Chapter 46
FORTY-SIX
Eli tried to run. He made it as far as the Detroit Metro Airport before authorities caught up with him.
In the end, Piper had provided the key to finding him.
She turned over her own phone, which had a tracker on Eli’s.
She’d long suspected him of cheating on her.
For the past year, she’d been compiling a file to give to her divorce lawyer.
A few days later, Eli wanted to talk. He never asked for a lawyer. But he had conditions. He only wanted to talk to me, and he wanted Lock to watch.
This man, who I thought was my friend, my ally, was a stranger to me. He sat across from me. For a moment, he wouldn’t look at me. Then, Eli changed. Slowly, he turned his neck and zeroed in on me like a bird of prey. Raw hatred filled his eyes. That was the moment I knew he was mine.
“Did it start with Fiona?” I asked. “Is that when you decided you would finally take what Lock had?”
“I never wanted what Lock had,” Eli said.
“I felt sorry for her. I saw her with him. The way she hung on his every lie. Threw herself at him. Wore that red dress that made him so angry.” He turned and glared at the mirror he knew Lock sat behind.
“Did you know she cried in the car when you went into that store to buy her a new one? If you weren’t rich, she wouldn’t have had anything to do with you.
Because you’re sick. Broken. You’re the one who’s unworthy. ”
“You followed him?” I asked. “How could you know about Fiona’s dress?”
“Yes!” he said, still staring at the mirror instead of me.
“I followed her. When I caught her, it wasn’t hard to get her to tell me everything I wanted to know.
You thought an NDA—a piece of paper—would keep her mouth shut.
You thought a red ribbon on her wrist would keep her loyal to you.
Bring him in here. I want to see his face. ”
I would have told him no. I didn’t want Eli thinking he had an ounce of control. But Lock stormed in. He sat in the chair beside me, hate written all over his face. He clenched his teeth hard enough for me to hear it.
“She told you how she met Lock, was that it?”
Lock turned to me. But I only had eyes for Eli. I can’t deny I felt a rush. The same one that happened whenever I knew I was about to break a witness on cross-examination.
“Is that how you met Corrine?” I asked.
Eli laughed. “Corrine was mine. She got to you though, didn’t she? She was exactly what you thought you wanted after Fiona.”
“You killed Fiona because of me,” Lock said. “Not because you wanted her for yourself. Because you’d gotten what you wanted out of her.”
“She told you Lock’s alias,” I said. “His avatar on WhisprMatch. So you could dangle Corrine in front of him as bait next.”
“You put Corrine up to connecting with me,” Lock said, his voice gone flat.
Eli tapped his temple as he sneered. He was enjoying this too much. I should have sent Lock out of the room. But I knew if I did, Eli would stop talking. He didn’t care that he was incriminating himself. He’d signed his Miranda waiver. He only wanted to hurt Lock.
“You hurt her, didn’t you?” I asked. “You brutalized her so she was afraid of you. Then you threw her at Lock like a grenade with the pin pulled out. She told me you wanted to hurt Lock. You were going to blackmail him. You knew his kinks. You took pictures. Videos of them together. But when the time came, Corrine couldn’t go through with the blackmail, could she?
Because she fell in love with Lock. Because she figured out he was better than you. ”
What had Corrine Egan suffered at the hands of this monster? She was lost. Broken. I hated her for what she tried to do to us. What she did to Lock. But part of me finally understood who she was. I was wrong when I said Corrine was Palicki’s last victim. She was Eli’s.
“She only saw your mask,” Eli said. “I thought she was smarter than that. She thought you loved her. You did a real number on her, Lock. I saw through it. She didn’t.”
“She fell in love,” I said. “Or at least obsession.”
Lock dropped his head. “You put her up to blackmail me? That was your plan? Your idea?”
Eli’s satisfied smile gave the answer.
“You broke her heart,” Eli said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m proud of her though. Sounds like she almost got what she wanted.”
“She told me she came to the police because of the TRACE press conference. Because she knew I’d be there. Did you know she was going to do that? Did you put her up to all the little gifts she left to torment me?”
Eli let out a genuine laugh. “That’s my girl.
You still haven’t fixed the lock on the window in your study, huh, Lock?
Can’t believe she remembered that. I only told her about that once.
You two pulled the pin out of that grenade all by yourselves.
Turns out she ended up being loyal to me, not you.
She kept her mouth shut about us. Whatever else she did, she did on her own.
But she was crazy enough to think you were gonna love her back.
Poor kid. Her blood is on your hands too. ”
“What about Fiona?” I said. “Why kill her? Following Lock wasn’t a crime. You’d done nothing illegal to that point.” Would he do it? Would he actually admit to killing her?
“Because I liked it,” Eli said, his voice barely above a whisper. “The sound of her neck when I snapped it. The way her body twitched. It was better than sex.”
His words made me feel sick. Fiona McBride was only the first. His escalation. Once he’d taken a life, he became addicted to it.
“It was never quite as good after that one,” Eli half whispered, confirming my suspicions.
“But you get to own it. If you hadn’t screwed Fiona, she never would have been on my radar.
You put her in front of me, Lock. If she’d never met you, just think where she could be today.
Instead, she got to rot in Palicki’s basement.
That’s on you. I want you to live with the guilt of that for the rest of your life.
Let it haunt you. Fiona, Lara, Jade, Michelle, Elise, Gretchen, Victoria, Jennifer.
That one from the grocery store. I never did catch her name.
But oh, her screams were the best. Now give me that pad of paper.
Wait until they dig them all up. If it weren’t for you, they might all be alive.
Just like Bennett. I want you to know all the people whose deaths you’re responsible for. ”
It was Lock’s turn to lunge. I tried to pull him back, but he had a hold of Eli. Eli’s face turned purple as Lock tried to choke him. He just kept on smiling through it all.
It was pandemonium after that. The deputies got a hold of Lock. Roy, Mark, and Renee barged in. When Lock’s grip broke, he crumpled against me. Eli gasped, then his hollow laughter echoed as they dragged him out of the room.