Page 120 of By the Time You Read This

“Yeah,” Essi said, brows raised. “Why? Did something happen with her?”

“She was the one who killed Emily Logan,” Raisa said. “And likely Isabel, and a couple others.”

“She didn’t kill Isabel,” Essi said. “No way.”

Raisa turned to her. “What?”

“I mean, I’m no FBI agent,” Essi said, drawing out the acronym. “But she contacted me right after the news dropped. Said I needed to get up here and bring all the attention with me. She was convinced Isabel was killed, but knew she wouldn’t be able to get anyone to listen to her. She thought me being here would help.”

Raisa pictured that moment on the boat when she’d accused Gabriela of murdering Isabel.

She had been about to deny it, but clearly hadn’t wanted to be distracted in that moment.

“Like, maybe she was that good of an actor,” Essi continued, “but it does seem weird.”

Raisa nodded, staring blankly over the water, trying to figure out where her misstep had occurred. Obsession and hate were two sides of a coin. It had seemed logical to her that Gabriela, who had been losing control, would want to kill the idol who had set her down that path. But Gabrielahadmaintained her hero worship up until the end.

“Well,” Essi drew out. “Toodles.”

And then she was gone, hips swaying as she went to try to eavesdrop on the police still swarming the harbor.

Isabel had said that she’d wanted both Delaney and Raisa to break.

To do so, she’d created a ruse where she’d had an impressionable protégé kill in order to prove her worth to Isabel. She’d then set it up so that it looked like Delaney was putting that very protégé down like a dog who had the taste of blood in its mouth. To push Raisa to the brink,where she might actually have killed Delaney and claimed self-defense, she’d put Kilkenny’s life into play.

But Delaney had never planned to kill Gabriela—her strategy had been to get a recording of a confession.

Isabel had thought she could force Delaney into actually, finally killing someone.

Because that had been the difference between the two sisters. Delaney wasn’t like Raisa; she didn’t think she was a morally upright person. She knew she lived in the gray areas.

What defined her as better than Isabel was that she had never actually taken a life. Not in the real sense of the word.

If Isabel had wanted to push Delaney past the breaking point, that was what she had to get her to do.

Delaney was so smart, though. And Isabel had been in prison.

Isabel had thought she was a mastermind—she’d lived out her little fantasy through those Biggest Fan letters and the reviews she’d written herself.Thatwas how she’d seen this all going.

But where Isabel was brilliant at manipulating people into doing her bidding, Delaney was brilliant at being, well, cold. Logical. Isabel could have threatened to kill Raisa and Kilkenny, but Delaney would have found a way around that.

There wasn’t a problem out there that Delaney couldn’t solve—even if Raisa didn’t always like the way she solved it.

In the end, though, she hadn’t had to.

Because . . .

Because . . .

Isabel had already been dead.

Raisa laughed.

Delaney was better than Isabel because she’d never taken a life.

Except that maybe she had.

Delaney was sitting on the edge of the motel’s empty pool, her legs dangling into nothingness.

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