Last Girl Standing

by Lisa Jackson

  She’d just gotten home and was trying to think of anything she might want to eat, but everything she thought of seemed to make her stomach lurch. Then her phone started singing its default ringtone. Filled with dread, she checked the voice mail and learned it was McCrae . . . We’d like to get your statement . . .

  “Oh, Lord.”

  Why did you lie about the knife?

  She hurried upstairs—at least the ankle was not as injured as she’d originally thought, as it only tweaked a little—and looked at herself in her bathroom mirror. She was washed out, and there were huge circles under her eyes. She’d worked to hide those circles this morning but had been only partially successful. She’d thrown on a pair of jeans and a white shirt that looked like it hadn’t even been ironed. Owen wasn’t the only one who’d been ragged this morning. Now she changed into a dark blue blouse and reworked her makeup, adding a little more blush than she normally needed. Combing her hair, she clipped it into a ponytail at her nape. Better, she thought critically. If she was going into the lion’s den, she needed to feel like she had some armor on.

  The knife.

  She should’ve just admitted it was from their set, that Tanner had taken it to work and there was nothing suspicious about it. Whoever had attacked Tanner wouldn’t have expected to see the knife. It was just handy. Didn’t that mean the crime was spur of the moment? No one would plan to viciously attack someone without a means to do it.

  Who attacked Tanner . . . with intent to kill? Who? How? Why?

  She moaned aloud.

  She’d lied about the knife. She’d touched the knife. And then she’d lied about it.

  Tell the truth. It always comes out anyway.

  Screwing up her courage, Delta phoned back the number, and when McCrae answered, “Hi, Delta,” she said quickly, “I can be there this afternoon about two.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  There was a hesitation on both their parts, and then he told her, “The press knows.” She nodded to herself, but before she could say anything else, he added, “Ellie called me.”

  Who are you? Ellie? . . . You sound about as judgmental . . . McCrae’s words. From the night of the barbeque.

  “If you would prefer me to pick you up and avoid—”

  “No. I’ll be there,” she told him flatly. “I need to pick my son up at five, but I’ll be at your station at two.”

  Chapter 15

  Delta drove to the nearest ATM, took out five hundred dollars, and then went to the mall and into Macy’s. She used cash to buy a medium-grade set of knives that came with a wooden-block holder. She took it home and out of the packaging and set it on her counter. It looked so shiny and new that she filled the sink with water and submerged the wooden holder, adding dish detergent. All the while she told herself she was making a huge mistake. She was getting in deeper and deeper for no good reason.

  But they’ll think it was me. They’ll think I tried to kill my husband!

  Her heart lurched. Her e-book. Blood Dreams . . . Her main character had killed her husband with a knife . . .

  But it’s an e-book . . . not in print . . . not a best seller . . . just a way to deal with Tanner’s cheating . . . it’s not real!

  “Oh, my God . . . oh, my God . . .”

  It was on Amazon and Apple and several other platforms, available for anyone to read, should they choose to. She received a little money for it each month, not much. She wanted to rip it off the platforms and ran upstairs to her computer to do so, then hesitated, afraid. Would it look worse for her if she took it down now? Undoubtedly. She left the book alone.

  She walked back downstairs with heavy footsteps. Picked up the wooden knife block and dried it off. She put the knives back in it. When the holder dried, some of its glossy, oiled surface had bleached out and lost its luster, and there were spots darker than others, making it seem used, although it wasn’t completely dry, so the jury was still out on whether it would pass as older.

  This is a mistake, she told herself, her fingers clasping the edge of the farmhouse sink while she leaned forward, drawing several long breaths, before standing erect once more.

  She realized she’d splashed water on herself, so she changed into her third blouse, this one a deep ochre that worked with her darker complexion and hair. She wore her same blue jeans as she headed downstairs, and just about the time she was ready to leave, her doorbell rang. She nearly dropped her cell at the sudden pealing through the house.

