Page 124 of I'll Be Waiting

Shethrewmy husband’sremainsinto thetrash.

I can regret not being careful enough, but Iwascareful. The only thing I regret is that I ever suspected Anton of killing Heather. If there was any doubt left, it disintegrates as my entire body shatters in grief.

Shania threw his ashes in the trash. That wasn’t anger or revenge. It was simple disdain and disrespect for a man she’d never known. She disposed of his bodily remains so she could put her sister’s ashes in his box and sneak them into Anton’s séance. In hopes that Cirillo would summon Patrice instead.

The grief itself disintegrates, consumed by a red-hot explosion of rage. I lunge at Shania, but my legs aren’t free yet, and I writhe and snarl as Shania only watches me. Then she goes still, and her gaze flies behind me.

“What are you doing?” she says to Cirillo.

She stomps toward him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Cirillo cuts the last of the rope around my ankles and scrambles to his feet, his setting jaw nearly hiding the fear in his gaze. “That’s what I need to ask you, Shania. I don’t know what the fuckyouare doing, but it ends here. Nicola and I are leaving, and—”

The steak knife twists in his hand. That’s all it does. It doesn’t fly dramatically from his grip. It just twists and flicks… and his wrist opens in a gush of blood.

THIRTY-THREE

For a second, we all freeze. Even Shania goes still, her eyes wide, the young woman I knew evident in her horror. I recover first. I run for Cirillo as the steak knife falls from his hand and clatters to the concrete floor. He’s still standing there, as if he must be imagining the gash across his wrist gushing blood.

I grab the rope that had fallen from my own wrists, and I wrap it around Cirillo’s upper arm. He doesn’t react even when I pull hard enough that he should gasp. He’s frozen in shock. I’m still pulling the rope, trying to get it as tight as I can to cut off the blood flow when, out of the corner of my eye, I see the knife fly up.

I stagger back, but it doesn’t come for me. The blade strikes Cirillo’s other wrist, laying it open to the bone. I grab for the knife. I can’t think of anything except stopping it, and my fingers clamp down on the blade, metal slicing into my fingers. With my other hand, I grab the handle and grip it tight. Then I dive for the rope.

Tie off the wounds.This is how my brain copes with what has just happened. Practical action. Get the knife away from Patrice. Cut off the blood flow to Cirillo’s wrists.

I’m grabbing the rope when Shania screams, and I look up just as the spade swings toward Cirillo’s head. I lunge, but I don’t get to himin time, and he goes down. Blood flies from his second wrist, arcing through the air as he falls.

I scramble over and get the rope around his other upper arm. I’m still pulling when Shania screams again, this time an endless “Nooo!”

I remember the last time she shouted that. When I thought she was trying to stop Patrice from killing me. I’d been wrong then, and so I ignore her now, certain that scream is for me to stop trying to save Cirillo. But when I hear her running footsteps, I twist, ready to fend her off, and her gaze is over my head. I look up to see the spade there, blade down… right over Cirillo, who is on his back, staring blankly and shaking with shock.

“Patrice!” Shania screams. “No!”

I vault up, hands rising to knock the spade blade off course, but I don’t get to it in time. It slams down onto Cirillo’s neck and keeps going until it hits the concrete with a thwack… and Cirillo’s head rolls away.

I stare, frozen in mid-leap, my gaze on his head… which is no longer attached to his body. Which has rolled to the side and is facing me and he blinks and oh God, he blinks. His eyes roll up to mine and there is one unbelievable moment of sheer horror before the life goes out of them, and I am staring at Cirillo’s severed head while blood spouts from his torso.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” That’s Shania, her voice rising, and I stare at Cirillo, my brain still comprehending what has happened, her shrill voice a distraction when I am trying to figure out—

And then it hits. What has happened.

I spin on Shania, spittle flying out with my words.

“What the fuck did you expect?” I snarl.

Her gaze rises to mine, her eyes wide and unfocused. “W-what?”

“You unleashed your psycho sister’s spirit. You brought her here. You did this. What the fuck did you expect, Shania?”

She shakes her head dully. “No, Patrice never hurt anyone. You let her go to prison—”

“Yes!” I shout. “I let her go to prison. That’s what she’s angry about. That’s what she was saying when she was suffocating me. I betrayed her by letting her go to prison. Not because I lied. Because I told thetruth.Your sister killed Heather, and I didn’t lie for her. That is how I betrayed her. By telling the truth, and even then, I never accused her. If you’d read the fucking transcript, you’d know that I never said she killed Heather. I was never even entirely certain she had until five minutes ago, when she told me she did.”

“N… no…”

“Are you really saying she didn’t do this? Look at him!” I jab a finger at Cirillo. “She did that.” I point at Brodie, still half out of the furnace. “She did that. She is fuckingevil,and you brought her here.”

Shania collapses as if her strings are cut. Her knees give way, and she goes down.

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