Chapter 72
Sean had to play his next moves carefully. Sheriff Johnson and his other two deputies, along with Roger, were still back at The Bonnie. He didn’t think the deputies would be able to escape, but Roger hadn’t been tied up by his feet, so he was still mobile.
Sean called Rivers to ask if the roads were clear enough for her to come over, and she said she had just gotten out of her house.
“Get here as fast as you can,” Sean said. “And see if the Feds can send a unit over as well.”
“Might be hard to get a team out here, but I’ll ask,” Rivers said. “I can’t believe Johnson was in on it. I mean, I always thought he was a chauvinistic pig, but a drug runner?”
“Yeah, he contains multitudes,” Sean answered. “Come to the sheriff’s station first. I’m going to head back to The Bonnie and pick up the others.”
“So, the best man killed the bride, huh?” Rivers asked.
“Yeah,” Sean answered.
“It’s always the scorned lover,” Rivers replied. “Any luck on the missing girl?”
“Not yet,” Sean said, looking up at the sky, which was growing orange and pink as the sun was setting, knowing the sundown deadline was less than an hour away.
“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” Rivers said. “Just…stay safe, all right?”
“I’m pretty sure all of the threats have been dealt with,” Sean answered. “See you soon.”
After the call with Rivers, Sean turned his attention to the best man who had been kept inside the back of the van while everyone else went into the police station. He walked over to Tim, who had remained silent after his arrest.
The scratch marks were still visible on his chest from his open shirt, and he made no effort to hide them. Sean could see the band-aid inside his shirt that he had used to try to cover the scratch marks, but it had lost its stickiness.
“You can either confess now, or we can do it the hard way in court,” Sean said.
Tim shook his head. “It was an accident.”
“How so?” Sean asked.
“I found her in the kitchen, okay, crying,” he answered. “She was upset with her sister, and I just wanted to make her feel better.”
“So, you killed her?” Sean answered.
“I wanted to help her!” Tim shouted, flashing anger.
“I wanted her to know that everything was going to be okay! That I was there for her!” He shook his head.
“I told her that maybe now was the right time to tell Ben, to end things with him so we could be together. I told her I loved her, and I know she loved me.” He grimaced, shaking her head.
“But she just wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t leave him and told me that it was over between us, that it had always been a mistake, and that she loved Ben.
Even after he slept with her sister, she said she still loved him.
” He grimaced. “How does that make any sense?
“I told her that she was confused, that she was wrong, but she pushed me away,” he said.
“I saw that she still had that knife, and I didn’t want her to hurt herself.
I wanted… I wanted to save her.” His anger started to give way to grief.
“She ran away, heading toward the stairs, and I followed her up to the roof. I told her to stop, that it was snowing outside, but she went out on the roof anyway. She was pacing, freaking out, still holding the knife, and then she wouldn’t stop shouting at me and telling me that this was all my fault.
But she made the first move on me, okay?
She was the one who was obsessed with me.
But I fell in love with her over time, and then, when she slashed that knife at me, tried to hurt me… I… I…”
“You lost control,” Sean said, choosing to finish the man’s sentence for him.
“I grabbed the knife from her so she wouldn’t hurt herself,” Tim said.
“And then she told me that I would never be with her, that I wasn’t a real man, because real men don’t fuck their best friend’s girlfriends.
” He clenched his hands into fists, squeezing them so tight his knuckles cracked.
“She slapped me and scratched me, and the last one hurt, so I shoved the blade into her. And then, when I saw her face, the shock, the pain, and how letting out that anger made me feel good, I did it again. And again. And again. And again. And then… She stopped moving; she stopped breathing. It was snowing, and there was blood everywhere. I didn’t know what to do, so I pushed her over the edge, and she hit the ground.
I was sure someone had heard me or seen him, but when I came back inside, no one was running to find me.
I guess the wind blocked everything, muffled the noise, or… I don’t know.”
“And so you put the knife in our room when no one was looking,” Sean answered.
“I got lucky with the power going out,” Tim said. “I used bleach to clean off the handle, but I left the blood to make it look more incriminating against you. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Tim cried, but if he were looking for sympathy, he wouldn’t find any with Sean. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he said, sobbing. “Honestly, I really did love her.”
Sean stood up and then pulled the best man out of the back of the van. “No, you didn’t.” He escorted him back into the sheriff’s station, the maid of honor clocking him the entire way as Sean put him in a cell and locked the doors.
Sean then walked back over to the group, addressing the sister first. “He confessed to it,” Sean said. “I’m sure he’ll deny it, but I’ll go on record stating what happened. And forensics will be able to prove it was him after a DNA swab.”
Julie wasn’t crying anymore. Her grief had hardened into anger and resentment. “He’s lucky he’s in that box,” she said, and that was her only reply.
Sean instructed everyone to stay there. He needed to return to The Bonnie, gather Sheriff Johnson, the other deputies, and Roger to prepare for the Feds. He told them his deputy, Rivers, would be coming by soon and would make sure they were taken care of until the Feds arrived.
But while everyone was thankful for the heat, Sean kept an eye on the sun going down. Karla Grayson’s deadline was fast approaching, and he still had no idea what had happened to the little girl. But he still had time to find out.