Leave Me Love (11 page)

MAXWELL MET US
at our house—I still had to remind myself it was
our
house and not just
his
house—and we settled in the living room with coffee.

"Good news and bad news on the investigation into Bridgette's disappearance," Maxwell said.

"Good news first," I said.

"It's actually the same news. The good and the bad is that the police are now investigating Jon as a suspect in her case." Maxwell sipped his coffee and waited for one of us to speak.

Ash clenched his teeth. "How is this good news?"

"It means they're finally considering suspects other than your girlfriend," he said. "And we need that, otherwise, they'll put everything they have into pointing the evidence at her and that won't bode well for any of us."

Ash stood and paced. "So it's better my brother is set up for this? He didn't do it."

I kept my mouth shut, not sure what to say.

"If he's innocent, then he'll be fine," Maxwell said. "The evidence isn't stacked up against him like it is against Catelyn here. Now, that's
my
news, what did you two have to tell me?"

"I found the book," I said.

Maxwell's eyes widened and he put his coffee cup on the table in front of him. "The second book Alice was working on?"

I nodded.

"Where? How? What did it say?" He could barely stay sitting in his excitement—or was it agitation? I couldn't tell.

"It's safe. I can set up a meeting with the killer. I'm going to make a public statement, let the world know I have it and know who killed my mother, and wait for that person to contact me."

Maxwell shook his head. "Absolutely not. It's too risky, and there are too many legal ramifications to consider. Why not go straight to the police?"

"Because I don't trust them." My voice wavered and Ash squeezed my hand. "I want the information out. I have details about high-profile people who were, and are, corrupt, people my mother knew and had gathered evidence on. This needs to be made public before they can make this information disappear again."

"I don't like it," Maxwell said.

"You don't have to." I sipped my coffee and ignored my shaking hand. "It's my decision and I've made it."

He stood, reaching for his briefcase. "Fine, I'll set up a press conference. I just hope you know what you're doing." He walked to the door and let himself out.

After he left, I leaned against the wall and exhaled. "So do I."

Ash trapped me with his body, his breath hot against my mouth. "We don't have to do this, you know. There are other ways."

"None that make as much sense as this. If he's the killer, he'll act before the information goes public."

"And what if he's not the killer?" Ash asked. "What will you say if you're forced to go ahead with the conference?"

I took a deep breath. "I'll say I found the book."

He squinted his eyes at me.

"Because I have, Ash. I know where it is."

"What?" Ash stood back and stared at me. "When? How? Where is it, Catelyn? You have to tell me."

"I can't, Ash. Bridgette's life might depend on no one else knowing."

THE NEXT FEW
days passed by uneventfully. My medication began working, my headaches and blackouts virtually disappeared, and Ash continued to train me with guns and self-defense. I was actually getting to the point where I felt more confident in my ability to handle myself when I passed Mr. Davenport while getting a bottle of water at the gym.

"Catelyn, how are you? I didn't know you worked out here." He carried a tennis racket and had a white towel around his neck and sweat dripping down his face.

"Yes, just recently. Ash has been giving me some self-defense lessons. Are you just finishing up a game of racquetball?"

He looked down at his racket. "Yes. I try to get down here a few times a week. Good for the heart. How are things going with the investigation into Bridgette's kidnapping?"

The woman behind the counter handed me the water and I took a sip. "It's been hard. I miss her and we're doing everything we can to figure out what happened. I just feel so helpless."

"I heard you've been looking for the book your mom was working on when she died. Did you ever find it?" He asked this with a carefully manufactured casualness that belied his intensity.

Ash saved me from answering by putting an arm around me. "Dad, what are you doing here?"

"Just the usual, son. You should come by the house more often. Your mother misses you." With that, Mr. Davenport left.

"He was asking about the book," I told Ash as we left the gym. "How would he even know about it?"

"I don't know," he said, opening the car door for me. "Someone is talking when they shouldn't be.”

***

When the day of my public statement arrived, I nearly backed out. My headaches came back with a vengeance and I spent the morning throwing up in our bathroom. Ash called through the door. "I'm canceling this, Catelyn. It's not worth it. Let me in."

"No and no," I said, taking deep breaths to calm myself. "I have to follow through with it. I'll be all right. Just, please, get me some water."

