Page 48 of Tracing Her Stolen Identity
Ready to run in, he paused when a man spoke and he recognized the voice. “The answer is simple. Revenge. From the day you were born, I spent my childhood in your shadow, and I was the oldest,” the man shouted, lowering his voice before he spoke again. “It was really annoying when that accident didn’t kill you. I did take great pleasure in knowing you’d never have a normal life and, at the same time, I destroyed the life of Reece Palmer. Honestly, that was the only balm when you survived.”
“Wait, you caused the accident that night on the field? How? You weren’t driving the golf cart.”
Reece pulled out his phone and sent a text with three letters:SOS. Then, he opened his recording app and hit Record before he pulled his gun from his holster.
“See, this is so typical. Everyone thinks I was too stupid to know basic things like how to cut the brake lines on a golf cart. That was child’s play, little sis. Then you drug the person driving it and wait for the carnage to ensue.”
“You’re a monster,” she said. Reece heard the sound of skin slapping, and then Sky gasped.
“I am a monster, and now is my chance to finish what I started fourteen years ago. Thank God, as I’m tired of this game.”
“Who did you hire to obliterate me from the internet?” Sky asked.
“Again, I’m not as dumb as you all thought I was. You’veheard about online classes now, right? They’re easy to sign up for with a fake identification, and since you never have to show up to class, no one really knows who’s behind that computer. In a matter of a year, I’d graduated with a degree in cybersecurity, just like your little lover boy.” He said the words with so much venom it sent a shiver through Reece.
“Were you the one behind the mask in the videos?”
“Iconic, right?” Silas asked as though he should get an Oscar for his performances. “It was such fun. I wanted to make more but, alas, it’s time to end this now.”
Silas was right about one thing. It was time to end this. “Stop right there, Silas,” he said, swinging into the room with his gun pointed at the man holding a hypodermic needle.
Silas spun in surprise but didn’t drop the needle in his hand. “Cripes. Not you again. I should have killed you before I put all this into motion. I never dreamed my baby sister would call you after shunning you for fourteen years, but what they say must be true. Our past always comes back to haunt us.”
“Put the needle down and back away from the bed, Silas,” he said, walking toward the man who’d grabbed Sky’s intravenous line and held the needle near the port.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to give orders, Reece. Now, put the gun down on the floor and back up. This is between me and my sister. You’ve got no place here.”
He had to think fast if he was going to keep him from injecting whatever was in that syringe into her vein.
“I mean it,” Silas growled. “There’s enough fentanyl in this needle to kill her three times. Put the gun down.”
That was not the answer he wanted. Reece glanced atSky, who nodded for him to do it, but he caught the way she flicked her gaze down and followed it, noting she had the call button in her hand, her thumb hovering over it. Whatever she was planning, between his SOS and her, maybe they’d get out of this alive. They just had to keep him talking.
“Okay,” Reece said, lowering the gun to the floor and kicking it to the edge of her bed, his hands in the air. “You don’t want to hurt anyone else here. Where’s Camille?”
Silas rolled his eyes but lowered the syringe a hair with the motion. “Wasn’t it Gordon Lightfoot who said the Lady of the Lake never gives up her dead?” His laughter was deranged before he spoke again. “She went overboard somewhere between Two Harbors and Grand Marais. The wheelchair and vest full of rocks probably didn’t help her float.”
“Were you going to kill Miles after he helped you get Sky?”
“Miles.” He spat the name like it was poison. “Such a whiny crybaby.” He motioned around in the air with the needle. “He was one of those guys who wanted all the credit for doing very little. I’m over here working hard to take care of my problems and he wants to cry about how my sister is better than him. It was sickening. I wish I’d had time to end him earlier, but of course, there you were to save the day again and I had to disappear. He won’t last long in prison.”
“Neither will you,” Reece said, raising a brow. “Especially in the general population. Then again, maybe you’ll end up in an institution for the criminally insane. Seeing as how you’ve killed four people now? At least?”
“Four?” Sky asked, glancing between them. “You mean two, right?”
“Two that we know of,” Reece answered. “I’m betting that your grandparents’ deaths in Nebraska weren’t accidental.”
“Well, look at the investigative cojones on Reece Palmer,” Silas said, his words dripping with sarcasm. He scrunched up his nose for a moment. “It was almost too easy to knock those two off, but satisfying nonetheless. When I finish here, I’ll have to pay Mommy and Daddy dearest a visit.”
“You killed our grandparents?” Sky asked, her words dripping with shock and disdain.
“You weren’t the one who had to suffer through multiple summers listening to that old windbag go on about how repenting to Jesus was the answer to all my problems. I made sure he met Jesus, that’s all.” Silas shrugged as though it was completely normal.
The curtain billowed back as a nurse walked in. “I’m here with your…”
The intrusion drew Silas’s attention, and Reece took his chance, charging the man, head down, until he slammed into him. They went down to the floor, Reece trying to prevent Silas from stabbing him with the needle. The nurse was at the door screaming for security, and Sky kept screaming his name repeatedly while Silas grunted.
Reece swung at him with his right fist just as Silas moved, and the needle jabbed him between two tendons in his hand. “Night-night,” Silas sang right before he hit the plunger. The last thing Reece remembered was the look of terror on Sky’s face when she realized what had happened.
