by Lis Wiehl
Except that Nic wasn’t certain how much she was pretending.
Suddenly, the hands were gone. Gone. With a gasp, Nic lifted her head above the water. Just in time to see Elizabeth drag Makayla up the stairs and out of the water—and grab Nic’s Glock.
Then Elizabeth turned, pointed it at Nic, and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 54
Channel Four
During the six o’clock local news, Cassidy had given viewers the latest updates on Portland’s two murders. All the while wishing she knew what the latest really was.
After all, she was the one who had figured out that Jenna had purchased a hidden camera and that it was still at the motel. But she hadn’t even been allowed to look at whatever images it had captured.
Driving home, Cassidy called Allison, who wasn’t making any sense.
“Leif and I are on our way to get Nic and Makayla at the gym.”
Cassidy strained to hear Allison over a siren in the background.
“What? What does that have to do with the tape?”
“It’s Elizabeth, Cassidy. Elizabeth is behind it all. She killed Jenna and Deciccio. She ordered that woman and her kid to be killed.”
“What?” The thought was impossible to grasp. Cassidy tried to hold on to it, but it slipped away from her. Still, she automatically merged into the right lane. The freeway exit for the street that led to the gym was only a mile away.
Allison launched into an explanation of how everything was connected—Elizabeth and Lindsay, Joey and Elizabeth, Jenna and Joey, Elizabeth and Ian.
“I was watching the tape, Cass, and I see Elizabeth! Shooting Jenna! And then I think—Makayla. Makayla is taking lessons from Elizabeth right now. I called Nicole and warned her, and she ran off to get Makayla. We’ve got Portland police and FBI agents scrambling over to the gym. Leif and I are almost there. I just pray we’re not too late. I’ve got to go.”
Cassidy took the exit at far more than the posted speed limit of thirty-five. She hadn’t followed everything Allison had said, but she had gotten the gist.
Elizabeth. Funny. Fascinating. Beautiful.
Elizabeth.
A killer.
A sociopath.
A human scorpion.
And Cassidy had let her ride on her back.
She pulled into the gym’s parking lot, her thoughts swirling. Elizabeth had played Cassidy like a virtuoso. Everything Elizabeth had said had been calibrated to make Cassidy do and think exactly what she had wanted.
She had gotten Cassidy to buy her a whole new wardrobe. She had pumped Cassidy for information, lied to her, tried to turn her against her friends.
But what Elizabeth didn’t understand was that you didn’t mess with Cassidy. And you especially didn’t mess with her friends.
This was all her fault, Cassidy thought as a car raced past her, a police light strobing blue on the dash. She had to make it right. She had to think of some way to fix it. If anything happened to Nicole or Makayla, she couldn’t live with herself. She skidded to a stop.
The car with the police light drove up over the curb and onto the lawn until it was facing the big glass wall of the swimming pool. Automatically grabbing her purse, Cassidy got out of her car and started to run. The driver’s side door of the other car flew open and Leif leapt out, sheltering behind the door, holding a gun in both hands. Inside the car Allison leaned forward, her hands on the dash. The pool was churning with a struggle. As Cassidy watched, Elizabeth dragged Makayla out of the pool and then snatched up a gun from the tiles.
Then Elizabeth turned and fired at the pool, the bullet as loud as a thunderclap.
“No!” Leif shouted, a shout that was very nearly a scream.
Cassidy’s heart stopped when she saw what Elizabeth had done.
Nicole’s body now lay motionless on the bottom of the pool.
But Cassidy didn’t have time to grieve, because Elizabeth, still holding the gun, was dragging Makayla toward the emergency exit. Sirens rose and fell behind Cassidy as more police cars began to converge. She realized it was already too late for Nicole.
She couldn’t let it be too late for Makayla.
Cassidy ran to the edge of the building and pushed her way into the bushes planted in a line next to it. As she scrambled through the narrow gap, she rummaged frantically through her huge black bag. Past pens, lipsticks, candy bars, mascara wand. Where was it? Where was it? Everything she touched was either too slender or too long to be what she needed.
