Leave Me Love (13 page)

THE NEXT FEW
days passed by uneventfully. My medication began working, my headaches and blackouts virtually disappeared, and Ash continued to train me with guns and self-defense. I was actually getting to the point where I felt more confident in my ability to handle myself when I passed Mr. Davenport while getting a bottle of water at the gym.

"Catelyn, how are you? I didn't know you worked out here."
He carried a tennis racket and had a white towel around his neck and sweat dripping down his face.

"Yes, just recently. Ash has been giving me some self-defense lessons. Are you just finishing up a game of
racquetball?"

He looked down at his racket. "Yes. I try to get down here a few times a week. Good for the heart. How are things going with the investigation into Bridgette's kidnapping?"

The woman behind the counter handed me the water and I took a sip. "It's been hard. I miss her and we're doing everything we can to figure out what happened. I just feel so helpless."

"I heard you've been looking for the book your mom was working on when she died. Did you ever find it?" He asked this with a carefully manufactured casualness that belied his intensity.

Ash saved me from answering by putting an arm around me. "Dad, what are you doing here?"

"Just the usual,
son. You should come by the house more often. Your mother misses you." With that, Mr. Davenport left.

"He was asking about the book," I told Ash as we left the gym. "How would he even know about it?"

"I don't know," he said, opening the car door for me. "Someone is talking when they shouldn't be.”

***

When the day of my public statement arrived, I nearly backed out. My headaches came back with a vengeance and I spent the morning throwing up in our bathroom. Ash called through the door. "I'm canceling this, Catelyn. It's not worth it. Let me in."

"No and no," I said,
taking deep breaths to calm myself. "I have to follow through with it. I'll be all right. Just, please, get me some water."

He came back with a glass of ice water and I drank greedily and took another shower, then put on a classy but conservative pantsuit and heels. I called Detective Gray on the way to the press
conference which Maxwell had scheduled to be outside the police department for added security. "Are you ready?"

Gray coughed. "Yeah, we're ready."

"Just keep an eye out. The killer will be after me once I give my statement."

"I'll keep an eye out."

I wasn't sure if I could trust him, and I wasn't convinced he'd ruled me out as a suspect, but I had to hope he'd do his job, or at least someone in the police department would.

Ash parked and opened my door for me, then pulled me into a hug. "I'm so proud of you. You're amazing and brave and the most incredible woman I've ever met."

He got on his knees and I nearly choked when he pulled out a small black box. "I know this is shitty timing, but I need you to know, before you do this, how much I love you. Catelyn Travis—Cat—will you marry me?"

I choked back tears and dropped to my knees in front of him, kissing him, but I didn
’t take the ring. "I want to say yes. I'm so happy I could cry, but I can't say yes until this is over."

He started to argue but I put a finger over his lips. "Just hear me out. I don't know what's going to happen next. I might go to jail. I might be killed. I can't let you tie yourself to me until we know what's going to happen."

"I love you, sweetheart, and through thick or thin I'll be here. I'm not going to let you die," his voice choked on the word, "and if you're arrested, I'll spend my life fighting to free you."

I kissed him again. "And if you still feel that way when this is over, then my answer is yes. But only once this is over."

He took the ring out and took my right hand. "I want you to wear this, if not on your engagement finger, then on your right hand. It can be a promise ring, until you're ready to say yes."

He slipped the princess cut diamond onto my finger, the sapphires on each side like teardrops. It was the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen. "I love you, Ash."

"I love you, too." He helped me up. "I'm going to go let them know you're ready. Take a deep breath. You'll do great."

A wave of
nausea rose up in me as I watched Ash approach the podium, and I rushed behind the building to empty my stomach of what little remained in it. I pulled out a water bottle from my purse and rinsed my mouth, then turned to go meet Ash when I felt the cold steel of a gun in my side. "Don't move or I'll shoot."

I knew the voice. My heart broke.

"Time to get me that book, Catelyn."

I turned to face an icy smile and cold eyes. "Why are you doing this, Bridgette?"

MY HEART HAMMERED
in my chest as Bridgette held a gun on me and made me drive home to retrieve the book. Once at my house, I went to my side of the closet and pulled out a false panel in the wall I'd rigged after moving in. Inside was a box full of the letters I'd gotten from Maxwell. I handed it to her. "This is all the research."

My hands shook and Bri
dgette looked through the letters briefly, shoved them back into the box and prodded me downstairs and into the car. "Don't make a sound. Don't call for help. Don't try to be a hero, Catelyn. Just drive where I tell you."

