by Mia Thompson
Sapphire turned to her young self and watched as she sat in tears. She wasn’t holding a red toy in her hands, but a knife. One dripping with blood. Her face, clothes, and hands were covered in red streaks.
Sapphire’s father marched up to the child and yanked her into the connecting bedroom.
Aston led Sapphire to the room and pushed the door open.
After scolding her, her father’s legs gave out under him, and he held young Sapphire’s hands in his.
“I’m sorry I got mad,” he whispered, wiping her hands clean of blood with a napkin. “I thought if I was careful I could have both worlds, but it’s obvious now that I can’t.” He scooped her up in his arms. “You have to forget me, Sapphire. Forget everything you saw tonight. You can never talk about it, never think about it. It never happened. Do you understand me? Never.”
The door slammed closed, and Aston looked at Sapphire still holding her hand. “He’s the one you’ve been trying to catch.”
Snap!
* * * * *
Sapphire opened her eyes to a firefighter snapping his fingers above her. A delayed snap followed, forcing her to blink.
“There she is,” he said, his lips moving before the words reached her.
Sapphire turned her head, realizing that she was on the ground outside of what used to be the Golden Mirage. All around her, people watched as the firefighters doused the smoldering ruins.
“You must have been blown right into the beer fridge because that’s where we found you,” the firefighter said. “You’re lucky, too. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Sapphire looked down. Her hair and clothes were soaked in beer. Tiny cuts spread out over her arms where the broken bottles had sliced her.
“Aston,” Sapphire said, her voice hoarse and hurting. Her eyes searched for him, frantically.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. He didn’t make it.” He pointed to a body covered in a white sheet.
Sapphire stared at it, her world crumbling. This couldn’t be happening. Aston couldn’t be gone.
“We just found him. I carried him out myself.”
Sapphire shook her head, refusing to hear it, then stopped. Right before the explosion Aston was in the doorway; there was no way he was inside. The pure force would have blown him to the sidewalk.
“No!” she yelled, her voice straining. “The cop!”
“Oh, the cop. He’s fine. Both the cops are a little banged up, but fine.”
“Oh thank God, it was only Paul.” A relieved laugh bubbled out of her.
The firefighter frowned disapprovingly.
“May he rest in peace,” she added, replacing the smile with fake bereavement.
Aston was safe. Sapphire exhaled and felt her sanity return.
“The paramedics already left with the cops,” the firefighter continued. “But they’re on their way back for you.” He wrapped a gray blanket around her before starting to walk off. “So don’t move!”
Sapphire was just about to get up when Giles sat down next to her. The Golden Mirage sign hung loosely from a neon light bulb and finally snapped, crashing to the ground.
“I’m sorry you lost your business.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Giles said, upbeat. “I never would have wished for this to happen, but I have quite the insurance.”
“You’re opening back up?”
A smile spread on Giles’s lips. “No. We were a dime a dozen here in L.A. When you danced the other night to Big Spender I thought to myself, where did all the good old-fashioned dinner-dancing burlesque places go? That’s what I will do, with a modern twist, of course. Um, I would offer you a job, but…”
“Don’t worry, Giles. My dancing days are over,” Sapphire chuckled but ended up in a coughing fit.
“So what do you think?” Giles gazed up. “Big lights that say Misty’s House of Burlesque?”
“She would have loved that.” Sapphire smiled, then saw the news van pull up. “Giles, can you give me a ride to the bus station?”
Giles nodded and they headed for his car. Sapphire thought about the things that had floated up from her subconscious.
She understood everything.
Sapphire’s father wasn’t like her at all; he was her opposite. The reason he had watched the police reports about certain killings wasn’t because he wanted to do something about it like Sapphire, but to make sure he was still undiscovered. The reason he collected articles was because they were about his victims. They were his trophies.
To most people, realizing your own father was a serial killer would be considered traumatic news. Sapphire wasn’t most people.
To Sapphire, it was a beacon of light shining down on the daunting dark basement of her subconscious, a place she’d feared to go. The light bullied the darkness away until the basement and its creepy qualities looked harmless.
Everything was so clear in Sapphire’s mind. For the first time, she understood herself. There was a reason she hunted serial killers. She had been searching for him all these years. Subconsciously, her father was the killer she’d hoped to find every time she trapped someone. That was why she felt that inexplicable disappointment when she’d closed a case, because it wasn’t him. It was so simple and obvious now. She felt like she’d known it all along.
Sapphire felt strong. She felt invincible with the knowledge and sense of peace it brought.
Plus, Paul was dead, meaning the rest of the girls were safe. Everything she just went through was worth it.
She sat down in Giles’s car and looked up at the blue sky. She hadn’t felt this serene since…ever.
Sure, the wedding was only days away, but she would figure out a plan to stop it.
Everything was going to be fine.
* * * * *
Things were about to get worse for the Serial Catcher.
Richard Martin smiled as he watched her—IT—Sapphire Dubois, from the alley. The woman whose vicious laugh he’d devoted months to quiet was finally within his reach.
Not yet, he had to remind himself.
She sat in the passenger seat of a man’s car outside of the burning strip club looking infuriatingly pleased with herself. Her look was the same as the one she’d held when she captured him.
