25. Chloe
Chloe
Barry—that pest of a reporter—lingers at the edge of my property line, snapping pictures and calling out to me and Colin as we stand at the top of my driveway.
“Chloe! Can I get a quote on your mother’s appeal? Do you think she’ll be released?” Snap. Flash.
“Colin, are you dating the Baby Widow?” Click. Flash.
Colin winces when the name hits his ears, meeting me with a look that screams regret. I picture it now, tomorrow’s headline as Colin interlaces his fingers with mine: Baby Widow Makes a Baby with Murder’s Most Eligible Bachelor.
My gaze falls to our hands, and I let out a chuckle. “What?” Colin asks, ducking his head to find my gaze.
Shaking my head, I lift it to meet his eyes again. “Nothing. Was just thinking about tomorrow’s headline.”
“Murder’s Most Eligible Bachelor proposes to Baby Widow?”
“I was thinking Makes a Baby.” I laugh when Colin’s eyes widen. “Anyway,” I clear my throat nervously, “I hope you have a good rest of your day.”
He releases my hand, picking up the canvases from the ground where they lean against my front door. “Don’t leave the house.”
I take the paintings from his hand, hoping to distract him with movement and feigned innocence. “I have plans with Maeve and Stella,” I lie. I wonder what he’d say if I said I had lives to save. Lives to take.
I’ve done this a thousand times, I remind myself.
Hunted, lied, covered my tracks. But this feels different.
I’ve never had to lie to someone who truly cares about me.
Maeve, Stella, I’ve never had to lie to them.
They’ve seen all of me. The mud, and blood, and anger, and pain.
But this lie, each letter out of my mouth is a sharp stab to my chest.
Keeping my eyes glued to our paintings, I tilt my head, forcing my muscles to relax and the smile to stay pasted on my face.
Of course, it’s there because I’m truly looking forward to taking Vera out and protecting Colin’s mother, though hopefully Colin thinks the smile is a result of the masterpieces we created.
Light and dark. Both of us. Just like I’ve always said.
Plus, Colin’s a cop. A detective. Trained and very good at his job—which includes being able to sense when someone is lying.
“Where?” he asks, his tone sharp.
“Sunset Peak,” I say lightly, peeling my eyes from the art.
No use lying about where I’ll be, since all of us are being surveilled—which is an annoyance I’ll have to figure out later.
“Stella has an appointment out there, so we’re making a whole night of it.
Dinner, drinks. We’ll be back tomorrow.” My lips pull tight, and the smile on my face starts to feel plastic and forced.
The muscle in Colin’s jaw pulses slowly and his eyes grow dark, conflict swirling through them. “I don’t like that.”
I roll my eyes playfully. “We will be fine, detective. You do know we were all taking care of ourselves before you and your friends came along, right?” The smile on my lips starts to feel a bit more natural, and I lay a hand on Colin’s chest.
“You’ve never been in this much danger before.” His eyes flash when he says it, and my lips pull at another smile, this one sad.
“You forget who we are, Colin.” The Terror Trio, I don’t say, because I don’t need to. I can see the realization in his eyes. The three headlines of the three women who never asked for this. “Danger follows us. Always has.” And we might do a bit of following in return.
I give his chest a couple of pats. “We’ll be back bright and early, and I’ll be expecting you.
” I give him a wink and turn for the door, disappearing inside before he has another chance to argue.
Because I have no choice; I need to save her before it’s too late, and the clock has been ticking for far too long already.
***
Vera fucking Bryan. Age thirty-seven. Never been married. No children. No pets.
Lonely little bitch.
Although I guess by that standard, I’d be considered a lonely little bitch, too.
I sit in the driver’s seat of my mother’s Suburban, my boot propped on the dash to the side of the steering wheel. Pulling the lever on the side of the seat, I drop backward a couple of inches, getting comfortable.
On my way into town, I stopped in at a few places.
It’s not often I do the hunting without Stone’s help, so I don’t usually have the opportunity to do much scoping.
I didn’t want to use my GPS to plug in Vera’s address that Maeve provided me, in case her disappearance somehow got tied back to me.