Then her hand closed on the cylinder.
Pepper spray. The guy at the I Spy Shoppe had called her back to the counter and told her she needed it to keep herself safe. At the most, she had imagined using it to fend off a mugger in a parking lot. Not attacking the woman she had counted as a friend. Trying to stop her from killing a child.
Because Cassidy knew that Elizabeth would. She would use Makayla as a bargaining chip to get out of here. And then discard her when she stopped being useful. Not even looking back at her broken body as she walked away.
Cassidy flicked off the cap with her thumb. Dozens of cop cars were squealing into the parking lot, but it was too late. Elizabeth pushed the door open with her back, and the alarm began to blare. Cassidy pushed her way out of the bushes, staring at the woman who she had thought was her friend.
Elizabeth looked her in the eyes. “Cassidy,” she started to say, still following some vestigial impulse to try to manipulate her. As if she could explain away the gun in one hand and the terrified girl she held with the other.
“Sorry, I’m not listening to you anymore.” Cassidy lifted her hand and sprayed Elizabeth directly in the face.
But the pepper spray was far from pinpoint. Cassidy sprayed herself and Makayla too. The three of them fell to the ground. Gasping, coughing, choking, eyes and nose burning. More than burning. On fire.
Cassidy heard more than saw the cops swarm them. One pulled Makayla away, another snatched up the gun, a third grabbed Elizabeth, and a fourth yelled at Cassidy that she was under arrest.
CHAPTER 55
FBI Portland Field Office
Allison walked into the meeting room. Nicole was waiting for her. After everything that had happened on Friday, Nicole had taken a three-day weekend, but her eyes still had dark circles under them. She stood up.
Allison gave her a tight hug, then pulled up a chair. “Are you still coughing up pool water?”
“I think I’ve finally got it all out of my system,” Nicole said.
“I’m sorry I sent you into a panic.” Allison looked down at her hands. “It’s just that when I realized it was the same girl Lindsay had known at Spurling . . .”
Nicole pressed her lips together. “I usually have a pretty good poker face, but once I knew the truth, all I could think was to get Makayla away from that . . . that monster.”
“I’ve been thanking God every day that you both survived.” Allison raised her head and met Nicole’s steady gaze. “I still can’t believe you’re alive after she shot at you. I was sure you were dead.”
“Well, if I hadn’t watched that one Mythbusters on TV with Makayla, I would be.” Nicole shook her head, looking bemused. “They were seeing if diving under water could really protect someone who was being shot at, the way it does in old movies. It turned out to be one of the few myths they’ve tested that is actually true. They had someone stand at the edge of a pool and shoot down into it. Most bullets lost their punch by three feet and came apart by five. When I saw Elizabeth point the gun at me, I just had to hope that I could get far enough down. That pool’s only five feet deep. I guess it helped that she was shooting at an angle. The bullet never even touched me.”
“You’re very lucky,” Allison said, and again thanked God for it.
Nicole’s mouth twisted into something like a smile. “I can’t decide if I’m blessed or cursed. You know, it’s like—I got cancer, but it probably got caught early. Or—my daughter nearly got murdered, but then she was saved. So am I lu
cky or unlucky? That kind of thinking can make for some looong nights.” She took a deep breath. “Speaking of which, right before I took Makayla to her swim lesson, I told my parents about the cancer.”
“You did? Oh, Nicole, that must have been hard.”
“They took it pretty well. I mean, if I put myself in their place, if I imagine how I would feel if Makayla told me the same thing, I think I would have gotten a lot more upset than they did. Maybe it took a little while to sink in. Yesterday they told me they started a prayer chain for me at their church.” Nicole shrugged. “I guess it can’t hurt.”
Allison patted Nicole’s hand. “I have to admit they’re not the only ones with that idea.” She had submitted Nicole’s name on Sunday.
