Chapter 17 #4
“Did you send me those photos?” Amie asked. “The ones of Benny going into my apartment. You left the threatening note. You set that all up.”
“Yup.” Raina didn’t sound particularly proud or ashamed of herself. She was just stating facts. “I left the bar right after you. My friends were pissed, but I wanted to give you more motivation to look into Benny. Or to scare you away. Either one would’ve worked for me.
“I knew you lived in Savannah’s building, so that was easy.
Your name and apartment number were on the buzzers outside; that was easy, too.
Benny had given his number for the updates thing we have for the store, so I called him and said your bathroom was flooding.
Photographed him entering, emailed them to you. ”
“Which you also got from the updates thing,” Amie said, making a mental note to never give out her contact info to anyone ever again. Assuming she survived the night.
“Mhm. Then I slipped the note under your door after he left.”
“But still, why David? Why not Benny from the start? Savannah was blackmailing him—”
“I was blackmailing him,” Raina said, sounding tired. “Savannah had no idea it was happening.”
“What?” Amie struggled to make sense of that. “Then why did you tell me about it?”
“I wasn’t going to,” Raina explained. “But then you guys told me he and his girlfriend broke up, so I knew I couldn’t blackmail him any more after that. I figured if you were already suspecting him, I might as well lean into it.”
Amie was still working to catch up. “So everything about the rent, that was all made up?”
“No, that was true. I wasn’t ready to buy the store yet, but I knew the Harlows were struggling with money, so I was hoping having their rent lowered would keep her going longer. Covering the whole floor wasn’t Savannah trying to throw off Benny, it was—”
“—you trying to throw off Savannah,” Amie finished. “So she wouldn’t find out she was the only one with a lowered rent and start asking questions.”
“I was going to keep blackmailing him for money after Savannah’s death,” Raina said. “But that wasn’t going to work with him broken up, so I threw him under the bus.”
Amie thought back to Benny sitting with David, talking about ghosts.
The letter Amie had found in the wastebasket must have arrived after Savannah’s death, leading Benny to feel like he was being haunted.
Maybe that was even how Hallie had ultimately discovered his infidelity—he’d let his guard down after Savannah’s death, thinking he was free from the blackmail letters.
Until one arrived after her death, mentioning a possible change in terms.
“David, Madeline, Benny,” Amie said quietly. “You had everyone looking everywhere except at you.”
“That was the plan.” They moved forward to the front of the line as the people ahead of them got on the ride. “I still don’t know how you figured it out.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Amie had been so invested in following everything Raina was saying that she’d only just become aware of how quickly the line had moved.
She looked up at the Ferris wheel, then averted her eyes as her stomach lurched.
“Isn’t there somewhere else you can think? Maybe someplace on the ground?”
Raina shot her a sideways look. “Are you afraid of heights?”
“I’m not afraid of heights. It’s more like—”
Amie was interrupted by the ride operator swinging open the gate. Raina pulled her through, handing over their tickets.
“It’ll be fine,” Raina said, walking her up the steps to their seats. “Remember the alternative.”
Amie allowed herself to be lowered onto the seat, briefly considering the alternative as her body began shaking.
The ride operator lowered the bar down to their laps. Once they began rising over the lake, Raina removed the small pocketknife from Amie’s skin. She closed it with a snap.
“I started carrying this with me after Savannah died,” Raina said, resting the knife in her lap.
“I was worried Benny might figure out it was me who was threatening him. I was sort of relieved to find out I couldn’t blackmail him anymore.
It had begun to feel like something I needed to do.
Like, I’d gone so far, I couldn’t just stop because Savannah was dead. ”
“Because you killed her,” Amie said. She was still trembling, keeping her eyes fixed on Raina to avoid processing the heights they were reaching.
Raina’s face twitched. “What?”
“You keep saying ‘Savannah’s death’ and ‘Savannah died.’ She was murdered.
You murdered her.” Amie wasn’t sure if it was the absence of the knife on her back that was giving her the confidence to say those things, but the words continued to spill out of her.
“For what? A bookstore? You killed her over a bookstore?”
“IT WASN’T—” Raina reeled herself in, inhaling sharply.
“It wasn’t just for the bookstore,” she said, her voice low and measured.
