I had a plan in mind when I’d been wandering around Vera’s neighborhood earlier, and then I started to feel like a plain old morphine overdose just wasn’t punishment enough for the woman who is attempting to eliminate the most important woman from my future husband’s life.
At some point during this stakeout, I heard the distant rumble of a train over tracks. The blaring of its horn somewhere in the vast darkness surrounding us. And that’s when I decided Vera’s death needed to make a statement. Something I could point to next time someone came along and tried to touch my family. Something that would saydo you see what kind of disaster it would be if you hurt what’s mine?
I pull out of my parking spot when Vera’s headlights flash on, and I make it to the short line at the entrance to the highway ahead of her, flicking my blinker on. She pulls out right behind me, and everyone else in the line goes the opposite way, which is a fucking stroke of luck if I’ve ever seen one.
A mile down the highway, the red lights of a passing train come into view, and I jerk my steering wheel, veering left and right across the roadbefore screeching to a halt in the shoulder, kicking up dirt and climbing out of the car in a rush. I bend over, slamming my hand to my chest, hoping that Vera’s sick caretaker instincts kick in. Her slowing vehicle in my peripherals confirms that indeed, they have. She pulls to a stop behind my car, exiting her vehicle and running in my direction as the blare of the passing train sings in the wind around us.
“Miss,” she says, her voice steady and hand coming to rest on my back. “Are you okay? Are you choking?” She’s a natural in high stress situations. I shake my head vehemently, my hair covering most of my face as I stay facing the ground.
Vera bends forward to find my gaze, and as I straighten, I see the flash of recognition cross her features before I smile brightly and stab the needle of morphine into her neck, injecting the lethal dose into her body.
Stone warned me that a shot to anywhere other than the bloodstream would take longer for the effects to hit. It was a risk I decided I was willing to take for the payoff of seeing her body smashed to smithereens.
Payback’s a bitch, baby.
Her hand jerks to where the needle pierced her skin, and she backs away slowly before turning and moving quickly in the direction of her vehicle again. But you see, I had a lot of time to set the scene. I gathered a collection of rocks that fitperfectlyinto the palm of my hand. Hurrying after her, I lean down to swoop one off the ground, and when she’s just within reach, I swing my arm out, and the rock collides with her skull in acrack.
The train horn dissipates in the distance, the tail end of the massive machine passing us and the gates blocking potential vehicles from crossing the tracks lift. The steady chime of warning bells cease their ringing, and the air around us is bathed in silence as thick as the trees a few hundred feet off the road.
I pant, staring down at Vera’s body and letting the rock roll from my hand onto the ground.
Rue yips at me tohurryfrom the passenger seat. “I’m trying!”
Bending toward Vera’s still body on the ground, I drag her toward her car, grunting as I lift her limp body and get her situated into the passenger seat. Once she’s settled, I run back to the Suburban, quickly pulling it further off the road and into the darkness near the tree line. Maeve warned that train systems often have cameras, and the last thing I want is another connection between this car and a crime scene.
Grabbing Rue from the passenger seat, I run us back to Vera’s car, swerving off the side of the road and turning parallel with the tracks. I drive us further into the dark of the forest along the railway, eventually parking her vehicle so it’s perpendicular to the metal path.
And then we wait.
I keep my seatbelt unbuckled and the driver’s door propped open, to prevent one of those horrible situations where the train light is looming in the distance and Rue and I are suddenly trapped inside. Vera breathes slowly from the passenger seat, limp neck rolling her face in my direction, lit up only by the yellow, overhead glow of the car light.
The morphine dose I injected in her was enough to kill her, so it’s unlikely she will wake up before the train hits. And knowing her, she’s probably got various trophies in her home that authorities will find, chalking her overdose and train crash up to a guilty suicide.
I do wish she’d wake up though, so I could see the look on her face as I tell her that targeting Elizabeth Mills was the biggest mistake of her life. That she’ll never hurt anyone else again.
The distant blare of the train horn snaps me out of my trance, and I grab Rue from the back seat and exit the vehicle, carrying her deep into the trees surrounding the tracks. I need to get far enough away that we won’t be hit by flying debris, but I alsohaveto see this.
From behind a tree about the length of a football field away, Rue and I watch the light of the train blink between the trees as it barrels toward Vera’scar. My stomach is so light I feel like I could float away, and my fingers are tingling with nerves and adrenaline as I watch the massive machine close in on her.
And then it happens. The sound of metal-on-metal smashing and the wheels screeching against the tracks assaults my ears, and I cover Rue’s little head, turning us away from the wreckage. But not before I see the explosion of sparks and light cascading into the sky. Not before I see Vera and her janky little car burst into a thousand pieces and go flying in every direction.
The disaster goes on for what feels like forever, the sound of the train cars coming derailed and separating from each other loud against the quiet night. Until finally, the entire scene is soaked in silence.
“Holy shit, Rue,” I breathe. “That’s going to cost someone a lot of money.”
Whoops.
And then I tuck her under my arm and sprint back to my car, ready to head back and start building a home with the son of the woman whose life I just saved.
26
Colin
Made you something. Left it on your desk on my way out of town. See ya tomorrow, panda bear.
Ire-read the text for the umpteenth time, and then I put my phone away and study the possum skull I’d found sitting on top of my laptop when I made it into the office. I’d gone home for a quick shower after leaving Chloe’s, and every moment I’ve been away from her has been painful.
Even though the distance between us makes my skin crawl, makes it feel way too tight for my body, she is right. Her and her friends were taking care of themselves long before I came along. Hell, half the time they were protecting themselves fromme.