“Well, we all do what we can to protect those we care about, don’t we?” Nicole put her hands over her eyes for a moment, then took them away. “I used to lie awake at night and think about Makayla getting leukemia or being hit by a car. Part of me thought that if I worried about those things, I could make it so they didn’t happen. I know, I know. Rational Nicole, doing something that was definitely irrational. And clearly, it didn’t protect her.” She managed a weak smile. “Or maybe I should have worried about different things. Like being nearly killed by her sociopathic swimming teacher.”
“How’s Makayla doing?”
“She’s been sleeping in my bed. And we’ve been talking about it a lot. The gym is horrified, of course. They’ve located a therapist who actually works with people in the water. Only this time I’m going to be there too. We’ll be starting lessons again about ten days after I have my lumpectomy. Give it time to heal before I get into the water.”
Allison was surprised. “Do you think that will be too fast for Makayla?”
Nicole bit her thumbnail. “I actually don’t think it’s fast enough. Last time I let her go four years, with her fears getting bigger and bigger every day. If I let that happen again, then she’ll never feel safe in a pool, or a kayak or a canoe or even on a boat. Not even by the time she’s an adult. I’m actually going to take the lessons right along with her. It’s a miracle neither of us drowned in that pool.”
Allison nodded. It was indeed a miracle.
Nicole took a deep breath. “So enough about me. Do you want to know about Elizabeth?” From the table, she picked up a thick manila folder with a large red stamp on the outside that read EXPUNGED. “I had to get special clearance from the Justice Department for you even to look at these. You can’t take notes, you can’t photocopy them, and they can’t leave this room.”
“I know.” Allison couldn’t keep her eyes off the file. “And we can’t use them at trial. But I appreciate you tracking them down. I just keep going around and around in my head, trying to understand what makes someone like Elizabeth tick.”
“I’ve just spent the last two hours looking through the files, so let me give you the highlights.” Nicole opened to the first page. “Elizabeth’s name used to be Elizabeth Hewsom, but when her cousin started calling her Sissy, it stuck.”
“Sissy,” Allison echoed. “Lindsay told me that’s what they were still calling her at Spurling. When I heard that on the tape, I was shocked.”
Allison looked at Nicole’s beautiful face, her slanted eyes and high cheekbones, and wondered how she could have gone forward if Elizabeth had succeeded in ending her friend’s life.
“Elizabeth didn’t have much of a home life. Her parents never married and seem to have spent most of their relationship taking out restraining orders on each other. When she was seven, her father shot her mother and then himself. Elizabeth said she was a witness.”
“Oh, how terrible.” Allison felt an unexpected pang for the girl Elizabeth had been. Had she been born a monster or had circumstances made her one? Or had she chosen her path?
Nicole shrugged. “Well, we’ll never know for sure if she really did witness it. Elizabeth clearly knew that brought sympathy for her. And she has a long record of falsely accusing others of a variety of activities, either in bids for sympathy or simply to get them in trouble.”
She turned a few pages. “When Elizabeth was thirteen, her four-year-old cousin Mikey came to live with her and her grandmother when his parents ran into some personal troubles. By all accounts Mikey was an extremely attractive child. And Elizabeth was expected to take care of him. Instead, a few months later she drowned him in the duck pond when they were on an outing at the zoo. Elizabeth had everyone believing it was a tragic accident.”
“That’s the part Lindsay told me about,” Allison said. “She knew about his death and how a little girl might have witnessed it. And Lindsay said that’s why Elizabeth killed that second child—because she was a witness.”
“That’s right,” Nic agreed. “The same day Elizabeth murdered her cousin, she was also babysitting a neighbor’s three-year-old, Hannah. A few weeks later Elizabeth told Hannah she was going to teach her how to swim. Instead she drowned her in a neighbor’s backyard pool while the folks were at work.”
Allison pursed her lips. “I don’t even know how you were able to read that part. I mean, when you think about what nearly happened with Makayla . . .”
