Page 83 of Kill For Me Kill For You
‘Why should I trust you?’ asked Amanda.
‘Because I didn’t have to grab you off the street. I could’ve left you for the cops. And you know I’m telling the truth. You and I have been through the same mill with this woman. She used your grief and your pain and made you do something terrible. That could’ve been me. I won’t tell the cops what you did. I promise. This isn’t the first time she’s manipulated someone into murder and I think she’ll do it again. It has to stop.’
‘I couldn’t do it,’ said Amanda. ‘I backed out at the last second. But I’d hurt my knee and couldn’t get away fast enough. Quinn attacked me and I defended myself.’
Billy nodded, said, ‘I believe you. But you should never have been put in that situation. Help me stop her.’
Amanda drank some coffee, looked around and saw a sign on the counter that said –We Never Close.
She held out her hand across the table. ‘My name is Amanda White.’
He took it gracefully. ‘Nice to meet you.’
She scooched over, close to the window, said, ‘Come on over here so we can look at the screen together. I’ll help you, but if we find her then I need to talk to her.’
‘Of course.’
‘What are you going to do if we find her?’
‘I don’t know, exactly. She needs help. We have to find her before she persuades someone else to commit a murder. After that, we’ll figure it out. That good enough?’
‘For now, yeah. Show me everything you have on the other murder,’ said Amanda, taking off her jacket. ‘And you’re buying the coffee.’
46
Scott
He stared at Ruth.
Her trembling finger pointed at the TV screen. At a cop. Her lips mouthing those words. Ragged breath giving them life, but only as a whisper.
‘That’s him.’
‘Ruth, what are you talking about?’
‘That’s the man who attacked me,’ she said.
The man she was pointing at was a cop – Puccini, it said, on the banner below.
Ruth turned to him, the fear washing her skin in sweat and making her body tremble. She looked at him now, in disbelief.
‘Didn’t you hear what he said?’ she asked.
Scott shook his head. ‘Something about the hotline?’
‘No!’ she screamed, and clenched her fist. ‘He looked right into the camera and he said, clear as day,Hello, sweetheart. It’s him. He wants me to know he’s still alive – that we didn’t get him. He’s coming for me – don’t you see?’
Scott had heard and felt every word of the press conference – every single one. Because each word was an evisceration – a nail driven through his skull –he had killed an innocent man.
‘He didn’t say that,’ said Scott, his voice low, suddenly afraid.
‘I heard him. I watched him say it,’ she said.
Ruth’s breath grew wild, her chest heaving.
‘We have to kill him,’ she said.
At first, he didn’t register it. Ruth was clearly having some kind of breakdown. She was imagining things – hallucinating. Her wounds were deeper and more terrible than he’d first realized. In those first days after the attack, the focus had been on her physical health – the recovery from the internal damage. Then the fear, and the agoraphobia, and the nightmares, and now, this . . .
