Chapter 49
“Get out,” Gary says, gun aimed at my stomach. For the last twenty minutes, I’ve tried to remember every mystery show I’ve ever watched, every victim who was held at gunpoint while driving. How did Shawn Spencer talk his way out of messy situations over and over again with the ease of an arrogant idiot? Being held hostage is not all it’s cracked up to be.
I push the car door open. I’m tempted to run. But the fear of a bullet hitting my back keeps me in line. A shiver runs through my body at the thought.
Gary made me park under an awning next to the back entrance and away from the main office. No one is around to help. I can’t go into our apartment building with him, I’ll be as good as dead.
As if he can sense my need to run, he jabs his gun into my lower back. “Don’t even think about it or your little friend dies.”
Little friend? And why is he speaking with a Scottish accent? “What are you talking about?”
“I knew someone saw me kill Justin, but I wasn’t sure who until I accessed your messages on your laptop. Thanks for finding me the girl.”
“Okay, first of all, you know how to use technology?” Is everything I’ve previously believed a lie?
“I’m sixty-five, not dead. And yes, I have Leah, so you better walk.”
It was him all along. He forced Leah to call me.
Liam locked the salon door. The thought hits me like a slap in the face. I heard him lock it, but I never heard Gary come in. I didn’t hear the ding above the door announcing another arrival. Because he was already inside. He was the one who set the trap.
Gary sticks the gun in my handbag and holds it in front of him, so the gun is aimed at my back the whole way up the walk.
I do as I’m told. I won’t let another person die.
Besides that, I want answers. I deserve answers.
“You don’t have dementia,” I say. Along with finding Justin dead in my tub, that’s one thing that will haunt me forever. I took Gary in and cared for him. But it was all an act.
“Turns out dementia is easy to fake.”
“Is your name even Gary?”
“No, now shut up.” He moves closer as a person comes into view. I don’t know them, and they don’t care to know me because they don’t look up from their phone.
Gary cackles. “Gotta love technology.” We stop at his door and he orders me to open it. When it takes too long, he shoves the gun into my spine.
I stumble over the threshold, catching a glimpse of a wide-eyed Leah in the front room, tied to a chair and gagged. I make a move toward her but Gary catches my arm and holds me with a strength I didn’t know he possessed.
“Your seat is at the table.” He forces me into a chair where a cup of cold tea waits. And Agent Fischer.
“You too?” At this point, I shouldn’t be surprised by who betrays me.
The agent flinches and stalks over to Gary. “What is this? You told me all I had to do was disappear for thirty minutes and let the girl wander off. You didn’t say anything about kidnapping and holding hostages.”
“Relax. Your job is done.” Gary reaches into his satchel and hands Agent Fischer a thick wad of cash. He starts counting the bills, but Gary snaps at him. “It’s all there.”
“How much did you sell two innocent women out for, Agent Fischer?” I sneer.
His shoulders bunch, but he doesn’t say a word as he sticks the cash in a bag and heads for the door.
“Your wife will never forgive you for this,” I call out to him.
He freezes, and for a split second, I have hope. But then he pulls open the door and walks out.
“I think his wife will be quite happy with their new home in the Caribbean,” Gary says, a gleam in his eyes. “Now that that’s settled.” He points to the cup. “Drink.”
Drink poison? No, thank you. Try again later.
“Why are you doing this?” I spit.
“Because I did a bad thing. And got caught by that idiot thief. But now…” He retrieves a key from a drawer in the kitchen and holds it up with a grin. “Now I can go free.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, which is great news for you because you can still release me and I won’t be able to tell anyone anything.”
But Gary isn’t listening as he opens my purse and pulls out the jewelry box.
“How did you know I had that?”
“Because I’ve been watching you for years.”
“What do you mean?”
“Justin was working for me. Do you think it was a coincidence you ran into each other at that bar two years ago?”
My heart drops to the floor. “No. He was working for Liam.”
“Yeah, in the last few months, he was. Turns out Justin double-crossed me and was scheming with Liam to put me behind bars. That’s when I moved in next to you.”
He inserts the key into the jewelry box and the lid pops open with ease. Then he opens a tiny drawer within the box and pulls out the most gorgeous ring I’ve ever seen.
Thering. That’s the one Justin was trying to find. Not my engagement ring.
“Why would Liam want you in jail?” I ask.
Gary’s eyes flick to mine, a terrifying smile dancing in his gray irises. “Because I killed his girlfriend.”
“Scarlett,” I breathe.
“Yes, Scarlett Winthrop, the little brat. Seems you’ve heard of her.”
My heart hurts for the man who still can’t figure out if he’s good or not. She was the biggest thing in Hollywood, a breakout star, gone too soon. Liam’s love.
Gary killed her, and Justin.
“Liam wasn’t the bad guy,” I say, almost to myself. I think back on our interaction at the salon. Liam promised he wouldn’t hurt me. And he never did. I was right. I mean, I was right fifty percent of the time. The other fifty I was for sure accusing him of being a serial killer.
