Her Dangerous Revenge

CHAPTER 53

But she didn't close her eyes. And whatever phantom of Rachel she felt lingering in

the room disappeared, evaporating in the silence.

Calla walked over to pull open the curtains, letting the cloudy light filter into the

room. It illuminated the space, causing the crystals that hung on the opposite wall to

glitter. She peddled backward until the back of her legs hit the bed and then she sat,

falling back on one of the pillows.

She let out a deep breath, causing dust motes to dance in the weak light streaming

in through the windows. She turned her head to watch them, analyzing the patterns

they made in the air, trying to calculate where they might float next. But whatever

path they followed escaped her. She could no more predict where a speck of dust

might fall than she could predict her own future.

Rachel is dead, she thought slowly, her eyes tracking one speck of dust and then

another. Rotting somewhere in the cemetery.

Where she imagined most people would feel pain—a gaping sense of loss so vast it

translated to physical misery—she felt only the steady rhythm of her heart.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Fury gripped her. Rachel was dead. Rachel was dead and she felt nothing.

Balling her fists in frustration, Calla screwed up her face until she could feel tears

pooling in her eyes. Crying on command was something she'd mastered years ago,

when she realized that it wouldn't be enough to hide her face and sniff behind her

hands.

Her tears were real. She felt them building, her eyes burning. But it wasn't enough.

Inside, she still felt no different.

She gasped, sucking in deep, heaving breaths, forcing her hands to tremble. She

willed her body to react, to feel the grief that escaped her. Her throat tightened as

tears spilled over her cheeks.

But despite it all—the tears and the broken gasps struggling through her aching

throat—what she felt was only physical. She was a shell. Beautifully

camouflaged...but empty.

This is stupid.

She sucked in a deep breath and immediately relaxed, her tears drying. Blinking up

at the ceiling, she wiped her face with the back of her hand, her expression settling

back into one of smooth indifference.

Anguish. That's what she should have felt. But she'd been born with a missing

piece, something inside her head or her soul—if there was such a thing—that left her

blank and cruel.

She rubbed her swollen eyes, irritated. What was the point of agonizing over the

dead, anyway? She sure as hell hadn't walked across town just to lie in her dead

best friend's bed and sulk. Even Rachel, complete with all her normal human

emotions, would have been disappointed to see her friend reduced to such a thing.

"I'm sorry, Rachel," Calla said in the quiet, her voice startlingly loud.

Calla could picture Rachel leaning against the doorframe to her closet, a new dress

draped over one arm and an eyebrow raised, as if to ask, Okay...that's great and all,

but now what?

"Now what?" Calla agreed, continuing the imaginary conversation aloud. She sat up

and threw her legs over the side of the bed, planting her feet on the floor. She stared

hard at her scuffed boots, her brows drawn low.

Catch the killer, obviously. That's what.

The voice in her head was unmistakably Rachel's. Calla glanced over her shoulder,

peering back at the walk-in closet. Rows of clothes, untouched for months, hung

inside. But no Rachel.

She stood, trailing her fingers along the silky bedspread as she made her way to the

closet. She hesitated in the doorway, staring into darkness. When she turned on the

light, she half-expected to find the closet in a disarray. Rachel never bothered to

hang up her clothes, preferring instead to fling each item onto the floor, discarded.

But of course it wasn't. The maids must have come in to clean. The closet was

spotless, rows of dresses and coats lining the rack to her right, coordinated by

color. Across from her, the wall of shoes was similarly organized, heels lining the

top shelves and an array of boots lined along the front.

The boots she'd borrowed three months ago—the muck and filth and damning as

the blood on her hands—taunted her. Ignoring them, Calla sat on the cream ottoman

in the center of the closet, staring up at Rachel's selection of sweaters.

You've got to try harder. Rachel's voice again in her head, only this time Calla

imagined she was standing somewhere behind her, shuffling through her selection

of designer coats. You can't let me just... die like this. Catch the bastard, will you?

"I'm trying," Calla muttered darkly, rubbing her temples with her fingers. She sighed.

"There's just...too many pieces."

So you're giving up?

"No," Calla snapped, turning—and finding nothing. Of course. Rachel was dead, and

Calla was losing her mind. She turned, throwing back her head and closing her eyes.

"I can do this."

She heaved a sigh, the silence of the house swallowing up the sound.

"But if you have any...oh, I don't know. Helpful insights? That would be fantastic,"

she muttered.

Me, helpful? Rachel's laughter reverberated around her skull. Don't hold your breath.

Calla turned. As expected, Rachel was nowhere to be found. Her row of coats hung

in a neat line, organized by texture and color.

Organized.

We left her room untouched.

