Chapter 20
AVA
Her stomach lurched as she tried to wipe her hands against the rough bricks of the building to her left. She didn’t want to use the evening gown she still wore and risk blood stains all over her clothes.
She still needed them to get back to the hotel from wherever she was right now. But could she risk going back there?
There were too many questions she couldn’t answer. And she didn’t want to drag the rest of her friends into a murder investigation. Maybe it was best if she stayed away.
She didn’t want to create more trouble for Alex.
What she needed now was a place to lay low for a while, but she was in a foreign country with nowhere to go.
As she vetted her options, she wracked her brain, desperate to come up with some clue as to whose blood was all over her hands and how she’d even gotten out of the hotel room and into the street. Had she killed Charles Whittaker?
If that had been the case, why had no one taken her back to the hotel room? Alex would have had a front row seat to whatever crime she committed.
Maybe she should sneak back into the hotel and find out what she’d done.
“Alex?” she asked, glancing down at her dress.
Her heart sank when she spotted the brooch missing from where it had been pinned. When had she removed it? Did Alex know what had happened?
Before she could contemplate it further, the metal door to her left burst open. Sebastian popped from the stairwell, his features a mixture of relief and worry.
“I got her,” he said as he inched closer. “Ava–”
“Shadow,” she said, her features twisting with relief as she spotted him.
“Ava, thank goodness. And it’s you, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice shaky. “Uh, I think I did something. But I can’t remember anything. I think…I think I killed Charles Whittaker.”
“Okay, let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s just…get you back to the hotel.” Sebastian pulled his jacket off and closed the gap between them, wrapping it around her.
“Did you see what happened? Did Alex? What did I do?” Her voice broke as she tried to imagine what scenario had occurred to lead to her in the middle of a dark alley with bloodstained hands.
“Easy,” Sebastian said. “Let’s just get back to the hotel…yeah? Yeah, hold on.”
He pulled the earpiece from his ear and handed it to her. “Your husband.”
With shaky hands, Ava reached for the earpiece, her eyes turning glassy. She placed it in her ear, struggling to keep her voice steady. “Alex?”
“Sparky, thank goodness Shadow found you. We’ve been worried sick.”
Sebastian placed an arm around her shoulders and guided her toward the main street.
“Do you know what I did?” she asked, a sob in her voice.
“Let’s talk about it when you’re safe. Okay?”
She groaned. “That’s making it worse, Ace. I know I did something. I can’t stand not knowing.”
“Babe, it’s…nothing, okay?”
“It can’t be nothing, Ace. I have blood all over my hands.” The words stuck in her throat, and she pressed her lips together, desperate to quell the firestorm of emotions brewing within her.
“Take it easy, Ava,” Kyle said. “Your heart rate is skyrocketing right now. We need you to get back here safely.”
“I’m trying, Doc, but this is spiraling out of control. I need to know what happened.”
“Sparky, you will as soon as you get here. But here’s the thing…you didn’t do anything wrong because this wasn’t you.”
She pressed a palm against her forehead. “That bad huh?”
“No. The good news is we may have a lead on stopping this,” Alex said in her ear.
“Really? Doc, you found something?”
“I’m checking on it now,” Kyle answered. “But yes, I think we’re on to something based off what we witnessed when you were here.”
Ava furrowed her brows. Did he mean at the hotel, or had she somehow made it to their hotel suite? She’d assumed she’d killed Charles Whittaker and then disappeared, but had that not been the case?
Her stomach lurched as she wondered what they weren’t telling her. She had to pull herself together. She needed to face this head on and find a solution to this problem. The more she knew the better.
She tried to tell herself this but when the hotel came into view, nausea swept over her. As much as she needed to face this, she also wanted to bury her head in the sand and ignore it completely.
Sebastian tightened his grip on her as they climbed the stairs to the hotel. “It’ll be okay, Ava.”
“I hate this,” she answered with a shake of her head. “I hate not knowing, I hate no solutions. And I really hate being out of control.”
She curled her fingers into fists as she worried about what was causing this. How sick was she? Would she need to be locked up?
As the bright, warm lobby lights hit her, she tightened the jacket around her, working to hide her red hands.
Sebastian wrapped his other arm around her, holding the jacket shut. “Just take it easy, Ava. We’re almost there.”
She licked her lips, offering him a nervous glance as they waited for the elevator. She jiggled her knees back and forth, puffing out her cheeks.
“I know this is rough–”
“Do you?” she snapped before she slid her eyes closed. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s way better than what you did to me earlier.”
Her heart skipped a beat as the elevator doors slid open, and Sebastian guided her into the car.
“What did I do to you?” she asked as the elevator tugged them upward.
“You stabbed me with your pin. So, snapping at me verbally is way better. I’ll take it.” He grinned at her.
“Are you joking?”
“No. When I brought you back, you still weren’t you–”
“Whoa, you brought me back? From Charles’s room?” She stared at him, her eyes searching his face for answers.
The elevator dinged before the doors whooshed open. “Come on, we’ll explain everything.”
