Page 63 of Kill For Me Kill For You
Her mouth fell open, her eyes locked on the screen.
Her mind was making calculations. Connections.
A man murdered in their hotellast night.
Scott had gone out to follow a man. The man she had identified as her attacker. She had slept for a time and didn’t know how long he’d been gone. When he’d come back, he was wearing cheap clothes. The kind he would never wear. And they had to suddenly leave the hotel – where they’d been staying since she’d left the hospital. He had come back to the room that night not just with new clothes but with a new backpack. That backpack had not made it to this apartment. She knew on the ferry it had gone over the side into the dark waters of the channel. That’s why they had taken a circuitous route, including a long ferry crossing to Hartford instead of getting a direct train from Grand Central. She guessed he had blood-covered clothing that he had to dispose of.
‘. . . the victim was brutally murdered . . .’ said the TV reporter, standing outside the Paramount Hotel.
Ruth’s voice barely rose above a whisper, ‘What did you do last night?’
The shock and fear hit him immediately. Not at the news that a man had been killed, thought Ruth. No, Scott was worried that she’d put two and two together. She could see it registering on his face. He glanced at the TV, and the banner headline.
Scott said nothing. He just stared at the screen like it was the headlight from an overnight freight train thundering toward him and he was trapped in that beam, unable to move – completely frozen.
Ruth’s thoughts could not be contained – they spilled out of her mouth – given voice as if they had a will of their own.
‘The news says there was a man murdered in our hotel last night. You changed your clothes when you were out. You were gone a long time. And I know you dumped that new bag in the river. You . . . you . . .’
She didn’t finish the sentence. It was too heavy to say it out loud. She didn’t need to. Scott hung his head, took hold of the kitchen counter as his knees gave way. He crumpled to the floor. It was almost as if his body had suddenly taken on the physical weight of what he’d done.
‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ he said. ‘I just lost it and I hit him. And then he fought back. I had no choice. I thought he was going to kill me, and then he would come for you. I had no . . .’
His last words died as he cupped a hand across his mouth, his eyes squeezed shut. Tears tumbled over his fingers.
Ruth’s breath quickened; her chest tightened.
‘Are the cops looking for us?’ she asked.
Scott sniffed, said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I cleaned up the scene pretty good . . .’
Her back straightened as she blew out the air in her lungs. It felt hot. Toxic. When she drew another breath, it felt cool. Like inhaling the morning mist that floated on a calm mountain.
She approached Scott, knelt and raised his chin with her forefinger. Her shoulders no longer ached with tension. As she drew her hand away from his face she stopped, gazed at her fingers as if they belonged to someone else – they were still. No tremors. Her thoughts, always clouded with fear, suddenly felt calm – clear.
‘You killed Travers. You killed the man who attacked me,’ she said.
Through tears, Scott spoke. A long trail of saliva stretched between his lips, never breaking, but there with each word.
‘I’m sorry. I fucked up.’
She leaned in close, wiped his lips with her thumb and then kissed him.
‘You’vesavedus. You’vesavedme. He can’t come after us. I don’t have to be afraid. He’s dead and Iloveyou. I love you more than I can ever say.’
31
Amanda
There were two ways of tracking down Naomi.
Neither of them easy. The first was the most obvious. If Naomi wanted the man she had called Quinn dead, then there must be a connection. Maybe a close connection. And because of that she could not be the one to kill him.
Before he attacked Amanda, he’d asked who had sent her. Naomi had history with this man. The police would automatically think her a suspect. So maybe part of what Naomi had told her was probably true. Amanda thought this made sense. To find out the connection, she first had to find out the man’s real identity. That would take her one step closer to Naomi.
She scanned her phone for all the news alerts she could find on the story. None of them revealed the identity of the man in ICU who’d had an axe removed from his chest. No point going to the hospital, either. There might be a cop posted on the ward to protect the man in case his attacker returned to finish the job, and if she went near the hospital she put herself at risk of an earlier arrest. Her arrest would come. She was certain of it. When the man woke, he would provide a description to the police, and then of course they’d probably find her DNA somewhere at that messy scene. It wasn’t a question ofifshe was going to be arrested for attempted murder – it waswhen. And, once that moment came, she wanted to be ready with the truth. That someone else had put her up to this and forced her into that situation. Plus, she had wanted to leave, but the man had attacked her. It was self defense. That had to count for something, but it would count for nothing if she didn’t have evidence to back it up. And yet she couldn’t get too close to the man she had to investigate. Not at the hospital anyway.
No. She couldn’t track him that way.
