The Watcher Girl(57)
I never did.
Until the phone calls in private, the confessions over coffee, the welt on her face . . .
“So you hit yourself that night?” I ask. “When you had me meet you in the park?”
“I did what I had to do.”
She’s insane. Deranged. Unhinged. “Who does that?”
“A woman hell-bent on preserving her family,” Campbell says without pause. “I’m sure your mother can relate to that. She had her husband’s mistress killed because she saw her as a threat to the beautiful life she created.”
“And look where that got her.”
“Her first mistake was trusting someone else to get the job done.” Campbell circles back to the side of the bed and takes a seat.
“You think killing me is going to make all your problems go away?”
She shrugs and nods, as if the answer is so obvious she doesn’t need to say it aloud.
“Sutton would never forgive you,” I tell her.
She stands. “Did you not hear me a minute ago? He hates you. He wishes he could forget you. I’m doing him a favor.”
The fire in her eyes makes her unrecognizable. Arguing with her is getting me nowhere, and reasoning with a crazy person will be akin to banging my head against a brick wall. I need to approach this from a different angle.
“You’re hurting.” I infuse as much manufactured compassion into my tone as I can manage, and I speak to her as if I’m not tied to a bed, awaiting a death sentence. “I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through. I wish things could be different. But this isn’t the answer. If you do this . . . things will only get worse for you.”
Gigi calls for her from the other room, up from her nap already. Or maybe she hasn’t fallen asleep yet due to all the noise coming from our end of the hall.
Without a word, Campbell leaves, closing the door behind her. I rest my head on the pillow, my neck strained. The water-stained ceiling above me reminds me of my apartment back in Portland with its leaky plumbing and dated kitchen and decades-old carpet. It was the only unit in the building that hadn’t been updated, and that was precisely why I chose it. It was perfectly imperfect, all its flaws in plain view. It wasn’t trying to be anything other than what it was.
The ropes burn against my flesh once more. I do my best to stay still.
From the moment she claimed to be my half sister, I knew better than to believe her. And I asked myself what she’d have to gain by lying.
Now? I have my answer.
She had a plan all along.
And because the smallest part of me secretly hoped for a blood connection to someone, anyone, I gave her the benefit of the doubt every step of the way, every moonlit mile to this cabin in the middle of a rural county.
Closing my eyes, I transport myself beyond these four walls. Eventually Campbell will be back to do what she’s going to do. I could have hours. I could have minutes. My mind floods with all the things I’ll never get to do, all the things I’ll never get to say. If I die here, today, never to be found, Rose will spend the rest of her life thinking I stood her up. I’ll never get to apologize to my mom for hating her all these years. I won’t get to find my biological mother, the real Autumn Carpenter. I won’t learn to forgive my father for the book. I won’t get to see what becomes of Sebastian once he finishes law school. There’ll be no thanking Jonah for everything he’s done for my career, for being not only a boss I can respect and look up to, but a friend as well.
Funny how quickly death puts everything into perspective, big and small. It shows you who you really are underneath life’s armor.
It’s ironic—I came back to Monarch Falls to tell Sutton how sorry I am for hurting him.
I wanted to make everything better.
In the end, I made everything worse.
CHAPTER 34
I’m not sure how much time has passed when Campbell returns, but I’ve managed to make some form of peace with the inevitable. With eyes closed tight, I’ve played half a dozen mental scenarios in my mind—apologies, exchanges, conversations that will never take place—grasping a sliver of comfort.
“Can we get this over with?” I ask when she closes the door.
Reaching into the back of her jeans, she pulls out a small handgun. I wince. I’ve spent enough time on the dark web to know that the type of gun she wields is nothing more than a threat stopper. It’ll take multiple bullets to kill me, and unless she aims at exactly the right place, my death could be slow and agonizing instead of quick and painless.
A shotgun would be better—at least for me.
It’d be messy, but it would be fast.
And then it would be over. For both of us.
Years ago, I was tasked with filtering a website that linked graphic images of murders along with their respective definitions. Patricide. Senicide. Filicide. Honor killing. Suicide by cop. There are a hundred ways to be killed, and I’ve witnessed photos of them all.
I know what this is going to look like when it’s over. The blood spatter. The soaked mattress. The wide-eyed expression on my face. I think about the person who’ll eventually find me—whether she leaves me here or somehow manages to drag my body into the woods. Two years back, I cleaned images off a dark site where a young EMT would post photos of dead bodies, mostly from car accidents and crime scenes. The goriest circumstances. He’d wait until no one was looking, snap a gruesome shot with his cell phone, and post it online for other sick fucks to enjoy.