On wobbly knees, Ava allowed him to lead her to their suite. He guided her through the door, closing and locking it behind them.
Alex raced to her, scooping her into his arms. “Oh, Ava, thank goodness we found you. I was terrified.”
She clung to him, needing his warmth and comfort, though she wasn’t certain she deserved it. “Can someone please tell me what happened?”
With his arm still tightly wrapped around her, he led her into their bedroom.
Kyle clicked off the display on his phone. “Ava, I want you to lie down because I want to do another round of vitals.”
She nodded, climbing onto the bed and propping a few pillows behind her. “Were you able to monitor my vitals when I disappeared?”
“Yes. I spotted the change in them before you must have come to in that alley. Of course, your heart rate spiked as you woke up likely due to confusion and panic.” Kyle pressed two fingers to her throat.
“Someone, please tell me what happened. Where is this blood from?” She lifted her shaky hands.
Alex raised his hands in the air. “Maybe let Kyle examine you first.”
“Alex, I want to know what happened. Did I kill Charles Whittaker?”
His eyebrows furrowed as Sebastian stepped into the room. “Yes and no. He tried to kill you. He tried to strangle you. You passed out during that, and when you woke up…”
“I wasn’t me anymore. And I killed him.”
“No. Not intentionally. When he came after you, you kicked him, he fell into the glass table and was impaled on the frame.” Sebastian shook his head. “Not your fault. And…you got the software.”
“I did? At least that worked out. So…how did I get the blood on my hands? Did I try to save him?”
“Not exactly,” Alex answered, running a shaky hand through his hair. “Sebastian brought you back here after that. You still weren’t you. When I talked to you, it seemed like you recognized me, like you were the old you, but then you passed out.”
“We thought you would wake up like you had after setting Miranda’s house on fire,” Kyle explained. “But while I was examining you…”
“Yeah?”
The three of them exchanged a glance before Sebastian spoke. “You woke up, you still weren’t you. In fact, you were further from you than you were before. You hit Kyle, shoved Alex to the ground, and then stuck your brooch pin in my arm and fled.”
Her lower lip trembled a little as she focused on the ceiling. “So…how did I get the blood on my hands.”
“We don’t know, but…” Alex bit the inside of his lower lip. “Avs, Miranda is dead. Shadow found her body in the hotel next to the alley we found you in. Video surveillance showed you entering the room, then leaving.”
Her stomach plummeted, her eyes widening. “What?”
She tried to process the situation, but it was spiraling further and further from her grasp. Had she raced out of this room to kill Miranda? But how had she known where Miranda was?
None of it made sense.
She covered her face with her hands. “How could I have done this?”
“We don’t know that you did,” Alex said with a shake of his head.
She scoffed, shooting him an incredulous glance. “Are you kidding? Alex…I just went crazy and burned the woman’s house down. Now, you have surveillance footage of me entering the room and then you found her dead. I did it, Alex. I killed her in some insane fit of rage.”
She swallowed hard, a lump forming in her throat as her fingers trembled.
Had she really killed Miranda? The thought of it made her stomach churn, but the not-knowing gnawed at her even more.
She wanted answers, but she also feared the truth—what if she wasn’t the person she thought she was anymore?
“We don’t know that,” Alex said as he returned to his laptop, “and I am going to get rid of all traces of that security footage right now.”
“Great. At least I have a husband willing to cover up my crimes.” She let her hands smack down against the firm mattress.
“Ava, we have no idea what happened in that hotel room,” Sebastian said.
“How was Miranda killed?” she asked.
“Stabbed, multiple times.”
Ava swallowed hard, raising her bloody hands in the air. “By these hands.”
“I’m not convinced,” Sebastian answered. “You have no blood on you anywhere else. Stabbing someone is messy. You would have had blood on you.”
“Maybe I cleaned it off. Maybe I covered myself. We have no idea because I was in some weird state of consciousness.”
“Actually,” Kyle said, “I had an idea. While we’re waiting on some information on from your bloodwork, I wonder if we can get some answers from hypnotizing you.”
“Hypnotizing me?” Ava asked.
“Yes. You were awake during this. Those memories are somewhere in your brain. We just need to access them.”
“Is that safe?” Alex asked. “I mean, could we trigger another episode this way?”
Kyle shrugged as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m not going to say it’s not a possibility. Since we don’t know what’s doing this definitively, it could be. But I don’t think so.”
Alex shook his head. “I’m not comfortable with this at all. What if this…hypnosis thing triggers another blackout? What if it makes her worse?”
Kyle hesitated, glancing at Ava. “It’s a risk, yes. But without answers, we’re flying blind.”
“I’m doing it,” Ava said firmly, her eyes locking onto Alex’s. “I need to know. Whatever it takes, I need to know what’s happening to me. Do it, Doc. Hypnotize me.”
“All right. We’ll proceed and see what we can find out. With any luck when you wake up, we’ll have both an answer to what happened and to what’s causing this.”
Ava nodded at him, swallowing hard as her heart rate ramped up. She closed her eyes, her breath shaky. The truth was just beneath the surface, waiting to be uncovered. But was she ready to face it?