Chapter 31
No Damsels in Distress
“So. How’d you do it?” Mark asks as he peers out the windshield, creeping through the trees, down the logging road, back toward civilization.
“Which one?”
“All of them.”
“Joey Carmichael was cyanide. Sorry about doing it during your season opener. I was angry, and I wanted to make a point.”
“Remind me not to piss you off,” Mark murmurs.
“The week before it happened, Katie was leaving the pharmacy and she saw him. He waved at her,” I explain.
“He waved at her?” Mark questions, sounding appalled.
“Yes. I was going to kill Garret Fischer first, but after that… Well. Joey bumped himself up to the top of my list.”
“So you used me to get into the arena and then hid somewhere overnight?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. You were the easiest way to get close to them. If I could do it all differently, I would.”
“Why me?” Mark asks. “Why’d you decide on me as opposed to anyone else who works with the team?”
I take a deep breath and exhale it. “Vaughn said of everyone he looked into, he found three people who would be likely to be interested in me enough to get me access to the team. Clark Thomas, Adam Klaussen, and you. It didn’t seem like I’d have anything in common with Clark, and Adam seemed like he had commitment issues.
You were unattached, but you’d been in a long-term relationship before coming here.
It seemed like you and I would at least have things to talk about.
And it’s shallow, but you’re way more attractive than either of them.
“I actually followed you for a day before we met. That’s why I dyed my hair.
You were having breakfast, and I saw you checking out a woman with black hair, so I dyed mine,” I blurt out.
Heat creeps up my cheeks, and I know he can’t see it, but I still want to look away.
If I don’t tell him now, though, he’ll hear about it from my dad.
“You dyed it because you saw me look at someone with black hair?” he says, sounding skeptical.
“Yes, and yes, I know how that sounds!”
Mark bursts out laughing, and I know he’s laughing at me, but it’s okay. I deserve it. “How’d you get past the door locks?” he asks eventually.
“The code was nine-nine-nine-nine, Mark. It wasn’t hard.”
“Okay. And Davidson?”
“Some pepper spray, a baseball bat, and a lot of luck. He had cleaners. I snuck in after them and waited for him to get home. I ambushed him with pepper spray—which wasn’t quite as effective as I was hoping, leading to him punching me in the face.
We struggled, I hit him in the back of the head with the bat, and then tossed his body in his swimming pool and waited for him to drown.
“I drugged Brandon Miller with GHB, waited for him to pass out, and then slid a knife into his heart. I shot Rhys Steichen with a tranquilizer dart, tied him to a chair, and asked him about the others,” I say softly.
“The others?” Mark echoes.
“He had an address book. I found it in his locker room stall the night I poisoned Joey Carmichael. I took it and asked Vaughn to look into the names in the book after I found Katie’s old address in it.
Vaughn found the names of nine other women he thought had been assaulted.
I asked Rhys about them. He admitted to eight of the nine. ”
“Ah. That explains both Steichen bitching about someone stealing from him earlier in the season and the police reading me a list of women’s names asking if I recognized any of them. I admitted to having met Katie. I told them you spent last night with me.”
“You gave me an alibi?” I ask, trying to ignore the pressure building behind my eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why didn’t you?” he responds softly.
“I’m sorry. Please believe me when I say I know I should have.” I clear my throat. “Anyway, after that, I put a screwdriver into his brain. You saw what happened with Garret.”
There’s a long stretch of silence. Mark turns from the logging road onto a paved road, and then we’re getting onto I-84 West. “You going to kill anyone else?” he asks finally.
“No. I’m not planning on it. At least not as long as they keep their hands to themselves. What happened at your meeting? I was expecting Garret to be there.”
“He was supposed to be. He made an excuse about having food poisoning, and then apparently ditched his security detail. They’re going to lose their shit when they realize he’s gone. Tomorrow is going to suck,” he says, and I resist the impulse to apologize again.
“As far as what happened… Not much. There was talk of postponing tomorrow’s game.
But they discarded that idea pretty quickly.
No one wants to lose the money. Our games have been averaging higher than normal ticket sales and television views since Carmichael died in the season opener.
I think people are hoping it’ll happen again and they’ll be there to see it when it does.
“They’re increasing security at the arena.
The team has been told to limit any extracurricular activities.
The owners volunteered to install new state-of-the-art security systems for anyone who wants one.
And the private security is going to stick around until at least the beginning of next year, despite being completely ineffective. ”
“Good old capitalism,” I murmur. It was reason enough to let a bunch of rapists continue to be venerated, and it’s good enough to overlook a murder or five. “He came to see me a week and a half ago.”
