A blinding headache started to engulf her mind.
Angela is a murderer. Angela is trying to kill me, she thought. She had to find a way to save herself, to buy time. She had to get Angela to start talking. If someone is there, help me please, she prayed.
“At least tell me the truth,” she pleaded. “You killed Hunter, didn’t you?”
Charlotte felt a moment of relief when Angela took a step backwards and placed the box cutter in her pocket. But then she substituted the gun from the back of her waistband.
Angela’s voice was rapid and approaching hysteria.
“Oh, Charlotte, you were so kind to let me leave early all those Fridays to see Casey. No one knew the joy I took watching her age in that horrible place. It was wonderful and great fun. My little cousin, my sister-always smarter, more loved-ends up in prison. Then she was despised. Loathed for killing Hunter. When we were young, no one ever thought I’d amount to anything special. I was the one with the single mother. I never got the grades Casey got, or did all the school activities. I was the one who skipped college to be the model, the party girl. No one ever thought I’d have a career, or could marry someone like Hunter Raleigh. But Casey’s parents always acted like she walked on water.”
“But why kill Hunter? Why kill me?” Now Charlotte’s voice was a whisper.
“I don’t want you to die,” Angela said, “just like I didn’t want Hunter to die. I was stupid to think your friend’s show might find enough to convict me. Now look what I’ve done.”
She began to sob. “You’ll tell everyone what happened, what I told you.”
“But why did you kill him?” Charlotte gasped.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen. It was all Hunter’s fault.”
Charlotte couldn’t make sense of Angela’s disconnected thoughts.
“He was dating Casey, just like he dated me, and others. But then he proposed, as if she were special, as if they were in some kind of fairy tale. Casey told me all about how he’d broken down, crying about the pain of watching his mother die of breast cancer. She had the audacity to say they had bonded about a common loss.” Her voice was now raised to the point of screaming. “But that loss wasn’t Casey’s; it was mine. Don’t you get it? It was mine. She may have lost an aunt, but I lost my mother, just like Hunter. But, no, Casey was the one he shared that with.
“They were planning the wedding. It was absurd. Casey was pretending to be Miss Perfect, but Hunter needed to see Casey for her true self. He’d forgiven her after a few of her rants, but he needed to see that she’d be an embarrassment to him. I bought some Rohypnol on the black market and slipped it into her second glass of wine.” Now Angela laughed. “Needless to say, it didn’t take long.”
“I still don’t understand,” Charlotte whispered, hoping to prolong the story. Help me, she thought. Somebody help me. I was wrong about the light. Nobody’s here.
Now it was as though Angela were talking to herself. “I left the gala early, just as planned, because I had a photo shoot the next day. But I didn’t go home. I drove to Hunter’s house. I parked down the road. When they got there, I waited a few minutes. I went to the house. The door wasn’t completely closed so I pushed it open. Casey was lying on the couch. Hunter was bending over her saying, ‘Casey, Casey, come on, wake up.’ When he saw me, I told him I was so worried about Casey that I followed them up. I pointed to her and said, ‘Hunter, look at her. Do you really want to marry this drunk?’
“He told me to shut up and get out.”
Over Angela’s shoulder, Charlotte could see someone, Laurie, working her way through the half-built sets. She had no idea how long she could keep Angela talking. When she’s finished, she thought, she’ll push me into the shaft.
“Hunter ran into the bedroom. I followed him. I tried to tell him that I was only trying to help him, to keep him from making a mistake. But he wasn’t even paying attention to me. That was when I decided that if I couldn’t have him, neither would Casey. I knew he kept a gun in the nightstand.”
Laurie had stopped behind the “living room’s” sofa, the last spot of cover on her path toward them. Charlotte gave the slightest nod in her direction to signal that she could see her. Laurie’s here, Laurie’s here, she thought. Keep stalling!
“He rushed into the bathroom. I could hear the water running in the sink. I grabbed the gun while he was still in there. I knew how to use it, too. Casey wasn’t the only woman Hunter had taken to the range. He came out of the bathroom with a wet cloth in his hand. I guess he was planning to put it on dear Casey’s forehead. But he didn’t get the chance.”
Angela smirked. “He looked so confused when he saw me pointing the gun at him. The next thing I knew, he was lying on the bed, bleeding, dying. I knew I had to get out of there. But first I had to think. It had to look like Casey had shot him.
“Hunter had dropped the damp cloth on the floor. I picked it up. Fingerprints. Did I leave any? I wiped the drawer of the nightstand.
“I fired a shot at the wall.
“I went into the living room.”
Charlotte could see that Angela was reliving the night of the murder. Her voice sounded as if she were in a trance.
“Casey had to be the last one to use the gun. I wiped it off. I put it in her hand. Put her finger on the trigger. Fired another shot at the wall. Held the gun with the cloth. Hid the gun under the sofa.
“Sleeping Beauty never stirred. Thought about the pills. If the police test Casey’s blood, they’ll know she’s drugged. What if she drugged herself? Took the other Rohypnol pills out of my purse. Wiped the bag the pills were in. Pressed Casey’s fingers on the bag. Put it in her purse. Wasn’t I smart?”
“How could you have done that to Casey?” Charlotte asked as she watched Laurie moving closer to them.
The question snapped Angela out of her rambling.
“I’m done talking.” Angela shifted the gun to her left hand and pulled out the box cutter from her pocket. “Turn around,” she told Charlotte.
This was Charlotte’s only shot. She had to take it. She turned slightly so Angela could cut the workout top from her wrists. Then she twisted into a low crouch and rocketed up, slamming the top of her head against Angela’s chin. Searing pain shot through her body. She heard the echo of metal against concrete as Angela’s gun fell to the warehouse floor.
72
Laurie rushed forward when she saw Angela careening backwards, she and her gun tumbling to the floor. Laurie lunged toward the weapon. Too late. She saw it slide into the elevator shaft, and then heard a clang from the first floor as the gun hit the metal cage two floors below.
Charlotte was bent over, her hands still tied behind her. Angela had regained her footing and was advancing toward Charlotte. Laurie saw the glimmer of a small silver blade.
“Get away!” Laurie called out as she rushed toward them. “She has a knife.”
Charlotte stumbled forward, fell, and curled her body into a ball. She tried to protect her face by pressing it against the floor.
Laurie ran toward Angela, then leapt on her back with all the force she could muster. They both fell to the ground. Angela was on her hands and knees, but her right fist was still clenched around the knife. All Laurie could think about was the blade of the box cutter. She could not let Angela get back up again, not while she had that blade.
She grabbed Angela’s right bicep and tugged it, trying to shake her grip on the knife.