Chapter 64
Cort’s abandoned cabin, Wonder Valley, California
Antoinette comes over to where I’m crouched, cradling Travis’s head in my lap. She puts her hands on my shoulders.
‘Is he … ?’
I look up at her, nodding through my tears. ‘Yes.’
‘Oh fuck,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry.’
I wipe my eyes roughly with the back of my hand. ‘Poor Travis.’
‘Poor Travis,’ Antoinette echoes.
Just then a noise from what was once the front door startles us. It’s Lauren.
Alive.
Unharmed.
Thank God.
She looks flushed, dishevelled, like she’s been running.
‘Lauren!’ I say. ‘You’re okay?’
She stares at me before running at me and wrapping her arms around me. I’m a little taken aback as I’ve never seen her this tactile before. I awkwardly hug her back.
‘So are you!’ she says. ‘God, I was so worried.’
‘What happened to you?’
‘I ran,’ she says. ‘After Cort hit you over the head. I just ran and ran. I thought I’d be able to find someone else. Get some help.’ She shakes her head. ‘There’s nothing. No one.’ She looks around, her eyes wide with fear. ‘Where is he?’ she says. ‘Where’s Cort?’
‘In the basement,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to worry about him.’
‘I got him good,’ Antoinette says and Lauren’s eyes widen even more.
‘You mean … he’s dead?’
‘Dead as fuck. Completely cooked. I got him right in the jugular.’ I wish Antoinette didn’t sound quite as delighted with herself as she does. He may have been a murdering psychopath but he was still Lauren’s boyfriend. A little sensitivity wouldn’t hurt here.
Lauren’s hand shoots to her mouth and I can see that it’s trembling. Lauren collapses like she’s been shot. Her legs give out from underneath her and she falls to the floor, gasping. She crawls into child’s pose and I can see huge sobs shaking her body.
‘I need to see him,’ she whimpers. ‘I need to see him.’
An image of Cort and the huge gaping hole in his neck pops into my mind. She really doesn’t need to see him. That’s the kind of thing that’ll land her in therapy for years.
‘Lauren,’ I say carefully as I kneel beside her, putting a hand on her back.
‘You need to breathe. You’re having a panic attack.
’ She doesn’t stop sobbing and gasping and I look to Antoinette for help but she just shrugs, helpless.
I rub her back like I’ve done for Maisie and Tor in the past. ‘Come on,’ I say to her. ‘Sit up. It’s okay.’
She pulls herself into a sitting position and stares at me. Her mascara has bled around her eyes. The effect would be funny if the situation wasn’t so awful. She looks like a Tradwife who’s had a 2010 emo Tumblr makeover.
‘It’s not okay, Kitty,’ she says. ‘He’s dead. Cort’s dead.’
That image again.
That stab wound and all that blood.
Yeah.
Cort’s very much dead.
‘You cannot feel bad about that,’ Antoinette snaps from her corner, wiping the blood from the knife on her sleeve. ‘You know what he did. To those women.’
I glare at her and shake my head. She might be right, but Lauren won’t want to hear that at the moment. Whatever Cort was, she loved him. And that’s not just going to go away.
I turn back to Lauren. She looks too fragile to touch right now. Like she might break if I try to offer physical comfort.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how hard this is for you.’
She keels forward, pressing her fists into her eyes harder than can be good for them.
‘He was mine,’ she says between sobs. ‘I loved him. I really did.’
‘You loved who he was pretending to be,’ Antoinette says. And then, under her breath so only I can hear, ‘And that was a prick as well.’
I glare at her again.
Lauren folds over again, shaking violently.
‘Lauren, you need to get it together.’ Antoinette’s patience has run out now. ‘You can’t fall to pieces. We need to get out of here.’
Lauren’s head shoots up and she fixes my sister with a look so cold it makes me shiver. ‘You!’ she says. ‘You killed him.’
Antoinette lets out a sharp breath. ‘Yes. Because he would’ve killed all of us.’