  Her pulse sped up, and she scurried back upstairs to look out Owen’s window, which had the best angle to the front door. Two people. A man and a woman. Her eyes scanned the streets, and down the way she saw a news van. Not Channel Seven. Not Ellie O’Brien. But a news van all the same.

  The vultures were circling.

  Wildly she wondered if she should have taken McCrae up on his offer for an escort. There was nowhere to hide.

  The reporters gave up ringing her bell after a few minutes, but she watched them mosey down the street, talking to each other. Another man carrying a camera slid open the door of the news van and joined them.

  Delta walked toward the stairway once more and sat down heavily on the top step. She had an instant image of Tanner on the floor—him bleeding, the knife, the bubbling stab wounds— and felt faint. She put her head between her knees and inhaled and exhaled several times.

  A moment later, she ran to the bathroom and lost the little bit of blueberry muffin she’d managed to pick up from a Starbucks at the mall. Rinsing out her mouth, she took a look at herself through watery eyes. Her makeup was still in place, even if her skin had leached a few shades whiter. She realized abstractedly that she’d lost all that baby weight from having Owen and then some. Now she looked almost gaunt.

  With shaking fingers, she called McCrae’s line. He picked up on the second ring.

  “I need a ride,” she said.

  “Be there in twenty,” he answered, and was gone.

  * * *

  Ellie was in a silent, quivering rage. “Say that again,” she said in a voice that could cut glass.

  “Pauline’s on this story,” Ed, one of the assistant producers, told her.

  “But it’s in my hometown. About one of my classmates. A guy I know really well!” A guy I slept with. “No one’s better for this one than I am.”

  He shrugged and looked around the studio break room. Ellie had been waiting, loaded for bear, and Ed was the first guy who’d walked through the doors since she’d gotten the phone call from Rob, who was now her producer: “Pauline Kirby’s on the Tanner Stahd story. She’s at Laurelton General now.”

  “That’s my story, Rob. I’ve been to the hospital. I called the West Knoll police. I know a guy there, too. An officer who does investigations as well. I know these people.”

  “That’s why Pauline’s on it. You’re too close. You can do an in-depth interview later.”

  “Later?” she’d practically shrieked.

  “Later,” he confirmed, and hung up.

  Once upon a time, Rob had been her friend, but now he’d bonded with Coco, Alton’s wife . . . still his wife, though Alton had sworn he was leaving her. But Rob and Alton were cut from the same cloth: both had wives from rich families, and it was sooo much easier to just go along and keep the wealthy ball-and-chains happy.

  Still, this was Coco’s doing. She hated Ellie for having an affair with her husband, and although Alton had wriggled his way back to his wife, tail between his legs, leaving Ellie to the stares and whispers around the station, Coco was still determined to ruin her. Coco owned Alton now. He’d sworn he was leaving her, but the man had no spine. The only good thing was that Ellie had worked her ass off over the last few years, and Coco had no authority at the station, apart from her family owning a significant block of shares, that is. The fact was that Alton was getting older and losing viewership, and Pauline Kirby was no spring chicken either. It was Ellie whose star was rising, and Rob knew it. He was just pandering to Coco and his own w
ife. The fact that Pauline was covering Tanner’s stabbing instead of Ellie was just throwing an old dog a bone.

  “I’m not giving up,” she’d told anyone who cared to listen. “This is my story.” Most of the other employees ignored her, but they were all on the same slow-moving, loser track. Ellie wasn’t going to let that happen to her.

  But then, to add insult to injury, the hospital spokesperson who’d ignored her earlier had actually talked on camera to Pauline, confirming that Tanner was still unconscious but stable. Pauline was probably already at the West Knoll police station, talking to McCrae, the rat fink.

  Fuck him, she thought. She was so furious she could spit.

  Ed scooted back out of the break room, and Ellie paced the floor.

  This was her story.

  Fuck Coco, too. And Pauline. And Rob.

  Her cell phone rang, and she snatched it out of her purse, only partially surprised by the name that popped up. “Ellie O’Brien,” she snapped out.

