Heartstopper

by Joy Fielding

  “I kind of like Matt Damon.”

  “Yeah. He’s cute too. He looks a bit like Greg.”

  “You think?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Megan pictured Greg’s strong jaw, his brown eyes, and closely cropped hair. “I guess.”

  “You really like him, don’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “Why were you guys fighting? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking.”

  Megan pulled anxiously on her hair. “The usual.”

  “You mean, sex?”

  Megan stole a look around the room, wondering if anyone was actually eavesdropping on their conversation, and if so, could it be Greg? “Yeah,” she acknowledged.

  “He tried to force you?”

  “No. No. He just wanted … I wasn’t…”

  “You weren’t ready,” Delilah said, finishing the sentence for her.

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you ever gone all the way? I know it’s none of my business …”

  “I’m still a virgin,” Megan admitted. What the hell? she was thinking. Why hold anything back now?

  “Me too. Not that anyone has ever even tried …”

  “They will.”

  “Maybe once I lose the weight.”

  “Boys are so stupid,” Megan said.

  “Your brother’s nice.”

  “Yeah. He’s sweet.”

  “What do you think of him and Amber?”

  “They’re kind of cute together.”

  “Yeah, I think so too.” There was a moment of silence. “Can I ask you something else?” Delilah asked.

  “Might as well.”

  “I don’t want to upset you.”

  Megan almost laughed. “You think I could be any more upset than I already am?”

  “It’s about my mom and your dad.”

  “What about them?”

  “How do you feel about them being together?”

  “Not great. Nothing personal,” Megan added quickly.

  “I understand. I really like your mom.”

  “Me too.” Megan crossed her fingers in her lap. Please, God, she was thinking. Please let me see my mother again. I promise I’ll be the best daughter a mother could have.

  “She’s like, you know, a real mom. Kerri tries but—”

  “How come you call your mother by her first name?”

  “She prefers it that way. I guess it makes her feel—” Delilah stopped suddenly, looked up at the ceiling. “What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  Delilah clambered to her feet, Megan instantly beside her. “I thought I heard something.”

  Both girls waited. At first there was nothing. And then, there it was again, the sound of footsteps. It was unmistakable. Someone was moving around above their heads.

  “Oh, God,” Megan wailed as Delilah reached behind her back to withdraw her gun. “Help!” Megan started screaming. “Somebody help us!” Seconds later, they heard footsteps descending a flight of stairs outside their room.

  Delilah pointed the gun at the door.

  The footsteps drew closer, stopped on the other side. Megan gasped as the handle began to twist. There was a pounding on the door, followed by the sound of a boot connecting with the wood. The door exploded off its hinges and fell into the small room.

  The man who stood on the other side was tall and muscle-bound, with closely cropped blond hair and brown eyes full of confusion and disbelief.

  “Greg!” Megan cried.

  Beside her, shots rang out.

  In the next second, Greg was on the floor.

  “Greg!” Megan shouted again, running to his side and gathering him into her arms, cradling his head in her lap. Blood was gushing from his stomach. His skin was turning the color of the concrete, his eyes receding into the top of his head.

  “I found you,” he said before losing consciousness.

  “Oh, God. Oh, God. What have you done?” Megan looked from her lap to the girl standing on the other side of the room. “He was coming to rescue us.”

  “I know that,” Delilah said evenly, pointing the gun directly at Megan’s head. “And we couldn’t have that, now could we? Not when I’ve worked so hard for so long.”

  The words froze the air in Megan’s lungs, so that she could barely breathe. “What? What are you saying?”

  “He must have seen my car. I guess I didn’t do a very good job of hiding it. I was so anxious to get back to you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you always were a little slow. What is it exactly you’re having trouble understanding, Megan?”

  “You did this?”

