Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“You didn’t try hard enough,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I was never enough.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. A single tear rolled down her cheek.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she whispered. “I wanted her gone. I wanted all of them gone. I wanted the story to stop humiliating me. It was supposed to be just you and me. They needed to die.”
Cass gasped. “Oh my gosh . . .”
Zach’s voice was hoarse. “Torie . . . what have you done?”
Torie’s laughter dissolved into a sob. “It doesn’t matter. None of it does. You’ll all forget me soon. But this island won’t. It doesn’t forget anything.”
Tosh crouched in front of her, his eyes filled with pain. “I’m sorry, Torie. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”
She wiped her cheek, and her eyes gleamed again, something terrifying flashing. No one saw it in time.
She cupped his face.
Her hand slid down his chest as if smoothing his shirt. Something flashed at her waistline.
He stared at her, confused and broken. The fire crackled. The grill hissed softly. For a moment, it looked tender.
Then Tosh screamed and fell backward.
For a heartbeat, no one understood.
Then they saw the knife.
Before anyone could react, Torie was on top of him, straddling his waist. Panic twisted Tosh’s face. Zach realized what was happening, nearly too late.
“Knife! She has a knife—she stabbed him!” he shouted, launching forward.
Torie raised the blade into the air, straight above Tosh’s heart. Blood already spread beneath him, soaking his shirt. She’d stabbed him in the side. None of them knew how bad yet. His eyes widened as he held up a hand.
She began to drive the weapon down. Zach hit her mid-air, knocking her off Tosh. The knife flew from her hand and plunged into the ground two inches from Tosh’s head.
Torie screamed, wild and feral, fighting Zach as he pinned her to the concrete.
“Help Tosh,” Zach yelled.
Cass and Harmony finally moved. They rushed to Tosh and ripped open his shirt. The wound was deep, but angled. It might have missed his organs. It still had to hurt like hell, though.
“Grab some towels, Cass, and call 911,” Harmony said.
Cass jumped up and ran inside, returning with towels and her phone pressed to her ear. In less than a minute, sirens wailed. On an island one mile wide, help didn’t have far to travel.
“You’re going to be okay, Tosh,” Harmony said as she pressed the towels to his side. “I’m so sorry we missed that.”
“He needs to die,” Torie shouted, thrashing beneath Zach’s weight. “We’re going to die together.”
“Shut up!” Zach snarled, keeping her locked tight on the ground. “This is unforgivable. What is wrong with you?”
“He’s the unforgivable one,” Torie screamed. “We have to finish this. We have to die together.”
“No one else is dying,” Zach said.
Boots pounded up the steps. Paramedics and deputies rushed onto the patio, weapons drawn until they were sure the scene was contained.
Ciscel came in last, not running, thumb pressed to his shoulder mic like he’d been listening the whole time.
His gaze swept the blood, the knife, Torie pinned to the concrete, lingering a second too long on Harmony before he turned away.
Harmony spoke first, her voice shaking slightly.
“Torie said she knows who the killer is. She said she wanted the women gone, that they had to die, implying she did it. Then she stabbed Tosh. She tried finishing him off, but Zach tackled her and has been holding her down since.” Her voice was resigned.
Sergeant Durante’s gaze swept the scene, then landed on Harmony. “Does anyone else have another version?”
Cass shook her head, looking sick. Zach’s face was carved from stone. Torie glared at all of them, breathing hard.
“That’s what happened,” Zach said, looking defeated as if his world had been flipped upside down and there was no way of righting it.
Deputy Duong nodded, taking notes, as if Harmony’s version was fact. Beside him, Ciscel didn’t write a thing. Duong’s eyes flicked to Torie’s hand, then to the shattered glass, cataloging. Ciscel’s gaze stayed on Harmony’s mouth, like he was memorizing her words more than the scene.
Torie was hauled to her feet, handcuffed, and led away. She looked back over her shoulder one last time. A strange smile curved her lips, and a glint lit her eyes.
She looked relieved. As if the fight was finally over.
Tosh rode out in the ambulance. The hospital patched him fast, the way islands learn to. The blade had missed anything vital by luck and angle. By the time the shock caught up to them, he was back in his own living room, pale and furious with pain.
“What does this all mean?” Cass finally asked.
“What about Mary?” Zach asked.
“Did they work together?” Tosh asked.
They all looked at Harmony as if she held the answers.
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know why Mary’s hiding if she had nothing to do with it.”
“Maybe she’s scared,” Zach said.
“I don’t know,” Tosh said. “I never would’ve thought Torie was capable of anything like this.”
“We’re all capable of terrible things,” Harmony said softly. “Most of us just never act on it.”
“I’m so sad,” Cass whispered. “I hate that our beautiful group has been torn apart so brutally.”
“It just goes to show that none of us ever truly know each other,” Zach said. “We might know what’s on the surface, but none of us sees the deep, dark, and ugly parts.”
“I hope I never see that side of any of the rest of you,” Tosh muttered with a wince.
Harmony stepped out on the balcony. She leaned against the railing and looked down at the ocean. The town felt subdued beneath the blinking stars. She brushed her hand along the rail and shook her head.
Inside, she could hear Tosh, Zach, and Cass speaking in low voices. Tosh sounded broken. He might not come fully back from all of this. Zach sounded resigned. Cass sounded relieved it was over.
Harmony closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. There were no more answers in the air tonight.
When she turned, her gaze fell on her notebook that was lying open on the patio table, a fresh page fluttering in the breeze. She walked down the steps from the balcony and picked up her pen, pressing its tip against the paper.
Her hand moved before she decided to move it.
A single line appeared—slow, deliberate.
Some stories write themselves. Others need a little help.
A small smile touched her lips.
She closed the notebook and moved toward the stairs that led down the path toward the beach. She left Tosh’s house. The waves whispered as she walked beside the ocean, the night folding around her.
She didn’t stop until the darkness swallowed her whole.
Behind her, somewhere up the hill, a pen tapped once . . . twice . . . keeping time.