  “Are you reporting on Tanner’s stabbing case?” Amanda Forsythe asked. She’d gone back to her maiden name after the divorce from Hal Brennan, a divorce she’d managed to come out of much richer, though she’d sworn at the reunion she was the one with the money. Brennan, being a partner, might not have been the lawyer Amanda was, but he’d certainly had money.

  She almost lied. She wanted to so badly she could taste it. But it wouldn’t help her. “They put Pauline on it.”

  “Why?”

  “What are you looking for, Amanda?” she demanded impatiently.

  “I want to know who did it.” There was something beneath her carefully enunciated words. Emotion? Amanda? Not likely.

  “And sue the hell out of them?” Ellie half-joked.

  “Our classmates keep dying, Ellie.”

  “Well . . . yes, but over fifteen years that’s kind of what happens. There’s a natural attrition rate in any—”

  “Two were killed. Possibly three, if you read Bailey’s journal.”

  “Bailey’s journal . . . what are you talking about? Did you read it?” Ellie was surprised into asking.

  “We all know what was in it. Suppositions. Theories.”

  “Heartbreak over losing her best friend in the world,” Ellie reminded her.

  “I want to know who stabbed Tanner.”

  “Well, so do I. Though I don’t think you’re going to find that out in Bailey’s journal. Her missing journal, as I recall. Is it still missing? Maybe we should ask Tanner when he wakes up,” said Ellie.

  She said “Mmm,” in a way that sounded as if she was worried that wasn’t going to happen. “Have you talked to McCrae?”

  Ellie ground her teeth. Amanda, whom she hardly ever spoke with, was grilling her, not the other way around. “I left him a message.”

  “But you’re not covering the stabbing?”

  “I’m going to go to the hospital to see Tanner as soon as I can,” she declared determinedly. She would do her own investigation. Fuck the whole damn station, too.

  “I’ll go with you. I’ll call Zora.”

  “Zora?”

  “She and Brian have connections.”

  More than you?

  “If we can’t get in to see him, I’ll bet she can,” Amanda added.

  Ellie considered. They couldn’t tell her she wasn’t on this story. They couldn’t stop her. They could fire her, but Alton would stand up for her . . . wouldn’t he?

  You just said Coco owns him. Will he really be there for you?

  But if you just stand by, they’ll probably fire you anyway.

  “Let’s try to get in to see him tomorrow,” Ellie said.

  “Okay,” was the satisfied answer, and Ellie fleetingly wondered if Amanda was playing her somehow.

  * * *

  McCrae drove to Delta’s in a controlled rush. He’d heard the fear in her voice. He could well imagine that she was beginning to be harassed, and it certainly didn’t help that Tanner’s father was leading the vanguard against her.

  When he got to her home, he saw the news van and several people standing outside. They all looked at him as he turned into her driveway. One news van so far. There could be more.

  He pulled up on the side of the house, driving on the pad alongside her garage until the nose of his Explorer was far enough past the garage’s rear wall to leave him a clear view of her back door. As he climbed from the driver’s seat, Delta suddenly appeared outside on the porch. She had the strap of her purse slung over her shoulder and wore a white, fuzzy jacket, more form than function, teamed with a pair of black slacks and flats. Mirrored sunglasses perched on her nose. As she hurried down the porch steps, she had the haunted look of a celebrity trying to evade the paparazzi.

  He was around the car and opening the door for her. She slid into the seat as a man and a woman appeared behind them closer to the front of the garage.

  McCrae was by the driver’s door. “Police,” he said, showing his badge.

  They stopped short but didn’t leave.

  “I’m going to back out of here, and you need to move yourself from the property.”

  “Is Ms. Stahd under arrest?”

  “No,” he said shortly.

  “Are you taking her in for questioning?”

  McCrae climbed into his vehicle, put it in reverse, and slowly backed up. The reporters reluctantly walked backward into the street, but they looked as if they might just stay, regardless of his order. He wondered if he kept moving if he would actually hit one of them. Barely bump them and then they could scream foul. Sue the department for millions.

