Cassandra glanced at the gun in her hand.
She turned and marched back to the house to finish what she’d started.
*
Before he heard the shots and the crash, Steve had been struggling to stay awake.
While his mom and that Cassandra woman had been in his bedroom, hovering over him, Steve had pretended to be unconscious. He’d heard what the woman had said about his dad screwing around—even screwing his sister-in-law. And he’d heard her give a painfully credible argument for why his mom might have murdered her sister, Molly.
He wished he could easily dismiss all of it as bullshit. But he couldn’t. At the same time, he couldn’t waste time thinking about it, either—not at that moment.
He had a bitter taste in his mouth from the Ambien. He’d used his tongue to push the tiny pills up between his cheek and his upper back molars. He’d faked a coughing fit and spit the pills into his hand less than a minute after pretending to swallow them. But they’d already started to dissolve and, as much as he’d tried not to, he’d still swallowed some of the sediment.
By the time Cassandra led his mother at gunpoint out of his bedroom, Steve felt a strange, chemically induced battle raging inside his body. Because of the drug, he was overwhelmed with fatigue. Yet his heart beat furiously. Along with his panic came a rush of adrenaline. The combination made him uncontrollably jittery and weak as he reached for the baseball bat at his bedside.
The mattress springs squeaked as he struggled to his feet. He worried that Cassandra might hear him, but he could barely hear them talking. He was able to make out his dad’s voice. It sounded like one of them was playing back a voicemail message.
As Steve tried to cross the room, his legs were wobbly. The pills seemed to be shutting down his motor skills. With a shaky hand, he braced himself against his desk, then his dresser, and then the doorway. The baseball bat wavered in his other hand. He felt so rickety. He kept thinking he might collapse at any minute.
“That bastard!” he heard Cassandra scream. She started ranting, but Steve couldn’t make out the words. He heard his mother suddenly cry out, followed by a thud. It sounded like she’d fallen on the floor. Seconds later, Steve heard someone running down the stairs. He wasn’t sure what was happening. His brain seemed to be shutting down along with his limbs. Was his mother escaping down the stairs? Or would he find her on the bedroom floor, dead?
With his hand against the wall to keep his balance, he teetered down the hallway toward his parents’ room. He heard his mother’s phone ringing. From the hall, he could see it lighting up on the carpet of the darkened bedroom. Then, once he made his way to the door, Steve saw his mother lying there—her arm outstretched, trying in vain to reach for the phone. His mom had lifted her bleeding head from the carpet, and she was now trying to drag herself across the floor.
“Mom!” Steve gasped, rushing to her. He crumpled to his knees, nearly falling down beside her.
“The phone,” she muttered, nodding toward it. Her eyes were half closed. The trail of blood from above her ear dripped off her chin onto the carpet.
Steve crawled over to the ringing phone and snatched it up. “Dad?”
It was Eden. “Steve, you and your mom need to get out of there,” she said in a rush. “My mother—Cassandra—I think she’s going to kill you guys. I’m sorry. I—”
“Call the police!” Steve gasped, cutting her off.
“I just did,” she said. “Are you okay?”
Steve heard tires screeching outside, then gunshots. It sounded like they came from directly in front of the house. Within seconds there was a deafening crash. Then a car horn wailed.
Steve immediately thought of his dad. Was he the one in the car?
“Oh, God, call the police,” he cried into the phone.
“I told you, I called them,” Eden said. “They’re on their way—”
“Hang up, so I can call them, too.”
“I’m sorry!” Eden clicked off.
Steve let go of the bat so he could call 9-1-1. A part of him still couldn’t trust Eden. He had to call the police himself. But his hands shook so much that he couldn’t work the three numbers on the phone’s keypad. Frustrated, he dropped the phone and crawled to his mother. She was even more helpless than he was. Steve dragged her over to the bed and propped her up against the side of it. He tugged the coverlet off the bed and pressed the material to the bloody gash above her ear. “Hang in there, Mom,” he urged her. “Please . . .” He grabbed her hand and made her hold up the makeshift swathe herself.
