Page 155 of Another Girl Lost

“There was a moment when we first met that I might have done anything for him,” I said. Like Dawson and Luke, I kept my tone even, friendly. I wanted her to believe I understood her. “I know you felt that magic, too. It was so thrilling.”

“Yes. It was magic.”

And there it was: my opening. “You fell in love with him hard. And then one day you realized you were in too deep with him. You’d seen his cousin. You’d sensed something wasn’t right about the basement. But his words could be so sweet. And his smile was so intoxicating. You must have been shocked when he asked you to help him hide Sandra’s body. God knows, I’d have been.”

“I was shocked. I refused at first.”

The dam had cracked and now I needed to bust through the rest. “But he could be so convincing,” I whispered. “He fooled me, too.”

Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded.

“Tiffany starts blackmailing you, and the house where Sandra’s body was hidden was undergoing renovations. The past was coming back in full force, so you decided to get ahead of it, right? Did you call in the location of Sandra’s body? Was the guilt just too much?”

“I didn’t make that call,” she rushed to say. “I thought it was you.”

Her genuine surprise was something I didn’t expect. “No. It wasn’t me.”

Oddly, I believed her. But if Lynn didn’t make the 9-1-1 call, who did? Della?

Lynn moved toward me, her expression serene—relieved, almost—as if this were a conversation she’d been wanting to have for a decade. Finally, she could share bottled secrets.

Tanner had told me secrets, but that had scared me. He could be honest with me because he’d known one day, he’d kill me. I tensed asLynn moved closer. As I stepped back, she pulled a syringe out of her pocket. The point glistened wet in the light.

“If you’re looking for absolution, you won’t get it.”

“I don’t need forgiveness. I need to end this.” Lynn’s voice was steady. “Time to free you from Tanner.”

When she lunged, my body coiled with tension. I jumped back, pushing Della’s portrait toward her. She shoved it aside with an unholy ease and thrust with the needle. It grazed the side of my arm, but I stumbled left, grabbed the canvas, and batted it toward the syringe.

I’d lamented the damage Tanner had done for years, sure it had crippled me for the rest of my life. But the wounds had healed, and the scars were now fading to a pale white. They would always be there, but they weren’t sensitive to the touch any longer. I didn’t want to lose the life I had now.

Lynn dived toward me, her face tightening with a determination she’d nurtured at Tanner’s hands. The tip of the needle scraped against my arm, this time catching the fabric of my shirt. I stumbled back.

Outside, I heard shouts, and I screamed for help. Lynn barely looked back as she came for me again.

Dawson rushed into the warehouse, his gun drawn, putting himself between me and Lynn. He pointed the gun at her. “Stop.”

She halted as shock, confusion, and then acceptance morphed her expression. She looked toward me. “Detective Dawson.”

“Put the needle down,” he said.

“She came at me,” Lynn said. “I just wanted to talk to her. And then she rushed me. I wrestled the needle away from her.”

“Put the syringe down,” Dawson said.

She shook her head, her eyes now wide with panic before they narrowed on me. “Scarlett just confessed to me that she killed Tiffany. She called in the location of Sandra’s body.”

I stood still and silent, unable to argue with her lies.

“Drop the needle,” Dawson said.

The front door to the warehouse opened, and two uniformed cops arrived, guns drawn.

Lynn looked at him, tears glistening now in her eyes. Her face hardened, but he didn’t waver. And then she smiled as she raised the tip of the needle to her neck and jammed it into her jugular vein. She shoved the plunger down. Droplets of blood gushed over her pale neck and stained the collar of her light-blue T-shirt. She staggered. Dawson moved toward her, but she stepped back and then fell to the ground.

Her gaze shifted to me. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She dropped the needle. Color draining from her face, she began to shake.

Lynn looked at Dawson. “I should’ve killed you.”

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