Chapter Forty-Six SCARLETT

Chapter Forty-Six

S CARLETT

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

9:00 p.m.

It had been a week and a half since I’d stabbed Margo. I kept watch on her apartment, and the light was always on. A couple of times, I’d look up and I’d find her staring down. Once, she waved. I’d not seen Luke since he bailed me out, but we’d spoken on the phone several times. When we talked the last time, he told me that, because of our relationship, he had a new attorney lined up for me to meet the next day. Attorney. Charges. Prison.

Now, as I unlocked my front door, a bag of groceries in hand, I looked up. Margo was there, sipping a glass of wine. Watching.

I closed the door behind me, but like I had all week, I didn’t lock it. I put my groceries away and moved to my art studio and stood in front of the canvas, staring at Della version #56. At this stage of the painting project, nervous anticipation electrified my body. I was filled with hope that this time, this version of Della would be just right, and when I looked at her, I could finally let her go.

I mixed paints and began to flesh out Della’s face. This version wasn’t as full and round as it had been. The angles of the jaw and the cheeks were slimmer, sleeker, like the reinvented Della turned Margo. I shadowed the chin and the cheekbones and then roughed in thin plucked brows.

It was another fifteen minutes before I heard the front door open. My heart rammed against the inside of my chest. I’d spent a decade locked away in this warehouse, and in many ways, I was still trapped in Tanner’s basement room.

Gripping the paintbrush, I refused to look away from the sketch, but my strokes slowed.

When I heard clipped footsteps, I stilled.

“You’re kind of obsessed with her, aren’t you?”

Lynn’s ragged voice was coated with smugness. But she wasn’t amused. She held up her phone. “You texted me?”

“I always struggle with the eyes,” I said, ignoring her question. “I could never understand them. Was she a jailer or a victim? Until I understood her, I couldn’t finish the portrait.”

“Why do you care? Tanner is dead and gone. His legacy is dust.”

“I doubt he’ll ever leave my life for good. Same with Della. Same with you. The four of us are fused forever.”

“Why did you text me?” Lynn asked.

I studied her quizzical gaze. I had no idea what she was talking about. Was this another lie? Another attempt to cover up her past? Instead of a denial, I played along. “The odd thing about it all is that I hated her, and I also loved her. I missed her.”

Lynn didn’t speak, but her gaze sharpened as she stared at the portrait.

“For months, it was the two of us.” My voice was soft and rough. “Locked in that room. We shared a life no one else in the world would understand.”

Lynn stilled. “You wanted to save her?”

“I did. I thought if I rescued her, I’d save myself. We’re not so different.”

“You didn’t turn Tiffany over to Tanner, so you’re different.”

“I was seconds away from shoving Tiffany into the van. A second or two is all that divides me from Della.”

“But you didn’t. And you and Tiffany escaped. And Tanner was killed.”

“You loved him, didn’t you?”

“Very much.” She stared at me in silence. Her stillness suggested I’d cut into a nerve and she was afraid to react for fear she’d reveal something important.

“Why are you here? Aren’t you afraid of me?” I asked.

“No. And for the record, I’m not paying you a dime. Tiffany tried to blackmail me, and it didn’t end well for her.”

So, Tiffany had tried to get money out of Lynn. That was motive for murder. “You think I’m trying to blackmail you like Tiffany did?”

Irritation darkened Lynn’s gaze. “Yes.”

“You think blackmail. The cops think I kidnapped you.”

Her gaze hardened. “You did. Or had someone you know do it.”

“Why would I do that?” I thought about Luke and how he could shift a conversation with questions. Like Della, he understood strategy.

“To scare me. To make me feel like you did when Tanner took you. You and your make-believe Della blame me for not knowing you were in the basement.”

“Everyone keeps telling me Della’s not real,” I said. “But you know she’s real, right? You knew Tanner had a young girl in his house.” My anger was rising, and I struggled to keep my voice even. Could Lynn have saved Della or even Sandra if she’d called the cops? “You knew Tanner locked Della in a box under his bed when you two had sex, didn’t you?”

Her reaction was oddly calm. “You told that lie to Dawson. And like I told him, I didn’t know about the box.”