That was when he heard footsteps on the stairs.
He tried not to think about the crash or the shots fired. There was no time. Steve grabbed the baseball bat and got to his feet. The room spun around him as he staggered to the doorway.
From there, he managed to focus on Cassandra, hurrying up the stairs with the gun in her hand. She wasn’t looking up.
But then, near the top step, her eyes met his.
She only saw him for a second before Steve, with all the strength he could muster, hauled back and slammed her in the face with the bat.
Cassandra let out a howl. She flopped back and plunged down the stairs. Her body smashed against the banister railing with a loud crack and continued to hurtle down the steps. A shot reverberated in the hallway just seconds before she hit the floor.
Steve realized the gun must have gone off in her hand.
Sprawled on the hallway floor, her head tilted to one side, Cassandra was perfectly still. One leg was turned at an impossible angle. Beneath her head, a crimson pool slowly spread across the tile floor.
The front door stood wide open. The wail of a car horn reverberated in the hallway.
Dazed, Steve couldn’t be sure she was really dead. Making his way down a few steps, he clutched the banister and squinted down at Cassandra. The wig she’d been wearing was askew and matted with blood. Her eyes were open in a dead stare. It looked like she’d shot herself under the jaw on her right side.
He heard his mother calling to him in a frail, panicked voice. “Stevie? Honey, are . . . you . . . okay?”
“Yeah, Mom!” he answered her. Still leaning on the banister, he turned and struggled up the stairs.
Past the incessant wail of the car horn, he heard sirens. The blessed sound seemed to be getting louder and closer.
Eden had told him the truth about calling the police.
It may have been a little late, but his half sister had finally come through for them.
EPILOGUE
Sunday, September 30—10:4 7 A.M.
“You’re up!” Gabe declared.
Steve was just stepping out of the second-floor bathroom in his pajama bottoms and T-shirt when his little brother startled him with a big hug. He had a terrible headache, but he still thought it was kind of sweet of Gabe.
“And you’re home,” Steve said to Gabe.
“Yeah, so is Hannah. She’s downstairs with Mom. We can’t go outside. Did you see the TV news trucks out there?”
“Seriously?” Steve asked, retreating toward his room. A part of him wanted to go look out Gabe’s window, but he was too tired and sick to care that much.
Gabe headed down the hall to the top of the stairs. “Hey, Mom!” he yelled. “Steve’s awake!”
He heard a dog bark downstairs. He stopped in his bedroom doorway. “What was that?”
“We’ve got a dog now,” Gabe explained. “It’s the neighbor’s. She got shot, she’s dead—the neighbor, not the dog. I guess it showed up when all the cops were here last night. Mom says the dog can’t stay, but I think we can talk her into letting us keep her. Her name’s Trudy, but I’m calling her True.”
Nodding, Steve made his way back to his bed and sat down. He rubbed his aching forehead. He loved his little brother, but Gabe was just a little too hyper for him right now. He stood in Steve’s doorway and tapped the toe of his sneaker at the doorframe. “Guess what? The hallway downstairs was a ‘crime scene’ until
just like a couple of hours ago. How cool is that?” Then he suddenly got serious. “They towed Dad’s car away this morning. It’s totaled. You should see the dent in the tree.”
“What’s the latest on Dad?” Steve asked, his eyes closed.
Before his brother could answer, their mom appeared in the hallway behind Gabe. She had a bandage on the side of her face, along the hairline by her ear. “Okay, give Steve a break,” she said, her hands on Gabe’s shoulders. She turned him around and gave him a gentle push in the direction of the stairs. “Go play with True. And stay inside.”
She disappeared for a moment, then stepped back into the room with a glass of water and two pills. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s just aspirin. The doctor said you’d have a headache, and you’ll probably sleep on and off until midafternoon. So why don’t you take these and go back to bed?”