Calla bolted to her feet. She turned in a slow circle, seeing the space with new eyes.

The pristine floor. The color-coordinated rack of shoes. The neat rows of designer

labels.

"You were always such a slob," Calla whispered, walking forward to brush her fingers

along the coat rack. "Who cleaned up after you? Mommy and Daddy certainly

didn't."

She paused, her fingertips pinching the sleeve of the mink coat Rachel had donned

the night of the gala. She ran her hands along its length, searching—

Her breath caught. Something flat and hard had been left in one of the pockets.

I never was big into reading, Rachel whispered as Calla withdrew a green,

leatherbound book. She ran her fingers down the spine. The beast in her belly

hissed.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales," Calla read aloud, tapping the decorative green cover with her

index finger. The gilded pages flashed in the overhead light. "Someone returned

Aunt Alice's book, Rach."

I don't think that's for me. Rachel's voice faded into the background. A hushed

whisper.

Calla's head throbbed, the pain increasing with each second that passed. Her grip

on the book tightened, her nails digging into the soft leather.

He was here. The killer was here.

"The killer has the key," Calla whispered, clutching the book with both hands. She

closed her eyes and swallowed, fighting to keep the beast from clawing its way to

the surface.

She hadn't thought about the key in weeks—not until she'd realized it was missing

this morning. She could only imagine what had happened to it. Had it fallen out of

her back pocket? Or had someone from school lifted it from her locker, rifling

through her things?

Worse, if the killer had somehow snuck into her room. She could have sworn she'd

left it in her nightstand. Apparently, her memory could not be trusted.

This killer can't be all bad, Rachel joked. Always so upbeat. They did a pretty good job

tidying up the place, don't you think?

"They're taunting me." Calla began pacing, walking to the wall of shoes and back

again. "Sneaking in here. Throwing this book in my face. Touching your things."

Calla knew what the book meant. The killer had already taken the pages they

needed. The rest of the murders were mapped out and ready to execute.

The killer had the advantage. And they knew it. They'd outmaneuvered Calla at every

turn. Just when she thought she had a piece of the puzzle—they beat her to the

punchline.

You aren't alone, Calla. What about Cooper? Rachel's voice wrapped around Calla like

a layer of sweet perfume. You have him.

Cooper Daniels.

Calla's one advantage—which truly was the greatest irony of her life. She'd promised

him his life in exchange for permission to kill. But she'd made a different promise,

too. A promise to Rachel.

Don't you want to find out who did it? He'd asked her. Don't you owe her that much?

Always asking the right questions.

If all else failed—if she couldn't catch the killer before Cooper's time ran out—she

would use him as bait. Whether or not he survived the trap she would lay to catch

the killer...well. Was that really her problem?

She brushed away the idea. She didn't want to resort to those means. Sitting by idly

wasn't in her nature. No. She would be more proactive than that.

If Calla could only hunt down the rest of the victims—preferably before their death.

She could use the information to nail down the killer's next move. But so far, that

task seemed to be impossible.

The headache plaguing her began to worsen. Thoughts of Cooper and Rachel and

murder and revenge vied for her attention, blurring together in a dizzying vortex.

There were so many knots to untangle, so many avenues to pursue. Every little

distraction threw her further off course, putting her ultimate goal beyond her reach.

To find the one who had taken Rachel from her. Because Rachel had been hers, and

hers alone. And she'd been stolen away by some thief in the night.

Suddenly exhausted, Calla tucked the book under her arm and began sifting through

Rachel's sweaters. She reviewed each one with a critical eye, letting her mind relax,

drifting away from dark thoughts of murder and revenge.

Instead, she thought of Astrid. Ryan. Jessica. Gareth. Mike. Blake. She imagined

each of their faces objectively, doing her best to step away from the problem and

think of each suspect with the same casual indifference with which she now treated

Rachel's sweaters.

Astrid's whispered warning in the church.

Stay away from Vincent.

Jessica's dramatic split from Mike, the bruises on his face.

I've seen her do crazier s**t, Calla.

Blake's busted hands. Gareth's dangerous temper. Mike's array of bruises. Ryan's

visit to the station the night of Tracy's murder.

A cream sweater caught her eye and she slipped it off the hanger, running the

material over her hands.

Patient. She needed to be patient.

"I'm going to find you," she whispered, draping the sweater over her arm.

Thank you, a soft voice murmured, right as Calla turned off the light and marched

out of Rachel's room. She hurried from the empty house with a renewed vigor,

ignoring the urge to look back over her shoulder as she strode down the gravel

driveway, a stolen sweater and leather-bound book in hand.

I'm going to find you.

She repeated those words the entire walk home.