We drove for
over two hours and I recognized the route. I tried asking her questions. Why was she doing this? Was she working with someone else? But she didn't answer, just kept that gun muzzle pointed at my head. I had to shut down, had to close off my emotions and bury the panic building in me and just focus on the road, on the few feet of asphalt I could see in the dark night.

My cell phone rang and rang and beeped and beeped until she threw it out the window. Poor Ash would be worried sick.

Professor Cavin's cabin looked different at night, more sinister than when the sun shined brightly. The lake was a gaping black hole that could have hidden bodies in its depth. "Why are we here?"

She didn't answer, just pushed me into the house and revealed a door to the basement
Cavin hadn't shown me during our visit. Bridgette kept the gun on me as we walked down the stairs. It reminded me of something you'd see in a horror movie. There were ropes, a bucket that smelled like piss and shit, and bowls for food and water next to a stained and bug-infested twin mattress. "What is this place?" I gagged at the smell as my eyes buzzed and I pushed away my headache.

"This is where you've been keeping me prisoner. That's what everyone will think. Crazy Cat lost it and kidnapped her best friend, locking her up."

I couldn't hide my shock. "Why, Bridgette? You were my best friend. Why would you do this to me?"

"It's not personal. I had to get rid of you. I hated that you and Ash were together. He should have been mine.
” She paused and laughed mirthlessly. “Okay, I lied. It
is
personal." She smacked her pink lips and smiled, but it was a cold and calculating smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"Why did you need my mother's book? Her research? What does any of this have to do with you?"

"You just have to know everything, don't you? Sorry, sister, but this isn't an after school special where everything gets explained and wrapped up in a nice little bow. You're just going to have to die with this mystery hanging over your head." She pushed me in the back, prodding me forward.

I stumbled against a workbench and bruised the back of my leg, but I ignored the pain. "What happens now?" I was surprised at how calm my voice sounded, when inside I felt anything but.

"This is where I escape my evil captor, kill you in self-defense—which I'll feel super bad about even though you did awful things to me, because I'll remember the times we were friends, all those happy memories—and it will break me up, wondering how you could have done these things." Her voice took on a different tone, one the press would eat up as real tears slid down her face.

She wiped
away the tears and smiled again. "They won't be able to get enough of my story."

"Please Bridgette, don't." My tears were real and so was my fear.

"
Please Bridgette, don't
," she mimicked in a mocking tone. "How do you not see what a whiny bitch you are?"

Bridgette held the gun toward me, her finger twitching on the trigger. I reached behind me and grabbed the first thing I could find. A wrench. I threw it at her, hitting her shoulder, and duck
ed. The gun went off, shooting into the wall as I tackled Bridgette and tried to remember what Ash taught me about disarming someone.

I managed
to knock the gun away from her. She gasped, fighting back with a punch that missed my face. I gripped something, the wrench I'd thrown, and raised it over my head.

With a whack, I slammed it against her head.

She slumped to the floor.

In a frenzy of fear and adrenaline I searched
for her phone so I could call for help. The cabin didn't have a phone line, and my cell phone was on the highway somewhere.

Finally spotting
it just a few feet away, I reached for Bridgette's phone and was just about to grab it when the lights went out. It was so dark I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed.

Then I heard footsteps coming toward me.

THE KILLER WAS
in the room. Someone who needed the book. Someone who was working with Bridgette. I felt around for the phone and my hand landed on it. Using flashes of light from the phone, I found the gun that had been kicked away.

With gun in hand, I tried to put my back to
a wall, but I couldn't tell where the wall was. I flashed the phone and saw nothing but the empty bed across the room.

I moved back, stum
bling into the pot full of shit and flashed the phone again. Nothing.

My breath came short and fast, head pounding with the beat of my heart, eyes buzzing, everything dipping and turning like
a funhouse mirror. I tried to focus, and flashed the phone light again.

I saw a person dressed in black from head to toe, face covered. A gun fired and I dropped to my knees, crawling, trying to avoid a bullet in the dark.

I shot in the direction I heard the shots coming from. Bang. Bang. Bang. I strained to hear if someone cried out in injury, but I heard nothing but the ringing in my ears and the sound of gunshots.

I shot again and then
click
. The gun was empty. Crawling around in the dark, my hand sliding in the excrement I knocked over, I searched for another weapon and found the wrench I'd dropped.

Someone smacked their lips in the dark
. I flashed the phone and saw nothing.

Another flash of light.

And another.

Bits and pieces of the empty room came into view and disappeared.