Instead, I stopped into Stiff Peaks, had a quad vanilla latte, and asked the friendly, teenage barista behind the counter if she could point me in the direction of the Twilight Falls housing establishment.
Then I drove around the vast neighborhood aimlessly until I spotted this sad-looking Yorkie yapping from inside someone’s fenced front yard, and it was at that point I decided I needed a sidekick for this mission.
I scooped the little pup out from the yard and carried her around Vera’s neighborhood until I found her house number.
I figured I wouldn’t look so out of place carting this little cutie around, and she got so comfortable tucked into the crook of my arm that I forgot to take her back.
At a certain point, I decided I’d never be taking her back.
I mean the dog looked sickly. I’m sure I saved its life.
“Do you think Colin will forgive me for this, Rue?” I ask her.
Her name tag says Brenda, but what the fuck kind of name is that for a dog?
She answers quite well to Rue, so that’s what I’ve been calling her—after my favorite designer who just came out with the cutest line of dog sweaters that Rue is going to look adorable in.
She yips in response, followed by a high-pitched whine, and because it sounds so similar to of course Colin will forgive you, bestie, I pluck out a French fry from the fast-food bag between us, and watch it disappear into her tiny mouth.
According to the information Maeve gathered on Vera, she’s worked at the Sunset Peak Independent Living Community for almost a full year. Two people who are documented as having received care from her have passed away in that time.
Maeve tracked her employment back over a decade and discovered she doesn’t stay in one single town longer than a year.
Before Sunset Peak, she was in North Peak.
Bit of a bigger town, easier to blend in.
Three people died while receiving care from her.
All of their causes of deaths are listed as natural, though Maeve noticed a commonality in every single one of their tox reports: morphine.
Some of the families opted for autopsies and the medical examiner noted this medication, and that seems to be where the buck stops. No question about why they had morphine in their systems when it wasn’t prescribed in their charts, and nobody connecting the deaths to each other.
Nobody made the connection to Vera, either, because she was on to the next town before someone would notice there was a smear of murders on her medication cart.
If her history is at all telling of her future, Vera is planning for Elizabeth Mills to be her final kill before she moves onto the next town.
That will not be happening.
I take turns studying my nail bed and the employee entrance to Elizabeth’s apartment complex, waiting for Vera’s shift to end.
I did pop in to say hi to Elizabeth, and to tell the girls at the front desk that Colin requested no further medication administration without a witness present.
They told me he’d already called and made that exact request, which had my heart pumping with excitement that he’d been just as put off by the nurse’s behavior as I was.
Plus, I’d gone in because I wanted to swipe some morphine off Vera’s cart.
I hold the little glass bottle between my thumb and pointer finger, giving it a gentle shake and reveling in the fact that for today, and for the rest of her life after tonight, my future mother-in-law is safe.
“Have you ever tried morphine?” I ask Rue. She blinks at me. “Me neither.”
The external lights on the building flicker to life fifteen minutes after the sun begins to set, and two hours later I realize I’ve been distracted by the contrast of the dark parking lot I’m shadowed in and the bright glow from the units littering the wall of apartments.
Rue curled herself into a tiny ball a while ago, belly full of French fries and heart full of attention.
My gaze carries to the even darker line of trees off to the side. The memory of Colin and I’s romp through the forest in hunt of each other’s hearts sparks to life in my limbs, tingling a path of goosebumps up my neck.
On the outskirts of my line of sight, the employee door swings open and Vera begins striding across the lot toward her vehicle.
She has one hand clutched around an oversized bag that hangs from her shoulder and uses the other to pull the tie wrapped around her hair out, letting her black waves cascade toward the ground behind her.
My narrowed eyes follow her as she crosses in front of my vehicle, not sparing a glance in any direction but forward.
I hate that she’s living her life so carefree and guiltless while she attempts to murder the love of my life’s mother.
Little does she know she has no right to be carefree, because she’s no longer the predator in her story.
Straightening in my seat, I pull the lever again to bring my seat forward.
I had a plan in mind when I’d been wandering around Vera’s neighborhood earlier, and then I started to feel like a plain old morphine overdose just wasn’t punishment enough for the woman who is attempting to eliminate the most important woman from my future husband’s life.