Page 72 of Silent Ridge

She laughs but I can tell I’ve struck a nerve, so I go on.

“Michael probably couldn’t get it up. Maybe that’s why he killed men. Did you kill Michael because he liked men?”

She steps over to me and stares into my face. Her lips are a pencil line.

“Michael wasn’t my lover. And he was never my partner. He was stupid.”

“He was smart enough to kill those prisoners who might have become a complication for Alex.”

She smiles. “You think so, huh? He wasn’t protecting his brother. Michael and Marie were having an affair. He was protecting himself. And her.”

I always wondered why Michael would take all the pictures of the dead girls from Monique. He wasn’t protecting his brother’s name. He was protecting himself. “Michael was helping Marie select the victims. He took some of the pictures, didn’t he?”

She doesn’t answer. She holds the syringe up and readies it.

“You’re from Central America.” It’s a guess. I don’t care where the hell she’s from. I just want to stall. I can feel my feet and fingers now. I can imagine my fingers jamming a syringe in her eye.

She says, “Ecuador. I escaped and came here only to be a slave. Alex saved me. He gave me everything. Told me everything. He hated Marie. She was making him kill.”

“How?” I already know she was using emotional blackmail to get Alex to do whatever she wanted.

She says, “Marie was paralyzed from the waist down from a car accident. Alex was driving. She used his guilt to make him kidnap and kill for her. She got off on it.”

“Why are you doing this? Do you get off on it too?”

“I loved Alex. He was going to leave Marie and run away with me. But you killed him. I don’t care that you killed Marie. If you hadn’t, I would have. I tried telling him the accident wasn’t his fault. But he had a big heart. He tried to make it up to her, but she was sick.”

Yeah. She was sick. Not Alex. He was just following orders. He had such a big heart that he tortured the girls almost to death for seven days, raped them over and over, killed them and dumped their naked bodies to be found like roadkill. And this sick bitch knew all about it.

“How did you talk Michael into helping you?”

The corners of her mouth turn up in a smile. “I know you’re stalling but it won’t matter. No one knows you’re here or they would have shown themselves by now. So I’ll tell you. I’ve got time.

“Michael was in trouble at work. He killed a couple of prisoners and he was under investigation. He was paranoid. I convinced him that he needed to kill you. He tracked you down for me. Gave me the information I needed on Monique and her daughter.”

I ask, “You killed Monique just to get my attention? You killed Michael because you didn’t need him? Or are you going to blame all of this on him?”

“You’re smart. Alex told me you were. That’s part of the reason Michael was afraid of you.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Michael is the killer. Okay. But how did you get Monique to come to Port Townsend? Was she looking for me?”

“I joined Monique’s little group of do-gooders. We became friends. It wasn’t hard. She was a very lonely woman. I convinced her you were in danger from Michael. I showed her the articles in the paper about the prisoners dying and told her I had sources inside the prison who said Michael was under suspicion. I was the one making hang-up calls to her phone. And to the other phones. Gabrielle’s, the Blumes’, Moriarty’s. I knew you’d check.”

She’d drawn me in like a moth to a flame. Made me think it was Michael I was after. I didn’t know Alex had a mistress. Or that she would be crazy as bat shit and a killer like Marie.

Dan said nothing through all of this, but I could feel his eyes on me. If we live through this I will have to move. Change identities again. Start over. I’ll probably lose any chance I have of making up with Hayden.

Right now all I can think of is protecting Dan.

“If it gives you any peace, after I kill you and your boyfriend, I’m done.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” I say.

I’m in no position to deal. But she’s curious.

“If you let Dan go, I won’t find you and kill you.”

She throws her head back and laughs so hard and long that tears run from her eyes. She catches her breath.

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