Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1) (32 page)

Chapter Sixty-One

I was in a state of shock, nearly catatonic. I couldn’t move, couldn’t function. It seemed to take all the energy in my body just to tell it to keep breathing.  Somewhere
, in the blurry background, I could hear Logan yelling. It took a few moments for me to realize that he had picked up my cell phone and was tearing into Dr. Ross.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” He growled into the small phone. Whatever Dr. Ross said, Logan was quick to cut him off. “Well, you
will
believe it when I fax you over the evidence. So help me, if one more person is harmed by Elizabeth Marshall, I’m holding you personally responsible. There will be a state and possibly a federal investigation, and believe me, we’ll be looking into how she could have gotten away. You should have listened to Caitlyn when she tried to warn you.”

Dr. Ross must have made some feeble attempt to defend himself, but again, Logan in his anger was quick to interrupt.

“Well, you’d better hope and pray that medication really is working, because if it’s not, and more people are harmed, you’ll have to answer to me.”

He hung up on the doctor in frustration, gripped my phone unti
l he realized he might break it then looked down at me. My fragile state seemed to calm his anger a bit. He took a deep breath and fought to pull himself together for my sake. He knelt down on one knee beside me, taking one of my cold hands into his.

“Caitlyn, are you ok?”
He asked gently, rubbing my hand a bit.

“She out, Logan, she’s free.” I said
, numbly shaking my head back and forth. “I can’t believe it. All that time trying to prove her innocence. All that time trying to win her freedom. Now she’s loose, just when we find out she could be a dangerous killer, far more dangerous than just killing her mother as everyone first thought. She’s somewhere out there, loose on the streets. She knows how to survive on the streets, she’s done it before. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.”

I felt like laughing hysterically, like a madwoman. Everything I had once thought, everything I had believed, was wrong. I closed my eyes, frantically hoping when I opened them again this would all just be a terrible dream that I could wake up from. I was almost starting to question my own sanity.

“Come on, Caitlyn, you’re freezing.” Logan lifted me to my feet as though I weighted nothing. He kept an arm securely around me until he was certain I could stand on my own. His warmth seemed to be the only thing that could thaw the ice freezing through my veins. “Here, I’ll take you home. We’ll come back and get your car later. I’ll make sure you’re doing ok before I go into work.” He walked me back to his car and opened the passenger side door. “Do you have anyone that could stay with you? You’re sister maybe?”

“Not really,” I answered listlessly. “She’s busy at work. She won’t take any time off right now. She’s saving it all for her maternity leave.”

I was about to lean over to get into his car when I saw the shiny metal box in the back seat. I paused, thinking about what a Pandora’s Box it was. I had no idea it held such secrets. If I had only known these things back before Lisbeth had first tried to convince me of her innocence. If I had only known sooner.

Logan’s words to Dr. Ross came back to haunt me.

“I’m holding you personally responsible.” He had said. Well, if the truth were to be known, I was probably more responsible than Dr. Ross. I had fought harder than anyone to prove her innocence, to get the charges dropped, to someday secure her freedom. And here she was, as free as the wind. It was my fault.

I straight
ened and stepped away from Logan’s car. The truth hit me with full force. I was responsible. I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart right now. I was stronger than that, wasn’t I? Logan was ready to get to work. I wasn’t about to play damsel in distress now. Somewhere inside of me, I found the last tiny bit of inner strength. There had to be something I could do to help.

“Logan, I’m going to be ok.” I fought to put as much confidence into my words as possible, even though my knees were still shaking.

“Are you sure?” He sounded doubtful.

“Yes,” my voice was sounding stronger. “You need to get back to the office. You need to start making those calls. They need to put all this together and find her. I’ll drive myself home. You get to work. Call me later if you find out anything.”

“If you’re sure,” he answered hesitantly. “Let me at least walk you to your car.”

He took my arm as we walked towards my car, still wanting to make sure I was steady on my feet.

The crowd was thinning. I had hardly realized it, Logan and I had been so caught up in the box and its contents. I had barely noticed the bulldozer had completed the demolition. The backhoe was digging up the cracked foundation. The large dumpster now took up most of the space and the workers were putting the shredded remains of the trailer into it. It was amazing how someone’s home, someone’s life, could be reduced to a pile of garbage in a matter of minutes.

It wasn’t until we were just a few feet away from my car when I noticed it. There was something on my car, something tucked underneath
one of the windshield wipers. That was strange. I know it wasn’t there when I arrived. I walked over, Logan at my side, and lifted the wiper.

I looked around
at what remained of the small crowd and then up and down the street. The reporter and her cameraman were gathering up their equipment and putting everything away in their news van down the street. She looked disappointed. There really hadn’t been much of a story here for her today. At least not one that she was aware of.

Who could have put this on my windshield?

It was a small piece of paper, folded in half then in half again. I opened it up.

“Caitlyn, you abandoned
us.” 

Chapter Sixty-Two

“Caitlyn, you abandoned us. You left us. They moved us into that fake, celebrity resort of a treatment center and you never came. After all we’ve been through, I thought you would understand. You were supposed to help us prove our innocence. You were supposed to help us get out of that hellhole of an institution.

“You were supposed to help us get away from that egotistical prick Martin Ross. But you failed us. You promised you would help us, but you didn’t.

“Now we’ve had to take matters into our own hands. We had to secure our own release.

“Now you found the box. Now you know our secret.

“You were the last person we trusted, but we can’t trust you anymore. We have no other choice now. We are free. The fresh air of freedom is finally ours.

“So, we have just one question for you…….

“Come and find me if you dare,

“People will die. Do you care?”
 

Now Available
:

The sequel to

“Don’t Slay the Dragon”:

“Find Me if You Dare”

Find it on Amazon.com for Kindle