“What’s what?” Missy asked. “I was worried about you after what happened this morning. I had to come find you and make sure you were okay.”
“I saw what happened to you. Hestabbedyou,” Dani said, choking on her words. “You were dead! I saw him stab you! What the fuck is this?”
Missy’s smile widened. She tilted her chin skyward and let out a deep, throaty laugh. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?”
Her gut churned as his scent lingered in her nose. The smell coiled through the air like green, sickly tendrils. It was stuck to her now, adhered to her hoodie, embedded in her cells through skin-to-skin transference. Missy made sure of that.
“I don’t understand.”
“You know, when my brother died, no one cared about him. The only thing that anyone could talk about wasyou. Poor little Dani Kincaid. Always the survivor.”
“Wait, your brother?”
“It makes me sick to see you still wearing his hoodie. You don’t fucking deserve it. You let him die, just like you let me and everyone else die. You’repathetic.”
“No, I’m …Melody?”
“How in the hell are you a college professor? You’re still dumb as a bag of rocks. Vickers isn’t much smarter, either.”
Dani raised her gun. “Where is he?”
“Somewhere,” Missy shrugged. “Men are so easy to manipulate, especially when they’re in prison. Do you know how hard it was to get a job as a security guard on his cell block?”
“You helped him escape.”
“No. I talked some other guys into doing that. Turns out there’s a whole army of Reddit assholes who want justice as much as I do.”
Dani backed up, and her heel turned against a root. She needed to focus, but she was far too stunned at the revelation that had just been laid out before. Still, she needed to keep Missy talking.
“How?” She asked. “How did you find me?”
“Dani Spencer?” Missy snort-laughed. “It waseasy. You didn’t even bother to change your first name. Pretty lazy to go by your mother’s maiden name if you ask me. I just had to look up your living relatives. Auntie Lisa was easy enough to locate.”
Dani shook her head, still confused. “Why? Why now?”
“Whynotnow?” Missy scoffed. “You think I haven’t been planning this for twenty-five years too? It’s hard as fuck to pull off a jail break like that but I did.”
“How?” Dani was definitely stalling for time now. Missy was closing in and she needed a new plan. “How did you do it?”
“Took some strings, but the fact is, men are stupid. They’ll do anything for the promise of a little ass.” Missy smirked. “We were prison pen pals, me and Matt. I found out where he was going to be transferred from some security guard that I was dating, another one of your fans. I just had to wait for the right time, and then boom!”
Missy punched her fist into her open palm and cackled.
“All those other inmates,” Dani said. “They didn’t have to die.”
“Oh, you mean the murderers and rapists? They all belong at the bottom of that ravine,” Missy said. “I’m going to kill Vickers too, but not until after I watch him tear you apart.”
“He hurt us both that night, Missy—I mean, Melody. Don’t you see that?” Dani pleaded, her gun still held high and trigger finger at the ready. She didn’t want to kill her, even now, but she would if she had to. Perhaps appealing to her as Tommy’s little sister would have some sort of psychological effect.
“Let me kill him,” Dani said. “We can do it together. Let’s get the revenge we both deserve. I loved Tommy too.”
“You’re the reason my life turned to complete shit!” Missy roared and shook her head, her petite frame poised to strike, fingers splayed into catlike claws. “After Tommy died, do you know what happened? My parents got divorced. My father drank himself to death, and after that, my mother became homeless.”
“I’m so sorry.” Dani sucked in a shuddered breath. “I understand what you’re going through! I lost everything too.”
“Bullshit. I’ve seen your house.” Missy waved toward the cabin. “Both of them. You’re rich as fuck. Who knew there was money in writing all those shitty romance movies?”
“There’s not, but fuck you.” Reverse psychology wasn’t working, and Dani’s sympathy was at an end. “What is the point of all this?”
