“Do you think this is revenge?”
“It is revenge,” Peyton insisted. “But she’s also insane. I don’t know if she lost her mind after her husband died or if she’s always been off the rails, but she must be caught before hurting someone else.”
“What makes you so certain that Amanda Briggs did this to your mother?” Denny asked, and Peyton scoffed, unimpressed, getting to her feet to cross the room towards him. He took a slight step back, hesitant.
“My mom didn’t do this to herself,” she snapped, lips curled back in a snarl that rattled even me. “My mom told Amanda the other night that I was moving in with Korbin, and I know that’s what set this off. She’s coming after the people closest to me.”
“What about your car?” Burton asked, turning his attention to Peyton. “You thought it was your ex that did it. Could it have been Amanda?”
“It was,” I said steadily. “I know it was.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.” Frustrated, I looked at Susan again, realizing that Peyton’s sweet mother might never wake up—because of Amanda. “You need to find her,” I told Burton, my gaze switching between the two cops in front of me. “Find her and hold her in custody. I bet she’ll tell you everything.”
“We’ll have to find an address on file for her,” Burton said, and I scoffed.
“I already know her address. I dropped her off once.”
“What is it?” Burton asked, and I rattled off the address for him, ignoring Peyton’s curious, pointed looks.
“We’ll send a car,” said Denny. “But if she is a part of this, she probably won’t be home.”
Burton sighed and slipped his notebook back into his front pocket. “I’d like to talk to Preston Davis and get his opinion on it.”
“Good, he knows too.”
Burton nodded and walked past me to approach Peyton. His expression was soft, sympathetic. “I hope she wakes soon,” he said, putting a big hand on her shoulder. “She used to bring the precinct lunch twice a month. It was always delicious.”
Peyton chuckled as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Thanks, Detective.”
He nodded and then turned back to me. “We’ll find her,” he promised. “Until then, keep your doors locked. She could be capable of anything at this point.”
Peyton and I shook the detectives’ hands and watched them go. We sat in the still, tense silence of the room for a moment, listening to Susan’s machine beep as the ventilator breathed for her.
“I could kill her,” Peyton said suddenly, her eyes still on her mother’s face. “I could kill her here and now and feel no remorse at all.”
“I know.” Peyton dropped her head in Susan’s lap, crying again. I sat back in the chair to her side and rested my hand on her thigh, as a comfort more than anything else.
“Is she going to pay for this?” she asked me, her bottom lip trembling so that I wanted to pull her into me and hug her much like a parent would their child. “Or is she going to get away with destroying so many lives?”
“She’ll pay,” I assured her, squeezing her leg reassuringly. “I’ll make sure she does.”
“So, what now?” asked Peyton. “What do we do now?”
“You stay here with Susan,” I told her, getting to my feet to shrug my jacket hanging by the door. “I need to go back to the station and talk to Chief Davis and the guys. I’m going to have Doc Shaffer put security outside Susan’s door, okay? You stay with her, and please call me if she wakes.”
Peyton nodded as a tear slipped between her eyelids and traveled down her cheek, lifting her head from the bed. “I love you,” she said quietly, and I crossed the room to kiss her, lips lingering on hers.
“I love you, too,” I said softly. “Talk soon.”
Hansen and Chief Davis were still awake when I returned to the station at about five that morning. Both Eli Burton and Dereck Denny were already there, sitting with my boss to chat.
“How’s Susan?” Chief Davis asked when I walked into the office. I could smell coffee brewing in the kitchen, which made me realize how tired I was.
“Stable, but still unconscious,” I said, sitting next to Hansen on the chief’s office couch. “Have these nice officers caught you up?”
“Yeah,” he said. “They certainly have.”
