Her Final Confession: An absolutely addictive crime fiction novel

by Lisa Regan

  The voice behind her said, “Why don’t we invite Noah to join us?”

  The sound of Noah’s name on O’Hara’s lips sent a shiver through Josie’s body. Her heart stopped and kicked on, stopped and kicked on again. How long had he been there? What had he heard? Had he been hiding in the house when they were making love? Discussing the case? He had been perfecting his stealth for decades.

  “Get away from her,” Noah snarled, moving down a step.

  O’Hara laughed. Josie felt his breath against her hair. “I don’t think so, son. Your lady and I are gonna have a good time together. I’m gonna show you how it’s done. So why don’t you just stick around?”

  Josie was making calculations. She had to assume that the unit outside was not in a position to come help them. Still, this was a residential neighborhood, and Noah’s nearest neighbors would very likely hear a gunshot if he was to start shooting them. Then again, he had shot James Omar in the back in broad daylight on a residential street, and no one had even come to investigate.

  But he hadn’t used a gun in any of his crimes, except for when he murdered Billy Lowther, and that was because things didn’t go according to plan. That was over twenty years ago, when he still wore a cloak of anonymity. His back was against the wall now. The whole country was looking for him. If he wanted to kill them and get away, he would have to keep some of his impulses in check. Plus, he would have limited time. When the unit outside failed to check in with dispatch within an hour, the Denton PD would send another unit out to investigate. Josie had no doubt O’Hara would use the gun, but hopefully only as a last resort. Still, she wasn’t about to let him assume control of the situation.

  She met Noah’s eyes. Get down, she mouthed.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  O’Hara pushed her forward, closer to Noah. “Now, what we’re gonna do is stick together. You’ll get something that your girlfriend here can tie you up with, and we’re gonna come with you so you don’t get any ideas about being a hero. You try anything, anything at all, and this bitch is dead. You got that?”

  Josie kept her eyes locked on Noah. He gave her a small nod, barely perceptible. Silently, she counted down for him: Three, two, one.

  Noah dove off the steps onto the floor, and rolled out of sight into the living room. At that instant, she felt O’Hara’s grasp on her shoulder loosen, and the barrel of the gun slip to one side just a fraction. The outside of her right heel ran up along his jeans as she lifted her foot, using it as a guide so she didn’t miss when she brought it down hard on the top of his foot. With the sneakers he wore, it wasn’t enough to cause any pain, but it surprised him for just a second. In one fluid movement, she reached across her chest and seized his hand, clasping the pinky side and twisting his wrist. He cried out in pain, and she lifted his hand off her shoulder and slipped her body beneath it, twisting it violently up his back as he stumbled. The gun fell from his other hand, and Josie kicked it away. She slammed him into the wall, but he was strong, and he bucked back against her. His head flew back, striking her in the forehead so hard, she saw stars. She lost her grip on his hand, and he used the wall as leverage, pushing back against her.

  She flew, her back striking the opposite wall before she slid down to the floor, dizzy and disoriented. He was on her then, pushing her onto the floor, straddling her, his hands closing around her throat. She clutched at his fingers. A hazy darkness hovered at the edges of her vision. Her lungs screamed, and the pressure on her windpipe was unbearable. As O’Hara squeezed harder, Josie felt her hold on consciousness slip. Although it was probably only seconds since he’d climbed on top of her, it felt like an eternity. As her body struggled to draw air, to break his grip, fear prickled over every inch of her skin. Where the hell was Noah? Then, suddenly, O’Hara was completely still. His grip loosened. Josie sucked in a breath. She saw Noah standing behind O’Hara, a gun pointed at the man’s head.

  “Get away from her,” Noah said.

  O’Hara put his hands in the air. Josie gulped the air and rubbed her bruised windpipe. She wriggled, trying unsuccessfully to get out from under him.

  “Stand up,” Noah instructed. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  O’Hara didn’t move.

  Normally, they would be telling a suspect to get on the ground, but Josie was underneath O’Hara, and try as she might, she could not get out from under him. His hips pinned hers to the floor.

