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That’s all he says.
Just her name.
But it hits me like a slap across the face.
“No…”
“Those photographs you saw are only one part of the bigger picture. They may be true, but they lack context. The story didn’t start the day Rose and Jared died; it started the day Elena died.”
I’m not even aware that I’m shaking my head until my head starts to spin. “R-Rose would never have agreed to that… never?—”
“I don’t know if your sister was aware of the particulars of the arrangement. Maybe Jared kept that from her. I don’t know, and I’ll be honest: at the time, I didn’t care. All I wanted was revenge. All I wanted was to do to Elena’s murderer what he did to me—rob him of the woman he loved.”
“God!” I explode as tears fall fast down my cheeks. “I can’t believe this… I can’t believe this…”
Dmitri leans forward and nudges the recorder towards me. “All you have to do is press play.”
My lips tremble so wildly I’m afraid I won’t be able to get the words out. “I’m not s-s-sure I w-wanna h-hear what’s o-o-on there…”
He stares at me unblinkingly. “You wanted the truth, Wren. That requires knowing all of it.”
My finger trembles over the play button. I take a deep breath and press it. Immediately, there’s a faint scratching sound and then a series of muffled breaths set against a backdrop of whirling wind.
Then a voice rips through the white noise, clear and breathy and trembling and so painfully recognizable. “You killed her… Rose… Rosie!”
I start shaking. I have to grip the edges of the sofa to keep from completely unraveling. The recorder keeps playing, cruelly oblivious to my borderline hysteria.
“I want you to know that she didn’t have to die.” Dmitri’s voice cuts through me like a knife, sharp and ruthless. “But you made a choice.”
“I did n-nothing!” Jared screams desperately. “I don’t even know you!”
“But you knew my wife.”
White noise rushes in to fill the gaps in their fevered conversation. And then—“Oh God… She was your wife…”
“I want to hear you say her name.”
All I can hear after that are heavy sobs, panicked pleas. “P-please… I was desperate—we were desperate! Rose wanted a baby… I would have done anything to make her a mother?—”
“Including murdering an innocent woman?” Dmitri demands.
“I-I didn’t know w-who she was!” Jared stutters. “I swear, I?—”
“Say her name. Say her name. Say her fucking name!”
“Elena!” Jared wails. “Elena… oh, fuck… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
His whimpers fade to nothing. Metal hisses in the background as it cools. Dmitri’s voice on the recording is soft when he speaks again. I have to strain to hear him. “She was pure… so fucking pure. And you robbed the world of her. You robbed me of her.”
“I d-didn’t know… I was given a name and a face. I-i-it was the only thing he asked of me.”
Dmitri’s laugh is like a bolt of lightning, sudden and otherworldly. “And where is he now? Buried six feet in the earth, rotting away to nothing. Was it worth it?”
Jared’s breath whistles as loudly as the wind. Maybe what I can hear is fire raging in the background? I can’t be certain. A small part of my brain registers that somewhere in the background of this frozen recording, my sister’s body lies, freshly dead.
“Please,” Jared begs. “S-spare me…”
“I made my wife’s corpse a promise. I promised her that I wouldn’t rest until I killed the two men responsible for her death. The one that ordered it and the one that carried it out.”