There was no horror or shock. No rush to deny. A normal person would have been horrified. “I think you did know.” I dropped my voice. “The box under the bed was an unspoken dirty secret between you and Tanner, wasn’t it? Knowing Della was locked up turned you on. You liked having control over another girl’s life, didn’t you?”

As Lynn shook her head, her eyes danced with an evil delight. Her hand slid into her pocket. “No. That’s sick. I’m not like that.”

The denial sounded like it had been crafted for a jury. “You said Tiffany tried to blackmail you. What did she have against you?”

“Nothing.” Her confidence flickered a fraction. “She was bluffing.”

“Her addiction had gotten bad. She was desperate for money. Did she remember an overheard conversation you had with Tanner at the diner a decade ago? A whisper about Della, Sandra, or me? Were you worried about Tanner’s growing collection of girls?”

“Nothing so complicated. Tiffany was a dumb waitress who could barely pour a cup of coffee. She made up shit just to get a reaction.”

How many times had I been accused of lying? Scarlett, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop making up stories. “Tiffany was always listening at Mike’s Diner, wasn’t she? No one notices the girl in the uniform behind the counter, do they?”

Lynn’s face paled. Her jaw pulsed.

“She did hear you and Tanner talking about his girls, didn’t she? Maybe he was worried about having three women locked in his house.”

“You’re again making up stories that you’ll never prove,” Lynn said. “I’m the one you stalked. I was the one kidnapped, remember? I didn’t attack the cop. That was all you. You’re the one going to prison for a long time.”

Legally, I was in bad shape. But the more I studied her, the more I saw the truth of what she’d done. Luke would press me to keep asking questions. Get her to talk. Earn her trust. “You killed Tiffany, didn’t you? She wanted money to fund her drug habit. If she texted you, her phone records will prove a connection.”

“She was a greedy little monster. And no one is going to miss a dead drug addict.”

“She didn’t deserve to die.”

A low chuckle rumbled in Lynn’s chest. “You’re guessing now. You’re trying to get me to say something. But there’s nothing to say.” The fingers on her left hand flexed into a fist.

“You’ll never say anything against Tanner. He had as much control over you as me. You were just a puppet to him.”

“He loved me.” Her eyes narrowed.

“No, he didn’t. He used you.”

She tensed and then shook her head as if catching herself. “You’re gutsy. What nerve it must have taken to challenge Tanner at the end. I’m certain he would’ve killed you the first chance he got. He wasn’t the kind of guy who bluffed.”

“You helped him.”

“No.”

I moved a step closer to her. Why would Tanner have reached out to a plain woman like Lynn? What could she have done for him? “You’re a nurse. You’ve had access to drugs for years. Whatever he shoved in my arm made me woozy. Did you provide Tanner with the drugs he shoved in my system?”

“He said he couldn’t sleep. He needed the drugs to shut off his brain for a few hours.”

So, she had provided drugs to Tanner. “Or keep the girl in the box quiet? Or help him grab a new girl?”

“Where are you getting these ideas?” she demanded. “You have no proof.”

Luke had said circumstantial evidence was enough for a search warrant. “It occurred to me when I saw you in the coffee shop that Tanner’s innocent girlfriend might actually know everything.” This dancing back and forth was becoming grating. She was either going to bolt or come at me. I hoped Margo was still paying attention to my warehouse. If she had set all this up, she wasn’t the type to miss the grand finale.

Lynn’s gaze returned to the portrait. “I bet when you first met Tanner, he made you feel like you were the only girl in the world. That first hit of his affection is addictive. Without the glow of his attention, the world feels flatter, smaller.”

“You still miss him,” I said. “You really loved him.”

“Yes.” Sadness dripped from the word. “I loved—love—him.”

“There was a moment when we first met that I might have done anything for him,” I said. Like Dawson and Luke, I kept my tone even, friendly. I wanted her to believe I understood her. “I know you felt that magic, too. It was so thrilling.”

“Yes. It was magic.”

And there it was: my opening. “You fell in love with him hard. And then one day you realized you were in too deep with him. You’d seen his cousin. You’d sensed something wasn’t right about the basement. But his words could be so sweet. And his smile was so intoxicating. You must have been shocked when he asked you to help him hide Sandra’s body. God knows, I’d have been.”