  Noah’s voice rose to a shout. “I said, stand up! Right now, O’Hara. Stand up, keep your hands in the air.”

  O’Hara remained motionless. Finally, Noah said, “That’s it.” He took one hand off his weapon, grabbed O’Hara by the back of his collar, and started to push him over, off Josie and onto his right side. O’Hara seemed compliant at first, but with lightning speed, one of his hands balled into a fist and flew backward, striking Noah’s wrist.

  A gunshot exploded in the small hallway. The muzzle flash burst across the semidarkness. Josie felt a release of the pressure on her pelvis and scrambled to her feet. Noah and O’Hara were a shadowy lump rolling toward the living room, bodies locked in battle. Stumbling down the hall after them, her head fuzzy and her vision still gray, Josie’s eyes searched the floorboards for the gun. Blood streamed from the cuts in her legs, making a slick along the hallway. Her fingers scrabbled over the wall, trying to find the light switch. From the living room came the sound of glass breaking, wood splintering, and a guttural grunting. Josie found the light switch for the living room and flipped it on. The coffee table was on its side, one of its legs broken completely off. A lamp from one of the end tables lay shattered on the carpet. In front of the small entertainment center, O’Hara straddled Noah, raining down punches at his head. Noah had his forearms over his face, blocking most of the blows.

  Josie took another look around but still didn’t see the gun O’Hara had discarded. She tried to shake off her disorientation. A scream rose up from deep in her diaphragm, and she ran, throwing the full weight of her body into O’Hara. Together, they toppled. Josie heard a crack as the side of his head hit the wall. She took advantage of his momentary daze to climb to her feet and knee his head into the wall once more. His arms flailed and jerked, reaching for her. She kicked at his chest, knocking him onto the floor, flat on his back.

  “Noah,” she called breathlessly.

  She squatted down and tried to turn O’Hara onto his stomach so she could pin his hands behind his back, but he fought, one fist flying out and knocking her on the cheek just where Gretchen had split her skin only days earlier, knocking her off-balance and onto her ass. The howl of pain came out as a blunt gasp as her body tried to right itself. She saw him coming at her, and her hands reached up toward his head, grabbing for his throat or his eyes. Then she saw the flash of metal, and O’Hara’s head whipped to the side.

  Noah stepped between them, turning the gun in his hands so that he could point the barrel at O’Hara’s head. “Don’t you fucking touch her,” he said.

  Before O’Hara could fully recover from the pistol-whipping Noah had given him, Josie and Noah pushed him onto his stomach.

  They had no cuffs and no plastic zip ties. Noah pinned the man’s wrists together high up on his back and then put one knee on his wrists and one knee on his neck. He held O’Hara’s gun to his head.

  “Upstairs,” Noah said. “Get your phone. Call 911. Then go outside and check on the patrol unit.”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  For the third time in just over a week, Josie sat on a hospital gurney, sucking in sharp breaths every time the nurse tweezed a particularly large shard of glass from her legs and feet. Between that and the sting of the antiseptic they’d used to clean off all the blood before they started taking the glass out, both of Josie’s lower legs felt like they were on fire. Noah stood across the room, arms folded over his chest, grimacing every time Josie did. “It’s fine,” she told him. “Really. This is nothing.”

  “It was a lot of blood.”

  “All
the wounds are very superficial,” the nurse mumbled without looking up from her work. “So far, only two of these will require stitches.” Her eyes snapped up to Josie’s face. “You were very lucky.”

  Yes, Josie thought. I was.

  She laid her head back on the pillow and concentrated on taking deep, slow breaths. One of her hands reached out, and a second later, she felt Noah’s hand slide into it. “You have to talk,” she said. “Distract me.”

  “How did you know he was there? Did he make noise when he broke in? I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “I was awake,” Josie explained. She opened her eyes but focused them on Noah’s face instead of her shredded legs. “Trinity texted me. It woke me up. Then I figured out what else Gretchen was hiding. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” he asked.

