Page 106 of Captivating Anika

So we didn’t get an update from him, but I had heard the crap Monique had spewed at Anika, and we learned even more when Landon dropped by yesterday.

It turns out Monique had shown some of her true colors with the rest of the Chop Shop employees. She would criticize Anika behind her back for all kinds of big and little things. She tried to undermine her, telling the other employees Anika had been critical of their work and had mentioned firing them but retaining their clients.

Landon said he had always brushed it off as high school level jealousy he didn’t want to get in the middle of. He mentioned it had gotten more mean and vicious recently, to the point Monique suggested not only to Kim, but Landon and Molly as well, Anika was having an affair with Chris Cooper. Not that anybody bought into that.

But according to Landon, by then Anika had already been under a lot of stress, and he didn’t want to add to it by pointing fingers at Monique. He’d been almost in tears telling us, he felt guilty, thinking maybe if he’d said something sooner, Anika might not have gotten almost killed.

“No,” Evans insists. “I literally mean she’s textbook certifiable. She hits every marker of a psychopath. She gets off on manipulating and deceiving. She was trying to convince me Anika had brought the gun and was shooting at her. That she’d managed to get it away from her, and that’s when Anika fell in the water.” Evans shakes his head. “I mean, she talks with a conviction that would be very easy to buy into.”

“She fucking had me fooled,” I admit.

Trust me, if I had any doubts about her sanity, I’d never have let her use sharp scissors on me.

“I think, at first, she well may have liked Anika, perhaps even admired her, but she definitely became obsessed and envious with time,” Evans elaborates. “I didn’t mention this at the hospital, because Ramirez was still going through them, but the woman had a plastic bin filled with notebooks under her bed. They go back years, and are filled with strange plots that read like scenes out of thriller movies. What they have in common is that Anika features in every single one of them.”

“It blows my mind,” I admit, rubbing a hand over my head. “What triggered her?”

“Who knows? Frankly, it doesn’t have to be anything. Hell, there are people who lead perfectly normal lives who one day decide to kill their parents, their neighbor, or a random stranger, just for the hell of it. You can’t try to understand a psychopath because they work with a different set of rules and generally know no empathy or remorse or shame. The only thing that drives them is their own gratification.”

We stay quiet when Molly comes around, carrying a tray of sandwiches. Evans takes one and shoves half of it in his mouth. I take one as well, but more for Molly’s sake than anything else, because I’m not really that hungry.

“Thanks, Molly,” I tell the girl.

She had been devastated to find out she’d been used to lure Anika. Landon seems to have taken her under his wing, but the girl is obviously still shaken.

“I’m curious, did she ever tell you what her end plan was?” I ask after taking one bite of my sandwich and tossing the rest in a trash can underneath the small side table.

“I know she got the idea to actually kill Anika when Cooper came by the salon in a state, looking for his wife. She got his number and started texting him, figuring she could rile him up enough to actually get violent with Anika—which obviously worked—and then suspicion would automatically fall on him when she turned up dead.”

“Guess that plan didn’t work for her,” I grumble bitterly.

“No. But that didn’t stop her, she decided she could still pull it off if she made it look like suicide. Arrogance was her downfall. She was too high on her own superiority, thought she was in control, and it tripped her up.”

“Thank fucking God for that.”

I force a smile on my face when I see Anika moving toward us.

“Is everything all right?” she asks as I put my arm around her waist.

She’s wearing a sling on the left side, but I notice she also seems to be holding that arm with her right one.

“Everything is fine. How are you holding up?” I ask her.

She sends me a tense little smile.

“Hanging in. I’m not gonna lie, I’ll be glad when this is done.”

“How much longer?”

She sighs. “We have this place until three.”

“Another forty-five minutes,” Evans contributes, checking his watch.

I catch Landon’s eye—he’s chatting with Fergie, Trin, and Mel—and motion him over.

“What’s up?”

“Anika is beat, would you mind getting everyone’s attention and thanking them for coming on behalf of the team at the Chop Shop? I’ll make sure people start moving.”

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