CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The hospital insisted on keeping Kari overnight for observation, despite her protests that she was fine, that she'd had worse injuries, that there was paperwork to file and loose ends to tie up.
She had a concussion, two cracked ribs, deep bruising around her throat from Diana's attempt to strangle her, and enough scrapes and contusions to make her look like she'd gone ten rounds with a heavyweight boxer.
Carter had threatened to have her sedated if she didn't stay put. Coming from someone who'd seen her wrestle a serial killer on a concrete floor, the threat carried weight.
So Kari lay in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling tiles and trying not to think too much.
Thinking hurt almost as much as her ribs did.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Diana's face—the tears, the desperate love, the absolute certainty that she'd been helping those women by killing them.
It was the kind of madness that made a terrible sort of sense from the inside and looked like pure horror from the outside.
Carter stopped by around eight in the evening, carrying two cups of coffee that she'd smuggled past the nurses' station. She handed one to Kari and settled into the visitor's chair with a groan that suggested her day had been almost as long as Kari's.
"Diana's been talking," Carter said, wrapping her hands around her coffee cup. "Can't stop talking, actually. The psych evaluator has been in with her for hours, and she just keeps going. Confession, justification, explanation—she wants everyone to understand why she did what she did."
"Did she confess to everything?"
"Everything and more. Five murders over three years—Jennifer Blake, Destiny Morales, Brittany Hayes, Megan Park, and Amanda Escalante.
" Carter's voice was flat, the detachment of a cop who'd heard too many confessions to be surprised by anything.
"She really seems to believe she was helping them.
Saving them from the cruelty of a world that would have destroyed them anyway. "
"What about her background? Did you learn anything more about the breakdown Vanessa told me about?"
"All true. Corinne Lindquist from Millbrook, Nebraska.
She was hospitalized for six months after her runway incident at Fashion Week—diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, severe attachment issues, major depressive disorder, and a bunch of other conditions I can't pronounce.
She was supposed to continue outpatient treatment when she was released, take medication, and attend therapy sessions.
But she never followed up. Just reinvented herself as Diana Shepherd and went to work for Vanessa Caldwell, and nobody ever thought to check whether the kind woman helping vulnerable young models might be the one hurting them. "
Kari thought about Diana in that café, so earnest and helpful, pointing her toward Pemberton while Tayen was bound and terrified in a storage unit across the city. The best liars, she'd learned over the years, were the ones who believed their own lies.
"There's something I don't understand," Kari said. "Why now? Diana came here, reinvented herself. She was building a life here, but then she sabotaged it in the worst way. What caused her to snap?"
"It was Jennifer," Carter said, swirling her coffee.
"Jennifer? What about her?"
"According to a journal of Diana's we found, she'd kept a degree of distance from the models for years after Vanessa hired her. She helped them, supported them, but she held something back. Some part of herself she wouldn't let them touch."
Carter paused. "Her therapist at the psychiatric facility had told her that her attachment issues made close relationships dangerous. That she needed to maintain boundaries or she'd spiral again. And for a while, she listened."
"But she broke that rule with Jennifer."
Carter nodded. "Small town girl from Ohio.
Nineteen years old, no family support, completely alone in L.A.
She reminded Diana of herself at that age—before the breakdown, before everything fell apart.
Diana tried to keep her distance, but Jennifer kept reaching out.
Kept asking for advice, for help, for comfort.
She called Diana her 'guardian angel.' Started showing up at her apartment with takeout, wanting to talk for hours about her dreams and fears. "
Kari thought about the messages on Jennifer's phone. The intimacy that had developed between them. "Diana couldn't resist," she said.
"She fell in love. Not romantic love, but something just as intense.
She convinced herself that Jennifer was different, that this relationship was special, that the rules didn't apply.
She stopped holding back. She gave Jennifer everything—her time, her energy, her whole sense of self.
For the first time since her breakdown, she let someone all the way in. "
"And then Jennifer tried to leave."
"Jennifer got a boyfriend. Some aspiring actor she met at a party.
Suddenly she wasn't coming over as much, wasn't calling every day, wasn't treating Diana like the center of her universe.
" Carter's voice was flat, but Kari could hear the disgust underneath.
"Diana tried to talk to her about it. Tried to explain that this boyfriend was using her, that he didn't really care about her, that Diana was the only one who truly understood her.
Jennifer told her she was being 'too intense.
' That she needed to 'back off.' That their relationship was 'unhealthy. '"
The same words Diana had quoted in the storage unit. The words that had broken something inside her.
"Diana's journal describe what happened next as a 'moment of clarity,'" Carter continued.
"She went to Jennifer's apartment to apologize, to try to fix things.
But when she got there and saw Jennifer packing for a weekend trip with the boyfriend, something snapped.
She said it was like watching herself from outside her body.
She knew what she was doing, but she couldn't stop. Didn't want to stop."
"She killed her."
"Drugged her. Diana had confiscated pills from another model a few months earlier—kept them 'just in case,' she wrote in her journal.
She slipped the pills into Jennifer's cup while she wasn't looking.
