What's Done in Darkness (36 page)

“My God,” I uttered. “You're so fucking callous.”

Katrina's eyes flashed fire. “Ro, let's finish this.”

“Here.” Rowena extended her hand to Katrina, offering her the needle.

“Oh no.” Katrina shook her head. “You have to get your hands dirty, too.”

“My hands
are
dirty,” Rowena said. “I took care of her sister.”

My sister
 … a strangled cry escaped my throat. Rowena had been behind the accident? Seeing her here, I'd hoped that my theory was impossible. But she must have tried to kill Marie, then caught a flight to get her to Key West as soon as possible.

I reached for my phone in the tote bag. Quickly I pressed the button to wake it from sleep mode, then swiped my finger across the screen.

Before I could try to get to my call log to redial the last number, the phone was slapped from my fingers. It went flying and landed on the hard floor with a violent crash.

“No!” I raged. I refused to play haplessly into their murderous plan. Rushing forward, I jammed my shoulder into Katrina's chest. I must have caught her off guard, because she stumbled backward. I rushed past her, but Rowena was still in my way.

Instinctively I shifted the tote bag around my shoulder so that I could grip the laptop as a weapon. As Rowena moved toward me, I raised it and aimed for her head.

She yelped as the laptop connected with her arm when she deflected the blow. My heart soared, knowing I'd hurt her, even if not permanently. I started to sprint toward the door.

Someone grabbed my hair and pulled. I screamed, then reached for the hands to pry them from my head. Whoever had me pulled harder, and I tried to twist myself to get out of the vice-like grip. God, the pain that ripped at my scalp. But I didn't give up.

I began to kick a foot backward as hard as I could. When I heard the shriek, I knew I had connected with a kneecap, and I was relieved to feel the hands loosen in my hair. As quickly as I could I righted myself and continued for the door, not looking back.

I think I registered the crack and the sound of glass shattering before I even felt the blow. But then came the sharp pain, piercing through my skull and causing my knees to buckle. Next came the wave of dizziness, and my legs completely gave way, and I dropped to the floor.

“You bitch!” Katrina snapped.

I mustered the strength to look over my shoulder. Behind me, Katrina held the handle of a broken coffee mug. Damn, I was seeing double of her.

She glared at me, and a quiet, horrifying rage emanated from her dark eyes.

“W-why are you d-doing this?” I could hardly breathe, much less speak. The room was spinning.

She kicked me in the stomach, hard, and I cried out in pain. Tears filled my eyes. “Katrina, stop!”

“I let you live with me; I gave you a job.”

On my butt, I tried to shuffle away from her. Rowena was right behind her now. Me against the two of them. I glanced around, trying to see if there was anything I could use as a weapon. “Please, I have to get to my sister.”

Katrina advanced, a smug smile dancing at the corner of her lips. “Your sister … yeah, I think it might be too late for her.”

“That's where you're wrong,” I said, matching Katrina's smugness. “You failed. You wanted her dead, but she survived. She's in the hospital, not the morgue.”

“Hospital?” Katrina laughed uncontrollably for several seconds, then faced Rowena. “Shit, we haven't told her yet.”

My stomach sank. “Told me what?”

Rowena lifted a cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans. “You mean the call you got from the hospital this morning? Ooops, that was me.”

I stared, blinking rapidly, not understanding.

“That's your sister's phone, idiot,” Katrina said. “Did you even think about the timing? One minute she's texting you about Shawde being on the news; the next you're getting a call that she's in the hospital?”

As Rowena stuffed the phone back into her pocket, hot tears spilled onto my cheeks. I finally understood. I hadn't done the math, hadn't realized that the time line didn't add up. I'd been too frantic after getting that call from the hospital to be thinking straight.

“Jade Blackwin?” Rowena said, feigning the higher-pitched voice I'd heard on the other end of my phone at the hotel. “I'm calling from Millcreek Community Hospital.”

Then she and Katrina laughed.

“No.” My shoulders collapsed as the heavy truth settled over me. “God no.”