Steve chased the pills down with practically the whole glass of water. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until just now. His mom took the glass from him, then bent over and kissed his forehead. He crawled under the covers, but instead of lying down, he propped his pillow up against the headboard and sat up. “How are you?” he asked.
His mom pulled out his desk chair and sat down. “I’ll live.”
He could hardly remember anything that had happened last night after the police arrived. “I forget. How many stitches did they give you?”
“Seven. I’m tired mostly. The police had me up late answering questions, and I was up again early this morning to answer some more.”
“How’s Dad doing?” Steve asked.
“He’s having another surgery right now, as we speak,” his mom sighed, “on his left leg, which is shattered . . .”
“I thought they said the airbag worked.”
“It did, but he still has a lot of injuries—especially on his left side. He’s got whiplash, and all sorts of lacerations. There are broken facial bones, too. They’ll probably have to rewire his jaw.”
Steve thought about how handsome his dad was. “He won’t look the same, will he?”
His mom shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll see. He’s going to need plastic surgery. They said the bullet went through his right shoulder. But it’s all the other injuries that’ll keep him in the hospital and rehab for a while.”
“Where’s Eden?”
“She’s in police custody, but our lawyer says we should have her back tonight—or tomorrow at the latest.”
Steve remembered what that Cassandra woman had said about Eden just obeying orders and knowing very little about what was really going on. But now his mom filled him in on the rest. His head was still throbbing, so Steve didn’t catch every detail. But his mother said that the police had searched the Capitol Hill apartment Cassandra had subleased under another name. They’d found a journal with a step-by-step account of what Cassandra had done and what she still planned to do. That included framing his mom for the murders of Ms. Warren and the crazy lady next door. The journal also exonerated Eden—to a point. But it was obvious Eden was complicit in some of her “other mother’s” schemes. She’d furnished Cassandra with a lot of personal information about his mom, and she’d secretly passed their house key to her boyfriend so he could let himself in while no one was home. This was early on—during the first day or two she’d stayed with them—but it was still pretty serious. His mom was in the middle of throwing out every package of food and every beverage container that was open. And an electrician was supposed to come by later this morning to check all the appliances, plugs, and switches to make sure nothing had been tampered with. His mom was pretty sure they were safe, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
As for Brodie, Cassandra’s journal indicated he wasn’t in Portland. As of yesterday afternoon, he was dead and buried in some woods in Issaquah. The police had little to go on as to the exact location of his gravesite, and it might be a while before they found him. According to the journal, Eden had been kept in the dark about it.
But obviously, Eden had put together that something was about to happen to Steve and his mom last night. The fact that she’d tried to warn them—and ultimately called the police—was a good sign.
Apparently, Eden was being very cooperative with the police. She’d told them that Cassandra had a whole stack of journals at one time. “So I guess they’re turning the apartment upside down looking for a key to a locker or safe deposit box,” his mom said. “Because the only journal they found was the current one. But I guess it’s pretty thorough. One of the detectives told me this morning that it was practically like a signed confession.”
Steve shifted restlessly against his pillow. “Was there anything about Molly in her journal?”
His mom let out a wary sigh. “The police checked with me about a lot of things in Cassandra’s journal to confirm whether they really happened. They didn’t ask me anything about my sister.”
“Or the private detective Cassandra hired?”
His mom shook her head. “There was no mention of him, either, as far as I know.” Her eyes wrestled with his for a moment. “Was last night the first time you heard about Molly?”
“No, on Friday at school, somebody—I guess it was that Cassandra woman—she texted me about her. Then last night, I got another text with a newspaper article about how Molly had died.”
His mother’s face twisted into a frown. “That wasn’t in the journal, either—not as far as I know. The police asked me about the two texts she sent me. She mentioned those in her writings. But the police didn’t say anything about her texting you. That’s strange.”
“Who else could it have been?” Steve asked numbly.
“Well, maybe the police will ask about it later.” His mother sighed. “I have a feeling they’re not finished with us yet—just like those reporters outside.”