" Carter shook her head sadly. "Jennifer never saw it coming.
Never had a chance to fight back. Diana held her while she lost consciousness, stroking her hair, telling her everything was going to be okay.
Then she arranged the scene—made it look like Jennifer had taken the pills herself. "
Kari said nothing. In such a moment, words seemed inadequate.
Carter sighed. "The scary part is what happened after.
Most killers feel remorse, or at least fear.
Diana felt... relief. She wrote in her journal that Jennifer was 'finally at peace.
' That she'd 'saved her from a world that would have destroyed her.
' That killing her was the most loving thing she'd ever done. "
Kari felt sick. "And once she'd convinced herself of that..."
"The pattern was set. Every time a model got too close and then tried to pull away, Diana saw it as a betrayal. And the only way to respond to betrayal was to 'save' them the same way she'd saved Jennifer."
Carter drained the last of her coffee. "The psychiatrist who evaluated her says it's one of the most complete delusional frameworks she's ever seen.
Diana genuinely doesn't understand that she did anything wrong.
In her mind, she's the victim. She loved these women, and they abandoned her, and she had no choice but to do what she did. "
"No choice," Kari repeated. "Five women are dead because she couldn't handle being told no."
"That's the thing about delusions. They make perfect sense from the inside."
They were both silent for several moments.
"What happens to her now?" Kari asked.
"She's being held for psychiatric evaluation pending trial.
Her lawyer—public defender, she doesn't have money for private counsel—is already making noises about an insanity defense.
" Carter shrugged. "Given her documented history of mental illness, the hospitalization, the nature of the killings, they might have a case.
Whether she ends up in prison or a psychiatric facility, though, she's not getting out anytime soon. She's done hurting anyone else."
"And Jessica Vance? Vanessa Caldwell?"
"We're investigating whether they should have seen the signs—whether there's any criminal negligence in how they ran their agencies.
But honestly?" Carter shook her head. "Diana was good at hiding what she was.
She played the caring mentor so convincingly that nobody questioned her motives.
Vance and Caldwell are guilty of being blind, maybe, of not looking too closely at the woman they'd entrusted with vulnerable young women.
But I don't think they were complicit in the murders. "
Kari nodded slowly. It was unsatisfying, in a way—she wanted someone else to blame beyond the broken woman who was currently in a psychiatric hold. Some conspiracy, some web of complicity that explained how five women could die over three years without anyone noticing the pattern.
But the truth was often unsatisfying. Sometimes there was no grand conspiracy. Sometimes there was just one damaged person who slipped through the cracks and left destruction in her wake.
"How's Tayen?" she asked.
Carter's expression softened. "Physically, she's okay.
Dehydrated, some minor injuries from being restrained for three days, but nothing that won't heal.
She's at a hotel near the hospital—we couldn't let her go back to her apartment, not with everything that happened there.
" She paused. "Psychologically... that's going to take longer.
She was held captive by someone she trusted, someone who told her over and over that she was going to 'save' her the same way she'd saved Amanda.
That's not something you get over quickly. "
"But she's strong," Kari said. "She fought back in that storage unit. She saved my life."
"She told me about that. Said she couldn't just lie there and watch you die.
Said you came all the way from the reservation to find her, and she wasn't going to let you down.
" Carter smiled. "Her aunt flew in this afternoon.
Got on the first flight she could find after I called her. They're together now."
"Lola's here?"
"She asked about you. Wanted me to tell you thank you. She said she knew you'd find her niece."
Kari felt relieved. She'd made a promise, and she'd kept it. Tayen was alive. Tayen was with family. Tayen was going home.
It didn't fix everything. It didn't bring back Jennifer or Amanda or the other women Diana had killed. It didn't undo the trauma Tayen had experienced or erase the three days of terror she'd endured. But it was something. It mattered.
"Get some sleep, Blackhorse," Carter said, standing up and gathering her jacket. "You earned it."
After she left, Kari lay in the darkness of the hospital room, listening to the quiet beeping of monitors and the distant sounds of the building at night—footsteps in hallways, muffled voices, the occasional page over the intercom.
She kept thinking about what Carter had told her. The years Diana had spent holding herself together, maintaining boundaries, following the rules her therapist had given her. And then one girl—one lonely, trusting girl who reminded Diana of herself—had broken through those walls.
Jennifer had called Diana her guardian angel. Had shown up at her apartment with takeout. Had made Diana feel needed, important, loved.
And when Jennifer tried to leave, Diana couldn't survive it. Couldn't let her go. Couldn't accept that love didn't mean ownership that closeness didn't mean forever.
The tragedy wasn't just the five women who had died.
It was also that Diana had spent years trying to be something other than what she was, trying to keep the broken parts of herself contained.
And it had worked, until it hadn't. Until Jennifer had reached past all her defenses and touched something that should have stayed buried.
Kari wondered if there was a version of this story where it ended differently. Where Diana had kept her distance, or where Jennifer had stayed, or where someone had noticed the cracks before they became chasms.
But wondering didn't change anything. Five women were dead, and Diana was shattered beyond repair, and all the what-ifs in the world couldn't undo any of it.