“Well, I’m missing Megan’s,” he said conversationally, as if we were discussing his collection of baseball cards instead. “And I didn’t get the hang of bleaching them for a while, so I accidentally ruined the first few.” He picked up the most recent skull and tossed it between his hands. “I can’t wait to add yours and Evelyn’s. Hers looks huge. Is one of her parents an ogre or something?”
“Shut up,” I snapped.
He set the skull back in its place. “Ooh, touchy. I like that.” Tucking his hands in his pockets, he went back to circling me. “So what else do you want to know? I don’t mind answering questions. Actually, I enjoy it.”
“Why did you kill Logan Fields?” I asked, taking advantage of his pompousness. “He was your best friend.”
“Logan was an idiot,” Jonathan replied. “He was a puppet, nothing more. Besides, if I was going to frame my father and his absurd boyfriend, I needed something to seal the deal. Logan had served his purpose, so I set him up in the penthouse for Fletcher to find.”
“And your wife?”
“Pearl and I are actually married,” he said. “I’m also married to three other girls. Marly, Tracy, and—oh, what was her name—Britney or Ashley?”
“I don’t follow.”
“After my mother disowned me, I needed money,” he said, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I got some of it from my pitiful father, but he eventually wised up and stopped giving it out so easily. I needed a plan, so I got married, took out a life insurance policy on my new wife, then devised her death.” He sucked on his teeth. “I got that idea from Holmes too. He was a smart guy.”
“So this time, you faked your own death and sent Pearl to collect the cash from your trust fund,” I said.
Jonathan’s lip curled. “Yes, but my father somehow managed to divert those funds to his own medical care instead.”
“Must have been terrible to have your plans thwarted like that.”
In a flash, his slimy smile returned. “Don’t worry. I have plans in place to prevent my father from ever interfering with my life again.” He checked his watch. “Any other questions? I have a deadline to meet.”
“What, you got a murderer’s convention to go to after this?”
“Something like that.”
He took out the sap again and stepped toward me. I hastily scuttled away.
“Why do you do it?” I asked, trying to buy more time. “Why do you kill women?”
“First off, they’re hot,” Jonathan said matter-of-factly. “Women are such a turn-on when they’re desperate. ‘Oh, please,’” he added in a high-pitched voice. “‘Don’t hurt me, Jonathan. I’ll do whatever you want!’”
My stomach turned over again as he chuckled.
“Secondly, it’s fun.” He lifted his palms up. “Do I need another reason?”
“You’re sick.”
“I prefer creative.”
“They’re not even remotely related.”
Jonathan whirled the sap as he sized me up. “This isn’t as fun when you judge me. What’s your kink? Are you ticklish?”
“If you think you’re going to lay a hand on me—”
He lunged fast, taking me by surprise. The sap whipped through the air, but I spun away at the last second. It grazed my elbow, bruising the bone, but considering Jonathan had been aiming for my head, it could have been a lot worse.
“Don’t do this!” I threw his exam table over, knocking off vials of unknown chemicals. “You won’t make it out of here, Jonathan.”
He looked left and right, mockingly. “I’m sorry. Do you have a hulking bodyguard that I’m not aware of? Because if the fight is between the two of us, I’m pretty sure I’ll win.”
He leapt toward me again, vaulting over the fallen table. This time, he aimed the sap at my arm, intentionally targeting the sore spot. Once more, I managed to dodge it. The sap caught my pinky and snapped it backward. As I did another lap around the workshop, I shook the pain off.
“I like this part,” Jonathan said, stalking toward me. “The chase.”
“I’ll bet you do,” I muttered.
Dashing around to avoid him, I pulled out my phone and tried to call 911.
“That won’t work,” he advised. “No service down here.”
I threw the phone at him. He wasn’t expecting that. It clipped his forehead with enough force to draw blood. He hissed, touching his fingers to the cut.
Noticing a new exit to my left, I darted into another narrow tunnel that led away from the workshop, but it turned into a dead end. On the upside—
“Marie!” I gasped, falling to my knees in front of a makeshift cell. Marie lay shivering on the cold concrete. “Marie, wake up!”
When Marie did not move, my heart fluttered in my chest. Had I lost both Grey sisters in one day?
“Jack,” a familiar voice wheezed. In another cell next to Marie’s, Angelica uncurled herself and crawled toward me. Her body was a map of bruises and fresh scars, as if Jonathan had been keeping her alive to determine how much abuse she could take.
“Angelica.” I reached through the bars to grasp her fingers. “How long have you been here?”
“Since the day after we found Megan,” she said. “He cornered me in the vending room and pushed me into—”
“A chute behind the ice machine?”
“Yes! Then he made me call Marie and tell her everything was okay.” The short sentences caused her breath to fail. She placed a hand to her chest and focused on inhaling. “Please, tell me you have backup coming.”
“My backup fell through,” I said, thinking of Evelyn. “But I’m going to get you out of here. Is Marie okay?”
“He sedated her, but she should be fine.”
“Okay, I’ll—”
“Watch out!”
I rolled across the floor, and the sap smacked against the cell bars, sending out a loud metal echo. As Jonathan pulled back his arm, I lifted my knee into his crotch. He dropped like a stone. Angelica’s hand shot out, grabbed the sap, and yanked it into her cell, where Jonathan couldn’t reach it.
I ran back into his main workshop and fled for the exit. Maybe, if I could get far away
