My voice hitched. “Stopped her.”
“Ma’am, what’s happening? Stopped who?”
“Melissa…Harkoff…I got her.” My eyes filled with tears. “She killed Linda. She killed my best friend.”
SIXTY-TWO
The world blurred. I don’t know how much time passed. Five minutes? Twenty? The quicksand beckoned, but dull fire lit my veins. My eyes closed, dragged open. Closed, dragged open.
Melissa lay crumpled on her side, unmoving. Blood stained the floor beneath her.
Was she dead?
Somehow I managed to drag myself from the office into the hallway.
In the distance—a keening. It grew louder and louder, then doubled. Tripled. Sirens wailed to a stop outside my house.
I lifted a shaking left hand and unlocked the front door. Then collapsed before it.
Darkness drifted over me.
Then voices. Footsteps.
Someone calling my name.
I was lifted. Rolled. Lights and movement and people touching me.
A siren started up again. So very
I awoke in a hospital room, my right shoulder bandaged. It felt like I’d been asleep for hours. My body swam in a thick and languid sea. An IV tube led to my left arm.
Perry sat by my bed.
I blinked at him. “Wha—?” My voice was little more than a croak.
His face lit. “Hey.” He stood up, touched my hair. “She’s back in the land of the living.”
“That what this is?”
“Yeah. And pain meds.”
Oh.
“How do you feel?” Perry’s hand lowered to rest gently against my neck.
I swallowed. “Why aren’t you at your store?”
He gave me a look. “And miss the excitement?”
Even my sodden brain saw through the tease. Who couldn’t see the concern tugging at Perry’s brow?
No, not just concern. Something more…
The thought warmed me.
But I couldn’t go there now.
I licked my lips and concentrated on breathing.
As if a switch flipped, memories and realizations pierced my mind. For a moment my tongue froze, unable to choose what to ask first.
“Melissa?”
Perry’s expression clouded. He shook his head. “She didn’t make it.”
I ogled him. “She’s
He nodded.
My mouth flopped open, but no words formed. Dead. I killed her. I
“Joanne.” Perry stroked my jaw. “She tried to kill you first.”
“How…were you there?”
Wait. That made no sense.
“You told 911 and the ambulance attendants.”
“I talked in the ambulance?”
Perry smiled. “You downright blathered.”
Oh.
“You told them how Melissa came in with a gun. That she shot you.” Perry surveyed me, as if not quite sure I was in my right mind. “You said she told you
Melissa’s spiteful words washed over me.
“Joanne. Is that true?”
I wished my mind could think clearly. I tried to see down the tunnel of days, weeks, months. What would happen now with Baxter? Would we ever find Linda? And
“Hey.” Clearly Perry read my thoughts. I heard a firmness in his tone. “If you hadn’t pursued Melissa, the truth would still be hidden. You uncovered it. You got through all the deceit.”
“Not all of it. Baxter’s still around.”
“Yeah, well. Wait till the legal system gets through with him. He’ll have a lot to answer for.”
If he ever answered at all.
I wouldn’t rest until he did. Now only he could tell us where Linda was buried. My friend deserved to come home. To a real grave where I could visit her, talk to her.
Carefully I shifted a little. My shoulder throbbed at the movement. I winced.
Perry drew back his hand. “I should let you rest.”
“I need to talk to Dan.”
“He wants to talk to you. Told me to call him when you’re ready.”
“That would be now.”
“Sure you’re up to it?”
As if I’d been “up” to any of this.
“If you bring me some Jelly Bellies.”
EPILOGUE
MAY 2010
A brilliant sun warmed my head as I leaned over to place fresh flowers at the base of Linda’s white headstone. My right shoulder vibrated with pain when I stretched out my arm, but I ignored it. I was making progress in my physical therapy. Some day I’d be back to normal.
I was alone in the small cemetery outside Vonita, which suited me just fine. All the better to talk to Linda. Using my left hand I lowered myself down to sit on the ground, knees to one side.
For a while I said nothing. Just ran my fingers through blades of spring grass, felt the slight breeze on my skin.
In my mind I heard Linda’s boisterous laugh.
My eyes fell on her headstone, the etched dates of birth and death. My heart panged, first with sadness, then joyless satisfaction. At least I finally had a grave to visit.
“Well, I did it.” I focused on the flowers, pink and white, with sprigs of green. “I visited him yesterday.”
In a surprising move, Baxter Jackson had asked me to come see him. I’d never been in the county jail before. Never wanted to go again. The place reeked of dinginess and grim existence, played out in the dull colors of the walls, the lifelessness of inmates’ faces. For Baxter this was a holding tank—and a refined one, at that. In a few days he would be transferred to a much harsher and meaner state prison.
Baxter had experienced a “change of heart before God,” he’d told me through his attorney.
To that point I could only look at Baxter’s actions. After his arrest on that February morning, police had searched his home. They’d found the prepaid cell phone he used to contact Trovky. And they’d found a taped-up box
