by Jane Blythe
“Then why poison her at all?” Belinda looked baffled.
She shrugged, “Maybe to keep Sofia out of the way,” Paige suggested. “Sofia was the only one who paid her any attention. If she was planning a diabolical murder scheme, then she would want to make sure she didn’t tip anyone off. When I was speaking with Edmund earlier, he said that after the incident at the school, the judge wanted to send Isabella away. Off to some secluded estate he owns in England. Basically, he wanted to lock her up there, make sure she couldn’t cause his family any more embarrassment. Sofia was the one who talked him out of it. I think Isabella truly loves Sofia, I don’t think she’s going to hurt her.”
“Even if that’s true,” and Ryan couldn’t let himself believe it just yet, couldn’t let himself get his hopes up only to have them horribly dashed. “If she’s backed into a corner, she could do anything.”
“Granted,” Paige nodded. “All the more reason we have to do everything we can to keep her calm when we find her,” his partner shot him a pointed look.
“Now, Ryan, don’t get mad,” Belinda cautioned.
Of course, when someone said that to you it made you immediately tense up, and Ryan was no exception. “What?” he asked tightly.
“Is there any chance Sofia could be involved in all of this?”
Expecting himself to explode when faced with such a question, instead Ryan went still, completely and utterly still. “What?” his voice as frosty as pure ice.
“Other than Isabella and Logan, Sofia is the only one left…”
“Isabella shot at her,” Ryan inserted.
“Or like Paige said earlier, it was a safe shot. We’d think Sofia was in the line of fire, but really she was never in any real danger,” Belinda pointed out.
“This is insane,” Ryan stood and began to pace restlessly, trying to work off some of his nervous/furious energy. “She’s been poisoned.”
“In non-lethal doses,” Belinda reminded him.
“She told us everything that she remembered from her childhood,” Ryan countered.
“Which kept the focus on Logan and away from her and Isabella.”
“She was here helping us look for Logan’s victims,” with every comeback of Belinda’s, Ryan could feel his blood boiling hotter and hotter.
“Again, which kept the focus on Logan. Look, Ryan,” Belinda stood in front of him and made him cease his pacing, “I'm not trying to upset you, but it’s also not my job to placate you. What I know of Sofia I like, and I don’t really think she’s involved, but we can't discount her purely based on the fact that you’re attracted to her. Even if she wasn’t involved, that doesn’t mean that she didn’t leave here to go and tip off Isabella. She still loves her sister, and she knew exactly how to play you to get away. She knew you wouldn’t say no to her when she said she needed time alone, and she used that time to leave here and go and look for her psychotic sister.”
“This is ridiculous and a waste of my time,” Ryan again grabbed his keys. “If you don’t have something more constructive to talk about, then I'm going to go look for…” he broke off as his phone trilled. Pressing answer, “Detective Xander.”
“Detective, I'm Officer Middenorf. We’ve been searching the Everette family estate…”
“Did you find her?” Ryan interrupted. “Did you find Sofia?”
“I'm afraid not,” the officer cleared his throat nervously. “But we did find blood in one of the bedrooms, and a block of wood, looks like it has blood and hair on it. We also found Sofia Everette’s phone. Your number was displayed on the screen, looks like she was going to call you, but she was attacked first.”
Ryan heard the words but they sounded far away. He could hear the officer on the phone calling his name, but all he could do was stand, open-mouthed, and try to comprehend what he had just been told.
Blood.
A weapon.
Sofia’s phone.
They were too late.
Isabella already had her.
Sofia was going to die.
“Ryan?” Paige poked his shoulder.
Blinking dazedly, Ryan said, “They found blood at the estate and a weapon and Sofia’s phone. My number was on her screen; she was about to call me when she was attacked.”
Belinda eased the phone from his hand, “This is Lieutenant Jersey,” she told the officer at the Everette estate. “I'm sending CSU and more officers. I want that entire place searched. Top to bottom.” She hung up and tossed the phone on the desk, “Try not to panic, Ryan, we don’t know anything yet.”