  “I did. Little me,” Delilah acknowledged with a smile. “Well, maybe not so little. That’s the sort of comment you’d make behind my back, isn’t it, Megan? By the way, did you know that Little Me is the name of an old Neil Simon musical? I know stuff like that. My grandmother has this huge collection of old LPs. That stands for ‘long-playing’ records, in case you didn’t know. Which I suspect, you didn’t. So I know a lot about music, which you might have found out had you expressed any interest in me whatsoever. Water under the bridge. Isn’t that what we decided? Anyway, I think Mr. Lipsman should really consider doing it next year. You’d be perfect for the part of Belle. It’s the lead, of course. Not that you’ll be available to audition.”

  “But why?”

  “Why what? Why did I kidnap you? Or why did I kidnap the others?”

  “Oh, God.” Megan felt dizzy and light-headed, as if she might faint.

  “Well, I don’t really see that I owe you any explanations, but what the hell? We’re practically family, so I’ll tell you. Candy was my test case. And Fiona was more of a red herring. But Liana, well, she was just a pleasure. Like you’ll be. And Greg, well, he was, what do they call it? Collateral damage? Oh, and there’s my grandmother, of course.”

  “Your grandmother?” Was Delilah completely insane?

  “I have to tell you—she was the most fun of all. Partly because I’ve been planning her death for so long, and yet killing her happened kind of impromptu. If my mother hadn’t insisted I drive her home, she might have had a few more days. It was a case of opportunity knocking, as they say. But you want to know the best part? The best part is that everybody’s going to assume she died of congestive heart failure. The same way they thought my aunt Lorraine fell down a flight of stairs. They won’t bother with an autopsy. They won’t even check her pills, and even if they do, I’ve already put back the right ones. God, you should have seen her face when I wrapped that plastic bag around her head. She looked so surprised. Did my own heart good, I tell you. Oh, please. Don’t look so shocked. She was a witch and you know it. Trust me, there aren’t going to be a lot of tears wasted over her. Maybe a few more on you, though. I wonder if they’ll hold another vigil.”

  “Please …”

  “Please, what?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “Sorry. I kind of have to. I mean, here I’ve been confiding in you and everything about all my nasty little secrets. You’d think we were really friends.”

  “We are friends.”

  “Ha! Yeah, sure. Until you get out of here and off you run to Ginger and Tanya. Who are next on my list, by the way. Although I may have to wait a little while. Don’t want people to get too spooked.”

  “You know you’ll never get away with this.”

  “Why does everybody always say that? Statistics show that people get away with murder all the time. And look at me. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.”

  “Please,” Megan pleaded. “I don’t want to die.”

  “No? I guess not. I mean, how often do people call you nasty nicknames and post filthy songs about you on the Internet? How often do they tease you about your weight and make fun of you in class? How many times have you been passed over for a good part in the school play because there’s someone prettier and skinnier around, even if she can’t sing worth a hill of bea
ns? That’s two expressions I’ve used regarding food,” Delilah continued, as if one sentence naturally followed the other. “Interesting. Food metaphors—your mother would be so proud. I wonder where those expressions come from. Do you ever wonder about stuff like that?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Really? Do you mean that, or are you just humoring me, trying to get me to see you as a human being, so I’ll have a hard time pulling the trigger? Which I won’t, incidentally. I kind of enjoy pulling the trigger, although not nearly as much as I’ve enjoyed our little chat.”

  Megan shook her head. What was the point in saying anything more?

  “Now, move away from Greg and go sit over there, like a good little girl.” The gun in Delilah’s hand motioned toward the wall.

  And then they heard the sound of a door bursting open overhead, and voices, one on top of the other, racing down the stairs. “Greg? Are you here?” the sheriff was shouting. “Greg? Megan?”

  “Megan?” her mother yelled.

  “Mommy!” Megan screamed. “Sheriff! In here!”

  And suddenly the sheriff was standing in the doorway, his massive bulk filling its entire frame. Megan thought she’d never seen a more beautiful-looking man in her entire life as he raised the gun in his right hand and pointed it directly at Delilah. “Drop the gun, Delilah,” the sheriff instructed as he released the safety catch of his weapon. “Drop it now.”

  “Oh, my God,” Megan heard her mother whimper behind him.

