Chapter 31
I ditch the heels as I run up the back deck, over broken glass and other items that blew away in the wind. I vaguely feel
the stinging cuts on my feet but I keep running. I text Grange the address to the house with the word hurry.
Wes has been stabbed, in his own home no less, and it could’ve been any of them. Marissa, Kate, Colton, they’re all here.
Any one of them could’ve done it.
I climb the rungs of the ladder so fast, ignoring the burning sensation in my feet and arms from doing most of the work. When
I’m eye level with the floor I see Wes slumped against the glass, red staining his white linen button-down. I get flashbacks
of Graham, causing me to falter. Annica is bent over him with her hand pressed into his side.
“Oh my god. What happened—how did this happen?” I rush over to them, feeling for a pulse on his neck, and thank god when it’s
there. “Help! Somebody help us!” I yell from the attic. There’s blood on his head, like someone knocked him out first.
“Wes told me to meet him here,” Annica says through tears. “And when I got up here she just stabbed him.”
“Who? Who stabbed him?” I look all around the room. Are we not alone up here? “Was it Marissa? Kate?”
She sniffles once before shoving something cold and hard into my hand. “It was you,” she says.
I pull away and it clatters to the wooden floor. “What?”
Annica stands, looking down at Wes, and wiping away her tears with a bloody hand. A small smile spreads across her face and
I can only stare at her, while firmly keeping a hand where I assume the stab wound is. The blood makes the shirt squelch under
my fingers. I try to gather it up to apply more pressure. Annica turns and shuts the attic door, locking it. She grabs something
from the corner of the room, crumples it up, and tosses it at me. It lands on the floor in front of me and I already know
what it is. With my other hand, I shakily open it to confirm my suspicions, and there on the white paper is the printed copy
of my journal page, the one for Wes, with just his name. I breathe in shallow breaths. “You?”
She grabs something else, something small and dark. The metal clinks against the rings on her hand. A gun. “I honestly can’t
believe you never figured it out.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of it. It can’t be. It can’t be her. This must be some kind of mistake.
“I found your journal Welcome Weekend, recognized all the names as your exes. Imagine my surprise when I got to the end and
saw Wesley’s name. God, I was furious. After I specifically asked you not to! I wanted just one thing from you and you couldn’t
even do that. You just take, and take, and take with no regard for anyone but yourself.”
The way she talks to me now with such disgust in her tone, the same way she talks to Asher on a good day, I have no doubt in my mind.
It is her. It has been her the entire time.
I brought her to Ryan’s apartment, I brought her to Marco’s restaurant.
I thought I was saving Bryce by keeping him around, but I only brought him closer to the killer.
She continues, because I am too stunned to speak. “Ryan was easy enough; he was already pretty drunk when I pushed him. And
all I had to do to get him out there was tell him I had dirt on you. He really did not like you. Then we have Marco. I had been to his restaurant twice before we went as a group, so I could see what time he leaves
and who all stays to close up. And wouldn’t you know, he was always the last to leave. He’d play music and scrub that kitchen
clean every night until long past midnight, with nothing but a bottle of wine to keep him company. The tricky part was making
sure he’d be there until at least 3 a.m. So I had Dalton unknowingly suggest a bottle of wine to him that I put Rohypnol in.
That’s a whole other story, though.” Annica shakes her head, waving a hand as if to say she’ll tell me that story later.
But I have a feeling there won’t be a later.
“None of you even noticed when I snuck out of Dalton’s party to start the gas leak and plant a gasoline canister in your trunk.
And let’s see . . . who was next? Oh, Bryce.
” She laughs. “The sword was kind of crazy, wasn’t it?
I just really wanted to do something special for Halloween.
Luckily, he was already drunk and coked out of his mind when I found him in the back room.
I was in and out of there in under thirty minutes.
Graham’s was a real challenge. Pretending to be his manager and meeting with the building security, convincing them to have all cameras pointed to the most expensive gallery piece, creating the perfect blind spot, then shooting him and getting the gun into your hotel room all before you got back.
I almost had Tristan too but you just had to go and get a police detail on him.
” Annica pauses like she’s trying to remember if that was everyone.
