CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kari came back to consciousness slowly, pain blooming at the base of her skull like a dark flower unfurling its petals.
She was lying on cold concrete, her cheek pressed against grit and dust, the world swimming in and out of focus as she tried to remember where she was and what had happened.
The air smelled of must and metal and something else—fear, maybe, the sharp scent of human terror.
Tayen. The storage unit. She'd found Tayen alive—
And then someone had hit her from behind.
Kari forced her eyes open, fighting through the nausea and disorientation that made the world tilt and spin.
She was inside the storage unit now, lying on the concrete floor a few feet from where Tayen was still bound to the chair.
The duct tape had been pulled from her mouth—Diana must have removed it while Kari was unconscious, wanting to talk to her captive, to explain, to make her understand.
The roll-up door had been pulled down, leaving them in darkness broken only by thin strips of light seeping through the gaps at the bottom and sides of the door. Dust motes danced in those slender beams, the only movement in the otherwise still space.
And standing between Kari and the door, silhouetted against those strips of light, was Diana Shepherd.
She looked different than she had at the café—her hair disheveled, her clothes rumpled. But her eyes were what caught Kari's attention. They were bright with something that might have been tears or might have been madness, burning with an intensity that made Kari's skin crawl.
"I didn't want it to be this way." Diana's voice was eerily calm, almost sad, at odds with those burning eyes.
"I liked you, Detective. I really did. You reminded me of some of the girls I've helped over the years.
Strong. Determined. Willing to do whatever it takes to protect the people you care about. "
Kari tried to push herself up, but her arms felt like they were made of wet sand, trembling and weak.
Her weapon was gone—she could feel the empty holster at her hip, the absence of the familiar weight that had been her constant companion for years.
Her radio too. Diana had taken everything while she was unconscious.
"Why?" Kari managed to croak, her voice rough and dry. "Why kill them? They trusted you. They looked up to you."
"Because they left me." Diana's voice cracked.
"I gave them everything. Everything I had.
I took care of them when no one else would.
I fed them when they were too broke to buy groceries.
I listened to them cry about their families and their boyfriends and their casting calls.
I held them when the industry beat them down and told them they weren't good enough.
I was there for every heartbreak, every disappointment, every moment when this city tried to crush them. "
She took a step closer, and Kari could see her face more clearly now—the tears streaming down her cheeks, the mascara smudged beneath her eyes, the raw anguish that twisted her features into something almost unrecognizable.
This wasn't the composed, sympathetic woman from the café.
This was someone barely holding herself together, someone who had been broken a long time ago and had never healed right.
"And then they decided they didn't need me anymore," Diana continued, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper.
"They found boyfriends, or they made new friends, or they decided they wanted to move to New York or go back to school or any of a hundred other things that didn't include me.
They looked at me like I was... like I was nothing.
Like everything I'd done for them meant nothing. "
Kari just listened in silence, kicking herself for having been duped so thoroughly by this woman.
"Jennifer was the first," Diana continued, and something shifted in her voice—a tenderness that was almost more disturbing than the anger.
"She was so special. So talented. I poured everything into her, helped her navigate the industry, and protected her from the predators who circle these girls like sharks.
And she was going to leave. She said she needed 'space.
' She said our relationship was 'unhealthy.
' She was going to throw away everything we had, everything I'd done for her, like it meant nothing at all. "
"So you killed her," Kari said flatly.
"I helped her find peace." Diana's voice had gone cold again, the tears still falling but her expression hardening.
"She was never going to make it in this industry.
Not really. She was too soft, too fragile.
The world was going to destroy her eventually—the rejections, the cruel comments, the photographers who would use her and throw her away.
I just... helped her along. Made it painless.
Let her go to sleep and never wake up to face all the disappointment that was coming for her. "
Kari's stomach turned. Diana had convinced herself she was being merciful. That killing these women was an act of love, a final gift from someone who cared too much to let them suffer.
It was the kind of twisted logic that made sense only inside a broken mind.
"And the others?" Kari asked, trying to keep Diana talking while she assessed her options.
Her head was clearing slowly, the pain settling into a dull throb instead of the blinding agony of a few moments ago.
If she could get to her feet, if she could find something to use as a weapon, if she could buy enough time for Carter to find them. ..
"They were the same. All of them." Diana's voice was matter-of-fact now, as if she were discussing the weather or a grocery list. "I loved them, and they abandoned me.
Destiny was going to move to New York—said she'd gotten an offer from an agency there, said it was her big break.
She didn't even ask if I wanted to come with her.
Brittany started dating some photographer who told her I was 'too intense,' that I was 'holding her back.
' She stopped returning my calls. Megan got engaged and suddenly didn't have time for me anymore—she was too busy planning her wedding, planning her new life, a life that didn't have room for me. "
Diana shook her head in disgust. "Amanda was talking about quitting modeling entirely. Going back to school, getting a 'real job,' moving back to be closer to her family. After everything I'd done for her, she was just going to walk away. Just leave me behind like I was nothing."
"But not Tayen." Kari glanced at the young woman in the chair. Tayen's eyes were wide with terror, tears streaming down her face, but she was listening intently to every word. "You didn't kill Tayen. You've had her for days, but she's still alive."
Diana's expression softened as she looked at Tayen, something almost tender crossing her features. The shift was startling—like watching a mask slip to reveal a completely different person underneath.
"Tayen is different," she said softly. "Tayen understands. Or she will, once she has enough time to see the truth."
"I don't understand anything," Tayen said. "You're insane. You killed my friend. You killed Amanda."
Diana flinched as if she'd been slapped, pain flashing across her face.
"That's not true. I saved Amanda. And I'm trying to save you too, if you'd just let me.
