression was deep in her gaze. “I can’t. It’s too late, Sloane. It’s been too late for too long.”
“Molly, why do you have this picture here?” Pialto hissed, holding the picture. His entire arm was stretched toward me, straining. “I really, really feel like you need to answer me, and I don’t know why, but I do.”
Sophie was frowning, inching closer to see the picture.
Sloane looked, and her entire face blanched before she focused back on Nea.
Everything was happening in slow motion. Slow, but I wasn’t fast enough.
What was going on?
The picture. Ashton told me he brought the rest of the pictures here, if I wanted to keep looking, because we still didn’t know who that woman was.
I just hadn’t gotten through that group of pictures.
Sloane looked like she was going to have a heart attack, and then, the dots were connecting faster.
There was a sudden barrage of gunfire.
I jumped, swinging my gun toward the door, but cursed and lowered it again. Pialto and Sophie both screamed. Sloane almost collapsed to the ground, shaking her head, repeating Nea’s name over and over again.
But Nea—she was looking at her phone.
Her screen flashed.
All of that happened at the same time before she looked up, met my gaze.
An expression flashed over her face. Regret? Then she blanked. A wall slammed back down over her, and she turned for the door.
No ...
I began raising my gun. “No—”
Sloane’s head lifted, and she began to stand again.
No. No. No!
“Nea!” I yelled, lifting my gun all the way up.
She ignored me, rushing to the door.
“Don’t open that door!”
She did, pushing it open.
A hand reached in from outside, grabbing it, and it swung the rest of the way open.
I took my safety off. At the same time a man I didn’t know walked inside.
He had a creepy smile on his face, with his slicked-back hair. A tight black long-sleeved shirt and dark pants. I kept the gun up even as I was noticing the gun he was holding. One that had a long silencer barrel clipped on top. “You’re Molly Easter?”
Recognition hit me in the gut. I didn’t know this guy, but I knew this guy.
He introduced himself. “I’m Nicolai Worthing.”