Page 56 of The Vanishing Wife

That voice. She knew that voice.

Leigh leveraged her elbow into the floor, trying to get a better look at her attacker. Her brain resisted the orders.

The phone hit the floor. Her attacker’s foot came down hard enough to shatter the screen, and with it, any hope of getting Detective Moore an ambulance. “There. That should buy us some time together.”

The haze thickened. Leigh’s vision darkened. Until the world went black.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Monday, September 23

6:32 p.m.

“I knew you’d come for me.”

The words echoed around Leigh’s head. Over and over until the new voice collided with the old. With her brother’s. They were the same exact words he’d spoken when she’d pulled him out of Chris Ellingson’s garage. Because she hadn’t given up. Not for a single moment.

“That’s what friends do.” A blurred vision of dark hair, creamy skin, and impossibly dark eyes crystallized in front of her. Exactly as Leigh remembered. “They are there for each other, and I knew you of all people would be here for me when I needed you the most.”

The past slinked back into the box she’d tried to keep it in for the last six months, but there was a truth to what she’d told Saige Fuentes. It would always have a say. It would always be right there. Waiting to make the next decision for her. Leigh tried to drag her head level, but her entire body felt so… heavy. Useless. “Elyse. You’re alive?”

“Hi, Leigh.” That bright smile she’d noted in the first few seconds of coming out of anesthesia flashed wide. So out of place now. Bruises patterned across the outside of one eye where a row of stitches held a laceration together, and the cut through Elyse’s lip felt… wrong somehow. Her friend seemed thinner than a mere two weeks ago. Tired.

How long had she been unconscious? Leigh tried to take in the room. Her position in the straight-backed chair. But there was something missing. Something important. “Detective Moore. Where is she?”

“You don’t have to worry about her anymore, Leigh. She’s not going to bother us.” Elyse sat back on the edge of the queen-sized bed.

Dread pooled at the base of Leigh’s spine. “What have you done?”

“What you taught me to do, Leigh.” Hints of soap penetrated Leigh’s senses. Fresh. Clean. Showered. Elyse was alive. How? While bruising and small cuts interrupted her complexion, there was a sense of revitalization and rest in her expression. “I took care of my family the best way I knew how. Thanks to you.”

“I don’t understand.” None of this was making sense. Where was Detective Moore? Was she dead? No. This all had to be some kind of mistake. Elyse wouldn’t hurt anyone. She wouldn’t kill a police officer.

Elyse leveraged both hands onto the edge of the mattress, accentuating a set of dark red scrubs Leigh hadn’t noticed until right then. “I guess you wouldn’t, would you? I’ve been turning all of this over in my head for so long, it’s hard to remember what I’ve told those closest to me. Or if I told them anything at all.”

She moved to swipe her hair out of her face. Only her hands didn’t seem to want to obey her brain’s commands. Her skin prickled like a thousand needles in her fingertips, and Leigh realized she’d been bound. With a section of rope. “Elyse, I’m a federal agent. You stabbed a detective, and the police think you killed a man. This isn’t something you can come back from. Please, let me go, and we will figure this out. Together. Okay?”

“Do you know who that man was?” Elyse’s comforting smile slid from her face. “Do you know what he did to Poppy Slater and Ruby Davis? What he did to my daughter and was going to do to Saige Fuentes?”

She had to get to Detective Moore. She had to get out of here. “Elyse?—”

“He hurt them, Leigh. He drugged them. He raped them, and then he disposed of them because he broke them,” Elyse said. “The police had no idea what kind of monster he was, but I knew. And I wasn’t going to let him hurt anyone else. So I stopped him. Me. With what you taught me.”

“Taught you?” Leigh asked. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t remember?” Elyse cocked her head to one side, changing the arrangement of her features into something otherworldly and foreign. Or maybe it was the brain damage Leigh had suffered a little while ago birthing her delusions. “All the times I asked you about your cases, about your job, and the details you shared. I took notes, Leigh. Because after Ava told me what happened to Poppy Slater last summer at that party, I knew I might need them someday. When he predictably would come for my daughter. And I was right. Samuel Thornton tricked her. He hurt her. Violated her. She was worried he might kill her if we reported it to the police. She has nightmares she’s still in that house, and I had to do something. It’s a mother’s job to make sure her child feels safe. And, as you’ve seen, I take that job very seriously.”

“The claims you’d lost your memory? The blood downstairs?” Leigh took extra effort to put her questions together. So many questions. Too much pain at the back of her head. “It was all a lie.”

“No. Not all of it.” Elyse angled her attention to the nightstand lamp, its warm light urging Leigh to close her eyes for just a moment. But there was a chance she might not wake up again. That Detective Moore would die if she gave in. “There are things I don’t remember from the past week and a half. Mostly small details. As for the blood, I imagine your forensic techs are going to come to the truth sooner or later once they run their little tests.”

“What truth?” Leigh asked. “The blood tested as yours.”

“It is mine. Just not as fresh as I wanted everyone to believe.” Her friend cocked her head to one side, studying her as a spider studied its next meal. “I’m a physician’s assistant, Leigh. Do you know why I became a nurse? Because I’m good at helping people. I’m good at taking care of people, especially those who don’t know what they need. But you and I both understand that there are some things in this life we can’t stop from happening. All we can do is be prepared for the worst.”

Not as fresh as she wanted everyone to believe? Leigh should’ve seen it before now. “You… banked your blood?”

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