“It was for me. For all the years I let her walk over me, all the time and energy I gave her, all for her to laugh in my face when I suggested that she sell the store to me. I said, ‘To keep it in the family.’ And she laughed at me.”
Raina sat back in her seat, tilting her head to look up at the sky. “All those years, for nothing. I was nothing to her. So she became nothing to me. Just an obstacle in the way of getting what I wanted, so all that time didn’t have to go to waste.”
She let out a dry chuckle. “You know, it’s been kind of nice to finally be able to tell someone about all of this. I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d been feeling this week.”
They were quiet for a full rotation of the wheel. Or maybe two or three. No longer able to avoid noticing their distance from the ground, Amie had closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing.
“Okay,” she heard Raina finally say. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”
She nudged Amie’s shoulder. “You still with me?”
“I can hear you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good. We’re going to get off the Ferris wheel.”
Amie was liking the plan so far.
“We’re gonna go back to my place, and you’re going to give me something from you—a video, an email, I’ll figure it out when we get there—saying that David killed Savannah.”
Amie wasn’t liking the plan anymore.
“I’m not doing that,” she said, opening her eyes to glare at Raina.
“Calm down. I’m not going to do anything with it. As long as you don’t tell anyone anything about me and Savannah. A fair trade.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a fair trade.” Amie stiffened as they slowed to a stop at the top of the wheel, gripping the lap bar as the seat swung gently. “On my end, an innocent person isn’t accused of murder. On your end, a guilty person gets away with murder. How is that fair?”
“You’re not really in a position to negotiate.” Having come up with a plan, Raina seemed more cheerful. She leaned over the side, looking down over the festival. “I’d say you probably have about a minute to make your decision.”
“Do I have a choice?” Amie looked out over the dark lake in front of them, finding its quiet stillness more comforting than looking at the people below.
“Sure. You can leave here with me to do my plan, or I can … oh! Perfect. Look at that.”
Amie kept her eyes on the lake.
“Amie. Look.”
Not wanting to disobey the woman holding a knife, Amie reluctantly looked over, following Raina’s gaze to the ground.
At first she thought Raina was looking at the magician introducing himself to a small crowd, and wondered if she was going to volunteer Amie to be sawed in half.
Then she saw Ziya and David making their way through the crowd toward the Ferris wheel.
“Come with me,” Raina said, “or I’ll stab whichever one gets to us first.”
“You’re not gonna do that,” Amie said shakily. “Come on. You’re a planner. You created this whole scheme to kill Savannah. This can’t end with you just stabbing someone out in the open.”
“No,” Raina argued, “this can’t end with me getting caught. But if it does, I’m taking one of them with me.”
She turned to look Amie in the eye. “You can’t sit here forever. Either way, we’re walking off this Ferris wheel. I’m offering you an easy choice: Sacrifice one of them to take me down, or leave with me, give me what I want, and we can all go on with our lives.”
The Ferris wheel began to move again, this time in the opposite direction. The lake rose to meet them as they descended.
“You’ve got one and a half more rotations to decide,” Raina said, settling back into her seat. “I feel like the easy choice is obvious.”
“Neither of them are easy,” Amie murmured. She looked over just in time to see Ziya and David reach the line for the ride before she was lifted past them back up into the sky.
“But one is easier.” Raina was beginning to sound impatient. “I’ll help you. Pick option one. Happy ending. Everyone lives.”
“Except Savannah.” A small glimmer of an idea had appeared in Amie’s mind. Like a tiny flame in the middle of a dark lake.
“Oh my god.” Raina reopened the pocketknife as they reached the top and began their final descent. “Time’s up, Amie. Decision time.”
“Okay.” Amie took a deep breath. “Decision time.”
She fell silent for several seconds, waiting.
“Well?” Raina demanded. “What’s your de—”
Amie pulled her legs up from under the lap bar and lunged for the knife. Raina clearly hadn’t been expecting Amie to make a move while still on the ride, so her light grip on the weapon made it easy for Amie to grab it. The blade sliced her hand, but Amie held on, standing up on the seat.
Before Raina could fully react to what was happening, Amie leapt off the Ferris wheel, screaming, into the dark waters of the lake.