  “Drop the gun,” the sheriff said again, advancing cautiously into the room.

  Megan watched Delilah’s eyes travel back and forth between her and the sheriff, as if trying to decide what to do. She watched the confusion and indecision in those eyes quickly disappear, replaced with fresh resolve. She was still watching when, seconds later, Delilah turned the gun on herself and pulled the trigger.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  KILLER’S JOURNAL

  Okay, so obviously, I didn’t die.

  Turns out I wasn’t a very good shot after all. Well, how could I be, with everything that was happening? Megan’s mother was screaming and the sheriff was coming at me. Or maybe I just chickened out. Hard to say. In any event, the bullet only grazed the side of my temple, and while it resulted in a bucket-load of blood—head wounds are the worst when it comes to bleeding—I never actually lost consciousness. Much as I longed for it. If only to escape the outrageously melodramatic mother-daughter reunion that followed—“My sweet baby! My sweet angel!” Please. Megan was hardly an angel. Trust me. Although why would you? I haven’t exactly proved to be the most trustworthy of persons, now have I?

  It turns out it’s not exactly fun to get shot, even if you survive. The fact is, it hurts like hell. It’s been almost ten months since that night in the basement of the Kimble house, and I still get headaches and suffer from bouts of blurred vision. I’ve had two operations. They had to shave my head for the first one, and my hair’s just now starting to grow back. It’s coming in curlier than it was before, which is a drag. No matter what the fashion magazines keep telling us about curly hair being “in,” the truth is that it’s the girls with the long, straight hair—sometimes parted down the middle, sometimes combed to one side—who always wind up on the covers of those same mags. Straight hair is sophisticated. It gives off an aura of order and calm. Curly hair suggests a frazzled mind, as if its possessor is in a permanent state of electric shock. Plus it’s just harder to manage, no matter how much “product” you apply.

  Aside from the headaches and the bouts of blurred vision, I also suffer from occasional—some might say convenient—lapses in memory, which is why I think it’s so neat they’ve given me back my journal. It helps me remember things, provides me with context, allows me to manage my thoughts, give vent to my frustrations. It’s also part of my therapy. Dr. Mandy Biehn, age forty, tall, slender, shoulder-length, straight, black hair parted to the left, is my principal psychiatrist here at Maple Downs Mental Health Center—I generously spared the state the expense, and my victims and their families the pain, of a lengthy trial by pleading guilty to all charges and agreeing to serve out my sentence here—and she thinks the journals are a great idea. I told her it was Sandy Crosbie’s idea originally, that I resisted the whole thing at first, but that she insisted everyone in her English classes keep one. Although she never once called on me to read my journal out loud in class. I wonder what would have happened if she had.

  Kerri didn’t want me to plead guilty, of course. She said a strong argument could be made in favor of a chemical imbalance, that something is obviously missing from my genetic code, courtesy of my father. She claims a difficult childhood and the hostile environment at Torrance High only exacerbated the situation and blames my fellow students for ultimately pushing me over the edge into madness. If you ask me, such speculation is pointless and self-defeating, rather like trying to solve that age-old riddle about the chicken and the egg. Does it really matter which came first?

  No. What ultimately matters is who’s left standing at the end.

  Kerri wanted me to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. But I would never agree to that. How could I? I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was wrong, which is the legal definition of sanity, as my lawyer, Mitchell Young, Senior—HAPPY TO SERVE, WILLING TO SUE, HOPING TO SETTLE—pointed out. That didn’t hold too much weight with Kerri, who was somehow more comfortable with the idea of her only child being crazy than she was with having given birth to a cold-blooded killer.

  Oh, well. Can’t please everyone.

  Besides, that’s not how I see myself. My blood is as warm as the next girl’s.

  The good news is I’ve lost weight.

