Page 62 of Ruthless Riches
With that, I signaled to the guards that my visit was over. One of them led Edward away, and I returned to the front of the prison to collect my phone, keys, and wallet.
Conflicting thoughts whipped around inside my head like a hurricane as I headed toward the harbor to catch the ferry that would take me back to Avalon Island.
Alexis once told me it wasn’t fair to assume that someone was a killer based on their mental issues, but in this case, I wondered if it could be accurate.
When I was cleaning Sascha’s apartment earlier, I saw an empty chocolate box lying on the floor. It stood out to me because it was so large and colorful, and after I thought about it for a while, I realized I’d seen one exactly like it before—at Alexis’s dorm, when I dropped off the vase of roses with the hidden camera several months ago.
I knew from Alexis that those chocolates were laced with a drug that was meant to drive her insane—and drive her off the island as a result—and that made me realize that Sascha may have received the same ‘gift’ from her grandfather.
Now I knew I was right about that.
I’d also just learned that Sascha suffered from mental health problems, including a previous short-lived psychotic break. The drugged chocolates could’ve exacerbated those issues, and that could’ve been the catalyst for the development of far more serious issues. The sort of issues that could turn someone into a crazed killer.
I could be wrong about that, of course. Just because Sascha ate the chocolates didn’t mean she’d suffered some sort of psychotic break and started murdering people as a result. After all, Alexis ate some of them, and her only symptoms were sleepwalking, nightmares, and mild amnesia.
Also, Sascha seemed relatively stable, like Edward said earlier. I knew she was prone to mood swings, and she was also a very emotional person, but that wasn’t unusual behavior. Not at all. Tons of people had mood swings and strong emotions without being criminally insane.
I took a deep breath and scrubbed a hand across my forehead as I considered it. A mixture of guilt and alarm was eating away at my guts like acid.
I could be wrong about all of this. The chocolate box on Sascha’s floor could be nothing.
Then again… it could be everything.
