Page 84 of Never Lie
I straighten up. I draw back my right foot and EJ flinches, realizing I’m about to kick him in the gut. But then at the last second, I don’t do it.
Instead, I walk over to the corner of the room where the leather sofa used to be. I moved it this morning. One thing that charmed me about this house when I first bought it was the hidden panel under the floor in this room. The real estate agent told me about it with a proud smile.You could hide valuables down there.
I’ve kept things down there over the years, but I cleared it all out this morning. I need all the room in there that I could get.
There’s a tiny hook in the floorboard that’s barely visible to the naked eye—it blends right into the rest of the floor. I hook my fingers into it and pull it open, to reveal the space inside. Just large enough for a human body to fit. The real estate agent told me that too, but she was joking. She laughed about it.
Did I know when I bought this house that I would eventually use the space to conceal a human body? I don’t know. On some level, I must have considered it.
EJ’s eyes bulge. He knows what’s about to happen, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. I smile down at him.
“Actually,” I say, “I don’t think we’re going to be spending that much time together. You’re going to be spending a lot of time alone, as it turns out.”
It takes three rolls for me to get EJ into the space under the floor. He’s squirming and kicking the whole time, but Patricia tied him up too tightly. He can’t get free. As soon as he falls into the space, I can see the panic in his eyes ramp up several notches. I don’t know if he believed until this minute that I was actually going to do it.
He is screaming now, although the sound is dampened by the duct tape over his lips. I watch him for a moment, then I lower the panel again, concealing the hiding space under the floor. Once again, you can’t even tell it’s there. Except for the muffled sounds coming from the floorboards.
That won’t do at all.
I had intended to leave him there and allow nature to take its course. But this is too big a risk. He’s too noisy. So I take the rest of the roll of duct tape Patricia gave me and start taping the edges of the panel. Effectively cutting off the oxygen supply.
I sit down on the couch and listen. The muffled sounds grow softer. It doesn’t sound like screams anymore. Whimpers, maybe. Crying, possibly. The sounds become quieter and quieter. Until they stop completely.
“Goodbye, Edward,” I say.
Chapter 48
TRICIA
Present Day
I didn’t know for sure that Dr. Hale was going to kill Edward Jamison. When somebody forces you to drug a guy, bind his wrists and ankles, and stick a bag over his head, you know they’re not planning anythinggood. But I thought… well, maybe she just wanted to throw a scare into the guy.
I got in the habit of checking online for mentions of his name. Jamison had a public Facebook page, and every day I would look for updates, but I never saw any. It was over a month later that I found the news article about his disappearance. And that’s when I knew.
She killed him.
I was not entirely surprised to find out that Dr. Adrienne Hale was capable of murder. There was something about her. Something in those intense green eyes. Hell, it seemed like if she concentrated hard enough, she could kill you with her mind alone.
The ironic thing is I went to Dr. Hale complaining about sleep problems, but that got a lot worse after what she made me do for her. Yes, I had already killed several people, but I did it on my own terms. I had no idea what she did to Edward Jamison, and that was what drove me crazy. I didn’t even know where the body was.
She had already screwed me over once. I didn’t trust her. I lay awake at night, obsessing over Dr. Adrienne Hale.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore.
Chapter 49
ADRIENNE
Before
I don’t have any trouble at all finding parking at the free clinic today.
It’s a good thing because I have a jam-packed schedule today. This isn’t even my usual day to be here, and I’m seeing patients till nearly seven o’clock at night. I’ve been gone for over a month, on a tour to promoteThe Anatomy of Fear, which recently hit number eight on theNew York Timesbestseller list. Nobody knows that the account of the woman who survived a stabbing in an isolated cabin is entirely a lie.
It’s been nearly four months since EJ, also known as Edward Jamison, left my life. Or rather, I should say he became a permanent part of my life. I peeled the duct tape off the floor later that day, destroyed his phone, and moved the couch back in place, but over the next several days, the stench coming from the floor became unbearable. I had to close off the room and cancel all my patients. I didn’t go into my office for two months.
If I even got close to the door to my former office, the smell was enough to turn my stomach. But then when I returned home from my book tour, I was relieved to find that the smell had abated significantly, although it was still very much present.