He knew what the look meant now. After shadowing her for awhile, he finally understood her. That understanding brought him a new course.
Richard had wanted to slit her throat like he did all the other women. This was no longer the case.
She wasn’t like them. She was special, in the worst way. Richard’s past and future no longer held any importance to him; the only thing that mattered was the demise of Sapphire Dubois.
He wanted to take everything from her the way she had taken everything from him.
He wanted to make her soul rot inside her body, the way she had made his.
He wanted to destroy her and he knew just how to do it.
Chapter 23
“I do,” said John Vanderpilt.
All eyes were on Sapphire, waiting for her to return the two words. It was expected. They’d all come to hear the exchange of those two little words.
I don’t.
“I do,” Sapphire heard herself say.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister proclaimed, smiling at the couple.
They turned to face the applauding crowd and Sapphire felt the color drain from her face.
John leaned toward her, whispering into her ear as they started walking. “How do you feel, Mrs. John Vanderpilt?”
It had happened. She was really married to John. She was a Vanderpilt.
Sapphire stopped in the middle of the aisle. Aston stood among the crowd, staring at her, his face full of panic and pain.
Sapphire screamed and shot up in the darkness.
She wasn’t Mrs. John Vanderpilt. She was safe in her bed. She took a breath, trying to calm her erratic heartbeat. It’s okay, she told herself, it was only a dream.
Her bedroom
door burst open, letting in the light.
“Up and at ‘em!” Eloise sang. “It’s your wedding day!”
She shut the door and Sapphire fell to her pillow.
Let the games begin.
* * * * *
“Sapphire,” Eloise said. “Have a scone. You look a bit faint.”
The elaborate breakfast on the sun deck looked tempting, but Sapphire needed to stick to the game plan. “No, I don’t feel well.”
This plan would only stall the wedding until she could come up with something better. For the plan to work, it had to be pulled at the last minute.
Chrissy glanced at Sapphire from across the table, not looking too swell herself, then went back to her mimosa.
“It’s just cold feet,” Eloise brushed off. “Completely normal.”
“I’m serious,” Sapphire said. “I need to go to the hospital. I think we need to postpone.”
Eloise’s face withered. “This is the wedding of the season. You think I’ll have my career ruined because ‘you don’t feel well’?”
Wanna bet? Sapphire was just about to drop to the ground and fake her way to the emergency room when the deck’s door slid open.
“I’m ba-aack,” Vivienne Dubois chirped, removing her sunglasses in a dramatic gesture.
Great, Sapphire thought. Next to Charles, Vivienne was the last person she wanted to deal with.
Sapphire’s stepfather abruptly went to New York two days earlier, and his absence was the best thing that could have happened. She didn’t think Charles would call the cops on her, but there was a possibility he’d throw her out or contact the nearest psych ward.
Unfortunately, he was due back soon. She was half-expecting him to burst in with two orderlies and a straitjacket with her name on it.
“Welcome home—” Sapphire started, ready for the standard let’s-hide-our-messed-up-relationship air kisses.
“Is that a mimosa?” Vivienne walked past Sapphire and yanked the glass from Chrissy, taking it down in one sweep. “Thanks. The spa I went to refused to serve cocktails.”
Sapphire didn’t know that she actually had hopes for her mother’s recovery until she felt disappointment at her guzzling the mimosa.
She glared at her mother who gossiped in a hushed voice with Eloise. Vivienne hadn’t even made it past step one, acceptance. She was still in such denial that she couldn’t even say the word rehab.
“Hello, Vivienne.”
Vivienne’s smile vanished along with the color in her cheeks. The flute glass slipped out of her hand and smashed to the ground.
“Long time, no see,” Charles said with a bite in his tone. He leaned against the door frame, his hand in his suit pocket.
He was still old but closer to looking like his younger brother Gary instead of the corpse he’d been.
“Ch-Charles,” Vivienne said. “You…how…what happened?”
Charles glanced over at Sapphire. Her eyes shot away, unable to meet his gaze.
“I signed for the new medical treatment,” Sapphire said.
“You diiid?” Vivienne tried to smile.
Sapphire held back a laugh. She wasn’t happy to see her stepfather at this very moment, but she enjoyed seeing him rub his health in her mother’s face. It was payback.
Raul, Vivienne’s driver, entered the doorway next to Charles. The young man’s hair was in disarray and there were traces of Vivienne’s burgundy lipstick on his neck.
“Mrs. Dubois,” Raul said, “I placed the bags in your closet; would you like me to unpack them as well?”
“Yes, that will be all,” Vivienne mumbled, unable to take her eyes off Charles.
“Oh come now, Vivienne. Tip the boy,” Charles smirked. “I’m sure he’s gone beyond his job description to…satisfy you. They always do, don’t they?”
Vivienne’s cheeks went from pasty white to flaming red.
“Sapphire,” Charles said, “can we talk?”
“I can’t. We’re on a tight schedule.”
“You have five minutes, but here,” Eloise said, pushing a glass of OJ on Sapphire. “Take some juice at least, you’ll need the energy.”