“I was shocked. I refused at first.”

The dam had cracked and now I needed to bust through the rest. “But he could be so convincing,” I whispered. “He fooled me, too.”

Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded.

“Tiffany starts blackmailing you, and the house where Sandra’s body was hidden was undergoing renovations. The past was coming back in full force, so you decided to get ahead of it, right? Did you call in the location of Sandra’s body? Was the guilt just too much?”

“I didn’t make that call,” she rushed to say. “I thought it was you.”

Her genuine surprise was something I didn’t expect. “No. It wasn’t me.”

Oddly, I believed her. But if Lynn didn’t make the 9-1-1 call, who did? Della?

Lynn moved toward me, her expression serene—relieved, almost—as if this were a conversation she’d been wanting to have for a decade. Finally, she could share bottled secrets.

Tanner had told me secrets, but that had scared me. He could be honest with me because he’d known one day, he’d kill me. I tensed as Lynn moved closer. As I stepped back, she pulled a syringe out of her pocket. The point glistened wet in the light.

“If you’re looking for absolution, you won’t get it.”

“I don’t need forgiveness. I need to end this.” Lynn’s voice was steady. “Time to free you from Tanner.”

When she lunged, my body coiled with tension. I jumped back, pushing Della’s portrait toward her. She shoved it aside with an unholy ease and thrust with the needle. It grazed the side of my arm, but I stumbled left, grabbed the canvas, and batted it toward the syringe.

I’d lamented the damage Tanner had done for years, sure it had crippled me for the rest of my life. But the wounds had healed, and the scars were now fading to a pale white. They would always be there, but they weren’t sensitive to the touch any longer. I didn’t want to lose the life I had now.

Lynn dived toward me, her face tightening with a determination she’d nurtured at Tanner’s hands. The tip of the needle scraped against my arm, this time catching the fabric of my shirt. I stumbled back.

Outside, I heard shouts, and I screamed for help. Lynn barely looked back as she came for me again.

Dawson rushed into the warehouse, his gun drawn, putting himself between me and Lynn. He pointed the gun at her. “Stop.”

She halted as shock, confusion, and then acceptance morphed her expression. She looked toward me. “Detective Dawson.”

“Put the needle down,” he said.

“She came at me,” Lynn said. “I just wanted to talk to her. And then she rushed me. I wrestled the needle away from her.”

“Put the syringe down,” Dawson said.

She shook her head, her eyes now wide with panic before they narrowed on me. “Scarlett just confessed to me that she killed Tiffany. She called in the location of Sandra’s body.”

I stood still and silent, unable to argue with her lies.

“Drop the needle,” Dawson said.

The front door to the warehouse opened, and two uniformed cops arrived, guns drawn.

Lynn looked at him, tears glistening now in her eyes. Her face hardened, but he didn’t waver. And then she smiled as she raised the tip of the needle to her neck and jammed it into her jugular vein. She shoved the plunger down. Droplets of blood gushed over her pale neck and stained the collar of her light-blue T-shirt. She staggered. Dawson moved toward her, but she stepped back and then fell to the ground.

Her gaze shifted to me. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She dropped the needle. Color draining from her face, she began to shake.

Lynn looked at Dawson. “I should’ve killed you.”

Dawson reached for his phone and called for an ambulance. He knelt beside her, and I handed him a clean cloth from my workbench. He pressed the fabric to her neck.

“Don’t try so hard,” Lynn whispered. “Let me go.”

“No.”

She smiled.

Her face had paled to the color of porcelain, and her skin had cooled to the touch. She began to convulse, and her eyes rolled back in her head before they closed.

The rescue squad arrived and pushed Dawson aside. They checked for vitals, and as one began chest compressions, the other readied a defibrillator. Her shirt open, the paddles were pressed against her chest. They shocked her once, twice, and three times. They worked on her for about ten minutes before they declared her barely stable. Minutes later she was wheeled out on a stretcher.

“Scarlett, are you all right?” Dawson said. “Did she stick you?”

I brushed my hand over the scratch on my arm. “No. I’m fine. Did you hear what she said?”

“Yes. Every word.” He shook his head.