“Who?”
“Garret Fischer. He figured out that Katie was my cousin and put two and two together. He told me he knew. And I knew it was only a matter of time before he tried to kill me. So I told him to prove it.”
Mark’s hands clench on the steering wheel. “You told him to prove it? What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that if he’d figured it out, I had nothing to lose by taunting him.”
“And you didn’t bother mentioning this? Any of this? Even just that he’d shown up at your office threatening you?”
“I thought about it. I almost told you more than once. But…”
“But?”
I sigh. “You threw a guy out of a window, Mark. At a party full of people. If you’d thought Garret fucking Fischer was threatening me, what would you have done?”
“I…” he trails off.
“Yeah. Exactly. And I can take care of myself. I ask for help when I need it, and I’m sorry I didn’t ask for yours sooner.
I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you sooner. I love you.
But I don’t need you to protect me. I’m not a damsel in distress.
I’m not telling you about it now so that we can argue.
I’m telling you so that you’ll trust me when I say there’s nothing else about this that I haven’t told you. ”
He takes a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Hey Alyssa, what’s up?” Katie asks when she answers her phone.
It’s a bit after ten in the morning, and Mark left for the arena about half an hour ago, after making me promise more than once that I wouldn’t leave, which is fair.
He’s still freaked out after last night, and seeing the state of my face this morning didn’t help matters.
He asked me if I was sure my nose wasn’t broken at least half a dozen times and suggested taking me to have my ribs imaged nearly as many, but I wouldn’t let him.
The last thing I need is a paper trail documenting my injuries.
Instead, I’m propped up on Mark’s couch.
He put everything I could possibly need within arm’s reach, and I promised to move as little as possible.
It wasn’t a hard promise to make. Everything hurts.
The bruise on my ribs covers the entire left side, and it’s just beginning to form.
It’s going to be purple by tomorrow. It hurts even to breathe.
Moving is worse. I had to have Mark wash the blood and dirt out of my hair last night, so I had no issue promising to be exactly where I am now when he gets home.
“Where are you? Can you talk?”
“Yeah, just give me a sec,” she says. “Okay. We’re good. What’s up?”
“Garret Fischer is dead, Kay. They’re all dead.”
“He’s— You— Alyssa, what the fuck happened? I thought we agreed you’d tell me before you went after him!”
“I didn’t go after him. He ambushed me last night.
The Black Bears called a mandatory team meeting after the police found Rhys’s body, and everyone was supposed to be there.
I assumed it was safe. But he skipped it and grabbed me instead.
I look like I got hit by a Mack truck, but he’s dead.
” I wait a beat and then add, “Mark knows everything.”
“You told him?” she questions, her disbelief clear.
“Yes. He’d already figured it out and… I’m in love with him. I told him everything.”
“How’d that go?”
“He helped me cover it up. Turns out he’d already told the police I spent all night with him. He gave me an alibi, Kay, but admitted to knowing you as part of it.”
“Okay. That’s good to know. He might be worth keeping around.”
“Yeah. I know you’re eager to come back, but you should stay there until they find Garret’s body.”
“Alright. Are you okay, Alyssa?”
“The next couple of weeks are going to suck, but it was worth it. I’ll be fine. Promise.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m still sorry I didn’t go with you that night.”
“I’m not,” Katie says. “You know as well as I do that there’s no guarantee it would’ve changed anything. They probably would’ve raped us both if you had.”
I sigh. I know she’s right, but knowing and feeling are two different things. Getting past the guilt is always the hardest part.
Katie and I talk for a few more minutes before she tells me she has to go. We hang up, and I call Vaughn.
“Hey kid, what’s up?” he asks when he picks up my call.
“Hey Vaughn. I just wanted to let you know that Garret Fischer is dead. You don’t have to worry.”
“How? When?”
“Last night,” I say, recounting the events, explaining what happened. “What was it like telling Marjorie the truth?” I finally ask.
Vaughn laughs. “Terrifying. You know the Jaws theme song? It felt just like that sounds.”
“Yeah. That’s how it felt telling Mark too. You knew about Wisconsin, didn’t you?” I accuse.
“Yeah. I knew,” he agrees.
“So, what? You decided you could be a matchmaker in addition to being a fixer?”
“I’m not a fixer, Alyssa. I only fix things for you because I like you. And because I owe Randall.”
It’s my turn to laugh. “Please,” I scoff. “You might be licensed as a private investigator, and you might not be some crime boss’s fixer, but you’re definitely a fixer.”