Chapter 79
Catherine stands in the living room with Kalina by her side. Her husband Ron stands behind her, with Dr. Burgess next to him. To my dismay, I also see Frank and Jennifer.
I stare at them in shocked confusion. “I don’t understand.”
Catherine smiles. “Of course you don’t, my dear, and I was hoping it would stay that way for a little longer. We weren’t quite ready for you yet. But then you had to go snooping around.”
I glare at Dawn and Jamie, who have fallen into line next to the residents of the Glendale. They stand facing me, cutting off any possible escape route. “You’re a part of this?” I ask, even though I have no idea what this is. I suspect I’m about to find out.
Jamie doesn’t react. He just fixes me with an icy stare.
Dawn shrugs but says nothing.
Catherine holds her hand out. “Come along. I think it’s time that we finish this.”
“I don’t think so.” I’m not going anywhere near Catherine. I take a step away from her, retreating deeper into the bedroom.
“There’s no need to be difficult. You’re just delaying the inevitable.”
“And what would that be?” I ask.
Catherine doesn’t answer. She just stands there as if she’s waiting for me to figure it out.
And it doesn’t take very long, because I’ve spent the last two days trying to figure out exactly what happened in my apartment.
Jacqueline Burke wrote all that stuff in her notebook about not feeling safe and thinking she was being watched.
Then she vanished without a trace. Addison McGlocklin’s husband, Mark, blew his brains out in my foyer.
But did Jacqueline Burke really vanish on her way back from a night out?
And did Mark McGlocklin really take his own life?
I suspect that the answer to both questions is no.
They were murdered, and who knows how many other people have died in this building?
Considering the gruesome scene behind me in the bedroom, it’s a lot.
My blood runs cold. This isn’t an apartment building—it’s a spider’s web, and Catherine is the big fat spider sitting in the middle, waiting for her unsuspecting victims to come too close.
Except she isn’t the only spider. There’s a whole nest of them, and it appears that, for whatever reason, they’ve set their sights upon me as their prey.
But the people standing in front of me aren’t the only ones who live in the Glendale.
And they can’t all be killers. “Come any closer and I’ll scream. ”
A faint smile plays across Catherine’s lips. “Of course you will, my dear. That’s kind of the point. Which is why the building is soundproofed. No one will hear you.”
“The people in the other apartments will hear me.”
“No, they won’t.” Catherine says this with such assurance that it’s hard not to believe her.
Shit. I need to get out of here now.
The apartment door is still open, but I’ll never get past Catherine and her cronies to reach it.
So I go in the only direction I can—deeper into the bedroom, making sure not to turn my back.
At least until my legs bump against the bed, stopping my retreat.
I glance toward the window, wondering how easy it would be to smash it and climb through.
I figure my chances of making it out are slim, but it’s better than standing here and waiting for whatever these people have in store for me.
Catherine soon shuts down that avenue of escape, however.
“The window is reinforced glass. The same kind used in hurricane windows. You won’t break it.
We spared no expense when we renovated this building.
Made it exactly what we needed it to be. ”
My heart sinks. Apparently, what they needed it to be was a slaughterhouse.
And I stepped through its doors willingly and without hesitation.
Now it’s becoming clear. Everything that’s happened here has been carefully orchestrated to push my buttons.
The crying baby. The crib in the basement and that bumblebee toy.
The hideous painting. It was all because of the miscarriage, which they clearly knew about.
Of course, my medical records would be ripe for the picking since they have a doctor in their midst who could easily obtain them.
Was the coffee shop project ever real? Probably not.
And what about Sam and Kalina? He’s been protesting his innocence all along.
I look at her. “Sam wasn’t cheating on me. ”
Kalina stares back at me with cold, hard eyes. “No. But it didn’t take much to convince you that he was. Honestly, you were so quick to believe the worst of him. He’s better off without you.”
“Why would you do that?” I ask in a small voice, even though the answer is painfully obvious. I think of Sam, and all I put him through. How could I have doubted him? My cheeks flush with shame.
“We had to get him out of the way,” Catherine says.
“So you can kill me, like you killed whoever lived in this apartment.”
“My dear, you’ve got it all wrong.” Catherine’s voice cracks. A tear runs down her cheek as she gazes past me at the blood on the bed and the walls. “This was my daughter’s apartment. She was supposed to be safe here.”
Ron puts a comforting arm around his wife, his gaze never straying from me. “But she wasn’t. She was brutally murdered instead.”
Catherine speaks again. “And the killer got away with it.”
Dawn steps forward. “Which is why you have to die.”