Luke had brokered a deal with Dawson. I would act as bait to get a confession from Lynn. All I had known was to expect her to make a move. “You sent her the text?”

“That was Margo’s idea.”

I shoved out a sigh, not sure whether I was grateful or angry to be set up as bait. I’d bet money Margo had sent me the text that lured me to Lynn’s town house to buy time to bring Lynn here. Was this all about coaxing a confession out of Lynn? “Did Margo admit she’s Della?”

“No,” he said.

As other uniforms arrived, Margo eased through the crowd and came toward me. “You look no worse for wear.” She was so easygoing, as if she already knew the ending to this story.

“You knew Lynn was aware of Tanner’s secrets, didn’t you?”

“I had a good idea,” Margo said. “She was obsessed with Tanner, and I suspect still blames you and Dawson for his death. But she’d have blamed anyone for Tanner’s demise other than Tanner. The world is a better place without them.”

“Who called 9-1-1 with the location of Sandra’s body?”

“I don’t know,” Margo said.

“Who kidnapped Lynn and left her here?” I knew before she spoke that she wouldn’t give me a straight answer. Della never played all her cards.

Margo arched a brow. “That’s another question I can’t answer. Maybe Lynn made the call and tried to frame you for Tiffany’s murder.”

Lynn’s panic had been real when I pulled the plastic from her face. She’d not set that scene up. But it was a Margo kind of move. “I stabbed you.”

Margo waved her hand. “Bygones. You were understandably upset. I won’t be testifying against you, and I’ll insist my wound was caused by an accident.”

“Why? I stabbed you. I could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t, did you? And you did find yourself in a very confusing and stressful situation.”

“Did you set it all up?”

Before she could answer, Luke pushed through the front door, his face tight with worry. Relief flooded my body. “Who called him?”

“Me,” Margo said. “He wanted to know the moment Lynn appeared here.”

“So that’s it?” I asked. “I’m off the hook. Case closed?” My hands trembled as the adrenaline raced through my system. All this time, and now it was over?

“As far as I’m concerned, yes. Time we both moved on, don’t you think?”

Six hours later, I stood in Luke’s shower, hot water pelting my chilled skin and the red scrapes from Lynn’s needle trailing up my arm. Old images of Tanner flashed. He’d come as close to killing me a decade ago as Lynn had today. I’d escaped them, but Sandra and Tiffany had not.

The DNA on Sandra’s body was too degraded to be viable. It was a dead end, and there was no physical proof of Della or Lynn handling the body. Lynn had admitted she’d seen a girl at Tanner’s, but that wasn’t proof of Della’s existence. If not for the 9-1-1 call, Sandra might never have been found and Lynn’s truth never discovered. Cops were already theorizing Tiffany had made the call.

“Scarlett.” Luke’s voice pulled me out of my trance. “You okay?”

I shut off the water. He pushed back the curtain and wrapped the towel around me. “I’m okay.”

He’d remained at my side as evidence collectors poked, prodded, and photographed me. The cops hadn’t appeared angry as they’d gathered forensic data, though I saw distrust in several gazes. I supposed there’d always be people who doubted me.

I’d watched Margo talk to the other cops at the crime scene. She moved with the confidence of a master conductor. If there was physical proof that she was Della, she knew it was long gone. She’d won. And for now, we had a truce.

He cupped my face. “You don’t have to be.”

I looked up at him. “I have to be or I’ll fall to pieces. Can’t let the ghosts win.”

“If you do see a few ghosts and fall apart, I’ll help put you back together.” Luke wrapped his arms around me, trapping in the shower’s heat. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

I nestled close to him, savoring the strength of his arms. When I finally pulled back, I studied his sharp eyes. “The DNA. You used your contacts to expedite the testing, didn’t you?”

He pushed a wet strand from my face. “I twisted an arm or two.”

“That was a risk. Were you worried I could’ve been guilty?”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“No?” I arched a brow. Any attorney worth his salt would have been suspicious of me. But I wanted to believe him. “I would’ve worried about me.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t. I have a radar for the unsaid. I know innocent when I see it.”

I leaned forward and kissed him. I wasn’t sure I totally believed him, but it was nice to hear. “What am I not saying now?”

He chuckled. “I’d rather you show me.”