by Mary Frame
***
When I regain consciousness, my neck hurts, my arms are numb and I have a searing headache.
“Holy fucking shark week!”
“You’ve always had a way with words.”
I blink my eyes open against bright lights. I’m tied in a chair, in some kind of basement or storage room from the looks of it, and Liz is standing in front of me. There’s a table between us and a bag resting on that. She’s pulling out a syringe and filling it with some liquid from a jar, squeezing the plunger top until liquid squirts out the end of the needle. Her hands are encased in surgical gloves.
I glance around the dark room. The walls and floor are concrete. I can’t see much beyond the circle of light above me.
“Don’t worry,” she says, stepping around the table towards me, needle in hand. “It’s not what you think.” She stops in front of me.
“You aren’t going to kill me?” I can’t look at her face. I can only look at the sharp pointy thing, glistening in the light.
“No.”
I sag in the chair. “Oh, thank God. For a second I thought this was going to turn into a whole Saw thing and the key just went down the drain, and we’d have to kill each other or something.”
She sits on the small table and faces me, saying nothing, making me nervous.
“If you’re not going to kill me, why all the theatrics?” I ask.
“It’s the only way to make sure your boyfriend is acquitted. If they think the killer is still on the loose and got away, and you can give them misleading details…” she trails off and shrugs. “This is just a sedative.” She lifts the needle and I lean back involuntarily.
“It’s the same sedative I used on Cameron, before I killed him. If they do an autopsy after this, they’ll find the connection.”
And with that bombshell, I look her in the eyes. “Did you kill Jesse and Matt, too?”
“No. I don’t know who killed Jesse, but I know who killed Matt.”
“Cameron?”
“The one and only.”
I shake my head, but it hurts when I move it so I stop on a wince. “Why?” I ask.
“You got out before he got real bad.” She lets out a small laugh that’s so devoid of humor it could be a sob. “You have no idea what he was really like. And what he did to you was small potatoes. Following you. Going to your house, shooting up your car. That was nothing.”
I don’t say anything. I’m thinking over her words. I remember being followed, the night I called Dean and agreed to help him. That was Cameron? And now I know who shot at me and Dean.
She stares down at the floor for what feels like forever, but is probably just a minute before she swallows and starts talking, gaze still downward.
“After you saw us in his dorm room, he stopped talking to me, for a while. Then, all of a sudden—I assume it was after you broke up with him—he came back to me all apologies and sweetness. We were together for a little bit, and then he started asking me to do things. You know, in bed. It started out pretty innocent. Well, I thought it was innocent. Just some role-playing. I would pretend to resist and…he really got off on it.”
I can’t help but cringe.
She looks up and meets my eyes. “I thought the allure would fade after a bit, but it just got worse. And worse, and worse. It didn’t help when he got hooked on Devil’s Gate and everything escalated. He became paranoid. Overbearing. Insane.”
Devil’s Gate. That’s the drug the detective talked about.
Her free hand starts fiddling with a tear in her jeans. “He got progressively more violent. I didn’t know what to do. It turned into one of those stupid relationships, and I was the stupid girl who couldn’t get out. At first he told me he would hurt me if I left, and when I was gonna leave anyway, he told me he would hurt others. My brother. My friends.”
I don’t say anything else, waiting for her to continue.
“One night, it got really bad. I thought I was going to die. It was the night he killed Matt. He got set off because I was going to leave. Matt had convinced me that it wasn’t worth it, that I could stay with him and he would protect me. This was just after I saw you at the restaurant. I went to pack up my stuff, but Cameron came over. I told him it was over, he threatened me, and I told him I would go to the cops if he tried anything. He locked me in the bathroom for three days.”
“Three days? Didn’t anyone notice you were gone?”
She shrugs. “It was a Friday. He didn’t let me out until Monday morning so I could go to class. But I missed that day. I was starving and exhausted and when I found out about Matt…” She shakes her head and wipes the tears falling down her cheeks with the back of her hand. “He knew, you see. Cameron knew if he killed Matt, he wouldn’t only have control over me, he knew it would implicate your little boyfriend. I didn’t know that part until recently, though. But I knew, then, that I couldn’t just leave. I would have to plan and wait, and if I couldn’t get the cops to arrest him or charge him or whatever, then I would have to kill him myself. I couldn’t let him keep on going. Then he started doing this.” She lifts up her shirt to reveal a series of cuts across her abdomen, along her side where the skin is especially sensitive. Some of the wounds are old and healed, but there are a couple that are still red and scabbed.
“He gave me this one,” she trails her finger across a particularly thick patch of scarred skin, “before he locked me in the bathroom.”
“I get why you did it.” I swallow and look away when she lowers her shirt. “I can’t say I blame you. I just can’t believe it.”
“I really tried to get the attention of the detectives on the case. Cameron was getting more and more out of control with the drugs and his obsession with you. It was almost a good thing—for me—because he stopped caring so much about what I was doing and I could get away with more. I’ve been sending anonymous letters, making phone calls with voice modulators…and nothing. They had no evidence. It was my word against his, and I was too scared to come forward publicly. He would have killed me, for sure.”