  Almost twenty pounds, despite that the food they give you in this place consists primarily of starches and carbs. Still, I don’t have the appetite I used to have. Maybe that’s the part of my brain the bullet ripped away. Or maybe it’s all the drugs they give you here. Whatever the cause, I’m just not hungry the way I used to be, so as a consequence—they’re big on consequences here—I eat less, not to mention less often. They don’t serve snacks at the Maple Downs Mental Health Center, unless you count raisins and fresh fruit, which I most decidedly do not. I mean, if you’re going to snack, they should be serving chips and licorice sticks. Sugar and salt. Stuff like that. At least that’s what I think.

  They also don’t have an exercise room here, which is unfortunate. Especially for someone like me, who’s used to physical activity. Remember all those walks my grandmother used to make me take? Not to mention lugging around all those bodies. That’ll build the muscles. Those girls might not have weighed more than 120 pounds each, but that’s still pretty heavy when you consider it was all dead weight … literally.

  So I’ve actually started an exercise program of my own. It consists mostly of stretches, a few push-ups, maybe a dozen squats, some tummy crunches, all of which I perform religiously for half an hour every day. I do them in my room, although there’s not a lot of space. The room is very small. About half the size of the basement rooms at the old Kimble house. Big enough for a twin-size bed and a white, plastic dresser. No sharp edges, of course. Nothing I could use to hurt myself with.

  Not that I have any intention of hurting myself. Not when I’m actually starting to like what I see in the mirror. Except for the already noted curly hair, which I’m hoping will straighten out as it gets longer. I’m looking pretty damn good these days, if I do say so myself. Who knows—I may yet earn the sobriquet People magazine bestowed on me at the time of my incarceration—Heartstopper.

  Actually the reporter stole that from my journal. Somebody in the sheriff’s office leaked them some of the juicier excerpts, and they printed them. I didn’t mind, although I found the story a bit one-sided. And I thought they devoted too much space to pictures of Liana Martin and Megan Crosbie. “Budding actress and singer,” they actually called her. Can you believe it? I couldn’t. Truth is, she sings like a frog, and her range is—what is
it someone once said about Katharine Hepburn? She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B?

  Something else that’s true: I rather like it here. It’s clean and comfortable. The view from my room is nice. It’s quiet. Some of the less stable residents have an unfortunate tendency toward screaming and acting out. But in general, the residents, a term I prefer to inmates, are really quite nice, which is more than I can say for the general population of Torrance High. And the doctors are kind and encouraging. Nobody is on my back to do things. Everybody just wants to help me get well. They want to understand what drove me to do the things I did. They really want to hear what I have to say. And the best part is, they actually listen.

  They take me very seriously here at Maple Downs Mental Health Center.

  I like that.

  So, as a result, I try to be obliging, and I go along with virtually all their requests. I told them where they could find Candy Abbot’s body, and I talk to whomever they ask me to see. I explain as best I can what led me to commit such heinous acts. I tell them about my dysfunctional childhood: the cruel father who deserted me when I was a toddler, my mother’s subsequent, ill-fated marriages to similarly abusive men, the plastic surgeries that transformed her into a virtual stranger, her string of affairs with married men, including John Weber and Ian Crosbie, the constant verbal and emotional abuse I suffered at the hands—mouths?—of my dear departed aunt and grand-mother, two proverbial peas in a poison pod. (Sorry—I couldn’t resist the alliteration. Mrs. Crosbie would be proud.) I tell them about the daily harassment I endured at school, the taunts and indignities from students and teachers alike. After all, everybody knew what was going on, and nobody did anything to stop it.

  In some ways, Mrs. Crosbie was the worst, because she was such a hypocrite. Oh, she said and did all the right things—she even drove me all the way over to Mr. Lipsman’s house that afternoon we discovered Fiona’s body by the side of the road. (By the way, that was hardly an accident. I led her right to the spot I’d dumped poor, dead Fiona. I knew it was risky, that I was being almost recklessly bold. My original plan was just to dump the body in plain sight and wait until somebody—anybody—stumbled across it. But it was just too good an opportunity to pass up.) Anyway, Mrs. Crosbie tried to hide her true feelings, but you couldn’t miss the look of revulsion on her face every time she had to call on me in class, and she physically cringed every time I came near her.