Chapter Forty-Two
I paused in front of the door to Lizzie’s hotel room to take a breath and steady myself.
Reaching into my purse, I pulled out my phone and set up the voice recorder.
I often taped my interviews and meetings with clients.
I patted my coat pocket. All was as it should be.
I used the recordings as notes that I could refer back to.
I even had backups in case something went wrong with the first taping.
I knocked. A moment later the door opened to reveal a perspiring, red-faced Lizzie wearing leggings and carrying a hot-pink weight in one hand. The sounds of an exercise tutorial with up-tempo music played on the TV behind her. A woman’s voice chirped instructions.
“Exhale as you press up. Keep your wrists straight.”
“Amira,” Lizzie said with a welcoming smile. “I was just working out. This is an unexpected surprise.”
“Yeah, there seem to be a lot of those lately.” This entire day felt entirely surreal. Maybe that was why I felt strangely calm. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” She stepped aside, opening the door wider. “I’m glad you stopped by. I’ve been worried about you.”
“What exactly were you worried about?” I walked into the sitting room area and then turned to face her. “Me finding out the truth?”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“I just came from visiting your mother.”
“What?” She closed the door. “That’s not possible. Mother can’t have visitors.”
“Don’t you mean to say that I am the only person who can’t visit her? The Meadows said they were specifically instructed not to allow me in to see your mother.”
“Can you blame us?” she asked in a reasonable tone. “You did upset Mother the last time you saw her.”
I marveled at her cool restraint, the ease with which she lied. “Was it me who upset her?” I asked. “Or was it the fact that Ali died on the same day she told him the truth?”
“Control the weights up and down,” the instructor trilled in the background. “Focus on taking your time.”
“Mother is not herself.” Lizzie smiled, but the way it didn’t reach her eyes sent an icy arrow down my spine. “She can be very confused and muddled in her thinking.”
“She was very cogent with me. And very clear about what happened the night your father died.”
Lizzie’s gaze narrowed. “What did she tell you?”
“That you killed your father.”
“Me?” Lizzie gave an abrupt laugh. “Surely you realize how ridiculous that sounds.”
“It is hard to fathom, but I think Ali believed your mother. That’s the real reason he confronted you at the Parkview, isn’t it?”
Her expression hardened. “I already told you that we met because the secret was eating away at Ali and he insisted that you had to know the truth.”
“I don’t believe you.” I held her gaze. “I knew there was something off about the way Ali looked on the surveillance tape. The way he reacted . . . something extraordinarily awful had to have happened for him to be that upset.”
“You can believe what you want—”
“Oh, I will,” I interrupted. “I think Ali was so upset, more distraught than I’d ever seen him, because he realized that you let him take the blame for a murder that you committed.”
Lizzie’s composure slipped. “It was a horrible lie.” Her bottom lip quivered. “Mother is confused. Nothing happened beyond what I’ve told you.”
“Halfway there,” the instructor said in a singsong voice. “Keep going! Stay strong!”
“This is all ancient history.” The volume of her voice hiked. “Why are you here? Do you intend to report me to the police for the murder of my father? Do you think they’ll believe you?”
“Not necessarily. But they might believe me about the Xanax.”
“Make sure your arms stay close to your body as you bend your elbows.”
Keeping her eyes glued to me, Lizzie slowly reached for the remote and aimed it at the TV. The training video clicked off, bathing the room in silence.
“What about the Xanax?” she asked.
“I saw it on your bathroom counter when I was here before.”
The muffled sounds of closing doors and retreating footsteps echoed down the corridor.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lizzie said. “I don’t take Xanax.”
“No, but you do take alprazolam, which is the active ingredient in Xanax.”
She uttered an incredulous laugh. “You think I gave Ali Xanax?”
“Yes, actually, I do.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because he learned a pretty damning secret about who you really are and what you’re capable of. That’s why you wanted me to believe Ali was mentally unstable, to hide your complicity, to make me think he needed medication.”
“What’s wrong with taking Xanax?”
“Absolutely nothing. I’m sure it helps people who need it. But Ali didn’t take Xanax because he needed it. You drugged him with your Xanax.”
She threw up one hand. The other one was still carrying the dumbbell. “You’re out of your mind. I don’t take Xanax or alpha . . . whatever you called it.”
“I saw the bottle, Lizzie.”
“I don’t know what you think you saw, but you’re welcome to look at the meds on my counter. I told you that I take all sorts of things for my stomach.”
“I know what I saw.”
“Do you really?” Exasperation rippled through each word. “Then be my guest and go get the incriminating evidence and take it straight to the police.”