" She moved closer to Tayen, reaching out to touch her hair.
Tayen jerked away as much as her bonds would allow, her face twisted with revulsion.
"We're the same, Tayen. Don't you see that?
" Diana's voice had taken on a pleading quality.
"We come from the same kind of place—small, isolated, forgotten.
Places where nothing ever happens, where everyone expects you to stay exactly where you are and accept a small life and small dreams. But we wanted more.
We came to L.A. to be someone. To prove that we mattered. "
She crouched down beside Tayen's chair, her eyes bright with tears and something that looked almost like hope.
"The difference is, I know what's coming for you.
I've lived it. I know how this city will eat you alive if you don't have someone to protect you.
I've been trying to show you, these past few days.
Trying to make you see that everyone else will leave you eventually—your family, your friends, whoever you think loves you.
But I never will. I'll never abandon you. "
Kari used Diana's distraction to push herself up to a sitting position. The world tilted dangerously, but she forced herself to stay upright, to keep her eyes focused on Diana. She understood now why Tayen was still alive, why Diana had broken her pattern for this one girl.
Diana saw herself in Tayen. Both had come from isolated, rural communities—the reservation for Tayen, small-town Nebraska for Diana.
Both were outsiders who didn't fit the typical L.A.
model mold. Both had arrived in the city with nothing but dreams and desperation.
The other women had been daughters, protégées, but Tayen was something more.
Tayen was a mirror. And Diana couldn't destroy the mirror until it showed her what she wanted to see.
"Tayen has family who love her," Kari said, drawing Diana's attention back to her. "Her aunt Lola has been searching for her for weeks. She hired me to find her. She never gave up."
"The same aunt she ran away from in the first place?
" Diana's laugh was bitter, ugly. "Some family.
Some love. Tayen told me all about it—how alone she felt on that reservation, how no one understood her, how she had to escape or suffocate.
Her family didn't fight to keep her. They let her go, just like everyone lets everyone go eventually. "
"That's not true," Tayen said, her voice stronger now. "Aunt Lola was trying to help me. I was the one who ran. I was the one who cut her off. I was the one who—" She stopped, her face crumpling as tears streamed down her cheeks. "I was wrong. I should have stayed. I should have let her help me."
"Shh," Diana said soothingly. "You're still confused. You've been through so much."
"What happens now?" Kari asked, buying time. Carter knew where she was. Backup was coming. She just had to keep Diana talking long enough for help to arrive.
"Now?" Diana looked at her with something like regret, her expression almost apologetic.
"Now I have to clean up another mess. You weren't supposed to figure it out, Detective.
I pointed you toward Pemberton—he's such an obvious suspect, with his wandering hands and his prescription pad.
Everyone in the industry whispers about him.
But you kept digging. You kept asking questions. "
She pulled something from her jacket pocket, and Kari's heart sank when she recognized her own weapon. "You should have listened to me at the café," Diana continued. "You should have believed me when I said these girls just couldn't handle the pressure."
Diana raised the gun, and Kari tried to think of something to say, anything to buy her a few more precious seconds. "Please," she began, "don't—"
And then Tayen screamed and threw herself sideways with all her strength, ramming the chair to which she was bound directly into Diana's legs.
Diana stumbled, her arms pin wheeling as she tried to keep her balance.
The gun discharged into the ceiling with a deafening crack, the sound echoing off the metal walls of the storage unit like thunder.
Kari moved quickly, ignoring the pain in her head, throwing herself at Diana's midsection in a tackle that sent them both crashing to the concrete floor.
The gun skittered away into the darkness.
Diana was stronger than she looked, desperation and madness giving her a wiry strength that made her hard to pin down.
She clawed at Kari's face, her fingernails raking across her cheek, going for her eyes.
They grappled on the floor, rolling across the cold concrete, each trying to gain the upper hand.
Kari's vision blurred with every sudden movement, the head injury making it hard to track Diana's movements, to anticipate her strikes. She took a knee to the ribs, felt something crack with a burst of white-hot pain, but kept fighting.
Diana's hand found something on the floor—a piece of pipe, part of some abandoned shelving unit—and swung it at Kari's head.
Kari jerked back just in time, the pipe whistling past her face close enough to feel the breeze of its passage.
She grabbed Diana's wrist, twisted hard, and heard the pipe clatter away across the concrete.
Diana screamed—a sound of pure rage and frustration—and lunged for Kari's throat. Her hands closed around Kari's neck, squeezing with surprising strength, cutting off her air. Kari struggled, black spots dancing at the edges of her vision, her lungs burning for oxygen.
Then the roll-up door exploded upward with a screech of metal, flooding the storage unit with light, and Carter was there, weapon drawn, shouting for Diana to freeze.
Diana's hands loosened on Kari's throat.
She looked up at Carter, at the gun pointed at her center mass, at the uniformed officers crowding in behind the detective.
Something drained out of her then—the rage, the desperation, the mad energy that had fueled her.
She went limp in Kari's grip, all the fight leaving her at once.
And then she started laughing—a high, broken sound that echoed off the metal walls, a sound that held no joy, no humor, only the shattered remains of a mind that had finally crumbled completely.
"It doesn't matter," she said as Carter cuffed her, her voice dreamy and distant. "It doesn't matter what you do to me. Tayen won't leave me. She'll understand."
Kari ignored her. She was already moving toward Tayen, pulling the duct tape gently from her mouth, working at the bonds around her wrists with trembling fingers.
"You're safe now," Kari said. "It's over. Your aunt sent me. You're going home."
Tayen collapsed into her arms, sobbing, and Kari held her while the backup units flooded into the storage facility, while paramedics arrived to check on both of them, while Diana was loaded into a police car still laughing that horrible, broken laugh.
It was over.