“It was you that drugged me at the bar that night.”
She nods.
“Why?”
“I was trying to set him up. I know how he is and he totally still had a thing for you, since you rejected him. You wouldn’t have been hurt. I was going to call the cops and they would have shown up before anything happened. I just wanted him to be caught, but then things kept getting in the way. Your boyfriend, the stupidity of the damn cops in this town. He was after you, you know. He tried to follow you home one night, and he got pissed when he found out you had a boyfriend and tried to kill both of you.
“Finally, I saw my chance, and I took it. He didn’t suffer. I drugged him and then shot him in the head with his own gun to make it look like the other murders. But I didn’t realize that my actions would also implicate your…” She waves her hand in my direction.
“Boyfriend,” I say flatly.
“Right. I didn’t know the suspect was the same guy you were shacking up with until it was too late. So then I had to fix it.”
“And this is how you fix it?” I can’t move my arms, so I try to gesture with my head.
She shrugs. “I had to make it believable. Now, I’ll knock you out.” She points the needle at me. “When they find you, tell them it was some raving madman who was going to kill you but then you blacked out and he was gone.”
“That’s not gonna work!”
“Sure it will. They can’t blame you. You couldn’t have tied yourself up, and they can’t blame your man because he definitely has a solid alibi this time. And I’ll be long gone.”
She steps towards me with the needle.
“Are you sure all of this drugging won’t damage me in some way?”
“Yes.”
“Is it really necessary?”
“Yes. It’s the same thing I used to drug Cameron and they’ll be able to verify that.”
“Where are you going to go?”
; “Like I’m going to tell you that. Don’t worry about me, I’ll go somewhere no one will be able to find me. No one cares enough to look, anyway. I’ve been planning this for a while.”
I take a deep breath. This is crazy, but fuck it. What do I have to lose? “Do it quick. I don’t think you have much time.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Lucy can GPS my cell.”
Her eyes widen. “Seriously?”
“Yes. She didn’t trust you. She promised Dean she would keep an eye on me, and she doesn’t really trust me either.”
She smiles. “Smart girl.”
That’s when we hear it, a shuffling sound coming from somewhere behind me. I’m not sure what’s behind me, but when I hear a brisk knock, I have to assume that’s where the door is.
Liz’s eyes widen.
“They’re here,” I say.
“Yep.”
She doesn’t turn around, even when a muffled voice calls out behind me, “Open up. Police.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask her.
She shrugs, her face resigned. “Change of plans.”
She moves quickly—there’s a pinch on my shoulder, and I’m out for the count. Again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dean
Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend.
–Agatha Christie
Have I mentioned how much I hate hospitals? It’s almost worse than jail. In jail, I got three hots and a cot. For free.
It’s the middle of the night. Freya is sleeping. She’s been unconscious since they found her. My heart clenches and my stomach threatens to expel its contents every time I think about what could have happened.
I was released after they found her, and I came directly to the hospital. I’ve called her mother and she’s driving in tonight, but probably won’t be here until tomorrow.
Lucy and Jensen were at the hospital when I arrived, but I sent them home. Now I’m sitting beside Freya’s bed with my head on her mattress, holding her limp hand.
I probably shouldn’t be here, probably not allowed since the terms of visiting hours don’t apply to a boyfriend, but the nurses here know me from the amount of times I’ve been here with my mom and they haven’t given me any flak.
I’m falling asleep, the steady beep-beep-beeping of Freya’s heart monitor lulling me into a light stupor but then something moves against my hand.
I jerk away with a groan and sit up, moving my hand from hers and rubbing my eyes against the dim light.
I hear a strange croak and it sounds like Freya’s trying to say my name.
“Freya?”
“Mmhmm,” she manages. I can see her eyes are open and a wave of relief crashes over me.
“Oh, thank God.” I grab her hand again and squeeze.
She tries to speak, but all that comes out is more croaking.
“What do you need? Water? Here.” I flick on the light next to the bed and fumble with some buttons, working them until I get the correct one that pushes her into a sitting position. Then I grab a cup of water from the side table and hold it up for her, positioning the straw into her mouth.
She takes a few small swallows and sits back.
“Better?” I ask, placing the cup back on the bedside table and taking her hand, rubbing her knuckles with my thumb. I am never letting her go again.
“Yes,” she says, and the word is fairly legible. “What happened?” she asks.
“You don’t remember anything?”
“I…” she pauses, her eyes searching mine as she tries to remember. She looks tired. Her eyes are a little swollen, but to me, she looks perfect. Her eyes widen as she remembers. “They took you to jail! But you’re here now.”
“Yes,” I say carefully and then I wait to see if more will come back. I don’t know exactly what she went through—no one does yet.
“Lucy and I talked to the detectives after they took you away. We went to her place, and we decided to try to get a list of suspects from Liz.”