He came back with a glass of ice water and I drank greedily and took another shower, then put on a classy but conservative pantsuit and heels. I called Detective Gray on the way to the press conference which Maxwell had scheduled to be outside the police department for added security. "Are you ready?"

Gray coughed. "Yeah, we're ready."

"Just keep an eye out. The killer will be after me once I give my statement."

"I'll keep an eye out."

I wasn't sure if I could trust him, and I wasn't convinced he'd ruled me out as a suspect, but I had to hope he'd do his job, or at least someone in the police department would.

Ash parked and opened my door for me, then pulled me into a hug. "I'm so proud of you. You're amazing and brave and the most incredible woman I've ever met."

He got on his knees and I nearly choked when he pulled out a small black box. "I know this is shitty timing, but I need you to know, before you do this, how much I love you. Catelyn Travis—Cat—will you marry me?"

I choked back tears and dropped to my knees in front of him, kissing him, but I didn’t take the ring. "I want to say yes. I'm so happy I could cry, but I can't say yes until this is over."

He started to argue but I put a finger over his lips. "Just hear me out. I don't know what's going to happen next. I might go to jail. I might be killed. I can't let you tie yourself to me until we know what's going to happen."

"I love you, sweetheart, and through thick or thin I'll be here. I'm not going to let you die," his voice choked on the word, "and if you're arrested, I'll spend my life fighting to free you."

I kissed him again. "And if you still feel that way when this is over, then my answer is yes. But only once this is over."

He took the ring out and took my right hand. "I want you to wear this, if not on your engagement finger, then on your right hand. It can be a promise ring, until you're ready to say yes."

He slipped the princess cut diamond onto my finger, the sapphires on each side like teardrops. It was the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen. "I love you, Ash."

"I love you, too." He helped me up. "I'm going to go let them know you're ready. Take a deep breath. You'll do great."

A wave of nausea rose up in me as I watched Ash approach the podium, and I rushed behind the building to empty my stomach of what little remained in it. I pulled out a water bottle from my purse and rinsed my mouth, then turned to go meet Ash when I felt the cold steel of a gun in my side. "Don't move or I'll shoot."

I knew the voice. My heart broke.

"Time to get me that book, Catelyn."

I turned to face an icy smile and cold eyes. "Why are you doing this, Bridgette?"

MY HEART HAMMERED
in my chest as Bridgette held a gun on me and made me drive home to retrieve the book. Once at my house, I went to my side of the closet and pulled out a false panel in the wall I'd rigged after moving in. Inside was a box full of the letters I'd gotten from Maxwell. I handed it to her. "This is all the research."

My hands shook and Bridgette looked through the letters briefly, shoved them back into the box and prodded me downstairs and into the car. "Don't make a sound. Don't call for help. Don't try to be a hero, Catelyn. Just drive where I tell you."

We drove for over two hours and I recognized the route. I tried asking her questions. Why was she doing this? Was she working with someone else? But she didn't answer, just kept that gun muzzle pointed at my head. I had to shut down, had to close off my emotions and bury the panic building in me and just focus on the road, on the few feet of asphalt I could see in the dark night.

My cell phone rang and rang and beeped and beeped until she threw it out the window. Poor Ash would be worried sick.

Professor Cavin's cabin looked different at night, more sinister than when the sun shined brightly. The lake was a gaping black hole that could have hidden bodies in its depth. "Why are we here?"

She didn't answer, just pushed me into the house and revealed a door to the basement Cavin hadn't shown me during our visit. Bridgette kept the gun on me as we walked down the stairs. It reminded me of something you'd see in a horror movie. There were ropes, a bucket that smelled like piss and shit, and bowls for food and water next to a stained and bug-infested twin mattress. "What is this place?" I gagged at the smell as my eyes buzzed and I pushed away my headache.

"This is where you've been keeping me prisoner. That's what everyone will think. Crazy Cat lost it and kidnapped her best friend, locking her up."

I couldn't hide my shock. "Why, Bridgette? You were my best friend. Why would you do this to me?"

"It's not personal. I had to get rid of you. I hated that you and Ash were together. He should have been mine.” She paused and laughed mirthlessly. “Okay, I lied. It
is
personal." She smacked her pink lips and smiled, but it was a cold and calculating smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"Why did you need my mother's book? Her research? What does any of this have to do with you?"