And then the light flashed and the killer was there. I charged toward the person in black, tackling them to the ground. We fought each other. Legs and arms tangled up in kicks and punches and muffled screams. I knocked the gun out of their hand, but their fingers clawed at my neck, choking me. I grabbed their face, tearing off the mask though I still couldn't see them.

I felt a nose, dug my nails into their cheek. My hand grabbed a fist full of their hair and I pulled, using the last of my strength to focus, to try and breath
e, though it was becoming more and more difficult.

The person pulled back, fighting their way out of my grip. I flashed the phone again. Again. Again.

I heard footsteps.

More flashes of light.

Piece by piece.

Flash by flash.

The smell, it took over.

Memories came back.

A distinctive perfume only one person I knew used.

Sweet.

Strong.

I flashed again and saw.

Lauren. Her hair wild, eyes mad, shrieking with a trickle of blood running down her cheek. She lunged at me, knife in hand, but a gun exploded behind us, deafening me, making the ringing louder.

Flashing the phone again I
saw Lauren. Collapsed. Dead. Her body covering my legs, pinning me to the ground.

Standing over her was Bridgette, the proverbial smoking gun in hand.

Pointing it at me.

BRIDGETTE HELD THE
gun, her face a mask of shock, then she dropped it, shouting. She threw herself into my arms, crying and hugging. My tears came too, pouring out of me as the tension and fear drained away. We both wept, clutching at each other, shaking like leaves in a storm.

***

"It was all a set up," I said, sitting on a couch in the cabin between Bridgette and Ash.

Detective Gray waved his pen
at Bridgette. "You mean, you never—"

Bridgette
shook her head. "No one kidnapped me."

Gray jotted something down in his notebook as officers searched the cabin.
"So why disappear? Why frame your friend?"

Bridgette
grabbed my hand, squeezed it. "I was contacted by the Midnight Murderer while Catelyn was in the hospital. Lauren—though I didn't know who it was at the time—threatened to kill my family if I didn't cooperate. The only way she'd spare me and the people I loved was if I got ahold of Alice's book and research. I knew nothing about the book. She said my parents would die."

I leaned into Ash
, who'd arrived before the police, and hoped he'd forgive me for what he was about to find out. "The weekend I got home from the hospital, Bridgette told me what the Midnight Murderer—what Lauren—wanted her to do, what she'd already had her do, like signing my name at the impound lot and switching out the hospital note that had the invisible ink."

Gray's eyebrow popped up. "You
knew
Bridgette did that? You could have saved me the annoying calls."

I smirked. "I had to keep you on your toes." I paused. "And I had to act realistic.
We knew we couldn't tell anyone about the threats in case the killer followed through, so we came up with a plan. Bridgette would contact the killer and say she could get me to find the book, but first she'd have to disappear and frame me for it. If I wanted my friend back, I'd have to find the book."

"
Still, why frame you?" Gray asked. "Why not pretend you had the book right away and set up the meeting?"

Bridgette rolled her eyes. "Because if I showed up at that meeting, fake book or not, Lauren would have killed me. Tie up loose ends, you know."

Gray kept writing. "So, you framed Catelyn to… get the killer’s trust?"

I nodded.
"Because Lauren didn't just want the book. She wanted revenge. She and Lucky were probably lovers. He was probably a past patient of hers. At the very least, we assumed they were friends. So, if Bridgette could help Lauren get revenge then…"

"I could trick her," finished Bridgette. "I pretended to want Catelyn dead, told Lauren I was jealous of her and Ash. I would disappear, frame Catelyn for my kidnapping,
Catelyn would get the book, then I'd kill her and pretend to escape. Lauren agreed to the plan and said she'd let me go afterwards. But of course, she'd have killed me, too, after Catelyn had been disposed of. She'd have made it look like we'd both died in a struggle."

"So how did you two, um, disable her?"

Bridgette took a deep breath. "When Catelyn and I fought in the basement, when I was supposed to kill Catelyn, I pretended to lose and pass out." Bridgette rubbed her shoulder and frowned at me. "Catelyn did a remarkable job of keeping the fight realistic. Thanks for that."

I gestured to my clothes, or rather, Professor Cavin's old clothes. "At least you aren't covered in shit. I smell like an outhouse."

Gray cleared his throat. "Then what?"

Bridgette continued. "
When the killer came in, whose identity we still didn't know, I was supposed to stop them."

"It didn't go exactly as planned," I said
. "We didn't expect her to turn off the lights."

