Chapter 45
Chapter
Forty-Five
“Jill. Jill, are you waking?” Liam’s voice brings me to consciousness.
Gasping for breath with my heart racing, I peer around the room, my gaze landing on my friend. Concern shows in his eyes. “Where am I?” It’s not a private room, but a small space like you see in an emergency room.
“UCLA Medical Center. An ambulance brought you.”
Serena.
I sit up, inspecting my body. “Did she hurt me?”
Liam shakes his head. “Drugged you, but nothing else. The police arrived before I did. They got there in time, Jill. Your clue was perfect. Good enough for one of our shows.”
Our shows.
I’m tired of real-life research. Exhaling, I lay back against the pillow. “Where is she?” I ask. “Please tell me she was caught.”
“The police have her in custody.”
Closing my eyes, I try desperately to wrap my mind around the events since I made the trip to Blue Gil last May. Blinking, I look at Liam. “Oh my God. She did it all.”
“Do you think she killed her husband?”
My vow to my mother drives my answer. “I asked and she said no. It must have been an accident.”
“Did you read the information I sent you?”
My thoughts are fuzzy, but somehow, my tired brain retrieves the information he’s referring to. “About Sydney Morton. Serena killed her. She admitted it.”
“It didn’t say in this news piece that she was killed, but I recognized the name of your hometown, and I called in a few favors.”
“What did you find out?”
“Ms. Morton was assaulted, and her eyes were removed.”
My stomach twists as my hands tremble. “Assaulted? Sexually?”
He nods. “With a knife.”
“And her eyes...both?”
“Yes.”
“It’s never been both assault and eyes. It’s been one or the other,” I say.
“The crimes are progressing. When I first sent the information to you, I thought it was either a copycat who wasn’t privy to accurate information or” —he takes a breath— “your guy wasn’t guilty. And if that was the case, the perp is escalating, becoming more violent.”
“Keith didn’t do it,” I say, a rush of relief flowing through my veins. He didn’t hurt me or any of the others. I close my eyes with a sigh. “I knew it wasn’t Keith.”
As I open my eyes, Liam nods his head. “You stood by that conviction even when the evidence suggested otherwise.”
“I couldn’t believe he was guilty.”
The magnitude of Serena’s crimes overwhelms me as tears stream down my cheeks.
“Hey, you’re safe.”
I nod. “Serena did it all—killed all those people, hurt Julie and me.” My hands begin to tremble. “She was going to kill me.” A thought hits me. “Liam, do you know who besides an impotent man uses objects to assert sexual power?”
“A woman.”
“A psychotic woman with a long list of vendettas.”