“We needed to get you back here,” Katrina went on. “Because we knew that you'd need to get your stuff to head to Erie.”

“What did you do to my sister?” I asked.

“I wish I could tell you she didn't suffer,” Katrina said, “but Rowena tells me she put up a fight.”

Rowena nodded. “Sometimes these things get messy.”

Hot tears filled my eyes. I'd lost everything now. My mother, my father, and now my sister.

In that moment, I could have been devastated. But instead, there was a shift in me. Learning the truth about my sister caused rage to build inside of me.

I wanted to kill Katrina.

Hot breaths shot through my nose. “You evil pieces of shit!”

The fight back in me, I jumped to my feet and advanced, ready to gouge out Katrina's eyes.

But she struck before I could, punching me in the face. Again my vision blurred.

“Nice try,” she said as I stumbled backward.

“A for effort,” Rowena chimed in.

They were so … nonchalant. So completely cold in their wickedness.

A primal cry escaping me, I lunged forward and clawed at Katrina's face. If nothing else, my DNA would be under her fingernails. She would not get away with my murder.

“Bitch!” she cried, and grabbed my hair again. She wrenched my neck to the left, then slapped my face.

I tasted my blood on my lips. I was in pain, I was terrified, but I forced a smile. “You won't get away with this. Not this time.”

“I've had enough of this,” Katrina announced. “Where's the fucking needle?”

Rowena moved a few feet away and bent to lift it off the floor.

“Good,” Katrina said. “Let's get this over with.”

I struggled, but Katrina yanked on my hair, causing new tears to fill my eyes. Then, with my head already lowered, she cracked the side of my skull against her knee.

Seeing stars and wailing from the pain, I stumbled. And all I could think as I fell was that I'd been stupid to refuse Brian's suggestion that he come upstairs with me. With him here, surely they wouldn't be able to get away with their murderous plan.

And I thought of something else. Instead of running for the door, I should have tried to get to the front window. With all the reporters downstairs, if I had banged on it I could have gotten the attention of someone below.

Damn it!

I'd lost, and I knew it now. And with that devastating realization, I began to cry. Loud, anguished sobs. I cried for my sister, who had been killed because I'd gotten her involved in this. And I cried for myself, because I knew there was nothing I could do.

“Awww,” Katrina said, sarcasm dripping from her voice as she looked from me to Rowena. “I almost feel bad for her.”

“Please,” I begged. It was all I had left. “I won't say anything. I'll forget this ever happened. Please don't kill me.…”

“Enough fun and games.” Katrina's expression hardened. “Rowena, do it now.”

Rowena started toward me. I drew in a breath, trying to calm my shaking body. Then, resigned to my fate, I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see this.

One second turned to two, then to three, then to four.…

Come on already! Do it!

The sound of a bang, followed by a grunt, forced me to open my eyes. At first, I didn't register what I was seeing. Katrina's back against the wall, Rowena's fist curled against her friend's chest. Katrina's eyes bulging, confusion in their depths as she stared at her friend.

I watched, stunned. What was happening?

Katrina wheezed out a breath, then raised a hand to reach for Rowena's fist. And that was when I started to understand. Katrina's fingers flailed over Rowena's clenched ones, but she was too weak to remove her friend's hand. With another gasp, Katrina's palms went to the wall, searching—unsuccessfully—for purchase.

Only then did Rowena unclench her fist and take a step backward. At which point I saw the end of the syringe protruding from between Katrina's breasts.

What?

“Bitch.” The word was barely more than a whisper. Katrina's breathing had become dangerously shallow. She was losing strength.

But suddenly she flung a hand forward, reaching for Rowena. Rowena jumped backward, out of her reach.

Katrina's head angled in my direction, and it seemed to me that she was struggling to keep it upright. Her eyes met mine. Held. I stared back, mystified by this bizarre chain of events.

And then, in an instant, something changed. Katrina's eyes became vacant, and her knees collapsed. Her body began to slide down the wall.

