Page 100 of Firefly Effect

Resting? As in… I gasp. “You killed Jenkins?”

Lilith gasps in dramatic fashion. “Kill the man who spent the last fourteen years protecting my secrets? I think not.”

Confusion grows in my brain. “The man who just lunged at you and tackled you to the ground? Are we talking about the same person?”

Lilith waves a hand like the scuffle was no big deal. “Oh, he’ll pay for that.” She winks and raises his gold cane, the one she’d just used to knock us both out. “He always felt guilty for what happened to your sister. I was his patient, and he somehow convinced himself her death was his fault. So he continued to work with me.”

She pauses thoughtfully. “Of course he was right, but of course I denied having anything to do with the rest of the murders over the years. Deep down, I knew he must have been suspicious.” She looks over at him and sighs. “Never thought he’d turn his back on me like that, but…” She shrugs. “I suppose the FBI will finally have someone to blame for all these unfortunate lives.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that what she’s insinuating. She’s going to set Jenkins up for murder. Mine and all the others. That’s when I notice the black leather gloves she managed to slip onto her hands at some point while I was unconscious.

“Where’s Lucy?” I can’t stop my voice from trembling.

Lilith chuckles. “Your daughter is perfectly safe—hanging back at camp, roasting s’mores, listening to tales of the Firefly Man, and starting her venture at the trailhead to look at the fireflies. Like father, like daughter, right, Foster Pruitt?”

I freeze, my aching body molding me to the ground. “How long have you known?”

She chuckles again, this time it’s airy and free. “How long have I known that Doctor Lincoln Reed is Foster Pruitt?” She holds up my wallet and tosses me the worn picture of Carley and me I’ve kept there. “That was quite the little twist in our story, I must say. I am pleasantly surprised. It’s like I’m getting two for the price of one.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I mutter angrily.

“Let’s just say, I don’t take rejection very well. Just ask my dead father. It was so easy to make it look like he killed himself after he passed out in that bathtub. As I got older, I fantasized about doing something just like it to all the men who wronged me over the years.” She gives me a half smile. “So I did, but it was all supposed to start with you.”

Anger continues to brew in my chest like an inevitable storm, clouds gathering before the first strike of lightning. “Then what about Carley? How did she fit into your little revenge plot?”

Lilith’s face twists into something resembling annoyance. “It was dark. She was wearing your fucking sweatshirt. I thought she was you until she turned around, but she’d already seen me coming for her.” Her mouth curls into an evil smirk. “I even considered pretending it was all a stupid joke, but then that little bitch screamed, and something just came over me. She was only able to run a few feet before I caught up to her and bashed her pretty little skull in.” She tsks. “Poor thing.”

I lunge to my feet—at least, I try—but my muscles scream with pain as loud as I do. “I will kill you,” I roar as I fumble, trying to get up.

A laugh escapes from somewhere deep in her chest. “You’ve had fourteen years to try,” she taunts. “You failed, but you’ve come pretty damn close, haven’t you?” She paces around me in a wide and slow circle. “That’s right. I’ve known that you’ve been stalking me, you and that FBI friend of yours. I’d say it’s been a few years now, and I’m still five steps ahead of you. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you in and out of all the same towns I visited? Did you think I wouldn’t realize what happened to my long-time therapist?”

She lets out another low laugh. “At first, I thought you already knew it was me. When you replaced J.D. at Calm Waters and you wanted to have that free consultation, I thought the cuffs would be snapped around my wrists then.” Her pace picks up. “But no. Which begs to ask the question… why did you move here and replace J.D. if you didn’t have a clue who the Firefly Man was?”

I shrug. “To re-investigate the original murder. I replaced Jenkins to get up close and personal with the locals. Somewhere in there, I hypothesized that the ascending age of the male victims could match the age of the killer too, which means you would have been fifteen at the time of Carley’s death. And there weren’t any fifteen-year-olds visiting from out of town that week, aside from Evie and my family. And then there was the firefly map… ”

Lilith’s eyes brighten like I’ve just made her day. “Clever, wasn’t it?”

“Not exactly what I would call it,” I tell her, dryly.

After a few more attempts to move, I look down at my feet to find the reason I’m not gaining an inch. A rope has been pulled tightly across both of my ankles, and each end is secured to a boulder, pinning me to the ground. Desperate now, eyes wide, I look to my right then left, confirming my arms are tied down too.

Panic clutches my chest, my desperation to break free as intense as my search to find Lucy. Just because Lilith says she’s okay doesn’t make it true.

“Since when do you tie your victims down, Lilith?” Distracting her is all I can think to do as I wiggle my feet against the rope. “Seems out of character for you.”

She stops pacing and moves toward me, the moonlight casting an eerie halo around her head. “It’s not every day your first intended victim reappears in your life with a whole new identity and FBI credentials. Call me curious.”

That makes two of us. “What do you want to know?”

She narrows her eyes. “Let’s start with this. Why Evie?”

“Does it matter?” I know through our therapy sessions that Lilith hates when I answer a question with a question. “A femme fatale isn’t in it for a lasting relationship.”

Her lips curl at one corner, her eyes flashing wider with excitement. I can practically see every ounce of her delighted by the connection I just made.

“So you’re familiar with my favorite species of fireflies?”

How had I never made this connection before? With all my research, with all the time spent on my investigation, I completely overlooked this one, interesting fact about a certain species of female fireflies.

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