Sapphire took it and rose from her chair realizing she would have to face him sooner or later anyway. Plus, so far, no orderlies in sight.
“Why did you go to New York?” she asked as they entered the upstairs lounge.
“I had some business with my lawyer, but that’s irrelevant right now,” Charles said, starting to pace.
As she sat down on the couch the tension lay thick around them like overcharged electricity waiting to explode.
Her stepfather settled by the window, looking out. “Did you know my father had frequent affairs?”
Sapphire shook her head and sipped her juice.
“One of his mistresses got pregnant and died in child birth. My father insisted the child should be raised in our house. My mother was accustomed to his indiscretions but feared the gossip that came with an illegitimate child.”
Sapphire frowned, confused. Was she, or was she not, getting put in the loony bin for hunting serial killers?
“Gary and I were already adults and my mother, in her sixties; she knew she couldn’t pass the child off as her own. So we pretended he was a distant relative brought to live with us. His name was William Dubois. Only the family and our lawyers knew the truth. My father was too old to handle a toddler, so William and I grew close over the years.” He smiled out the window, his eyes misty.
“What happened?”
Charles came to sit by her. “He was caught doing something atrocious. Murder. We, the family, decided to cover it up to save our name. Then we disowned him. My mother burned every photo, every item belonging to him. He was shunned and tossed to the street. I was heartbroken and confused that the brother I loved so much could do something so evil. To the rest of the community, he was just the relative who went back to where he came from. To us, it was like he’d never existed.”
Her stepfather’s head sank toward his chest.
“After five years of silence, William called and begged me to care for two people in his place: his wife and child. So I did.” His face turned, and Sapphire’s eyes fixed on his profile. “And though they never knew William was my brother, I married the mother and took in their daughter.”
Sapphire stared at him, trying to grasp everything. “But my father’s name was Will Green.”
“Yes, that was one of his aliases. His birth name was William Dubois. You’re a Dubois by blood.” He opened his suit jacket and pulled out the picture he tried to give her the week before. “The man is me and the boy your father. It’s the only picture I salvaged from my mother’s bonfire.”
Sapphire took the picture.
“You’re my…uncle?” she said, shocked. “My father was your brother?”
“Half-brother, technically.” Charles’s voice was filled with pain. “I know I kept you at a distance when you were a child.” Charles’s gray eyes glossed with tears. “But I was terrified you’d turn out like him and that I’d lose you the same way I lost him. I planned on telling you everything once you were old enough, but then I had my stroke.”
“So he’s alive, right?” The white Audi flittered through her mind. Maybe he was keeping tabs on them. “Do you know where he is?”
“I don’t.” Charles looked at her with concern. “Don’t try to find him, Sapphire. He’s not a good man.”
“Okay.” He didn’t believe her. She wasn’t sure she believed her either.
“You’re walking a thin line out there, Sapphire.” He tapped the photograph. “Be careful…to not step into your father’s path.”
“Don’t worry, Charles. He and I are as opposite as it gets.” She felt overwhelmed.
“Either way, I love you. I’ve loved you like a daughter since the day I took you in. Whenever you need me, I’ll be here for you.”
Charles embraced Sapphire. She sat in shock as everything processed, not hugging him back, not moving at all.
Sapphire expected straitjackets, not this. She tried to hold back the tears, but they came anyway.
Julia loved the side Sapphire had chosen to show her but knew nothing of her abnormal obsession. Charles knew who she was and still loved her. She’d never imagined that to be possible.
Though she didn’t need one at her age, she felt like Charles had offered to become the one thing she never had: a father.
“Now your mother on the other hand,” Charles pulled back. “I’m not sure what to do with.”
Sapphire wiped her tears.
Charles smiled. “It’ll be my honor to walk you down the aisle today.”
The pressure returned to Sapphire’s chest. “Charles, about the wedding…”
“Yes?”
“Tick tock,” Eloise said from the doorway. “Your five minutes are up. Makeup and hair will be here soon.”
“We’ll talk after breakfast,” Sapphire said.
Charles went to his office to avoid Vivienne. He said he’d gone to see Mr. Goldstein in New York; a divorce was probably around the corner.
Sapphire set down the empty OJ glass on the deck’s table, about to resume her fake fainting. After the wedding got postponed, Charles could help her come up with a better, more permanent plan. If he could deal with her hunting serial killers, he could deal with her not wanting to marry a Vanderpilt.
Sapphire ran her tongue over her teeth. “This wasn’t a screwdriver, was it? It has an aftertaste.”
“Just orange juice,” Eloise said. “Well, and a few bars of Xanax to help with the cold feet.”
“Xanax?!”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Eloise grinned. “I overdosed you a little, in a couple seconds you won’t even care.”
Sapphire knew she should feel angry, but calmness washed over her. She wasn’t worried or panicked about anything.
She enjoyed the sunshine, the birds, and the little freckles on her hand.
“Sapphire,” Eloise called from a rose colored reality. “How would you feel if World War III was around the corner?”
“I’m okay with it,” Sapphire shrugged.
“And how do you feel about the wedding?”
“I’m okay with it.”
“Excellent.” Eloise and Vivienne shared a smile.