I can almost see the memories as they hit her. Her eyes widen and her breathing accelerates, so does her heart monitor. I rub her hand gently, willing her to calm down so the nurse doesn’t come in.
“Where is she?” she asks. “The last thing I remember is the cops at the door and the drugs going into my arm.”
I tell her as much as I know. “She’s in ICU. She injected herself with a syringe full of air.”
“What? Why?”
“We were hoping you could tell us. The detectives have been checking in every hour, waiting for you to wake up.”
She haltingly relates her experiences over the last twenty-four hours, getting coffee, everything Liz revealed to her about the murders and that goddamn asswipe Cameron. She only stops once halfway through for another drink to soothe her throat.
“What happened when the cops found us?” she asks when she’s done.
“Well. Liz turned the needle on herself, but not before filling it with air and putting it in her veins.”
“Why would she do that?”
I shrug, tightening my hand on hers. “Probably because she got caught and she prefers death to prison. If you inject an air bubble into the right artery, it can stop your heart. But the odds are slim of something like that actually working, unless the person has a preexisting heart condition.”
“They can’t put her in prison.”
“She admitted to premeditated murder, and she kidnapped and drugged you.”
“Yeah, but it was to save you. And she had a good reason to kill Cameron. He was psychotic.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you, but you know how the law is.”
“Yeah.”
She looks so tired.
“Sleep,” I say, letting go of her hand to readjust the bed before clicking the light back off. I stand up to move into the chair.
“Wait, where are you going?” she asks, her voice panicked.
“Nowhere, just going to sit in the chair over here.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I sit down and listen to her breathing. After a few minutes, it seems like she’s falling asleep, but then she jerks awake with a moan.
“Are you okay?” I ask, leaning forward in the chair.
She’s silent for a moment and then she asks, “Will you…will you lie with me?”
I step closer to the bed. “I’m not sure I’ll fit,” I say with a smile.
She rolls over onto my side to make space behind in the narrow hospital bed. I walk around to avoid lying on the side with the IV and after a bit of maneuvering, I manage to lie down behind her, arm draped over her waist, body cupped around hers.
“Is this okay?” I whisper into her ear.
“Perfect. I’m sorry. I dreamt that Cameron was standing at the foot of my bed staring at me while I slept.”
“No need to apologize. And that was me staring at you while you slept.”
She puts her hand over mine where it’s settled at her waist.
“Except it’s so much less creepy when it’s you.”
I smile against her hair, breathing in her scent which smells like her shampoo.
Wrapped up as we are, it doesn’t take long for both of us to relax into each other and drift into sleep.
I fall asleep with a smile on my face and the one thought that’s putting it there.
She’s going to be okay.
***
The next morning, Detective Hanson comes to see Freya at the hospital to ask follow-up questions. She’s kind of intense, but I don’t mind that so much now that she’s not trying to put me in jail.
Freya wants me to stay in the room with her while she tells her side of the story. I sit on the edge of her bed, holding her hand while she repeats everything she told me last night. Then the detective fills us in on the details we missed.
“So Daisy killed Jesse, Cameron killed Matt, and Liz killed Cameron,” I say, after she’s explained everything that she can to us.
“F
rom what we’ve gathered, yes, that’s correct,” Detective Hanson says.
I can’t believe it.
“Three killers,” Freya says.
“Two of whom were using Devil’s Gate, which is a highly addictive, paranoia-inducing narcotic.” The detective shakes her head. “It makes people who might otherwise react rationally, become violent and reckless.”
“Daisy didn’t seem terribly reckless. Her plan was pretty well thought out,” Freya says.
“According to her revised statement, she and her friends were doing drugs and partying. She went into the bathroom, got sick, and then when she got the text from Dean,” she motions towards me, “she walked right out the front door. Her friends didn’t even notice because they were all too intoxicated. Her brother’s gun was in her trunk because he had been using her car and he had been attempting to sell the firearm. She found Jesse, shot him, and then went back to the party and passed out. She didn’t even remember what she had done until she heard about the killing the next afternoon.”
I grimace. “This drug sounds terrible.”
“It’s not good. We’ve been trying to get a handle on it for a few months now.”
There’s a pause in our conversation when a nurse comes in to take Freya’s blood pressure and temperature.
“How’s Liz?” Freya asks as the nurse leaves.
Detective Hanson takes a breath and looks at both of us before saying, “She’s gone.”
“Gone?” I ask.
“She left the hospital in the middle of the night. We had a guard watching over her, but somehow she snuck past him.”
Freya shakes her head. “I can’t say I’m surprised. She had more tricks up her sleeve than I ever realized.”
“Doesn’t she need more medical treatment?” I ask.
Detective Hanson gives a helpless shrug. “You’d think so. She was pregnant. Did she tell you?”
Freya gasps and her hand tightens in mine. “No.” She shakes her head. “The baby has got to be Cameron’s. Probably. I mean, she made it sound like she had traded her slutty ways for a life of domestic violence.”