  “I tried. You were so out of it, and I thought you’d be mad if I woke you up to tell you something that could wait until the morning.”

  “It would have been better than waking up to you smashing every dish I owned and finding a serial killer in my house.”

  Josie laughed. Noah gave her hand a squeeze. “So?” he asked. “What was it? What was Gretchen hiding?”

  “Ethan Robinson has a twin. When Gretchen got pregnant after the assault by O’Hara and went into hiding with Devil’s Blade, she had two babies. That’s why Ethan wasn’t in Seattle yet. Gretchen told him to go get his twin and take him or her with him.”

  Chapter Seventy

  ONE WEEK LATER

  Gretchen sat at the conference room table in the station house. She had twisted the cap off the bottle of water Noah had given her and was now pushing it around the table between her index fingers until it pinged off one of her fingers and went flying across the table toward where Josie sat. Gretchen jumped up, trying to catch it before it hit Josie, but only succeeded in knocking over her bottle of water. A pool spread across the table. Josie caught the cap expertly, righted the bottle, and said, “Just a minute.”

  She returned with a roll of paper towels and helped Gretchen sop up the mess.

  Gretchen said, “I’m really sorry.”

  Josie smiled at her. “It’s water.”

  Instead of sitting back down, Gretchen paced the room. Josie sat down again and watched her friend move back and forth across the room, her own head swinging like a metronome.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Josie told her.

  “Is it?” Gretchen asked.

  Josie tapped the glass top of the table. “Hey,” she said, stopping Gretchen in place to meet her eyes. “It is. It’s going to be okay.”

  Gretchen put both hands on the back of one of the chairs and leaned in toward Josie. “How did you know? How did you figure it out?”

  Talking, putting the puzzle pieces together, always helped both of them with their anxiety. Josie said, “The study—well, one of the studies—that Dr. Larson and James Omar were working on was one about twins separated at birth. That was the one that seemed to be of the most interest to Larson when I met him. He asked if Trinity and I would join the study, and when I said no, he called her and tried to sell her on it.”

  “Pushy,” Gretchen said.

  “No, I think committed,” Josie replied. “I mean, yeah, pushy, but I think his heart is in the right place. I think he wants to help people with this research. Anyway, at first I thought Ethan was just curious about his birth parents, and that James helped him find them through the genetic profiles of their distant relatives. You know there are all kinds of sites out there now.”

  “Yeah,” Gretchen said. “I see the commercials all the time. Pay ninety-nine bucks and get your ancestry profile.”

  “Right,” Josie said. “I think that Ethan took one of those tests and found that he had a twin. I think he approached him—”

  “Her,” Gretchen corrected.

  “What?”

  “Ethan has a sister, not a brother. They are fraternal twins—a boy and a girl. One of each.” Her smile was sad.

  “Her,” Josie said. “I think Ethan approached her and asked her to be part of James’s twin study. The separated-at-birth study. I think that’s how it started. He probably didn’t realize until he actually spoke to James about it that they had to be identical twins. His field was criminology, not genetics or epigenetics.”

  “She agreed? That means Larson has her name and address somewhere in his files,” Gretchen said, urgency pitching her voice an octave higher.

  “No,” Josie said. “Like I said, they wouldn’t have been eligible for the study since they were fraternal and not identical. I don’t think that she would have agreed to it anyway. I think she was interested in finding you and… her father. I think Ethan started doing more research. I think he figured out you were his mother, and when he dug into your life, he realized you were a victim of the Strangler.”

  “Oh God,” Gretchen said, closing her eyes. “Why didn’t he just call the police?”

  “You were the police,” Josie said.

  Gretchen opened her eyes. They glistened with tears. “I wasn’t ready. When James called me—well he told me he was Ethan—but when he called, he never told me that… that…”

  “That he was bringing O’Hara with him?” Josie filled in.

