Chapter 23
Ted
I turned to Karl. “This can’t be. We’re in a dream—a nightmare, a wish fulfillment. But this isn’t real. Is it?”
Karl concentrated silently on getting into a small parking spot near the front of his building. Once he was situated, he shut off the car and looked over at me. “Our eyes don’t lie, sweetheart. This is a good thing.”
We sat in stunned silence for only a few moments, but it seemed longer.
Maybe our eyes don’t lie, but they can deceive us, confuse us. Those two women huddled together against the cold and drizzle, perhaps, merely looked like Josh’s sister, Shondell and—no, it can’t be—Camille. “It’s Camille and Shondell.”
“You’ve met Shondell?”
“No. But Josh had a picture of her in his apartment. It was on the little secretary near the front door, so I saw it many times. I recalled Josh picking it up and showing it to me. “Shondell,” he said, “My baby girl. Yeah, she’s my sister, but it’s always felt like father and baby girl between us.
” And there was the image of that picture, come to life—a big-framed woman with her hair pulled back away from her face.
She wore a knee-length tweed coat. Her skin was almost luminously pale.
Camille, beside her, seemed in shock, at least to me.
She stared ahead, her expression, even from here, vacant.
“He told me he killed her.”
“It was Josh, though? You recognized his voice?” I swung open the car door, impatient to get out, to take the few steps that would lead me to them.
“The voice was disguised with one of those filters. It sounded deep and, I don’t know, kind of mechanical. I just assumed. Who else could it have been?”
“So you don’t know for sure that it was Josh?”
“Not for sure. But it’s pretty damn likely.”
I jumped out of the car and hurried up the sidewalk, with Karl right behind me.
I didn’t say a word. I rushed to Camille and took her in my arms, breathing hard, near tears. I was so relieved she was alive. It was almost a miracle—as though she’d been resurrected from the dead. Who knew? Maybe she had been. My whole world was turned upside down.
Anything was possible.
After a long hug that left both of us nearly breathless, I held her at arm’s length for a moment, drinking her in, making sure it wasn’t a mistake.
But here was my friend, truly. She was alive.
“Let’s get inside.” I let go and turned to Karl, who already had his keys out.
“Let’s get warm.” I was trembling, but I couldn’t say for sure if it was from the chill in the damp air—or terror.
“I’m Shondell, Josh’s sister.”
I’d almost forgotten she was there, despite her proximity of less than a foot away.
Her voice was gravelly. She sounded like a lifelong smoker.
Josh had said she was several years younger than he, but now, seeing her in the flesh, she appeared to be at least a decade older, her face lined, her hair shot through with gray.
Her eyes were a weird shade of pale gray that unnerved me.
“Yes, I recognized you. Josh had a picture of you in his apartment.” Oh God, does she know her brother’s dead? What brings her here? How did she wind up with Camille? I had so many questions, but Karl, wisely, urged us to move and get inside.
“I’ll put a kettle on, make us some tea.”
We all followed him as he led us inside and up the stairs.
Once we settled in Karl’s living room, the tension we all seemed to be feeling broke as Karl set down a tray with mugs of Earl Grey tea, ham sandwiches, and cookies on it—a sort of late-night trauma feast.
Questions hung in the air like dust motes in a shaft of sunlight, but I suspect we all wanted a break. We dug into the tea and food with a gusto that surprised me.
But at last the moment came when we set down the mugs and the paper plates. I wondered if we should clean up, but realized I was still stalling. Maybe I simply didn’t want to burst this innocent bubble.
But I had to.
“What the hell happened?” I looked first at Camille, who remained a bit shell-shocked, her hair and eyes both a little on the wild side. One thing Camille was not was quiet, but she’d yet to speak a word.
It was Shondell who spoke up. She took Camille’s hand. “I had to do it.” The women exchanged gazes for a beat and then Shondell let go of Camille’s hand and stood. We all watched as she moved to the window and stared out at the dark.
“I saved your friend.” She looked at Camille, and then me.
“Josh had her, as you know. And as you probably figured out, he intended to use her as bait to get you back in his orbit, if not favor. See, my brother was a sociopath, he saw only his wants and needs and no one else’s.
It didn’t matter who he hurt as long as he got what he wanted in the end.
“It never worked for him, yet he never seemed to give up hope that it would.” She sat back down, this time in a chair near the TV. She plucked a throw pillow off it before sitting and now held it to her chest, like protection and comfort, maybe a talisman.
“What do you mean, you saved her?” Karl asked, leaning forward.
Camille covered her face with her hands. “I don’t want to relive this.” Abruptly, she stood and disappeared into Karl’s bedroom, closing the door behind her.
I stood to go to her, but Shondell grabbed my hand. “Maybe let her be. She’s been through a lot.”
I sighed, worried. “Okay. For a bit. Now, what happened?”