Meghan nodded slightly. “Once. She was shopping downtown.”
Her face dropped. “She was pregnant.” She stated it so matter-of-fact that Rebecca almost believed that she had accepted it with nothing but stoic resignation, but she knew better. “That must have really hurt your feelings.”
“I died that day.”
“Was that when you started killing the other women?”
Meghan jumped. Her eyes cleared up. “Uh-uh, Detective. Did you really think I would fall for that?”
Rebecca leaned forward, her gaze locking in on Meghan’s face. “Just for argument’s sake, let me tell you what I think happened.”
Meghan smirked, but nodded and gave her the go ahead, as if she was just listening to some funny anecdote.
“Here’s what I think.” Meghan pulled out the picture of the first victim. “I think you saw Christine pregnant, and you went ballistic. All these women coming into the clinic looking to you for help to get pregnant, and the one woman you wanted to help most, leaves you. The only way to get back at Christine is to take punishment out on innocent women. So you start picking women from the clinic, follow them, assault them and kill them. Every time you slice a woman’s throat, it’s Christine that dies.”
“Interesting theory, Detective.” Except for the vein in her temple pounding furiously, Meghan looked almost bored.
“But it’s not enough to just kill them. You had to rape them to get back at Christine for fucking you over. But you don’t stop there. You take her baby.”
A ghost of a smile broke out on Meghan’s face, but she said nothing.
“You robbed her of the one thing she wanted more than anything.” Rebecca took the next picture out and slammed it on the table. And another one until she was done. She was angry, and she trembled. “You killed every single one of these women.”
Meghan glanced at the pictures again. Still no reaction.
“Eight women and none of them was Christine.” Rebecca pulled out the last photo and set it on the table silently.
Meghan’s eyes dropped to Julie’s photo. She picked it up wordlessly, her jaw tightening. She studied it a moment longer then flung it on the table.
Rebecca picked up the photo and showed Meghan the back where Julie’s name had been written. “See that? Julie Keppler. Not Christine.” She flipped it around and shoved it in Meghan’s face.
Meghan flinched. No, this wasn’t Julie. This was her Christine. She belonged to her, and she had left. She left and had a baby with someone else. She felt a dull pounding at her temple, and she massaged it with her fingers. You let her get away. Just like that, the voice was back, taunting her for her failure. “Shut up!”
She spoke not so much to Rebecca, but to the voice that never went away. Never let her have a moment’s peace. She wanted it gone. “Get out of my head!”
Rebecca tensed. An odd transformation was happening. Meghan was fighting with something or someone. She watched the change and almost flinched at the look of pure hatred that flashed in Meghan’s eyes. Realization slowly dawned on her. This was the Meghan that had committed the murders. “Meghan? Are you still with me?”
Evil glinted in Meghan’s eyes. “Of course I am, you fucking bitch.” She said it with as even a tone as someone talking about the weather, but the look in her eyes sent chills down Rebecca’s spine. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“Of course I do.” A sneer. She picked up Julie’s picture. Meghan rubbed the tip of her finger over Julie’s mouth. “Sweet Christine. This is all your fault. You made me do it.”
“What’s all Christine’s fault?” Rebecca asked quickly. She needed to get her to confess. She could deal with the details of insanity later.
“She left me and she had to die.” Meghan stated angrily.
“Why all of them, Meghan?” Rebecca slid the photos closer, hoping to trigger another burst of anger.
An evil smirk broke out on Meghan’s face. This time she looked at the photos with a sneer of satisfaction. “Every one of them wanted something she couldn’t have. Just like every other woman in the world. All these stupid bitches begged me to play God for them. Every single one of them wanted to be pregnant. I had to look at their faces when they told me how much they wanted a child and how grateful they were that I could give it to them. All of them had what should have been mine.”
“What should have been yours, Meghan?”
“The baby. Every single baby should have been mine. That should have been Christine there, but I wasn’t good enough.”
“Is that why you took the babies?”
“I gave them that life.”
Meghan stated it without ire, and Rebecca wondered if she had lost contact with the crazy Meghan. “So the baby was yours to do with as you pleased?”
“Yes, you stupid cunt.” Meghan sneered.
“So, because Christine couldn’t let you play God, you had to punish all of them?”
“You’re so smart Detective. You’ve got this whole thing worked out, don’t you?”
Rebecca shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe. Some of the details are a bit foggy.”
Meghan toyed with the edge of Julie’s photo. “Oh, I think you’ve got it all figured out.”
Rebecca held her gaze. “Tell me why you tried to frame Richard Hudson?”
Meghan chuckled evilly. “He was perfect.”
“What do you mean?”
“Surely, you know that Richard’s first wife was murdered, and the case is still unsolved.”
Rebecca’s brow furrowed. “How do you know about that?”
“Detective Foxx.” Meghan said condescendingly. “As I told you before, the clinic offers mandatory counseling for all its clients. Richard’s sessions proved very enlightening. His colored past made it all too easy to frame him.”
“So, you took his loss and punished him for it?”
“Richard Hudson was a bastard. I did the world a favor by taking him out of the picture.”
“And were you doing Elizabeth a favor by killing her and taking her baby?”
Meghan waggled her finger at Rebecca. “Tsk, tsk Detective.” The word Detective dripped with disdain. “What the world didn’t need was his spawn.”
“And that was your choice to make?”
Meghan slammed her fist down. “Of course it was my choice. I’m the only reason she was pregnant in the first place.”
“How did you kill them?”
Meghan studied her for a second, measuring her up. “The case files tell you all of that, I’m sure.”
“Yes, they do.” Rebecca nodded. “But as I said before, we weren’t quite sure of some of the details.”
“It was quite easy actually.” Meghan studied her fingernails. “Women are so trusting these days. They don’t sense danger. It made killing them rather simple.”
“And raping them and leaving DNA at the scene? Kind of hard for a woman?”
“Not really.” Meghan smug smile returned. “You’re a lesbian, Detective. I’m sure you know that there are tools out there. A strap-on and a condom full of semen. It’s not that hard to figure out.”
“And taking the baby? How about that, Meghan? Was that easy too?” Rebecca’s tone bordered on contempt.
Meghan’s eyes softened slightly. The only sign that she cared about life at all. “They were my children. I was saving them, Detective. Can’t you see that?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I couldn’t let them grow up in a world where love and vows mean nothing. I couldn’t let them be in a world where people like Christine could steal everything from them.”
Rebecca’s stomach turned. Meghan honestly believed she had done some magnanimous turn by killing them all. She swallowed as Meghan looked on expectantly. It was almost as though she took joy in what she had done.
Rebecca clasped her hands on the table. “What about Phillip Stein? Why him?”
Meghan looked at her askance. “Detective, everyone knows the perfect murder is the one you commit without being caught.”
“So, you steered us to him?”
“Giving you Phillip was as easy as leading a pig to the slaughter. You had already fucked up and caught the wrong guy once. You needed to break the case. All I needed to do was put the suggestion out there and you would find a way to fit the pieces into the puzzle.” The ghost of a smile formed in the corner of Meghan’s mouth. Her eyes looked almost triumphant.