Gray just paced the room
as he chewed on his nicotine gum, making a smacking sound that irritated the hell out of me. He looked at us, his eyes narrowed. "I can't believe you girls did such a stupid, idiotic and dangerous thing alone. You both could have been killed. You should have contacted us and let us handle the sting."

"With all due respect," I said, "for all we knew, you were the killer. We couldn't tell anyone for this to work. Everyone was a suspect or a potential victim."

Gray scratched his head. "Still, I can't believe… there was just so much evidence against you, Catelyn. The journal—"

"I wrote some fake things," said Bridgette. "And set up the creepy room. Then I disappeared, hiding out in other small motels."

"You must have had a way of communicating," said Gray.

I nodded
. "We hid notes for each other." We used the loose brick at Harvard, but I kept that secret to myself. "After I got arrested, the killer started to trust Brig more. Then, it was time to leak that I'd found the book. I told Max and I even told Ash, in case his place was bugged… which it was, Brig confirmed."

"What? Are you serious? Catelyn, why didn't you tell me?"
Ash looked hurt by the betrayal.

"I'm sorry, Ash. I really am, b
ut any changes to our house or routine would have tipped off the killer and not only would all of our lives be in danger, but we would have lost our chance to catch her. I was tempted at one point to tell Maxwell everything, but I couldn't risk it. Instead, I told him to come to me alone if he found out anything about my mother or her book." I held his hand tightly, the engagement ring on my right hand rubbing against his finger. "I had to keep you safe. I had to keep everyone safe."

"The time came for the plan to happen," said Bridgette. "Before Catelyn told the public about the book, I had to kidnap her. We faked the whole thing because everything
might have been bugged, the house, the car, all of it. We had to be careful. The killer was at the cabin, like we'd planned, hoping to kill me in the end, and that's what led to this."

"What about the black outs and mood swings, were those real?" Gray asked.

"Mostly, yes. I exaggerated the mood swings to make you more suspicious, but I have had the headaches and some of the blackouts. That also put a crimp in our plans as we were both worried that I wouldn't be healthy enough to pull off my end.”

"So Lauren, the therapist, wa
s working with Lucky all along. She was the brains behind the Midnight Murders," Detective Gray said.

"It looks like it," I said.

"But why? What was her motive?" Ash asked.

"Best guess," Bridgette said, "she
was a high profile therapist. Alice was close to her and must have found out that she'd been involved in the other Midnight Murderer killings with Lucky. She was the brains, he was the muscle. After Lucky's death, she needed to find the book Alice had been working on, but also wanted revenge on Catelyn. At least, from our calls, that's what I've been able to piece together."

We were talked out by the time our statements were taken and
Detective Gray finally released us. Bridgette and I hugged again and then her parents showed up, both teary-eyed and elated that their little girl was okay. I steered clear, still hurt by Mr. Beaumont's feelings for me after all these years and instead went to the back porch to talk to Professor Cavin, who had been called since this was his property.

"I'm so sorry this all happened here," I told him. "I know this is a special place for you."

He gave me a half hug and smiled. "Don't worry about it. I'm just so glad you're okay. This place, it's over for me. Too much death here, anyways. First the cat, then this."

I turned to him, my heart skipping a beat. "The cat? My mom's cat? It died here?"

"Yes," he said distractedly, pointing to a tree hidden in the rainy night. "Buried right over there. She even made a little tomb for him with sticks and rocks."

"What did she call it, the cat?"

Cavin shrugged. "She just called him Cat."

I ran out to the yard,
rain drenching me, my heart pounding, ears buzzing. It couldn't be. It would be impossible. Ridiculous.

I found the stones and dug them out, using a stick to dig
through the dirt until it hit something hard.

A box.

I pulled it out, brushing off the mud and shielding it with my body as I opened it.

I prepared to see the remains of a cat, but instead I found a roll of battered papers wrapped in rubber bands. I opened them up and they were all in my mother's writing. Forcing myself to breathe, I read through the first page and froze. On the front it read:
The Davenports will be responsible for my death. Someone has to get close to them and find out the truth.

I tucked the papers into the pocket of my jacket
, pushed rocks and dirt back over the grave hoping the rain would settle it, and rushed over to where everyone else was just starting to come out.

Ash hugged me. "What's going on? Are you okay?" He looked over to the tree.

"Yeah, I'm okay. I just thought I was going to be sick. But it passed."

"We should get you home.
You're soaking wet and freezing. You've been through so much."

I rested my head on his chest and looked at the ring on my right hand, then pulled it off and held it up.

"Ash, I've decided."

He looked down, seeing the ring and froze. "Yes?"

I slipped the ring onto my left hand. "I will marry you."