“I spoke with the ex-head of Everette security a little while ago,” Paige announced.
Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets so the others wouldn’t see them shaking and took a deep, calming breath. “You’ve been a busy little bee while I’ve been panicking,” Ryan attempted a smile at his partner.
She smiled back encouragingly, “Alan Payne said that the Everette house has hidey-holes. Lots of hidey-holes. So many he wasn’t even sure that he knew them all. But Isabella grew up in that house. She’d be likely to know them all, probably played in them when she was little.”
“You think she’s still in the house?” Ryan asked doubtfully. “She has a hostage now, possibly two if she has Logan. If she’s there, it’d have to be in a room big enough for three people.”
“Maybe four,” Belinda pondered. “We never found Brooke’s baby. Isabella could still have it.”
“So the hidey-hole would have to be big and someplace out of the way. A crying newborn can be loud and Isabella wouldn’t want any of her family, or any of us, hearing it,” Ryan thought aloud.
“Alan was going to email me a floor plan of the Everette estate and highlight on it all of the secret rooms he knows about,” Paige explained. “Hopefully we get lucky and Isabella’s hiding out in one of them.”
“And if she's not…?” Ryan was fighting the fear swelling inside him and losing the battle.
“Then we’ll keep searching until we find them.”
Ryan was trying, but failing, to take comfort in his partner’s words. He had been at this job long enough to know that there was a good chance that Sofia, Logan, and Brooke’s baby were already dead and Isabella was long gone.
* * * * *
8:06 P.M.
Ever so slowly, Sofia began to crawl out of the darkness.
And very quickly, she wished she hadn't.
The aching in her head was so severe she couldn’t register anything else. Sofia was used to headaches but this one was something else.
She was trying in vain to recall what she’d been doing right before this headache had struck.
Was she at home? At the family estate? Was Ryan with her? Edmund? Isabella?
Giving up trying to think, as it was too hard right now, Sofia was about to slide back into the darkness when something pressed against her neck.
A wave of panic coursed through her.
Where was she and what had happened?
“Sofia?”
The voice sounded as though it were a million miles away.
The pressure on her neck increased.
“Sofia?”
She tried to reply, failed, and teetered on the edge of the calm blackness swamping her mind.
“Come on, Sofia, you’re scaring me.”
The voice was more insistent this time and Sofia tried again to respond. Managed only a small moan.
“Sofia?” the voice now sounded excited. “Wake up. Please, wake up.”
Drawing on every ounce of energy she possessed, Sofia fought the pain and tried to pry her eyes open.
Tried and failed.
However, the effort of trying had prodded her closer to waking up. And with greater consciousness came greater pain. Pain and the sensation that she was spinning wildly in circles.
Trying to concentrate on one thing at a time.
Managing the dizziness had to be number one.
Sofia could think through the pain but not through a swimming
head.
“Sofia?”
This time a shake to the shoulder accompanied the voice and it jarred her closer to consciousness.
As she slowly became more aware, things started to seep through her dizzy, aching head. There was something scratchy around her wrists. It didn’t feel as though she were lying down.
Something was wrong.
This time she concentrated harder, forced her eyes to obey her, and somehow managed to pry them open.
“Sofia?”
Isabella’s face flashed before her eyes. Then blackness again. Then her sister’s scared face once more, closer this time. And another flash of blackness. Her eyes must be fluttering. Struggling to remain open.
“Sofia? Can you hear me?”
“Isabella?” she managed to croak, startled by how weak she sounded.
“Thank goodness,” Isabella let out a sigh of relief. “I thought I'd killed you.”
Certain her spinning head had caused her to mishear, Sofia asked, “What?”
“I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you so badly. I just didn’t know what else to do,” Isabella implored.
