“You’re lying.” Chase jerked as if he’d been Tasered. “That was before. We talked it over and she wasn’t going.”
“Before what?” Could it be what she thought? Skye held her breath.
“Before she saw reason?” Chase’s tone was almost a question, as if he hoped that was an answer Skye would accept.
“Could she have changed her mind?” Skye persisted. His defenses were definitely beginning to crack. “Girls do that all the time.”
“No.” The young man shook his head wildly. “She promised me.”
“But a chance to go to Hollywood and work for a celebrity, maybe become a celebrity herself . . .” Skye let her voice trail off. “Scumble River and her high school boyfriend might have begun to seem like settling for bronze when she had a chance at the gold.”
Chase’s shoulders slumped, and he choked out, “Why would you say something awful like that?”
Skye flinched. She felt a little nauseous, as if she were burning ants with a magnifying glass. But they had no other leads, and it wouldn’t be fair to Kayla if her murder went unsolved.
Unable to meet his eyes, she glanced into the SUV’s window. What was that in the backseat? She tilted her head. It was a half-folded, superelaborate, heavy-duty baby stroller with a cracked blue plastic footrest. Various facts zipped through her mind in a matter of seconds.
Holy moly! The last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Earlier, when Xenia had mentioned that she thought Kayla had changed her mind about marrying Chase, Skye remembered that at the Dairy Kastle Kayla had said she hadn’t been hungry the past week or so and that food wasn’t appealing to her. Kayla hadn’t been dieting. She’d been pregnant.
Chase followed her gaze, and his mouth tightened.
Oops! “Well, thanks for clearing that up.” Time to get Xenia and herself a safe distance away and let Wally bring Chase in for a formal interrogation. Meanwhile, one of his officers could obtain a search warrant and see whether the plastic of the broken stroller matched the pieces found in Kayla’s hair.
“I’ll let you get back to your game.” Skye took a step away. “Looks like your team is about to take the field.” She gestured with her thumb to the men in the dugout rising from the bench.
“You know, don’t you?” Chase’s demeanor changed from sorrow to rage, and he lunged at Skye. “You figured it out!”
Skye stumbled back, but Chase grabbed her wrist in a viselike hold. “Let go of me this instant,” she ordered in her firmest teacher voice.
“It’s women like you who ruin everything.” Anger seemed to ooze from Chase like pus from a popped pimple.
He jerked Skye toward him, but Xenia launched herself at him, landing on his back and wrapping her hands around his throat, screaming, “Leave her alone!”
Chase’s gasp was an inverted howl; then all three toppled to the ground with Skye on the bottom of the pile. She pushed, but the combined weight of Xenia and Chase on her chest was too much. She couldn’t get free.
Just as she was feeling woozy from lack of oxygen and starting to panic, Chase was plucked off her. Wally pinned him to the ground and handcuffed him while reading him his rights.
Xenia hopped around, pumping her fisted hands in the air and shouting obscenities. Skye wasn’t sure whether Xenia was aiming the profanities at Chase for killing her friend, or at Wally for stopping her from beating the crap out of Chase. Probably both.
Skye tried to drop Xenia off at McDonald’s before going to the PD, but once again the girl refused to budge. However, even Xenia wasn’t able to get past Sergeant Quirk when they arrived at the station.
He blocked Xenia’s attempt to get through the door, while ushering Skye in, saying, “The chief is waiting for you in the interrogation room.”
Chase sat slumped in a chair with his hands cuffed to the leg of the bolted-down table. He looked up as Skye took a seat, and whined, “I didn’t mean to do it.”
“Sounds like she made you.” Skye looked at Wally, who was leaning against the wall behind Chase, and he gestured for her to go on. “Everything was perfect until her film got that award.”
“That’s right.” Chase nodded eagerly.
“Because when she won, she decided to leave you.”
“Yes.” Chase gazed zealously at Skye. “But then she found out she was pregnant. She wasn’t able to take the Pill, and for the past few months, I’d been poking holes in the condoms I used.”
“You figured if she had a baby, she’d have to stay with you and could never change her mind?”
“Yes, and it worked.” Chase beamed. “She was giving up her silly idea to make it big in movies.”
“So what happened?”
“Saturday, after closing time, I went to the bookstore to show her the cool stroller I’d bought. It cost almost five hundred dollars and even had cup holders.” Chase frowned, then looked confused. “But she started crying and told me she’d lost the baby and she wasn’t marrying me and she was leaving for Hollywood as soon as she finished school.”
“That must have been hard to hear.” Skye hoped she wouldn’t gag on the words she was forcing out of her mouth. “So, you just had to do something to stop her from going.”
“Exactly.” He nodded. “I told her I still loved her, even if she killed our baby, and we could have other kids. And you know what she said to me?”
Skye shook her head.
“She said that while she would always love me, she wasn’t in love with me, and she needed her freedom.” Chase slumped. “What in the hell was that supposed to mean?”
Skye shrugged. He was on a roll, and she didn’t want to interrupt him by speaking.
“She kissed me on the cheek, and I grabbed her. I begged her not to go away, but she told me to leave her alone and started to walk away.” Chase was silent, tears dripping off his chin.
“Then what happened?”
“I was so mad. I was still holding the stroller, and I just swung it at her. She stumbled and turned to look at me, then keeled over.” He sobbed, “It was an accident.”
An accident? Please. “But you pushed the bookcase on top of her.” The words slipped out before Skye could stop them. And judging from the expression on Chase’s face, they were a mistake.
“You bitch!” He lurched toward her, but the handcuffs pulled him up short.
Skye stood up and backed away.
“Calm down, man.” Wally stepped between her and the table, blocking her from Chase’s sight. “Women always stick together. I understand. Just tell me what happened after you hit Kayla with the stroller.”
“I couldn’t stand to see her like that.” Chase heaved a sigh. “All bloody and everything. So I just sort of covered her up.”
“With the cabinet?” Wally confirmed.
“Yeah. There was nothing else around.” Chase hung his head. “I loved her. I really loved her. How could she do that to me?”
“You’re pathetic. You killed Kayla, ended the life of someone worth a thousand of you, and you think you’re the victim.” Skye dodged around Wally, put both hands on the table, and looked Chase in the eye. “That’s not love. That’s evil. Pure evil.”
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EPILOGUE
Wind in the Willows
“I’m so glad you were able to come with me.” Skye leaned her head against the seat of the Thunderbird as Wally drove them from the police station to Tales and Treats, where Skye’s family was gathering per Vince’s instructions. “I was afraid you’d be tied up all night processing Chase.”
“There isn’t much more for me to do until the Stanley County state’s attorney gets back tomorrow from his vacation.” Wally pulled out of the PD’s parking lot. “The ME confirmed Kayla had a recent miscarriage, the crime techs are matching the stroller to the blue plastic pieces found in her hair, and Xenia provided us with the voice mail proving he lied about what time he started calling her, so we have physical evidence.”