Heart of Ice

could not resist a pun. But she didn’t care. She had a daughter in potential danger.

She had tried Jenna’s cell phone and the landline at the house. No answer. That could mean one of two things. Either Jenna wasn’t at home, or she was in trouble and she couldn’t get to the phone. There was no way she wouldn’t have answered multiple attempts by her mother to reach her. The days of marathons of America’s Next Top Model or The Real World putting her into a TV-watching-zombie state were long since over.

Please let her be safe.

She dialed Chris’s cell number.

“Hi, babe,” he said. “The coffee place across the street is closed. Pipes busted. I went—”

She cut him off. “Chris, this isn’t about the coffee.” Her voice cracked with concern. “This is very bad. The Sorority Killer is after Jenna.”

There was a crack in the reception and Emily worried that the service failed again. But Chris’s voice came back on.

“What are you talking about?”

“His wife called. His name is Michael Barton and he’s on some kind of revenge trip against the girls of Beta Zeta, Jenna’s sorority. She told me that her husband’s sister killed herself after she was dumped by the sorority. He blamed Tiffany, Lily Ann, and Jenna.”

“What about Sheraton Wilkes?”

Emily could feel her chest tighten as made a hard right turn on Orchard Ave. “An error. He thought that Sheraton was Jenna.”

“Hang on. I’m coming.”

“Chris,” Emily said, “Olivia Barton says her husband is already here. I’m on my way home now.”

She passed a car that was unfamiliar to her. She knew every car on Orchard Avenue. Even as she sped by, she could see the car had come from a rental car agency, its familiar yellow decal displayed on a side window.

Michael Barton faced the mirror as he had a thousand times before. His task was now far more complicated with Jenna and her friend being there together. He’d never had to kill more than one person at a time. Part of him, a very small part, liked the challenge of the scenario. The rush he had gotten from his compulsion was better than sex. If so, killing two at once would be a veritable orgy.

He’d done everything right. He looked down at his fingertips. They felt hard and crunchy. He’d coated each one with superglue back in the motel. He’d leave no fingerprints in the bathroom of the house that was about to become the bloodiest of murder scenes—a nightmare of his own creation. Controlling two young women would be very difficult. He’d have to make a fast move for one, plunge the knife into her heart or slash her neck. It would have to be done with horrific and unexpected speed.

Otherwise, the one left standing could run.

He unzipped his fly and urinated into the bowl. He was careful to hit the center of the reservoir of water to make as much noise as possible. He wanted the girls to hear that he was actually doing what he’d said he needed to do.

Instead, he was standing there, sucking up the courage to do what he had to do.

For Sarah. For himself.

He flushed the toilet and felt for his hunting knife. Razor sharp. He’d used it only once—to cut the landline that came inside the Kenyon’s home—before Shali showed up.

In a minute, everything would be over. He’d find relief. He’d go back to California. He’d never do this again. He knew he’d promised himself that before. But this time was different. It was the way it had to be.

He opened the door to the hallway.

Emily pulled into the driveway. Shali’s car wasn’t there. She hoped that meant that they’d gone off shopping in Spokane as they’d planned. Please be safe. Please be all right, she thought as she turned off the ignition and grabbed her gun.

A thousand miles away, Olivia Barton opened the front door of her dream house in Garden Grove to find two police officers. Seeing them was concrete proof that the action that she’d taken to save a young woman in Washington State had truly closed the curtain on everything she held so dear. She knew the wheels were in motion.

She let the officers inside.

“No matter what he’s done,” she said, “there are parts of Michael that are so very good. I want you to know that. I love him. Our children love their father. He’s only partly a monster.”

Chapter Seventy-two

Michael Barton emerged from the powder room and found the young women waiting in the foyer. Jenna was by the door, which was still slightly cracked open. Cool spring air poured inside.

“Thanks for the use of your bathroom,” he said.

“No worries.” Jenna smiled. “That’s the kind of place Cherrystone is.”

Shali held out her cell phone. “Use mine to make your call. I have unlimited minutes.”

He reached over to take the phone with his left hand. The flash of a piece of metal—a knife—caught Jenna’s eye.

She screamed. “What are you doing?”

As if in slow motion, Shali turned her head and looked at Jenna, then back at Michael as he plunged the knife into her stomach. A pool of blood the size and color of one of Emily’s dark red dahlias formed. Shali gasped and slumped to the floor.

“What did you do?” Jenna dropped to her knees. Shali grabbed at her own stomach and started to gag, then coughed up blood.

“Jenna, help me,” Shali said, gasping.

“Drop your phone,” he said. “Drop it or I’ll cut off Shali’s head right now.”

It was so fast. So frightening. The blood just kept coming. Shali went completely white. Her body slumped backward against the door, slamming it shut.

Jenna dropped her phone. It started to ring. She could see it was her mother calling.

“Mom, help me. Something’s happening. Mom,” she said in a loud voice inside her head, a voice that no one could hear.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Michael said, surprised that lying was so easy, even in the midst of utter chaos and crisis. He hoped it would somehow disarm her. It was a fantasy, a dream. Just do as I say and none of this will hurt so bad, he thought.

“What do you want?” Jenna asked. “My friend needs a doctor! We have to call an ambulance.”

“I came for you, Jenna. I’m sorry about her.”

Jenna was terror-stricken and confused. “Came for me?”

His eyes were like a reptile’s, devoid of compassion for what he’d done as Shali’s blood oozed around them.

“Yeah you. You were the third of the bitches that trashed my sister.”

Jenna tried to take a step backward, but there was nowhere to go. Her eyes moved rapidly from Shali to the man with the dripping knife.

“What are you talking about?” she asked. “I don’t know you! I don’t know your sister.”

“Sarah Barton.”