Page 132 of Dead Pretty

“What about the evidence found in his bedroom at your mother’s house? The trinkets he stole from the victims? The knife he used on them … me?”

“Planted.”

“By who? Why would someone frame him? Come on, Jack. You seriously want to sell to me that it wasn’t Tobias? That some other person murdered these women? Stalked me? Kidnapped me? And then framed Tobias? Then, tell me who. Give me a reason.”

He holds my eyes. “I don’t have one. I don’t know who the killer is. I just know that Toby is innocent.”

“I think you want to believe he is.”

He shakes his head. “I know it wasn’t him. He is not a killer.”

“We never really know anyone.” I give him a pointed look.

“True. But I watched my brother save a bird from the neighbor’s cat a year before the murders started. He nursed it back to health. Jesus, when he was five, I sat with him while he cried himself to sleep after he accidentally killed a butterfly.”

I pause at his words.

“A man who does that would not kill animals and leave them on your doorstep, and he most definitely would not kill another human being.”

“I … that means nothing.”

“I spoke to him that night. The night you were taken. On the phone.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It was the home phone. I called, he answered, and I spoke to him for eleven minutes.”

“What you’re saying right now proves nothing!” I fire back at him.

“I have proof, Audrey. I can show you the call log from the phone company.”

“They would have said in the trial …”

“It was dismissed as evidence. Yes, the call logs show a call was made to my mother’s house. That it connected and that I spoke to someone for eleven minutes—right in the middle of the time you were being held—but it doesn’t prove who I was talking to.”

“You could have been talking to your mother.”

“But I wasn’t. She was sleeping. She was sick in bed.”

I know this. It was all said at trial. But nothing about the phone call.

“I am telling you, Audrey. I spoke to him that night. He was home. He wasn’t there with you.”

“So what if you did speak to him!” I’m getting agitated. “That means nothing! He could have left and …”

I stop my words because he didn’t leave me that night. He was there, in my apartment. I was tied up and blindfolded. I couldn’t see him. But I could hear him. Moving around that room. But even if he hadn’t moved a muscle for those horrific hours, I would have known he was there. I could feel him there, watching me.

“But he didn’t leave, did he?” Jack’s eyes are focused wholly on me. “You said in your testimony that whoever was in your room with you, he never left you alone, not even for a second. From the moment he broke into your apartment until the moment he left, he was there with you the whole time.” Jack takes a measured step toward me. “You never saw his face. Never heard his voice. It could have been anyone.” Another step closer. “Anyone, Audrey.”

“The knife was found in his room!” I can feel panic at the memory of that night. The fear I felt pouring into my blood, poisoning my veins. “It was covered in my blood! The same knife that killed all of those women.”

Jack stays where he stands. His face is resolute. He believes what he says … thinks. “It was put there by the real killer.”

“No!” I yell. I cover my face with my hands.

Why is he doing this to me?

I’m shaking so badly.