Final Girls(93)

HAZLETON, Pa. — A man was found stabbed to death yesterday inside the home he shared with his wife and stepdaughter. Responding to emergency calls, Hazleton police found Earl Potash, 46, dead in the kitchen of his Pine Street duplex, the victim of multiple stab wounds to the chest and stomach. Authorities have ruled the incident a homicide. The investigation is continuing.

“How did you find this?”

“Through a Lexus Nexus search on Tina Stone,” Jonah says.

“But what does this have to do with her?”

“According to the newspaper, Earl Potash’s stepdaughter confessed to killing him, citing years of sexual abuse. Because she was a minor, and because sexual assault was a factor, her name is shielded in court records.”

Now I know why Lisa had the article.

“It was her,” I say. “Tina Stone. She killed her stepfather.”

Jonah gives a firm nod. “Afraid so.”

I gulp down more coffee, hoping it will chase away the headache that’s again blooming in my skull. At that moment, I would likely kill for a Xanax.

“I still don’t understand,” I say. “Why would Sam change her name to be the same as a woman who murdered her stepdad?”

“That’s the strange thing,” Jonah says. “I’m not sure she actually did.”

Out of the folder come several pages of medical records. At the top is the name Tina Stone.

“Aren’t medical records also supposed to be classified?” I ask.

“Clearly you’ve underestimated my powers,” Jonah says. “Bribes are a great motivator.”

“You’re despicable.”

I flip through the records, which begin with last year and go backwards. Tina Stone went to the doctor sporadically, always in the case of an emergency and usually without health insurance. I see a broken wrist four years ago, the result of a motorcycle accident. A mammogram a year earlier after she found a lump that ended up being benign. An overdose of anitrophylin eight years ago. That one gives me pause.

There’s a second overdose attempt one page and two years before that. I look at the date. Three weeks after Pine Cottage.

“This can’t be Sam,” I say. “The dates don’t match up. She told me she didn’t change her name until a few years after Pine Cottage.”

The realization, when it comes, almost sends me reeling backwards into the fountain. I drop the folder, its pages scattering, forcing Jonah to scramble for them before they can blow away.

I remain motionless when he returns to my side, folder tucked under his arm. “You get it now, right?”

“Tina Stone and Samantha Boyd,” I say. “They’re not the same person.”

“Which begs the question, which one is in your apartment?”

“I have no idea.”

But I need to find out. Immediately. I stand, legs wobbly, prepared to leave.

Jonah stops me, an apologetic look pinching his face as he says, “Unfortunately, there’s more.”

He opens the folder, flips to a page in the back. “There’s an incident where she OD’d.”

“I know,” I say. “It’s from before the alleged name change.”

“You might want to look at where she overdosed.”

Jonah points to the name of the facility where Tina Stone was treated.

Blackthorn Psychiatric Hospital, located just on the other side of the woods from Pine Cottage.

Looking at it makes me instantly woozy. Worse than when I woke up that morning. Almost worse than the moment I realized I had beaten Ricardo Ruiz to within an inch of his life.

Tina Stone was a patient at Blackthorn.

The same time He was.

The exact same time He went to Pine Cottage and gutted my world.





Pine Cottage, midnight

The first scream arrived when Quincy reached the cabin’s back deck. It blasted from the woods, swooping toward her as she climbed the stubby wooden steps. Quincy turned toward the sound, too surprised to feel afraid.

The fear would come later.

She scanned the dark forest behind the cabin, whipping her gaze from tree to tree, as if the scream had come from one of them. But she already knew its source.

Janelle.

Quincy was certain.

A second scream erupted from the woods. Longer than the first, it became a crackle of noise stretching across the sky. It was also louder. Loud enough to spook an owl from the upper branches of a nearby tree. The bird skated past the deck, wings thumping, vanishing over the cabin roof.

The sound of its retreat blended with the approach of something else.

Footsteps. Reckless ones.

A moment later, Craig burst out of the woods. His eyes were blank, but there was a crazed jerkiness to his movements. His shirt was back on. So were his pants, although Quincy noticed how the fly was undone and that his unbuckled belt jangled and flapped.

“Run, Quincy.” He stumbled forward, frantic. “We gotta run.”

He was on the deck by then, making an attempt to drag her along as he streaked past her. Quincy’s arm went limp in his hands. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not until Janelle was with them.

“Janelle?” she shouted.

Her voice echoed, bouncing through the woods, creating new calls, each one more faint than the last.

They were answered with another scream. Craig yelped when he heard it. He did a little shimmy, as if trying to shake something from his back.