I watched in horror, my chest rising and falling with each furious breath, my brain scrambling to make sense of what was going on. What was Rowena doing? Killing Katrina so there would be no witnesses? Was she the mastermind behind everything?

“What did you do?” I demanded.

Katrina's body finally hit the floor, her knees oddly positioned up to her face, as if she had merely sat down. But her limbs very clearly went limp, her head lolling forward, landing on her knees.

Was she …
dead
?

My eyes bounced from Katrina to Rowena. “You killed her!”

“Enough,” Rowena said. She was looking at Katrina. “No more.”

Then Rowena faced me. I should have tried to run, but I was mortified. Paralyzed. She took a step toward me, and that was when I snapped into action, scrambling backward on the tile floor.

One of my hands landed on a shoe, and instinctively I snatched it up. God, a shoe? What good would that do me?

But it had a high, thin heel, so I held Katrina's pump up with the heel extended. I only had to fight Rowena now. And damn it, I was going to do my best to get out of here alive.

Rowena raised both of her hands in a sign of surrender. “I'm not going to hurt you,” she said softly.

I narrowed my eyes, unconvinced.

“Your sister … she's okay.”

I began to shake my head, jerky movements. I didn't understand what she was saying.

She reached into her back pocket, and I tensed, fearing the worst. Did she have a gun?

She produced Marie's phone again. “This is your sister's phone.”

She tossed it to me, and reflexively I caught it with my left hand. Then I examined the familiar blinged-out case and felt my stomach tighten. If I'd thought she was bluffing earlier, I now knew without a doubt that she had been with Marie.

And Katrina had boasted that Marie was dead.

“I didn't kill your sister,” Rowena said. “But I
was
at her place yesterday evening. I had to take the phone so that Katrina would believe I'd done what she wanted. Yes, I used it to lure you back here. But … I was never going to kill you.”

My head was pounding, my body still gripped with fear. “I don't understand.”

“Marie's not hurt. I lied to Katrina. That's what I'm telling you.”

Was this a trick? An attempt to make me trust her so I would let my guard down?

Rowena took another step toward me, and I jumped to my feet, raising the shoe high.

“Stop!” she yelled. “I'm not going to hurt you.” She gave me an imploring look. Then her face collapsed and she started to cry. “I never wanted any of this … Shemar … killing him … every day I've been haunted by what I did. And Katrina, she always held it over my head. Threatened that if she went to jail, I would, too. Once your sister called me and asked questions, Katrina knew you were starting to figure things out. She wanted me to kill your sister, to kill you.” Angrily she brushed away her tears. “I couldn't do it. I can't. I'm tired of living this lie. I have a family. A little boy, a husband. And I just can't do this anymore.”

“Where's my sister?”

“She's at her house. She's unhurt.”

I stared at her, knowing that I must look completely baffled. “She's not in the hospital?”

“No. I didn't hurt her. But I drugged her, tied her up. I couldn't have her calling the police before I dealt with Katrina. As long as Katrina was alive, I could never turn on her. If I did, she would hurt me. Or worse, she would hurt my husband. Or my son.”

I shook my head again. Something wasn't adding up. “You had a syringe. You were giving it to Katrina to kill me. If she'd taken it and used it, I would be dead. So what you're saying doesn't make sense.”

Rowena laughed, but the sound held no mirth. “You don't know Katrina. You think there was a way she was going to kill you herself? No, she wanted more ammunition to use against me. I offered her the needle, but I
knew
she would never take it. That she would insist
I
be the one to kill you.”

My brain felt as though a hurricane were raging inside of it, but Rowena's words were finally registering. And they were making sense. In a crazy, twisted way, they were making sense.

“I had to make sure she was gone,” Rowena said. “This was the only way.”

Slowly, my shoulders began to relax. I was finally believing her.

Rowena looked to her right, at Katrina's unmoving body, and I followed her gaze. Katrina's eyes were open, her lips still parted, a look of surprise etched on her face. But she undoubtedly wasn't moving.

“She's dead?” I asked.

“Yes. What I gave her, it was guaranteed to kill.”

I shuddered. It had been a dose meant for me.