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I was scared to hope.
“We think when Maria realized the object of her obsession was turning on her, she felt rejected, and this sent her into a tailspin of panic and rage. Like I said, Miss Connors is here. She can explain it so much better, but like a lot of stalkers do with their objects of obsession, Maria turned on Guadalupe. If she couldn’t have her, no one could. Many stalkers end up killing, or attempting to kill, the person they were obsessed with. We found her body this morning in a warehouse.”
Another warehouse. The irony wasn’t lost on us, considering what we’d been doing hours earlier.
Bryce lowered his head. Again, like this whole time, he didn’t say anything, but he was taking shallow breaths, and I knew he was trying to calm himself. Either that or he was just trying to breathe.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Keep repeating and maybe something would make sense at the end? Sometimes that happened. Once I calmed down, I understood things, but that wasn’t going to happen here.
Guadalupe was dead, and he couldn’t tune out, then come back in and hope it was a nightmare. She was gone.
I pressed my hand to his arm again. This wasn’t a nightmare. It was real life.
Everyone was waiting for us to say something, Bryce or myself. Corrigan was waiting, too. As we locked eyes, a look passed between us. I had to be with Bryce that night. He was grieving, and in a weird way, so was I. They had found Grace’s murderer.
I needed Bryce that night, and I tried to send Corrigan an apology, but he shook his head. He understood. I got the message he sent me back, and the corner of my mouth lifted up, but I couldn’t smile. Like Bryce, I was defeated, too.
I wanted it all to end.
Then Corrigan asked, “Where is Maria? Do you have her in custody?”
They didn’t reply.
I looked at Sheila, alarm filtering inside me.
This was the ‘worse’ part. None of the cops looked at each other. There was no question. This was what they were bracing themselves for and, feeling my stiffening, Bryce looked up, too.
“Do you?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
Sheila looked right at me and said, “No.”
Chills went down my back. “What do you mean ‘no’?”
“We found Guadalupe’s body, but not Maria. She’s on the run.”
“But.” Corrigan jerked forward. His hand rested on the table, curling into a fist. “Again. What does that mean for us?”
“We have reason to believe that Maria is going to honor Guadalupe’s death with one last act.”
Oh god.
My mouth went dry.
Sheila sighed. “She’s going to try to kill Sheldon.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
And we were back to the very beginning.
Sheila dropped that bomb, and the song from The Sound of Music started playing in my head. Of course. Made total sense. I was going to die one of these days anyway.
Corrigan shoved back his chair and demanded, “What? Where is she?”
Bryce stood too, but slower and he was still holding my hand. Me? I did nothing. I sat and kept quiet because I already knew what was going to happen. As I thought it, Sheila said it, “She’s going to have to go back into protective custody.”
Which I already was, sort of. Kinda. I was hiding anyway.
“No.”