‘He wouldn’t have hurt me.’ Lauren is shaking her head. ‘He loved me.’
My sister snorts. ‘He was a psychopath. He didn’t love anyone. You were just useful to him. An accessory.’
‘Antoinette!’ I say. ‘That’s enough.’
Whatever their relationship was like, Lauren has lost the man she loved and Antoinette’s blunt truths are not what she needs right now.
‘You could’ve just … I don’t know … called the police or something.’ Lauren’s voice is high-pitched with distress now.
‘He’d have gone to prison,’ Antoinette says.
Lauren’s body shudders. ‘I’d rather visit him in prison than in a fucking cemetery.’ I risk putting my arms around her, half expecting her to shake me off. But she doesn’t. She sort of melts into me. I can feel the fight, the anger leaving her body as the truth sinks in.
‘I didn’t know him,’ she whispers. ‘All that time we were together and I didn’t know him at all. How could I not know?’ She pulls back again and looks at me. ‘That’s what everyone is going to want to know, isn’t it? How could I not have known what he was up to? But I didn’t. I swear.’
‘It’s okay,’ I say, stroking her hair as she collapses back into me. I can feel her tears soaking through my top. ‘It’s okay.’
‘Kitty? Antoinette?’
It’s Charlie’s voice.
Relief floods through me as he appears in what’s left of the door, Agnes at his side. They both stop in their tracks when they see the chaos of the cabin. The blood, Travis, Lauren trembling beside me.
Charlie hurries over to me and I throw myself into his arms, breathing him in like he’s clean air and I’ve been deprived.
‘Thank God,’ I whisper into his chest.
He pulls back and cups my face, his eyes searching, looking for any sign I’ve been harmed.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I say.
His eyes linger on my face for a beat then, seemingly satisfied that I’m all right, he turns to Antoinette. ‘You?’
‘Hello, stranger. Nice to have you back on board. We can talk about the appalling way you treated my sister later,’ she says. But then the bravado evaporates and I see her shoulders sag. ‘I’m okay. I’m alive.’
Agnes moves towards my sister, relief all over her face, but then Lauren lets out a broken whimper from behind me.
Agnes stalls, her eyes flicking between them.
She’s torn and doesn’t know who to go to.
Lauren, her best friend of years. Or Antoinette, whom she’s hardly known for any time at all but obviously cares about.
Lauren, who’s just discovered her boyfriend is a violent serial killer.
Or Antoinette, who’s been kidnapped and held hostage for days.
Lauren makes the decision for her in the end and throws herself into Agnes’s arms, where she crumbles again.
‘It’s okay, honey,’ Agnes says. ‘I’ve got you.’
Lauren lifts her head and looks at her friend, her expression is raw grief.
‘He did this,’ she says. ‘It was him. Cort.’
Agnes strokes Lauren’s head. ‘I know. I know.’ Her eyes flick to Antoinette and they have another one of their wordless conversations. Then she looks back to Lauren. ‘I’m here. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.’
‘Let’s get her out of here,’ I say.
We make our way out to the cars. I look back, one last time, at Travis. A fist squeezes my heart.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper before Charlie takes my arm and leads me to the SUV.
‘I’m driving,’ he says. I’m not about to argue.
Agnes is leading Lauren to her car but Lauren stops and pulls away.
‘Wait,’ she says. ‘I need a moment.’
Agnes nods and steps back to stand near Antoinette. She places a hand on her arm and my sister leans into her.
We watch as Lauren walks back towards the cabin, to the place where the man she thought she loved will rest forever. She takes something out of her pocket and stares at it for a few moments.
And then a small flame flickers in the barely there morning light.
A lighter.
She crouches down and picks something up off the dry desert floor and holds the flame to it before flinging it into the wooden cabin.
The tiny flame takes hold and then the wind catches it too and, in a heartbeat, the whole place is engulfed in fire.
Lauren watches it for a few moments. Then she turns her back on it and walks towards us, flames billowing behind her, as the cabin burns and burns.
‘Can we go home now, please?’ she says.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘We can.’