“Oh, he’s done plenty of bad things, darling,” the man I used to know as Gary says. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s a thief and it was easy to make him look guilty.”
“What do you mean?”
“This box.” He taps the lid, “belonged to her. I was content to let that be my only theft. But then she figured me out, so I had to kill her. That’s when I decided the box wasn’t worth as much as the ring, so I took that too. Right off her dead finger. And because she was dating Liam at the time, a suspected thief and all that, it was easy to sway the investigation in his direction. Except he stole the box and ring from me and disappeared.”
And then he lost it to my parents. He was probably planning on taking it to the authorities or the Winthrops and telling them what happened until he lost it. That’s why he’s been searching for it all these years. Or did he want it because he’s a thief?
“Why didn’t you let everyone believe it was Liam and let it be?”
“And risk him finding the box and revealing the truth? Not a chance. Besides, that”s a lot of money. I followed him to Italy, thinking he still had the box until I overheard him talking to this lovely couple.”
My stomach sinks. No.
“I approached them. They wouldn’t give it up. But they also knew too much. So you see, I couldn’t let them live. As luck would have it, I didn’t have to do anything at all. Your dad had too much to drink, and the curve came too quickly.”
My dad had too much to drink? My dad barely drank. Gary must have poisoned him like he’s trying to poison me. I pick up the cup of tea and chuck it at Gary, then I bolt out of my seat and right at him. I dig my fingernails into his face until droplets of blood pop through the red skin. All I feel is vengeance. He killed my parents.
A familiar sound of a gun clicking echoes through the kitchen and I feel the press of cold metal under my chin. “I didn’t want to do it this way. I prefer a gentler approach.”
He wipes blood from his cheek and I feel a small measure of satisfaction at causing him pain when he’s caused so much more for me. I won’t go down without a fight.
My nostrils flare, the fire in me only raging hotter, but I step back, hands up. I need to hold him off until someone comes. Because someone will come. Caleb. He’s coming for me, I know it.
“Good thing I made another,” Gary smirks, grabbing another cup from the counter and walking me backward to the table, gun in one hand, poison in the other.
“Now come on, stop talking and finish your tea, I’ve got a flight to catch.”
“Think this through, Gary. There’s still time to change.”
He laughs. Actually cackles. “And give up the chance to make forty million dollars when I sell this? No, thank you.”
I had a ring worth forty million dollars in my possession? And I didn’t lose it. Wait no, I did lose it to Gary.
If I’m going to meet my demise tonight, there is one last thing I need to know.
“Did you tell Justin to propose to me?” I can’t ask Justin anymore what was real and what wasn’t. But I need to know the answer to this.
Gary barks out a laugh. “The stupid kid fell for you. I straightened him out quickly though and found him some other girls to spend his time with to keep him from getting too attached to you.” He nods towards Leah, who screams behind her gag.
I can’t believe I ever considered this man a grandfatherly figure. He’s pure evil.
I’ve always wanted to try this and there’s no better time than now. My body convulses and I grab the side of my head. “I’m getting a vision. I see your mother. She’s so disappointed.”
“Good.” Garcy scoffs. “The woman disappointed me too.”
“And your first love. She regrets not sticking around. Maybe then you would have known true love.”
“You’re not psychic!” he snarls, his eyes twitching.
“No, but I thought it would buy me some time.”
“You thought wrong.” He raises the gun and I take a dainty sip. The cold, bitter liquid slips down my throat and I imagine it singeing my esophagus on its way down. It probably doesn’t work that fast, but what if it does? I need to throw it up. But what if he waits around to watch me die? My throat constricts. Is that the poison or my fear?
The gun clicks. This time it’s aimed in Leah’s direction. “Finish it.”
I can’t believe I didn’t think ahead to this moment. I should have, like Carlton Lassiter, slowly built up an immunity to poison by consuming a tiny bit each day. It could have been one of my hobbies.
Okay, that might not be real. But facing imminent death makes me regret not trying. Unless of course, I died before that. These end-of-life conundrums are very confusing. I’m not worried about Connor or Maddie. They’ll be devastated but they’re strong, and they’ve got each other. But what about Caleb? He’ll hate himself forever for not protecting me better even though it was all my fault.
“Drink it!” Gary yells.
I’m not quite ready yet. If this is my dramatic ending, I’m going to make it count. “I hope you regret this every night as you go to bed and in the morning when you wake up and the miserable life you’ve created for yourself haunts you. When you get dementia for real, I hope this is your only memory.” I take a mouthful of tea and spit at him.
“Drink it!” he screams, his face turns red and veins bulge on his forehead. He stalks toward me until the gun is at my temple. “Last chance.”
This is the end.
“Also, I let the dogs pee in your flowers every day.” I hold up the cup, raising it in cheers to him. “Have an awful life, Gary.” And then I sip in a mouthful of poison.