“What are they doing out there, anyway?”
She shrugged. “You slept through everything while the police were here last night and early this morning. Right now, I think they’re waiting for one of us to step outside—like the groundhog on Groundhog’s Day.”
“Are we going to the hospital to see Dad today?” Steve asked.
“He probably won’t be in any shape to see anyone after he gets out of surgery. They have him on all sorts of medication.” She let out a sad laugh. “But yeah, we’re going—if you’re up for it. You heard some pretty upsetting things about your dad, and I know they must have hurt. But he came through for us last night. If he hadn’t shown up when he did, you and I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“I’d like to go see him,” Steve said quietly.
“Good.” But she winced a bit. “I guess it’s not just your dad you’ve heard upsetting things about. Did you want to ask me about Molly, honey?”
Steve couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He just shrugged.
“What that woman said last night about your father and Molly is true,” his mom whispered. “But I didn’t kill my sister. I was six months pregnant at the time—”
“With Hannah?”
“No, it was a baby I lost. I didn’t think you kids needed to know about that, either.” His mom went to touch the bandage on the side of her face, but then moved her hand to her mouth instead. “There was a guardrail on that apartment building roof—and Molly was on the other side of it, a restricted area where all the building equipment was. I couldn’t have gotten over or around that railing. And your aunt was in a lot better shape than me at the time. She was a swimmer. The police took one look at me, and they knew I couldn’t have pushed her off that roof.”
“The woman said the police didn’t know about Dad and your sister,” Steve pointed out quietly.
“No, they didn’t. I think the only people who knew about it are your dad and me—and some priest I talked to. I’m pretty sure he died a while back.”
“And Cassandra—and the private detective guy,” he added.
She nodded. “And now you.”
“I won’t tell anybody,” S
teve promised.
“I’d just as soon you didn’t,” his mom said, her voice a little shaky. “I’m hoping this private detective doesn’t show up with all these revelations for the press. Your dad will have enough scandal to live down as it is.”
“Are you going to tell Hannah and Gabe about Molly?” Steve asked. “Or will you just keep pretending she never existed?”
His mother glanced down at the floor. “I’ve been thinking about that all morning. I’m telling them this afternoon. I don’t want to take a chance of them hearing it on the news or reading it online, if it should come out.”
“Sounds like a talk for the dining room table,” Steve said with a tiny smile. He readjusted the bedcovers. Then his smile faded. “Didn’t you keep any pictures of her at all?”
His mother let out a long sigh and shook her head. “I got rid of all of them. I really wish I hadn’t now. It was so stupid of me.”
Steve reached over to his desktop and grabbed his phone. He pulled up The Oregonian article that had been sent to him last night. He adjusted it to zoom in on the photo of his pretty blond aunt with the dimpled smile. “Here’s one,” he said, holding out the phone to his mom. “In case you want to show Hannah and Gabe.”
She hesitated. “I—I haven’t looked at a picture of her in seventeen years,” she whispered. But she finally took the phone from his hand. Her eyes filled with tears as she studied the photograph. “Look how pretty she was. And this isn’t even a very good picture of her.”
Steve pulled back the sheets and scooted down the bed so he was sitting across from her. His mom couldn’t stop looking at the photo of her kid sister.
He held her hand while she cried.
And he realized that there were worse things in this world than being a bit emotionally fragile.
Friday, October 5—2:01 P.M.
Dylan had been moved from intensive care to a private room at Swedish Hospital on Wednesday. But he still looked pretty awful. He was propped up in the bed with his left arm in a cast. His left leg was also in a cast, suspended by a contraption above the bed. The facial swelling had gone down, but his once handsome features were bruised, puffy, and half-covered with bandages. He wore one of those plastic cervical collars for his whiplash. It had sort of a brownish yellow tint to it, a sickly color. His jaw was wired, so he couldn’t speak very clearly beyond the braces clamping his teeth together.
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