“What did you do to me?” Her eyes finally stayed open enough to take in her surroundings. She was right. She wasn’t in a bed, either at a hospital or in her bedroom. Instead, she was in a small room. Maybe ten by ten at the largest. There was a bed in the corner, a wooden table, and the chair in which she sat. Her wheelchair. Her wrists were tied to the arms, her ankles to the legs.
Wave after wave of nausea buffeted her. She would have thrown up had there been anything in her system to expel. It wasn’t just the head wound making her nauseous. It was the knowledge that Ryan had been right. It was Isabella. She had killed them all. And now she was going to finish what she’d started.
“It’s true,” the words fell from Sofia’s lips without her realizing.
“I'm sorry,” Isabella was crying. “I'm sorry. You have to believe me, I never wanted to hurt you. I didn’t. I promise I didn’t.”
Isabella’s voice was oddly little girly. In all these years, even when Isabella was a child, Sofia couldn’t recall a single instant when her little sister had ever sounded like a little girl.
Head still swimming, Sofia squinted her eyes to try to focus better. “Have you really been poisoning me?”
“I'm sorry,” that seemed to be her sister’s new mantra. “I just needed you out of the way so I could do this.”
Tears burned her eyes. “Why?” Sofia was desperate to understand how her little sister could murder so many people so easily.
“They’re all evil; you know they are,” Isabella’s eyes were begging her to understand. “They deserved to die. They didn’t tell what he was doing. They let him get away with it. They let him keep doing it. How many more women should I have let him kill?”
“But to do this?” Sofia was fighting off unconsciousness, wishing that she’d told Ryan where she was going, wishing that she had stayed at the police station where she would have been safe. Now if she let her eyes fall closed she may never open them again. Her insane sister might kill her.
As if reading her mind, “I'm not going to hurt you, Sofia,” Isabella beseeched, looking offended.
“You already have,” she reminded her sister. “You poisoned me, you let me think I was dying, you knocked me unconscious, and now you have me tied up.”
“Just while I finish, then I’ll take you to the hospital before I leave. I love you, Sofia. Of all our family you're the only one I love. I'm not going to kill you, please believe me. I love you,” Isabella repeated.
Shaking her head sadly, Sofia whispered, “I'm not even sure you know what love is.”
“How can you say that?” Isabella demanded, looking crushed.
“You shot me,” Sofia reminded her sister. If Isabella had forgotten, Sofia most certainly had not. She hadn't been able to draw a breath without pain since the bullet plowed into her chest.
“But I knew you were wearing a vest; that’s why I went with a heart shot instead of a head shot,” Isabella retorted.
“You used me,” the pain of knowing her sister wasn’t who she thought was almost as painful as her blinding headache. “You put cameras in my room and filmed me while I slept.”
“It was an accident at first, but when I heard you talk in your sleep about Logan and the basement, I had to know more. When I found out, I had to do something. I had to stop him.”
“Then why didn’t you go to the police?”
“The police?” Isabella snorted a guffaw. “Last time I told something, no one believed me.”
“I did,” tears began to spill down her cheeks. “I believed you.”
“I know you did,” her sister was crying too. “That’s why I had to protect you. Why I had to protect those girls. I had to stop him. I had to stop them all.”
“But the way you did it,” Sofia couldn’t wipe the shocked horror off her face. “Cutting Brooke’s baby from her womb while she was still alive. Stabbing Lewis and Samantha. Drowning Gloria. Strangling Lincoln. Carbon monoxide poisoning Logan and Simone. Shooting father. You hated them.”
“You did, too,” Isabella countered.
“They were our family and now they’re gone.” A thought occurring to her. “What did you do with the baby? Brooke’s baby?”
“You mean my baby sister?”
“You know Brooke was your mother?”
“Of course,” Isabella scoffed, then serious, “she’s fine. The baby is fine. She’s right here,” Isabella moved behind her and reappeared a moment later with a tiny infant wrapped in a blanket. “See, she’s perfectly fine. I would never hurt her. I've been taking good care of her.”
