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Celeste
My brows shoot up. “What?”
“Go. You don’t have time to pack. Grab your phone, your wallet, whatever you need. I’ll get the rest for you later. Get out the back door. I’ll stall them.”
“I just admitted to framing you for murder, CeCe.”
She spots my purse on the hall stand. In her rush to grab it, she sets the gun down. She runs back to me and holds out the purse.
“I shot my lover and tried to frame you,” I say.
She shoves the purse at me. “Is your phone in there? Do you need your laptop?”
Sirens wail, louder now.
“No time for the laptop,” she says. “Just—”
I lift the gun. She reels back, gaze whipping to the now empty side table. She looks at me, hands rising.
“Don’t,” she says. “Please. I won’t tell them anything.”
“I’m not going to shoot you, CeCe. You’ve done nothing wrong. You just wanted what was yours, and you treated me better than I deserved. This?” I waggle the gun. “This has been a long time coming.”
I put the gun barrel under my chin. Daisy lets out a yelp and rocks forward, hands out to grab the gun before stopping herself, not wanting to spook me into shooting.
“I’ll hold them off,” she says, even as the knock comes at the door. “Run.”
“I’m tired of running. Tired of needing to run. Tired of being the kind of person who runs.”
“But you can. I don’t know your real name. You’re safe.”
“Elizabeth—”
“No!”
“Elizabeth Tara Judd of Indianapolis. You’ll find my ID in the attic, hidden in a box marked ‘receipts.’ Now turn around, CeCe.”
“No. You do not have to do this.”
“I don’t. But I want to. It’s this or suicide by cop, and I’d rather pull this trigger myself.” I look her in the eye. “I make my own choices. This is a choice. Now turn away.”
“No.”
She stands there, glaring at me, defiant. Her mouth opens to say something more, make one last argument... and I pull the trigger.
I feel something like an uppercut to the chin. Then I’m on the floor, and I see her face, her horror and her pain, and I see one last thing.
Me. At eighteen. Standing in front of Aaron with his gun to my head. Him saying, “Pull the trigger, you dumb bitch. You think anyone cares if you put a bullet in your brain?”
I hear him, and I see Daisy’s face, and I think, Someone cared. And I start to smile and then—
Daisy
“You ready?” Tom says.
We’re inside the bank. It’s been two weeks since I got my life back. A week since Elizabeth... Well, that’s another story, and this is mine, at least for a little longer.
“I bet it’s a stack of birthday cards,” I say. “Gran saved all the birthday cards she never sent and put them in a safe-deposit box.”
