The impossible has happened. I’m afraid of Jess. Not only is she not okay—now I’m worried I won’t be, either, if I don’t get out of here and do so now. I want to reach for the letter opener, but it’s slightly behind me. I’m terrified if I make the wrong move, I won’t get my hands on it, and I’ll trigger her in a way I do not presently want to trigger her. “How?” I ask, trying to keep her talking, trying to buy time to figure out what to do. “How did you spend it on me?”
“I wanted you to love yourself. I wanted you to let go of that damn victim act that you and Jack just freaking perpetuate in each other.”
“Because he’s my security blanket?” I snap, allowing anger to win, when my anger is not the way to calm her down.
“Yes. Yes,he is.”
“Where is he now?” I demand, afraid for him. Afraid he ends up dead just like Kevin, afraid he already is.
“Thankfully he doesn’t seem to be here,” she snaps, her tone dripping with disdain. “If I saw him right now, I might kill him myself.”
Ice slides down my spine with the absolute hate for Jack etched in her face, in her voice. I believe her. I believe she’d kill him. I’m afraid of my best friend, the person I considered a sister until right now. Now I don’t know her at all. Will she kill me, too?
Talk to her, I tell myself, trying to calm myself first, then her. If I can understand her again, maybe I can bring her back to her right mind. “How did you spend your money on me, Jess?” I press.
“Adam,” she says. “He and his team of experts. They were paid and paid well to teach you to get rid of your problems or do it for you. Andwhat do you do? You walk out on one of the most important moments of my life. You betray me and desert me.”
Shock rolls through me, a boulder traveling mountains of disbelief. “You had themkilled?” I demand. “Kevin? Akia? Jess, did—”
“Yes. Yes I did. And don’t forget Big Davis. Damn right I had that pervert killed. You and your father can thank me later. The second bidder on his invention is more than willing to step up, and in a big way, but Big Davis was intimidating him. No more, though.Now he’s dead.”
Panic overwhelms me, a wild river dragging me into the bloody bowels of hell, and I have only one coherent thought. I need help. “Jack!” I scream. “Jack! Help!”
It’s the wrong thing to do. She lets loose a wicked scream that doesn’t even sound like her and tries to hit me with the statue. I manage to catch it before it blasts through my skull, but suddenly she’s holding the letter opener, her face distorted,evil.
“Jess,” I plead before she plunges the sharp end into my belly.
I gasp with the pain, and for just a moment my world blacks out and spins. But she isn’t done with me. I see it in her eyes. The statue has fallen to the ground, and in some part of my mind, I’d heard the heavy thud of that moment. Somehow I’m still standing, but Jess is bending down, reaching for it, and I know she will crash it into my skull. Somehow, someway, I manage to pull the blade from my belly, numb from the pain.
By the time I do, Jess is already holding the statue high, ready to blast it against my head. Instinct, survival instinct, kicks in, and I plunge the letter opener into Jess’s belly. The statue hits the ground hard enough to rattle the floor. She doubles over, holds on to the blade, and whispers, “Bitch.” She yanks it from her belly as if she doesn’t feel it and tosses it on the desk. “Such a bitch,” she adds, but she stumbles backward, trips on her dress, and goes down.
I grab the letter opener, no, the knife that it has become, and I start running.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
My eyes open abruptly, staring at an unfamiliar white ceiling, the scent of medicine teasing my nostrils, a chill to the room around me.
I jerk to a sitting position, my gaze ripping around what appears to be a dimly lit hospital bed. A movement in the corner draws my attention as a large man unfolds himself from a sitting position. “You’re awake.”
I blink up at the familiar face. “Mike?”
“Yes,” he confirms, catching my hand, an IV dripping in the crevice of that same arm, a numb sensation in my belly, I don’t quite understand. My mind is a jumbled, blurry mess. “I got your letter, Mia. I’d have preferred you gave me time to help before you went off and got stabbed.”
My hand instinctively goes to my belly. “How did I get here?”
“One of the off-duty police officers working a shift at the library found you and got you here to the hospital. I’d already talked to him about looking out for you and Jack. He called me right away. I’ll explain everything I know so far soon. Right now, you just need to know you’re safe.” He hits the call button. “And we need to let the medical team know you’re awake.”
In my mind I object to the interruption to the answers I crave and need, but already a nurse is rushing into the room, and Mike is backing away from my bed, disappearing out of view. The nurse, a womanI guess to be midfifties, with brightly colored reddish-brown hair, asks me random questions. “What’s your name?”
“Mia Anderson.”
“Like Mr.Anderson?” she teases. “You know, from—”
“The Matrix,” I say. “Yes. I’ve heard that more than a few times.” I shift, and a stabbing pain rips through my belly.
“Easy,” she murmurs. “You had a pretty deep stab wound, but the good news is it missed all the important stuff. You’re going to be just fine. How bad is the pain?”
“Bad, but just when I move.”
