Chapter 64

Chapter Sixty-Four

PRESENT DAY

SYDNEY

I‘ve got to get out of here.

Gretchen intends to kill me. That much is clear. Tom has mixed feelings at best—and even if he wants to save me, I'm not sure he can. Gretchen means business, and he doesn't seem to have it in him to stop her.

But what can I do? I have no idea what the combination of oleander and alcohol does to a person, but I can barely move. I make an attempt to sit up, but a wave of nausea comes over me, and it's all I can do to keep from vomiting all over the floor.

"You're not going to get away with this," Tom says to Gretchen. "The police are going to figure out what you did. They're not going to believe Randy was attacking you when he's lying dead on the sofa."

"So I'll move him," she says impatiently.

"You know," he grunts, "we can tell on the autopsy if a body has been moved after death."

"Can you?" Her eyes light up. "How?"

"It has to do with lividity," he explains. "That's the bluish-purple discoloration that occurs on the skin after death. And gravity is what causes it to pool in different locations."

She nods, fascinated. "And how long does that take to set in?"

"Well…" Tom begins.

Oh my God, are the two of them really standing there geeking out about the decomposition of dead bodies while Randy is lying dead a few feet away and I'm clinging to consciousness on the floor? Is this really happening?

But no, this is good. They're so intent on each other that they're hardly paying attention to me anymore. This is my chance to get out of here.

I take a deep breath, pushing away another wave of nausea. I don't have to do much—all I have to do is get to my feet and make a run for the door that is less than ten feet away. Thank God Manhattan apartments are so tiny.

I summon all my strength, trying to get to my feet. But right away, my arms and legs start to tremble. I can't do it. The oleander Daisy drugged me with has hit me too hard.

Could I crawl? It isn't that far. Except if I do that, how will I reach the lock on the door?

Oh God, this is impossible. I'm going to die here. As soon as Tom finishes teaching Gretchen about livor mortis, she's going to use that knife to stab me to death. Then she'll store my hair in the toilet tank.

I don't want it to end this way. I loved Bonnie, but I don't want to end up like her. I want to live . And Jake will never, ever forgive himself if I die here tonight.

But what can I do?

Just when I'm weighing my limited options, I hear a noise from outside. The noise is growing increasingly loud, and it takes my drugged brain several seconds to identify it.

Police sirens.

Gretchen's eyes fly wide open. "What the hell? Sydney, you called the cops? But…how? I took your phone!"

Oh, that's why my phone wasn't in my purse.

"Sydney didn't call the police," Tom says. "I did."

Gretchen yanks her hand away from him like she's been stung. " What? "

His expression is grim. "I did it before I knocked on the door. I told them everything. I…I'm sorry, Daisy."

"Tom, how could you?" she bursts out, her face pink. I've known Gretchen for a year, but I have never seen her this emotional before. "After everything we've been through, how could you do that to me?"

He just shakes his head.

Gretchen steps over to the window, careful to stay out of clean sight. "Shit," she mutters under her breath.

"I'm so sorry, Daisy." His voice breaks on the words. "I had to do it. I couldn't let you…you know…"

She stands there for a moment, holding the knife in one hand, the other balled into a fist. "There's another way out of here. Randy showed it to me. It's like a secret back exit through the laundry room. I can get out through there." She looks up at him. " We can get out."

"Daisy…"

"Tom, come with me." She steps closer to him, her eyes shining with excitement and determination. "Come on. You know we've both been miserable alone for the last twenty years. This is our chance to actually be happy." She takes his hand again. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have a family with you."

"A family? Daisy…"

"It won't happen with anyone else but me," she says, "and you know it. There is nobody else who could possibly understand you the way I do. With anyone else, your life would be a lie."

He shakes his head again, but with less conviction than I would have hoped. "Daisy…"

"Please…" Her eyes spill over with tears. "We've been apart for twenty years, and it's sucked. I'm sick of living that way. Aren't you?"

"What are you asking me?" He frowns at her. "You really want me to give up my entire life to be with you?"

She's quiet for a few beats. "Well," she says, "yes."

"Daisy…"

She stares up at him with shining eyes. "I…I can't live without you, Tom."

At first, I'm certain he's going to tell her to go to hell. He's got a life here. A career as a medical examiner. He wouldn't give that all up to go on the run with some psychopath who has already murdered God knows how many people.

But then I see the way he's looking at her. And I realize what his answer is going to be.

"I can't live without you either," he says softly.

In the distance, the sirens are growing louder. Tom swears under his breath.

"We have to go," he says. "Quickly."

Gretchen's face lights up. I thought she'd looked happy when Randy asked her to marry him, but I now realize that was fake happiness. I have never truly seen Gretchen happy until this moment. "Great. Let me just get rid of our little witness here."

She means me. Gretchen's knife is glinting in the overhead light, and it's very clear what she means to do. She's going to get rid of me the same way she got rid of Randy. And when the police arrive, they're going to find two dead bodies in this apartment.

I am too weak to get out of here. I've been trying, but I can't even crawl, much less make a run for the door. I'm completely at her mercy.

This is it. The end. I'm going to end up like Bonnie after all. In a casket, buried in the ground for all eternity. Jake will probably be the one to find my body, and it will wreck him.

Don't blame yourself, Jake. Nobody could have seen this coming.

But just as I'm bracing myself for the inevitable, Tom reaches out to grab Gretchen's wrist. "If you touch Sydney, I'm not going with you. Do you understand me?"

"But she knows everything!" she pouts.

His voice is stern. "You don't hurt Sydney, okay? If I go with you, this needs to stop. The killing needs to stop."

Gretchen looks down at me with unadulterated disgust on her face. I can't believe I thought this woman was my best friend. She really had me fooled. She is truly diabolical.

Good luck, Tom.

"You don't really mean that," she sneers.

"I do." His gaze is unblinking. "No more. That's my condition if I go with you. Nobody else dies, Daisy."

She tilts her head to the side, considering this. "Even if they deserve it?"

"Well," he says after a pause, "that's different, of course."

His answer sends a shiver down my spine. But his ultimatum works. Gretchen tosses the knife on the coffee table, and then the two of them run out the front door together. It slams shut, the sound echoing through the small apartment, and it's only when the police start banging on the door a few minutes later that I finally allow myself to pass out.