“Isabella, please,” Sofia begged, “let me take the baby and drop us both off at the hospital. I don’t feel so good.” This couldn’t be more true. Her body was already weakened from the poisonous mushrooms, and Isabella had probably given her a concussion from the blow to her head. She needed a doctor.
“I know,” Isabella held the baby with one arm, with her other brushed a hand lovingly across Sofia’s face. “Soon, I’ll get you to the hospital…soon. I just have to finish this.”
“Logan is still alive?” Ryan had said he’d escaped from the hospital, but apparently Isabella had abducted him instead.
“Not for long,” Isabella assured her. “Not for long.”
“He’s our brother, Isabella. He did horrible things, deplorable things, things I can never erase from my mind. But he doesn’t deserve to die like this. He deserves to go to jail, to face the families of the young women he killed. You can end this the right way.” Sofia knew reasoning with her sister was most likely pointless, but Ryan would figure out where she’d gone, he’d find her, she just had to keep them all alive a little longer. “Take me and the baby to the hospital, take Logan to the police station. Or call Ryan, he’ll know what to do. Please, Isabella, please don’t kill our brother.”
“Logan isn’t your brother, or mine,” Isabella bounced from foot to foot, and paced manically.
Confused and tired, her head ached and she longed to close her eyes and sleep. “What?”
“I did DNA tests on all of us,” Isabella ceased her frantic pacing and flung her face up close. “Logan is my father, yours too.”
Unable to process that. “I don’t understand.”
“Logan is our father,” Isabella repeated.
“Then wh…who’s my mother?” Sofia was starting to think she was still unconscious and this was all just her imagination gone into overdrive.
“Gloria. Gloria is your mother,” Isabella replied.
Sofia was sure that couldn’t be right. Gloria was her father’s wife. Or if what Isabella had told her was true, her grandfather’s wife. But Logan would have only been fourteen when she was born. Gloria would have been forty. There was no way. Isabella was delusional. “I…I…I don’t…that can’t…” Sofia stammered. “That can't be true.”
“Well it is,” Isabella stormed
over to the bed in the corner. “Tell her. Tell her it’s true. Come on, Daddy,” she sneered, “tell your firstborn all about how she was conceived.”
* * * * *
9:34 P.M.
“Tell her,” Isabella was jabbing him. “Tell her it’s true. Tell Sofia that you’re her father, that Gloria was her mother.”
Maybe it was the lingering effects of the carbon monoxide poisoning, maybe it was the effects of the blow to the head Isabella had given him earlier, or maybe it was just that he was stuck here with nothing else to do. Whatever the cause, Logan found he had grown very contemplative the last few hours.
Surprisingly, he was no longer afraid. Isabella was going to kill him, of that he had no doubt. And yet death no longer scared him. Maybe it was because deep down he knew it was what he deserved. He’d killed so many young girls. Thirty-two to be exact. So it seemed only fitting that he die in a small, quiet prison. Alone. Stripped of all dignity. Just as they had.
“Tell her,” Isabella screeched, stamping her feet impatiently. “Tell her right now.”
Raising his head, Logan saw Sofia tied to her wheelchair. She looked abysmal. She was thinner than the last time he’d seen her, her face looked as though it hadn't an ounce of flesh on it, her pallor was a deathly white, and blood covered half her face, dripping down to splatter her neck and shoulder.
For the first time in his life, Logan felt a stab of concern for someone other than himself. He was grateful that his and Simone’s daughters, Tina and Natasha, were safely away on the other side of the world with their maternal grandparents.
“Tell her, tell her, tell her,” Isabella started to pummel him with her fists.
“It’s okay, Isabella,” Sofia’s weak voice floated through the air. “I believe you. Just leave him alone.”
“No, he has to . . .”
“All right,” Logan interrupted. “I’ll tell her; I’ll tell her everything.” Maybe it was time to confess. To unburden all the terrible deeds he had committed before he died.
Satisfied, Isabella nodded and then produced a pillow, which she propped beneath his head so that he could easily see both her and Sofia.