I studied her, wondering what to believe.
“Maybe you want me to go get this mystery medicine?” She darted into the bathroom.
Panic streaked through me. Was she getting rid of evidence?
I barreled after her. When I burst into the bathroom, Lizzie was nowhere in sight.
That’s when I realized my mistake. A noise came from behind me. I started to turn around.
Pain exploded against my head before everything went black.
“You fucking killed her?” A man’s furious voice drifted through the darkness.
“Relax.” A woman’s voice. Lizzie. She sounded far away. “I just hit her with a weight.”
“Jesus. Just?” the man said incredulously. “You’re fucking nuts.”
The sounds of their conversation echoed in my ears. My head throbbed, pain pulsing between my temples. I felt like someone had struck me in the head with a bowling ball. I struggled to open my eyes, but my eyelids were too heavy.
“You have to hit me,” Lizzie’s voice said.
“What?” the man’s voice retorted. “Why?”
“The police have to believe Amira and I struggled. I’ll say that I was working out and she came in and attacked me. I had to hit her with the weight. It was self-defense.”
I grappled to make sense of my surroundings. Where was I? Then I remembered. Lizzie’s hotel. We argued—I couldn’t remember why—and then she’d . . . ambushed me?
“Why would Amira Abadi attack you?” the man said. “Who’s going to believe that idiotic story?”
“The cops bought it when we told them about Daddy, didn’t they? They’ll buy our story this time too.”
“Our story?” he retorted. “It’s your story.”
“Whatever,” Lizzie said dismissively. “I’ll say Amira lost it and came after me in a rage over my affair with her husband.”
“In your dreams.” He scoffed. “You weren’t fucking Ali. He wanted nothing to do with you.”
“Shut up!” Her voice grew shrill. “He would have married me if his parents hadn’t insisted he marry his own kind. They’re so backward.”
A heavy sigh. “Keep deluding yourself.”
“Come on,” she cajoled. “Hit me. You know you want to. Now’s your chance.”
The tile was cold beneath my cheek. I finally managed to blink my eyes open. I was on my side. Lizzie had her back to me, obscuring my view of her companion.
“And then what?” the man asked. “You’ll kill her the same way you offed Dad and Amira’s husband? You can’t just go around killing people.”
Lizzie did drug Ali. I closed my eyes as the truth crashed over me again. Tears welled in my throat. Oh, Ali. What these people did to you. I wanted to howl at the injustice of it.
Lizzie walked over, towering above me. I kept my eyes closed. “Amira is a huge problem. She keeps asking questions. Butting her nose where it doesn’t belong. I can’t let her tell people her ridiculous theory that I killed Daddy.”
Another long sigh. “She can’t prove anything.”
“Do you think my clients are going to want anything to do with me if they think I killed my own father? What about my kids?”
“What about them? It’s not like you’re the mother of the year.”
“I love my children. I didn’t want Ian to hurt them.”
“Mm-hmm. So you’ve said.”
Lizzie nudged my inert body with her foot. I stayed perfectly still. I wasn’t sure I could move if I wanted to. “I can hit her in the head again with the weight.” Lizzie talked fast. Energy buzzed from her. “Or I can smother her.”
He made a sound of disgust. “You really are twisted. How many people do you plan to kill?”
“Shut up. You know I didn’t mean to hurt Ali. How was I supposed to know that he was going to race out of the hotel to chase after that kid of his?”
“Did you really drug him?”
“What choice did I have? When I realized Mother told him the truth, I ground up some Xanax and stirred it into his water when he ran after his daughter in the lobby. I knew that, at some point, he’d come back for his jacket. When he did, he drank the water before running back out after the girl.”
The man exhaled long and loud. “How is this happening all over again?”
“It’s not!” she insisted. “Ali wasn’t supposed to die. I thought he’d sleep it off in my hotel room while I figured out what to do.”
“Listen, Lizzie.” The man’s voice took on a menacing tone. “I am tired of cleaning up your messes.”
“As if you’re so innocent,” she scoffed. “At least I’m not breaking into people’s houses and garages.”
“That’s completely different. I didn’t hurt Amira or anyone else. I just needed to see if Ali had any documents in his office or car that might make me lose my job. I certainly didn’t kill anyone.”
“Ha! Keep making excuses for yourself.”
The voices floated farther and farther away. The pain in my head was agonizing. Blackness seeped over me, offering a respite. No. I panicked. I had to stay awake. I had to do something. I couldn’t leave Ayla and Adam alone in the world.