“And you know what really made this whole thing even better? You always let yourself get so fucking drunk that you black out almost every time. It was honestly amusing to watch you unravel each time that you couldn’t remember what happened the night before, thinking that maybe it really was you.
I know you thought that in the beginning, I could see it in your face. ”
“Why?” I say finally, when I think I have heard enough.
“To ruin your life. I wanted you to know what it feels like to have something taken from you, so I tried taking everything
from you. I wanted you to rot in prison for crimes you didn’t commit. And it was going so well. I really thought I had you
when you went to the police. I thought surely you would not be walking back out of that station unless you were in handcuffs.
But they let you go. They let you fucking go. So I had to redirect. You already thought it was Holland, and I couldn’t let
them find out it was me, so I was the one to put the evidence in his office.”
“What about Jonah?” She didn’t mention him, but I have to know.
“Jonah? No, I owe the whole idea to Jonah. He was my inspiration. I saw how his death affected you and I just knew this was
how I’d get my revenge.”
“All because I slept with Wesley?”
“It wasn’t just Wes. I was so sick of you always getting your way.
You don’t even try and you still get everything handed to you.
Every boy I like likes you first. You fucked a professor, ruined his marriage, got him fired, and still got to continue on with no repercussions.
You got a DUI and they expunged it from your record.
All four years of school you hardly put in any work and you get better grades than me.
I’ll bet you would’ve even won this short-story competition .
. . if you were still going to be around to submit it. ” She points the gun at me now.
“I already called 911; the police will be up here any moment.” Though I didn’t. I just told Dani to, in hopes that she would.
There could be no one coming at all. That would explain why I haven’t heard a single thing from downstairs.
“Then I guess I should make this quick. Walk to the balcony,” she demands.
I look at Wes, unconscious. “I can’t, I can’t leave him,” I cry with my hand still pressed to the wound.
She points the gun at him instead. “Oh, don’t pretend to care about him now. Not when you’re still sleeping with Asher. I
could say I went to fire at you and missed, hitting him by accident. I wonder if he’d survive a stabbing and a gunshot—probably
not.” I stand up with my hands raised, and back up to the open door. “You were so guilt-ridden by all the lies and the murder
that you couldn’t take it anymore, so you jumped.”
I make it onto the balcony and peer over the edge. The party is still going on below. I wonder if I scream for help if anyone
would hear it. Did anyone hear it the first time? Did the people downstairs call anyone? Did Dani? Or will Annica get away
with two more murders? “I thought we were friends,” I say.
“I thought so too.”
Finally, I can hear voices and stomping on the stairs growing louder, coming toward the attic. We both look at the locked door on the floor.
“You’re just going to have to shoot me,” I say. “I’m not going to jump. And then you’ll be the one in prison for murder.”
Annica laughs, and it’s cold and maniacal. “Me? For using self-defense against the Pembroke Psycho? Your prints are on the
knife now, and that is your journal page. I’ll tell them all about how I saw you stab him, your final victim. I’ll be a hero.”
There’s banging on the locked attic door, as whoever it is tries to get in.
“Asher knows the truth.”
“Asher?” She laughs, she actually laughs, like I just told her the funniest joke she’s ever heard. But the door is about to
bust open, and she knows she’s out of time. I’m out of time. “Goodbye, Sloane.”
The gun makes a clicking noise and I take a deep breath, closing my eyes. I play the song in my head, the one Asher played
for me on the piano. There’s shouting, other voices, but I can’t bring myself to open my eyes. The gun fires with a crack
and I wait for it to hit me but . . . when I open my eyes again, Annica is the one face down on the ground, a pool of red
forming from under her green dress, and an officer by the attic entrance lowering his arm after firing the shot. The rest
happens in a blur. Two officers are in the attic now: One is kneeling next to Wesley, the other is saying something to me.
His mouth is moving but all I hear is the ringing in my ears after the gunshot, and “Clair de Lune.”
It should have been me. The thought crosses my mind ever so briefly and is gone quicker than a blink.
If she would have shot me, then I would no longer have to go to sleep feeling guilty over all the deaths.
I would no longer have to feel guilty about lying to Wes, especially now if he doesn’t make it.