He stopped then, but the sound of footsteps remained. Only it wasn’t coming from his feet. It was coming from behind them, from the fence.
Nic saw Reyes’s eyes move from her to the source of this new sound. And then a new voice.
“Yes, Officer. Why don’t you tell us what happened that night.”
It was Roger Booth. And he held a shotgun that was pointed squarely at Reyes.
“Roger—that’s not the right question,” Reyes said. His words were confident, but his voice shaky. He was panting. Sweating in the cold air.
“What is the right question, then?” Booth asked, moving closer.
“You know, don’t you, Nicole?” Reyes’s eyes remained fixed on Booth.
Nic took one step to the side. Then another, slowly moving out of the line of fire.
“I do,” she said.
“Well, tell him, then,” Reyes demanded. “Tell him!”
One more foot. Then another.
“The right question,” Nic said, “is what happened the day Daisy Hollander disappeared.”
Booth flinched, but then caught himself. “What does any of this have to do with Daisy?”
Nic was three steps away from a tree. From cover. She took one of them and stopped.
“He drove Daisy out of town that day,” Nic said. “He knew her from summer camp. He worked there, in the kitchen. That’s whyhe came to Hastings. He was obsessed with her. And then with me because I remind him of her.”
Reyes blinked hard as though his vision was starting to blur.
Nic kept talking, buying time.
“He went there after that shooting in his hometown. The suicide-by-cop that messed with his head. He worked odd jobs like the one at the camp until he met Daisy. And then he played on Chief Watkins’s sympathy to get a job here, so he could be close to her.”
Another step. She could touch the tree.
Now Booth was panting as well. “What are you saying? Daisy barely knew him. She used to make fun of him, how he thought he was such a ladies’ man.”
Now Reyes—
“That’s what you thought. But I was the one she loved. Not you. She was using you for money. All those free dinners and trips to the city. You made her skin crawl, Booth. She couldn’t stand the sight of you, or your hands on her body. She was strong and she did what she had to do. But she was not about to give you a baby. So she left you. She left you for me.”
Booth’s face was twisted with anger. “You’re a liar!” he screamed.
“And you’re pathetic,” Reyes yelled back.
Nic took one more step. She was almost behind the tree.
But then more footsteps. And a new voice still.
The voice of a woman.
“You’re both pathetic,” the woman said.
Nic froze, her eyes now glued to the image that was so like her own.
Only now that image was flesh and bone. And she was wearing the same leather jacket Nic had seen at Veronica’s house.