  But they seemed to get it that he wasn’t going to let them intimidate him, and they kept slowly moving out of the way. Their cameraman directed his lens on Delta through the passenger window, though, and she ducked her chin toward McCrae.

  “Can you get me in to see my husband?” she asked quietly as they pulled away.

  “Currently no visitors are allowed. I was at the hospital earlier and saw Tanner. No change.”

  “Is he going to live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  McCrae had learned one of the stab wounds had grazed Tanner’s heart. There was talk of surgery. A punctured lung that had collapsed and been reinflated. He was being closely monitored, but Les Stahd, Tanner’s father, had come into the station and demanded to see his son, and Quin had allowed it. The elder Dr. Stahd’s skin was gray, his jaw slackened. McCrae hadn’t seen the man in years, but it was clear his son’s serious injuries had aged him.

  “Those reporters . . .” Delta looked over at him as they drove away. Her eyes were hidden behind the glasses, but her mouth quivered slightly. “What have they been saying? Have you seen the news?”

  “They’re reporting that Tanner was stabbed at his clinic. They’ve been camped out at Laurelton General.”

  “I didn’t do it,” she blurted, as if she couldn’t contain herself any longer.

  He acknowledged with a nod. Until he knew more, there was nothing much to say.

  She seemed to expect him to add something, but when he didn’t, she fell silent the rest of the way to the station as well. A news van was waiting there, too. Channel Seven.

  “Ellie?” Delta questioned, stricken.

  But it was Pauline Kirby standing outside the front doors, facing a camera as if she were about to report. Her chin was lifted in that somewhat arrogant way of hers, and she was getting one last brush of her dark hair. She’d been an institution at the station for many years, although Ellie had made some inroads, as McCrae had seen her a time or two reporting on something more than the weather. Not often, but sometimes.

  He whisked Delta in through the back and took her to what was considered an interrogation room at the West Knoll station: the only room besides the break room with a table where any kind of discussion or meeting could take place.

  Quin entered, followed by Corinne Esterly, of the administrative staff, who brought them all chilled bottles of water.

  Corinne wa
s also the ex McCrae had become involved with at the station, his last relationship.

  Corinne’s eyes strayed to Delta, who’d taken off her sunglasses as she sagged into a chair. Corinne was pretty in an elfin way, with curly, light brown hair. She was small and wiry and had a tendency to swell herself up whenever she met another woman. She was staring at Delta, who, though she clearly had had the stuffing knocked out of her and was paler than normal, had a natural beauty that couldn’t be denied. McCrae watched Corinne swell up and thrust out her chest before she was thanked by Quin, her cue to leave.

  When she was gone, Quin looked at Delta and asked, “How’re you doing?”

  Her dark eyes were bright with unshed tears. She reached for her water bottle, unscrewed the top, took a sip. “I’m okay.”

  “If Tanner stabilizes, we’ll allow you to see him.”

  “Thank you.”

  Quin hesitated. This was emotional for him, too. Bailey and Delta had been close friends once upon a time.

  McCrae said, “We want to find who stabbed your husband.”

  “I do, too,” she responded quickly.

  Quin first asked her if she knew where his cell phone might be. She thought about it, then slowly shook her head.

  “He always had it with him,” she said.

  “Maybe it’s at your house?” Quin suggested.

  “No, he called me on it that night from the clinic.”

  “You’re sure he was at the clinic?”

  “Well, yeah. I was there within a few minutes after I spoke to him.”

  Quin absorbed that, then asked, “So, after you got to the clinic, what happened?”

  Delta drew a breath, then told him about her discovery of Tanner collapsed on the floor, the knife, the myriad of wounds, the blood . . . She answered most of his questions monosyllabically, the color receding further from her face as she relived the scene.

  McCrae stepped in and said, “We want to get a picture of Tanner’s life before the attack, get an idea what the last few weeks have been like, how things have been going in his life, your marriage, like that.”