“Ironic isn’t even the right word, is it?” Nicole scrubbed her face with her palms, then let them drop with a sigh. “When no one found the girl’s body right away, Elizabeth tripped herself up being a little too helpful to the FBI. She actually led them to Hannah’s body. The girl was wearing a yellow swimsuit that her mother said did not belong to her. Her clothes were next to the pool, neatly folded. The autopsy revealed no signs of sexual abuse. They might have chalked her death up to another accidental drowning—except they did find bruises on her body. And when they looked at Elizabeth, they found scratches and bruises on her arms and legs.”
“It’s still so hard to believe. A thirteen-year-old multiple murderer.” Allison had heard of a few kids who had killed that young, but she couldn’t remember any with more than one victim.
“That’s why the judge sent her to Spurling. They had a reputation for performing miracles. Of course, after the school was shut down, it was clear the only miracles they performed were on their own numbers.”
Allison grimaced. “Lindsay has told me a few stories.”
“Elizabeth was released from Spurling when she turned nineteen, because back then Oregon law forbade incarcerating female juvenile offenders over the age of eighteen. After she graduated she successfully petitioned to have her juvenile record expunged. At that time, even murder and sex crimes could be expunged. And she changed her name to Elizabeth Avery.”
“And does Elizabeth Avery have a criminal record?”
“No.” Nicole flattened her hands against the manila envelope.
“Do you think she went straight?” Allison asked.
Nicole’s smile was devoid of humor. “Are you kidding? I think she switched to crimes that people might not be so willing to go to the cops over. Like Cassidy told me that Elizabeth tricked her into buying her a whole new wardrobe by claiming she had forgotten to bring her credit cards to Nordstrom. And she even had me writing checks straight to her for the swimming lessons, instead of to the gym. I think the more we dig, the more we’ll find.”
“Then why do you think she turned to murder?”
“I forget that you haven’t met Ian McCloud, her boyfriend. He’s a tall, dark, handsome, rich, well-connected lawyer. When Elizabeth met him, I think she saw him as the one thing that would complete her. A sociopath like Elizabeth is empty inside. She thought if she married Ian it would show to the world that she was the perfect person she always longed to be—beautiful, rich, assured, admired, catered to. And she was willing to do anything to make that dream come true.”
There was a knock on the conference room door, and then Leif stuck his head inside. The last time Allison had seen Leif, he had had his arm around Nicole while she clutched Makayla and wept. But now their relationship seemed strictly back to business. Although Allison secretly hoped that was
n’t the case.
“I’ve got something for you guys,” Leif said. “Portland PD got in touch with me a couple of hours ago. They were called to the scene of a suicide this weekend. Some kid named Clark Smith who worked at a grocery store. He left a note—in what his parents say is his own handwriting—about what was wrong with his life. He was found hanging from his bed, a pillowcase over his head, and the cord from his laptop around his neck and tied to the bed.”
So far, Allison wasn’t hearing anything to explain why Leif had interrupted them.
“Don’t suicides sometimes do that?” she asked. “Cover their eyes? It’s like they don’t want to see what they are doing.”
“Yeah. But want to know what was on the list of things wrong in his life? He says he killed a man in Forest Park.”
Nic’s head jerked back. “This guy’s the one who killed Decicco?”
“It looks like.”
“Why would he do that?” Nic frowned. “Does the note say?”
“No.” Leif shook his head.
“Elizabeth is behind this. She has to be,” Allison said, thinking of how she had manipulated them all.
“His parents say there is no way this kid committed suicide. No way. His mom says he was saving money to go to art school. And get this—” Leif pressed his lips together and then said, “She says he told her that he had a new girlfriend. The first girlfriend he’d ever had.”
Elizabeth. It had to be. But how would they ever prove it? Allison was determined to pursue justice for every victim she could.
“I’m going to go back over the scene with the evidence recovery team,” Leif told them. “If there’s anything there, we’ll find it.”
“Thanks, Leif,” Nic said.
After he left, Allison thought that Nicole seemed open to talking, so she decided to take advantage. “I’ve been thinking about your surgery Friday. Are you nervous?”
“I trust my doctor,” Nicole said, leafing through Elizabeth’s file and not meeting Allison’s eyes.