"You just have to know everything, don't you? Sorry, sister, but this isn't an after school special where everything gets explained and wrapped up in a nice little bow. You're just going to have to die with this mystery hanging over your head." She pushed me in the back, prodding me forward.

I stumbled against a workbench and bruised the back of my leg, but I ignored the pain. "What happens now?" I was surprised at how calm my voice sounded, when inside I felt anything but.

"This is where I escape my evil captor, kill you in self-defense—which I'll feel super bad about even though you did awful things to me, because I'll remember the times we were friends, all those happy memories—and it will break me up, wondering how you could have done these things." Her voice took on a different tone, one the press would eat up as real tears slid down her face.

She wiped away the tears and smiled again. "They won't be able to get enough of my story."

"Please Bridgette, don't." My tears were real and so was my fear.

"
Please Bridgette, don't
," she mimicked in a mocking tone. "How do you not see what a whiny bitch you are?"

Bridgette held the gun toward me, her finger twitching on the trigger. I reached behind me and grabbed the first thing I could find. A wrench. I threw it at her, hitting her shoulder, and ducked. The gun went off, shooting into the wall as I tackled Bridgette and tried to remember what Ash taught me about disarming someone.

I managed to knock the gun away from her. She gasped, fighting back with a punch that missed my face. I gripped something, the wrench I'd thrown, and raised it over my head.

With a whack, I slammed it against her head.

She slumped to the floor.

In a frenzy of fear and adrenaline I searched for her phone so I could call for help. The cabin didn't have a phone line, and my cell phone was on the highway somewhere.

Finally spotting it just a few feet away, I reached for Bridgette's phone and was just about to grab it when the lights went out. It was so dark I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed.

Then I heard footsteps coming toward me.

THE KILLER WAS
in the room. Someone who needed the book. Someone who was working with Bridgette. I felt around for the phone and my hand landed on it. Using flashes of light from the phone, I found the gun that had been kicked away.

With gun in hand, I tried to put my back to a wall, but I couldn't tell where the wall was. I flashed the phone and saw nothing but the empty bed across the room.

I moved back, stumbling into the pot full of shit and flashed the phone again. Nothing.

My breath came short and fast, head pounding with the beat of my heart, eyes buzzing, everything dipping and turning like a funhouse mirror. I tried to focus, and flashed the phone light again.

I saw a person dressed in black from head to toe, face covered. A gun fired and I dropped to my knees, crawling, trying to avoid a bullet in the dark.

I shot in the direction I heard the shots coming from. Bang. Bang. Bang. I strained to hear if someone cried out in injury, but I heard nothing but the ringing in my ears and the sound of gunshots.

I shot again and then
click
. The gun was empty. Crawling around in the dark, my hand sliding in the excrement I knocked over, I searched for another weapon and found the wrench I'd dropped.

Someone smacked their lips in the dark. I flashed the phone and saw nothing.

Another flash of light.

And another.

Bits and pieces of the empty room came into view and disappeared.

And then the light flashed and the killer was there. I charged toward the person in black, tackling them to the ground. We fought each other. Legs and arms tangled up in kicks and punches and muffled screams. I knocked the gun out of their hand, but their fingers clawed at my neck, choking me. I grabbed their face, tearing off the mask though I still couldn't see them.

I felt a nose, dug my nails into their cheek. My hand grabbed a fist full of their hair and I pulled, using the last of my strength to focus, to try and breathe, though it was becoming more and more difficult.

The person pulled back, fighting their way out of my grip. I flashed the phone again. Again. Again.

I heard footsteps.

More flashes of light.

Piece by piece.

Flash by flash.

The smell, it took over.

Memories came back.

A distinctive perfume only one person I knew used.

Sweet.

Strong.

I flashed again and saw.

Lauren. Her hair wild, eyes mad, shrieking with a trickle of blood running down her cheek. She lunged at me, knife in hand, but a gun exploded behind us, deafening me, making the ringing louder.

Flashing the phone again I saw Lauren. Collapsed. Dead. Her body covering my legs, pinning me to the ground.

Standing over her was Bridgette, the proverbial smoking gun in hand.

Pointing it at me.