Twenty-Nine Detective Olivia Newhouse #3
Pain spears my heart as I imagine how the man who raised me—the only father who ever really loved me—felt at hearing those foul words from this bastard. “You were wrong.”
“If you’re so changed, what am I doing here dying like this?”
“You don’t sound as if you’re dying.”
“Oh, I’m dying all right. But I’m taking you to hell with me.”
“Obviously you aren’t clever enough to make that happen.” I know this scumbag. If I keep at him, he will spill his guts. “You never were very bright.”
“It was so easy.” He grins at me like the devil he is.
“I saw you and that cowboy partner of yours on the news. I recognized you instantly, and I knew despite all the polish and highfalutin education that deep down you were still my little girl. My heart pounded so hard I lost my breath, got hard just thinking about you. Right then and there, I called my attorney. Made sense he wouldn’t want nothing to do with me unless there was something in it for him, so I told him my plan.
Let’s just say he was intrigued. All he had to do was dig up everything he could find on Lewis and Corrine Newhouse and their lovely daughter, Olivia. ”
I want to vomit. To scream. But I need him to keep talking, to explain what the hell he means.
What he did. I have to know what happened during all those blackouts I experienced this week.
I’m guessing I came out here. Saw him. Talked to him.
Judging by all the bruises, maybe tortured him.
The chip bags and empty water bottles on the floor indicate someone was keeping him alive.
But I need to be sure. “You see,” I taunt, “I knew you weren’t smart enough to plot all this on your own. The lawyer helped you, didn’t he?”
He attempts to laugh but coughs instead.
“He gave me the lowdown on you and the Newhouses. I figured out all the rest from there. Planned every last detail, and I knew that once we spent some time together, you would want to hurt me. All I had to do was set things in motion. Those other idiots thought they could take me down. All they did was make it easier for me. The police were too worried about finding me—the victim—to wonder if I was up to something.”
I lift my chin and stare directly into his beady eyes. “I guess you weren’t expecting that I’d forgotten all about you and the life we shared.”
Another of those dry laughs rips from his throat.
“Yeah, right. You’re lying just like he did.
Newhouse told me you weren’t that child anymore, that you didn’t remember anything from the past. He begged me to let you go.
He was so sincere, so worried that I would hurt you again, that he just kept upping the ante.
So I took the money he offered for my silence.
He turned it over to my attorney, and I put him right to work on what I wanted.
By the time Newhouse came back to the prison for a final meeting, I knew all his secrets.
I knew his wife was dead and that you weren’t this Olivia you were strutting around claiming to be.
I guess that chat kind of tore him up, because he dropped dead of a heart attack a few days later. ”
I roar with outrage and rush toward him, determined to finish off what is left of his pathetic, shitty existence. “That man was my father—nothing you have done or can say will change that. I loved him and he loved me. You took that from me, and I want to tear your fucking head off.”
He just laughs and laughs until he can’t breathe, and then he coughs and coughs. I wish an artery would rupture and send blood spewing out of his sadistic mouth.
“The minute I got out”—he clears his throat—“I started watching you. Went through your trash. That’s how I got your blood.
That night you cut yourself—you really should close the blinds in that swanky house—I watched you take the mess out to the trash.
I took it, not sure exactly what I’d do with it, but a plan was coming together. ”
I think of the second blood type found at the scene in his rental house. “You planted my DNA in that shithole you call home. You couldn’t think of anything more original?”
“Pretty fucking brilliant for a not-so-bright nothing like me.”
“Too bad you just confessed to a police detective.” Too bad I didn’t have my cell phone recording this conversation. I have no idea where the damned thing even is.
“They’ll never believe you. Not after all the bizarre shit you’ve done this week.
I’m sure your hotshot fiancé thinks you’re crazy as hell already.
You told me that yourself. I don’t think you meant to.
You came in here muttering and talking to yourself.
I swear, you even had me convinced you’d lost it.
Between me and Newhouse, we done mind-fucked you up good, girl. ”
I ignore his crude words. What he thinks is irrelevant to me. “I know what you’re up to, Fanning. You want me to take the fall for your murder. That’s your way of exacting revenge, isn’t it?”
“Now you’re getting the picture.” He smirks.
I want to beat that smirk off his twisted face. He’s right. I want to make his heart stop beating. I want him not to exist any longer. I want to scream at the injustice of it all. He stole my life not once, but twice.
Now I am no one . . . I have nothing . . .
Defeat straddles my shoulders like an elephant. Tears spill past my lashes, and I curse the weakness.
“I had a different plan at first,” he says, as if I give one shit.
“You wouldn’t have liked it any better, trust me.
But you see, right after I was released from prison, I found out I have AIDS.
Full-blown. Hell, that damn prison hospital probably knew it but didn’t tell me just to keep from having to take care of me.
I was so close to my release date, I guess they just decided to keep that little secret to themselves and let me find out all on my own.
The clinic says I can’t take the medicine I need because of all the other shit that’s wrong with me.
Heart issues. Rotten liver. Kidney troubles.
It’s all falling apart on me. So, you see, I’m a dead man anyway.
Even if this”—he tugs at his restraint—“is cutting my time a little short, it’s worth it to have sweet revenge before I go. ”
Now I understand what my father was doing looking up information on the victims and visiting this sick psycho in prison.
He was worried this would happen. A new wave of fury twists inside me.
My fists clench with the effort of holding back the building rage.
I want so desperately to end this . . . to end him.
“Making you angry, am I? Too bad. You’re the reason I went to prison. If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have contracted this shit. All these years you’ve had it made. Been treated like a princess. Now, you’re going to pay for what you did to me.”
I charge forward, put my face in his. “No, I’m not.
” My words are ice cold and as hard as stone.
The rage simmers, but I am in control. “I’m going to walk away and let you sit here in your own shit and piss until help comes.
And then you’re going back to jail for the rest of your fucking pathetic life.
While I live and do all the things you can’t even dream of. ” I spit in his face.
As I start to draw away, he grabs me around the neck with his free arm. The move is so abrupt, I lose my balance and fall against him. Fuck!
Psychotic laughter pierces my ear as I try to twist away, but I’m not quick enough. He yanks me closer and presses his nasty mouth against my throat. I feel his teeth close on my flesh. No! No! No!
Pulse pounding, I pull his hair, poke at his eyes. Try to stretch my head out of his reach. He won’t let go. Shit! How can he be this strong?
My heart lunges into my throat. Have. To. Get. Loose.
I plow my elbow into his gut. Claw at his injured arm. He screeches in pain. I yank away from him. Land on my butt and scramble out of his reach.
His howls of misery shift to laughter, then to a coughing jag that puts him on his hands and knees, gagging and puking.
Die, you bastard. I get to my feet and back fully out of the stall. I touch my neck with the top of my hand—the only clean part. Fear that he broke the skin rushing through me.
He starts to laugh as he collapses onto his side. “I almost got you.”
Red-hot rage washes over me, but I shake it off and square my shoulders. “But you didn’t.”
Then I turn and walk away. He screams and rants, but I don’t look back.
I am never looking back again.