Chapter Thirty-six
It can’t be. I’m frozen where I stand. I can see in my mind’s eye the sly smirk, the hooded eyes. I force my feet to pivot. I think I gasp. But it’s more like all the oxygen leaves my body.
‘Zoe! Oh my God, you’re alive!’ Everything collides in my chest. Too many emotions to feel. ‘I’ve been looking for you for so long! I can’t believe—’ No, now’s not the time for feelings— ‘We – we have to get out of here! You – and Brooke – and Liam. Now!’
Her dark hair is a lank waterfall around her face.
Her huge eyes, once bright, are now surrounded by dark circles.
She’s dressed in a ribbed tank top that shows how bony she’s gotten.
Paint splatters her arms – and she’s leaning on crutches.
The bottom of her leg is wrapped in a stained bandage.
There’s a stench of rotting flesh. Devin.
He mutilated her. Did he do this to all his victims so they couldn’t run away?
‘Zoe? We have to go!’ I repeat.
For a minute, she just stares at me.
Of course. She’s traumatized – probably in shock—
‘That’s what you think is happening?’ she finally says, her voice raspy, confused. Like someone who’s been in isolation for far too long.
‘Yes! You need medical help!’ My eyes fill with tears. ‘Your foot – I’m so sorry—’ I reach out my arm to touch her, but she holds up a crutch to keep me at a distance.
I fold my hands together as if in prayer, because I need her to listen to me, to start moving.
‘We have to get out of here before Devin comes back. Zoe – I know you’ve been trapped here for so long, but it’s over, you’re going to be free again—’
Her head drops, and there’s a hoarse coughing sound. When she lifts her face, I realize she’s laughing.
‘I’m not a prisoner here, Margot.’
What the …
‘OK,’ I say slowly, carefully, even as I realize what’s going on. Stockholm Syndrome. ‘Sure. But Devin won’t mind if we get you to a doctor. Your foot … you need help. Then we can come back.’
Her expression twists. I think it’s a smile. ‘You can’t be this stupid.’
I stare back, because my brain has stopped functioning.
Finally, she says, ‘Don’t play dumb. You’ve been on to me for months, roomie.’
I just shake my head, because I have no idea what’s happening.
‘You were so obsessed with Kayleigh and Crystal.’
I blink, still not following.
‘You couldn’t shut up about them! I knew you suspected me. Did you hire Liam? The PI who tried to nab me? I realized who he was just in time to avoid walking into that date like a prime idiot—’ She glances toward the door. ‘He’s not long for this world, though.’
‘No!’ I gasp. ‘Zoe, what are you saying? I’d never – Liam was just trying to—’
‘So you are working together.’
‘It was your parents—’
Another fit of coughing laughter seems to overtake her, and she holds up a finger for me to stop while she recovers. When she does, little tears are streaking down her face.
‘Am I going to have to spell this out for you?’
And then it hits me.
It’s her.
The female dragonfish.
Not Devin; Zoe. The one with teeth. The one who feeds.
Fucking fuck! My head goes hot, then cold. This can’t be happening …
Brooke groans again, turning on her mat, reminding me that this is very much happening, and that there are innocent lives at stake.
‘You were supposed to move on,’ says Zoe, her eyes intense, almost tortured. ‘I disappeared. You were supposed to give up, but you didn’t, did you? You kept digging. Finally I realized you wouldn’t stop until you had a body part—’
My stomach turns. ‘You cut off your foot to stop me?’
Her gaze narrows. ‘In part. But I needed it anyway. For my painting.’
My voice is whisper-thin. ‘Sorry?’
‘My series.’
Oh … fuck.
‘Each painting contains the ashes of the subject,’ she says, her eyes glowing as if this is brilliant and she expects me to ooh and aah.
Now it hits me, what she’s saying. Zoe killed these women. My best friend of nearly a decade is a murderer. She incinerated the feet of her victims, as well as her own foot, and mixed the ashes into her paint.
‘Why?’ It’s all I can manage.
Zoe’s gaze cuts into me.
‘You haven’t figured it out? You were always so smart. I guess I overestimated your intelligence and underestimated your fucking stubbornness.’
I look at her as memories filter down. How Zoe saw herself as a victim at every turn – of her parents. The school system. The art establishment.
Then I remember Big Dog’s observation about tradwives and—
Of course.
It hits so fast, I’m kicking myself for not seeing it before.
She would have seen herself as a victim of these women’s messages, too.
Kayleigh, who wanted to take away women’s right to choose.
Crystal, who encouraged women to be sexually submissive.
And Brooke, who wanted women to stay home and in their lane.
Each, in Zoe’s view, asking her to give up her power in a different way. Asking her to become a victim. The narrative she built her life around – and the narrative she hated so passionately.
