Page 51 of The Perfect Deception
“None of that was my fault,” the other woman retorted.“Take it up with your husband.He’s the stalker and you’re the psycho.”
Vanessa took another step toward her.The sirens were louder now, though both women still seemed so focused on their confrontation that they didn’t seem to notice.
“Keep coming and I will blow your head off,” Prager said.“I’ve got a witness that will testify that you threatened my life.It’ll be self-defense.”
“You’re making things worse,” Jessie said, doing her best to tamp down the rising anger she felt.Vanessa Winston was the serial killer but Elise Prager was the one pissing her off right now.
“See,” Vanessa said.“She doesn’t care.She’s cruel by nature.I think she gets off on putting doubt and confusion into marriages and then watching them crumble.She’s evil.”
Vanessa Winston might be suffering from paranoia and a persecution complex, but Jessie thought there was some merit to her charge.Prager did seem to enjoy the chaos she caused, even if she didn’t intend it to lead to tragedy.It was like her own personal soap opera, where she wrote the script and had a front row seat to the drama.But that didn’t mean she deserved to die, and she was damn close to that happening.
“Both of you stop!”Jessie barked.“No one is getting stabbed or shot today.Vanessa, I feel for what you’ve been through.Put down the knife and turn yourself in.Then you will get the chance to tell your story.People will sympathize with you, but not if you do this.”
She turned her attention to Prager next.“Once she drops the knife, you need to do the same with the gun.If you shoot an unarmed woman, that’s not self-defense.It’s murder.And I’ll testify to that.So unless you want to spend the rest of your life in a cell instead of a mansion, stop antagonizing her.”
The two women stared at each other.Both had to hear the sirens now.Maybe the looming prospect of multiple cops bursting in soon was the reason that Jessie felt a slight dip in the tension in the room.
Vanessa started to lower the knife.Jessie allowed herself a silent sigh, hopeful that she’d get out of this without a head injury or having to shoot anyone.Vanessa laid the knife on the back cushion of the couch and released her hand from it.
“Good call,” Prager said, the gun still trained on Winston.As she lowered it slightly, she added under her breath, “no wonder your husband was so into other women, you crazy bitch.”
The muttered comment was too loud.Jessie heard it clearly.Even though it wasn’t directed at her, a sudden surge of anger rose in her chest.For a fraction of a second, she was tempted to use the knife on Prager herself.That thought was enough to make her want to start counting, breathing, and visualizing all at the same time.
But there wasn’t time for that.Instead she thought of the technique that baseball player Kai Cody used, focused detachment.She tried to zone in on a particular detail that could consume her focus and dissipate her rage.She chose Vanessa Winston’s face.
That’s how she knew that the woman had heard Prager too.Her eyebrows were twitching furiously and her lips were curled into a grimace.Then, without warning, she grabbed the knife again and lunged toward Prager.Jessie raised her weapon, aimed for Vanessa’s shoulder, and was just about to pull the trigger when a shot fired.It was from Prager’s gun.
Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion.Vanessa appeared to have been hit in the abdomen but she kept moving forward, plunging the knife into Prager’s chest before toppling over, hidden from view behind the couch.A moment later, Elise Prager crumbled too, disappearing from sight.
Jessie stood there, momentarily in shock.It passed almost immediately.She snapped out of it and scrambled around the couch.Vanessa was curled up in a ball, writhing in pain, bloody hands clutching at her stomach.
Elise Prager lay flat on her back.The knife jutted out of her chest, right where her heart would be.Her fingers were on the handle, fumbling weakly at it.She was gasping for air and blood was coming out of her mouth.Jessie knelt down beside her, not sure whether it was worse to remove the knife or leave it there.
“Hold on.Help is coming.”
Looking at Prager, Jessie couldn’t help but flash back to the nearly identical situation two months ago.Only then it was serial killer Rachel Thompson who was lying in the same position, flat on her back, a knife protruding from her chest.But that time, Jessie was the perpetrator.
Prager seemed to be trying to talk, opening and closing her mouth, though no words came out.Then she stopped.Jessie looks at her eyes.They were empty.She was dead.
Jessie went numb.In the blink of an eye, she’d gone from nearly containing the situation to having one dead person and another—.
“Argh.”
The groan behind her pulled her out of it.She turned around to see that Vanessa had stopped writhing, though her hands were still hugging her gut.Blood was pouring through her fingers.Jessie desperately looked around the room.Her eyes fell on a pool towel hanging from a hook on the wall.She jumped up, grabbed it, and returned to Vanessa, pulling the woman’s hands away and replacing them with the bunched-up towel.
“Ms.Hunt?”
The voice behind Jessie made her leap slightly before she realized it was Devery.
“In here!”she shouted back.“I need your help.”
He came into the room, gun in his hands, and moved around to the back of the couch.His eyes opened wide.But she didn’t have time to coddle him.
“Prager’s dead.Winston might be close.I need you to go out front and direct everyone back here, especially the EMTs.Tell them we have a woman with a GSW to the left abdomen.Got it?”
He nodded.
“Then go!”
