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I picked up my medical bag from the bedroom and made sure that I had all of the necessary supplies. A sedative preloaded into a syringe. I put it in my pocket for easy access. I checked once more that all of my security system was up and running. It wouldn’t do to have her trying to escape. Everything checked out. Great.

Heading out, I flipped off the lights and opened the front door. I dropped my bag to the ground in surprise.

Vale was standing in front of me. He raised his gun to my face.

“Where exactly do you think you’re going?”

Sara

I stared down incredulously at Mr. Steadhill. My mind reeled.

“You… you killed her?” I felt like retching. I felt like he’d stabbed me in the gut. It was him. Mr. Steadhill. He was the murderer.

I felt completely betrayed. Rien would have let me go, but I felt terrible about letting Mr. Steadhill die without doing anything to save him. Now, though… he’d killed her. I couldn’t think anymore.

“She was sleeping around behind my back. When I confronted her, she said that we would split after we got to Brazil. She would go her way, and I’d go mine.”

I swallowed, trying not to seem too shocked. My brain raced a hundred miles a minute. I had to hide my true feelings from him, or he wouldn’t talk to me. Killer. Killer. That was all I could think. He killed and lied and lied about killing. He was the murderer.

“You didn’t want her to come with you to Brazil, then?”

“Are you kidding? That stupid whore. She deserved to die.”

I swallowed back my disgust. He’d killed Susan. He might have killed me before fleeing to Brazil. Would he have killed me? I was the only one who would have known about him. Looking at his leering eye, I would have sworn that he could read my mind.

I shut out those thoughts from my mind. There was only one thing I needed to know.

“Where’s the body?”

“What?”

“Your wife’s body. Where is it?”

“Why do you want to know?” His one eye squinted suspiciously at me.

“Look, this place is on lockdown. Even if I go tell the police what’s going on, they’ll come by and ask Rien and he’ll just lie to them. It’ll give him plenty of time to kill you and get away before they get a search warrant.”

“You don’t think they’ll believe you?”

“The police? I could just be another L.A. loon making up stories to get attention. But if I can show them a body, they’ll come in here guns blazing. It’ll give you a better chance, at least.”

“But then…” Mr. Steadhill coughed. “They’ll know I killed Susan.”

“I’ll tell them that it was the doctor who did it. Once they have hard proof, they can bust through the door and save you. Come on! It’s our only chance!”

It was a story that I hoped he would believe. After a short pause, he nodded. Relief flooded my system.

“Okay,” Mr. Steadhill said. “Okay. I—”

The door to the library burst open. I grabbed the nearest scalpel off of the medical table, ready to defend myself. Ready for anything. Or so I thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Rien

“Vale, you gotta stop showing up like this.” I stared past him. There was nobody else around.

“You have the teeth?”

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