  Gretchen nodded. “When he called me and said they were at my house, I thought he meant him and his sister. I got freaked out. I wasn’t ready to meet. I snuck up on them from the back because I just wanted to look at them first. I just wanted to see them. I didn’t know how it would be. I didn’t know if they would look like… O’Hara…”

  Josie could tell trying his real name on for once was disconcerting to Gretchen. “That would have been distressing, I bet,” Josie murmured.

  “Yes. I admit it. It would. But still, they were my children. I always wanted those babies. I always wondered if I should have made different choices. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t smart enough… I’ve spent twenty-three years going over it in my head. But, what’s done is done.”

  “When did you realize he had brought O’Hara with him?”

  “I came around the corner from the back of the house. I was walking down the driveway. James saw me, smiled. He looked so nervous. I had just reached the front of the house when I heard O’Hara’s voice.”

  A shudder ran the length of her body. Again, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Then she opened them and continued. “He said, ‘Hello, sweetheart. I’ve missed you.’ You don’t know how many times I’ve heard that voice in my head, in my nightmares. It never went away. As long as he was out there, I was afraid he’d come back. He always said he would. It got better when I moved back here, but it never went away. The fear. No, the terror.”

  “When did James realize that something wasn’t right?”

  “Oh, I think he knew before I showed up, but it was too late. He had picked O’Hara up and brought him to Denton. Then when he saw my reaction, he seemed to get more nervous. O’Hara said to me, ‘You never told me we had a son.’ That was when I realized James—well, I still thought he was Ethan—that he hadn’t brought my daughter and that O’Hara didn’t know about her. Anyway, O’Hara was angry. So angry. The coldness in his eyes—it was like nothing I’d ever seen except the night he killed Billy. He called me every name in the book. I told James to go into the house. I hoped he would get the idea—you know, call 911—and he started to walk up onto the porch, but O’Hara grabbed me—we tussled, he hit me, hard. He got my gun and put it to my head. He told James that if he took another step, he’d kill him.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, so James went back to the driveway. He looked like he was slowly trying to step away. I could see he was itching to run. O’Hara dragged me up onto the porch and tossed me onto the ground. He had the gun on me. He said something like, ‘We’ve got a real problem here,’ and that’s when James started babbling. He told us everything. That he wasn’t Ethan Robinson. His name was James Omar. He
was Ethan’s roommate. That Ethan had tracked us down, and Ethan had some idea of getting his parents together—making it a surprise and having me arrest O’Hara. The only surviving Strangler victim now a police officer and gets to arrest him. He said it was all Ethan’s idea. O’Hara asked him where Ethan was, and James said he didn’t know, but he could find out. He mumbled something about going to call Ethan and turned to go, and that’s when O’Hara shot him. Just like that. He went right down. I was so shocked and so stunned. It’s like I wasn’t me anymore. I was that twenty-year-old girl again, and this man had just shot my husband.”

  “I know,” Josie said softly.

  “Then he took my keys. He kept the gun on me and made me go into the house. I thought—I thought he was going to hurt me again. Like he did all those years ago, but all he wanted was that stupid Wawa mug. Then he made me take him to my car, and no one saw us because we went through the back. He had zip ties, although he didn’t need them really because he hit me. He stopped at the bridge when he realized that the car was department-issued. He had to disable the MDT. That took a while. Then he pulled me out of the car, hit me again.” She pointed to her forehead. “And stuffed me in the trunk. I don’t remember much after that. Waking up in the dark, tied, my head pounding. At some point he took me out of the trunk. We were in the woods. He said things—so many horrible things. He went on for hours about what he was going to do to me and Ethan when he found him. He kept talking about how he had stopped, how he hadn’t killed in fourteen years, and now I made him kill again. He kept calling Ethan names and talking about how Ethan figured out who he was, and so Ethan had to die. On and on he went. It was almost like he was possessed. At some point it was like he didn’t even notice I was there anymore, he just circled and circled, muttering to himself. It got dark. Eventually he left. When he came back, it was daytime. I actually felt relieved to see him. I was afraid some wild animal would come along and eat me. Maybe that would have been better.”