“Yes,” it comes out lower than a whisper. In truth, I’m not ready for anything anymore.
“Her name was Loretta St. James.”
A chill runs through me, and the room fades white as I struggle to blink my way back to the living.
“No way. It wasn’t her. Loretta St. James was small, petite. She could hardly lift a hammer, let alone deliver the blows necessary to dismember Simone the way they did.”
“I agree. It wasn’t Loretta.”
Thick silence clots the air between us as my eyes bulge at the implication.
“Who do you think killed my wife, Mace?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got a brand new suspect, and in the back of your mind, you do, too.”
“Say it.” Because God knows I don’t have the balls to.
“Simone. I think she did this, Peter. She was not above teaching you a lesson.”
The oxygen, all of the light seems to get sucked out of the room at once.
“You think she unraveled after the kids died? Hell, we both did. But like this? Setting up her own murder? Who in the hell would want to have their brain bashed out with a hammer?”
“I don’t know. Toxicology came up with no drugs in her system, so the thought she could have self-medicated before the event is out the window. But that’s not where I’m going with this.” The sound of his heavy breathing eats up the line. “Peter, I think we need to come at this from another angle. We go back and talk to Kelly and find out what really happened that day.”
The world bottoms out, and I’m free-falling inside this madness once again.
“Those mystery women who have sprung up dead all around you like a crop of fungi? That’s no coincidence. The fact they happen to have the same finger missing as your so-called dead wife is a calling card.”
“So-called,” I parrot back, trying to process it all.
“The journals, Peter. You said so yourself that they don’t match up to reality. Something is very fucking off here. We need to talk to her family, the Scotts, and especially her sister Meredith. I’ve done a little digging. No one has seen her in years.”
This new angle, this new hell, has blurred the lines of reality and fantasy.
“We can’t exhume Simone’s body.” A dull laugh rattles out of me because, my God, I seem to expertly fuck myself at every turn. “She was cremated. There’s nothing left to prove that wasn’t her.”
“If I’m right, we won’t have to prove anything. If she’s out there, if her sister is, whoever the hell you’ve infuriated—they’re gunning for you. It’s showtime, baby brother, and I have a feeling they’re going to keep firing bullets at your feet to watch you dance. They like the entertainment. But if I’m right, she’s ready to come out of hiding, Peter.”
“What does she want?” I’m not sure if I’m asking my brother or the universe at this point.
“You and everything you love, destroyed.”
I hang up and sweep the sea of journals back into the trash bag I hauled them over here in to begin with. Appropriate enough, considering they just might be that. I say goodnight to the secretary on my way out into the cool evening breeze. Late spring in Percy is unseasonably warm, and normally I would be thankful, but I can’t help but feel as if indeed some higher power was turning up the heat.
I jump into my car and seal myself inside, the only safe haven in an unpredictable world.
There are only a handful of options at play, only a handful of possibilities, and ironically, all of them seem impossible.
Simone is dead.
Simone is alive.
Someone who precedes Simone’s death, a killer on the loose, setting me up all these years later.
No way. Impossible.
Impossible.
Possible.