‘You thought they were trying to put you down,’ I say.
Zoe sags with relief. ‘You do understand me.’
‘No.’ My voice is ragged, broken. ‘I don’t.’
A shadow flashes across her face. She hits a crutch on the floor. I jump. Brooke moans.
‘We’re all supposed to be in it together, Margot!’ Her voice is thick with emotion. ‘The sisterhood? Women supporting women? You get it! You believe in that too!’
I look at Brooke, who’s thrashing against her bonds like a fish. Not a picture of women supporting women. How did Zoe get so twisted? How does she think any of this is justified?
‘I mean, men?’ she continues. ‘I expect them to be assholes. Fuck the patriarchy. But women—’ Her lips tighten. ‘I’ve been a victim my whole life. I had to fight to get my power. And these bitches wanted to put the shackles right back on us.’
‘No,’ I say quietly. Firmly. ‘They wanted to live their own lives the way they saw fit.’
‘Wrong!’ she shouts. ‘They were trying to shame any woman who didn’t live like them!’
‘So you killed them?’ I can’t accept it. This can’t be the Zoe I lived with for eight years, shared laughs and meals and clothes with. How did this happen? How did she get here?
Suddenly, her face crumples. She lowers her head and sniffs. ‘You have no idea how cruel women can be. It was my fucking parents, all over again.’
‘I met them,’ I fling back. ‘They’re nothing like you said. You made up some shit about being locked in the basement that wasn’t even true!’
‘Because the truth wasn’t enough for the social workers to take me seriously.’
‘And your dad wasn’t a pastor!’
‘He might as well have been.’
‘What is the truth? What exactly were they doing that was so terrible, Zoe?’
‘Trying to get me to conform, to clip my wings!’ she explodes, eyes blazing. ‘I can’t be trapped like that! It’s the same story, my whole life. No one has supported me. No one. All anyone has ever done is try to control me, reduce me!’
My lungs pump in and out like an accordion. I want to say, what about me? How can she say this? For eight years, we supported each other through shitty apartments, jobs, boyfriends. Did that mean nothing to her?
Her mouth twists. ‘Except for Deedee. He was the only one who really got it, who really fucking cared. And then they took him away from me too. But we found each other again.’
‘I thought we had each other.’ My voice cracks.
Her face softens, and for an instant I see her sadness. ‘We did, babe.’
‘And that wasn’t enough for you? I thought it was us against the world! And now you’re killing people? And mutilating yourself?’
‘My ashes had to be in my painting. My self-portrait. It couldn’t be perfect without a piece of me.’
‘Had to be?’ My voice rises to a hysterical pitch.
‘Yes,’ she snaps. ‘You saw it, didn’t you, my self-portrait? After Devin brought me the ashes, I was able to put on the finishing touches. It’s my best work yet …’
‘And whose ashes did you dump on the beach, Zoe, to make me think you were dead?’
She waves a frustrated hand, like she’s annoyed by the question. ‘I don’t know. Does it matter? Devin took some from work. What matters is my art, my voice finally getting listened to.’
‘Is that what you told yourself as you attacked three other women, too?’
For a second, we stare at each other. Then, her face contorts. She makes a small sound in her throat and a tear slips down her face.
‘I wasn’t going to kill anyone, Margot.’ She sniffs.
‘I swear it didn’t start like that. I was painting Kayleigh after that horrible day at the pregnancy center, because that’s my process.
I paint my trauma. It was good too, I could feel it.
But it wasn’t good enough. The galleries – they didn’t want me, OK?
I knew if I was ever going to make it, I had to do something radically different.
See? To make the best, most powerful portrait I could, I needed Kayleigh to sit for me. ’ She flicks the tear away.
I glance at Brooke, who’s gone still again.
Her eyes are rolling back in her head. For the first time, I notice the nearby easel with color blocking in yellows and blacks and the vague human figure starting to take shape at the center – Brooke’s portrait.
Incomplete. The only reason she’s still alive.
I try to keep my voice calm as the horrifying vision unfolds of what Zoe was up to while we were living together, as she skipped out in the morning to go about her day.
‘So you kidnapped Kayleigh, brought her to Devin’s house and made her sit.’
‘It took a couple weeks to complete,’ says Zoe, letting her gaze drift away from mine, as if she’s seeing things I can’t.
Her expression hardens. ‘She was so impatient. So much whining. It’s not like I didn’t feed her!
But even after I’d painted her to the best of my ability, I knew there was still something missing.
Some essence I couldn’t grasp. Some vital energy, that spark that would guarantee it was my breakout … ’
I don’t speak. I couldn’t even if I tried.