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“Tell me, Sylvia, shit—just tell me.”
She stares out the window, her back to me. “I was offered a book deal when my mom was killed twenty years ago. I turned it down because I’m an idiot. Now, here I am—got laid off from my job—no money, no inheritance, no life, no nothing. I thought the letters, everything, would reignite the case and set me up to revisit the book deal. So, I made a plan. I went to the pool hall with the letters—I knew that’s where all the addicts hang out. I waited for one to come out, to offer them money to deliver the letters. Jesse walked out.”
I shake my head. “SoIwas in the wrong place at the wrong time, andhewas in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Listen—” she turns and steps toward me.
“No.” I hold up my hands. “Stop. I still don’t get it. What was the deal with the barn? Why fake your own kidnapping? Why pretend someone took you?”
“You pissed me off when you told me we—whatever was between us—was through. That we were over, after everything I’ve done for you. So, I faked the kidnapping, one, to keep media interest, and two, to get back at you for leaving me.”
I can’t even speak. The woman is completely sick in the head.
She continues, scrubbing her hands over her face. “Also, they found a half-print on the pendant that I put in the fourth envelope. I didn’t realize at the time, but it must be mine from when I took it off her after I killed her. It was only a matter of time until they figured that out. I needed something to distract them. So I mailed myself the final letter, took my bike, and rode to a barn I saw one time on the news, for sale. That’s it. Done.”
The anger boiling inside me bubbles over. “Do you realize how close I am—was—to getting accused for it? Do you know that, Sylvia? I am one mistake from going back to prison for life. All for a book deal? For validation and money?” I lunge across the kitchen, grab her shoulders, shake her violently. “You—you arecrazy.”
“I am not!”
“You killed your own mother,” I screamed back. “You fucking framed me and sent me to jail for twenty years.” I squeeze her shoulders, digging my nails into her skin. “You killed your sister, didn’t you? You pushed Anna that day at the city pool, didn’t you? Your mom says so in the journal. That’s why you took and hid it in your room. You killed her, didn’t you, you crazy—”
“Yeah, I fucking did,” she spits in my face. She leans in, her eyes wild, her chin quivering with madness. “And I have never spent one second regretting it.”
I release her like she is a venomous snake. “I’m calling the cops, Sylvia. You are a murderer—I’m calling the cops.” I grab her phone, which is sitting on the counter.
I hear thewhooshof a blade being pulled from a knife block.
I freeze, my back to her, my hand wrapped around the phone.
“You better not touch a single button on that phone.”
I slowly turn, but not before pressing the Emergency button.
I look at the knife in her raised hand, the point just feet away from my beating heart. “Sylvia, you need help.” I release the phone on the table and raise my palms. “Don’t do this. Set down the knife.”
She begins to cry, teetering on the fringes of a complete mental breakdown. “I don’t need help. I need someone I can count on. Don’t you get that?”
“Let me get you help, okay?”
Keeping my eyes on hers, I reach back for the phone.
She lunges forward.
I stumble backward, the tip of the blade nicking my collarbone.
The kitchen table teeters, the chairs topple over.
“Sylvia, stop!” I plead, stumbling over a chair.
Her eyes are wild with madness. She comes at me again, again, slashing the knife through the air, trying to hit any part of my body she can. I scramble over the chairs, over the table, but am backed into the corner.
She closes in.
There is no escape.
I lunge forward, throwing my full weight onto her. We tumble over a chair, the knife still in her hand. We crash onto the tile floor, hitting hard with a thud.
Then, the world stops.
