Chapter 43 Beth
Beth
I find Jamie, Roxy, and Amelia exactly where I left them. Jamie has bandaged Roxy’s arm, and Amelia has found some sort of alcohol that was stashed in a fancy decanter and is busy regaling Roxy with some story or another, while trying to give her a drink.
“It will help with the pain,” Amelia says. Her red hair is wild around her shoulders from the wind, and she looks like a temptress in her slinky navy dress. Her wiles are not working on Roxy, though.
I glance across the room at the body on the piano, thankful I covered him with a sheet. I’m standing next to Jamie, who is kneeling on the ground cleaning up her medical supplies, tucking the unused things away.
“Do you always travel with that?” I ask.
“I do. You never know when an emergency might happen,” she says.
“Where’s Greer?” I ask. He’s the only one who is missing.
“He went to get help. He said he’s tired of being stuck here.
He feels trapped, and, well, I don’t think he wants to be around me right now.
Maybe not ever again,” Jamie says. “I told him it was too dangerous outside, that trees are down, power lines, too, and who knows if the fire is contained yet. He said he felt safer going to get help than being here.”
“Yes, well, it has been a night of revelations,” I say. And then I drop my voice. The real reason I had to find Jamie and confront her, one last time. “You know, I was thinking it was convenient for Brett to die before he could expose you and your drug use to the group.”
Jamie flinches and closes her medical bag. She doesn’t look up at me.
“Unless it wasn’t an accident. Is there something else you want to tell us?” I ask. This gets Roxy’s and Amelia’s attention, and they are by my side, circling Jamie, like they smell blood in the water.
Jamie shakes her head. “Haven’t there been enough confessions tonight?”
“My God, Jamie, tell us what you did,” Roxy says, waving her bandaged arm around.
“What have you got to lose? I mean, Greer seems to still love you, despite what you are. Meanwhile, Ryan hates me. And, well, Amelia here, she’s basically unlovable.
And Beth’s not exactly the poster child for happily-ever-after either. ”
“Shut up, Roxy,” Amelia says.
I focus on Jamie, my phone light pointed at her face like a searchlight. I’m searching for the truth, and then Celeste and I are getting out of here. “Tell us.”
For a moment I think she’s going to refuse again, but then her body sags and she lets out a long sigh. We have her surrounded. She has no choice.
“He was going to ruin my life. He as much as said so when we were alone, before the pickleball games. He said we better sleep together this weekend, or he would spill the beans,” Jamie said.
“He was horrible, and he deserved to die. I injected his Gatorade with potassium chloride; I carry it around in my medical bag. It’s an essential tool to save lives. ”
“Um, it had the opposite effect, it seems,” Amelia says, stumbling a little as she tries to stand still. She takes a big sip of whatever it is she’s having now. “He was a rather rotten bastard, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was. I know I’m responsible for my own addiction, but he preyed on my vulnerabilities and constantly found ways to push pills on me. He worked hard to keep me addicted all these years.”
She pauses, looking at each of us, I guess hoping we’ll see her, not the addict, the sorority sister. I do see her.
“I hope you know we’re here for you—we are,” I say.
Jamie smiles at me. “I hope you will be.”
“You’ve now let Sunny die and killed Brett. How exactly should we be there for you?” Roxy says, an edge to her voice. She does have a point.
“Oh, come on, tell us already,” Amelia says, clearly enjoying herself. “When did you decide to off him?”
“I decided to do it at breakfast. I decided to kill Brett,” Jamie says, remembering and wincing.
“Wow, bold,” Amelia says. “How’d you do it?”
Jamie wraps her arms around herself, reluctant to tell us the truth. But finally, she begins to talk.
“After breakfast I went back to our room and grabbed my syringe. In predictable Brett fashion he brought his own supersized water bottle, custom-engraved with his initials, to the pickleball court. I watched as he dumped two bottles of Gatorade into it and twisted the lid.”
“He did have too many things with his initials on them. It was weird,” Amelia says.
I give her the stink eye. She needs to be quiet. “Jamie, go on.”
“It was hot out, and I knew he’d chug down his bottle while we played. He even had the gall to threaten me during the game, telling me if we didn’t win, my secrets were out,” Jamie says.
“So when he crossed to the other side of the court to help Ryan fix the net height, I pushed the syringe of potassium chloride into his monogrammed bottle.” She stands up and faces the three of us.
“I killed him. That’s the truth. I chose to protect my own future, just like I did with Sunny.
” She glances at the body under the sheet across the room and then turns back to us.
A chill has shot through the air between us.
I can’t believe what she did. I don’t understand.
“How does potassium chloride kill people?” I ask.
I wonder again how I could be sisters with a murderer, a repeat murderer like Jamie.
First Sunny, now Brett. And she’s supposed to save lives.
Is it any wonder I’ve kept my distance from this crowd for twenty-five years?
“Brett’s shortness of breath at the end of lunch was the first symptom caused by the drug.
When he rushed outside, I knew he didn’t have long to live,” Jamie says.
“The fresh air he was looking for wasn’t going to prevent his impending heart attack, which happened and caused him to fall into the pool. He was dead when he hit the water.”
“God, Jamie, are you listening to yourself?” I say. She’s so calm and composed you’d think she was talking about buying groceries, not ending a life.
“So, you pretended to try to save him by jumping into the pool and then doing CPR, under the cover of all that dust,” Amelia says, putting her hand on Roxy’s shoulder to stop wobbling.
“I was making sure he died, yes,” Jamie says. “I performed CPR to be certain I pushed the drug all the way in his system. I knew I’d given him a fatal dose. The CPR helped it work faster. Oh, and I’m not sorry.”
“I can tell,” I say.
“There is no way to prove it, though,” Jamie says. “It’s out of his bloodstream by now. Cause of death will be a stopped heart due to cardiac arrest.”
“Oh my God,” Roxy says. “Who are we? We can turn you in; we can tell the authorities everything you’ve done. It could be enough.”
“Please, you have to believe me—it was the only way. He came here to threaten me, and he did,” Jamie says. “He was never going to let me go. I didn’t have a choice. It was the only way.”
“What a convenient way to murder someone, Jamie. I’m impressed. And I am sorry I brought him, the bastard,” Amelia says. “I should have left well enough alone. Still, you shouldn’t resort to murder.”
“It was the only way to get free,” Jamie says, tears rolling down her cheeks. “You have to believe me. He was a monster. Please, don’t turn me in.”
“I can’t believe this,” I say. I stare at Jamie as if she were a stranger. She is a stranger.
“Brett was a jerk. He probably did deserve it. And, Amelia, you weren’t even supposed to be here, let alone bring a plus-one,” Roxy says.
“You brought him to upset me, test me. You knew I’d remember buying the roofies from him, and you wanted to throw me off my game. It’s really your fault he’s dead.”
“Well, that’s a stretch. Sorry, I am not going to be the one guilty of murder.
That’s the Rock Star doctor’s charge,” Amelia says.
“Roxy, the truth is, really, I wasn’t thinking about you.
It was all about me. I thought he was into me.
I wanted to flaunt a red-hot romance in front of you guys.
But now I know he was using me to get to Jamie. To give her a warning. I’m an idiot.”
I turn to look at Jamie and then at the other two. They really are unbelievable. Instead of truly sticking together all these years, honoring the memory of Sunny and our sorority bonds, they’ve been competing, cheating, and ultimately, killing.