“Adam,” she says. “He and his team of experts. They were paid and paid well to teach you to get rid of your problems or do it for you. And what do you do? You walk out on one of the most important moments of my life. You betray me and desert me.”
Shock rolls through me, a boulder traveling mountains of disbelief. “You had them killed?” I demand. “Kevin? Akia? Jess, did—”
“Yes. Yes I did. And don’t forget Big Davis. Damn right I had that pervert killed. You and your father can thank me later. The second bidder on his invention is more than willing to step up, and in a big way, but Big Davis was intimidating him. No more, though. Now he’s dead.”
Panic overwhelms me, a wild river dragging me into the bloody bowels of hell, and I have only one coherent thought. I need help. “Jack!” I scream. “Jack! Help!”
It’s the wrong thing to do. She lets loose a wicked scream that doesn’t even sound like her and tries to hit me with the statue. I manage to catch it before it blasts through my skull, but suddenly she’s holding the letter opener, her face distorted, evil.
“Jess,” I plead before she plunges the sharp end into my belly.
I gasp with the pain, and for just a moment my world blacks out and spins. But she isn’t done with me. I see it in her eyes. The statue has fallen to the ground, and in some part of my mind, I’d heard the heavy thud of that moment. Somehow I’m still standing, but Jess is bending down, reaching for it, and I know she will crash it into my skull. Somehow, someway, I manage to pull the blade from my belly, numb from the pain.
By the time I do, Jess is already holding the statue high, ready to blast it against my head. Instinct, survival instinct, kicks in, and I plunge the letter opener into Jess’s belly. The statue hits the ground hard enough to rattle the floor. She doubles over, holds on to the blade, and whispers, “Bitch.” She yanks it from her belly as if she doesn’t feel it and tosses it on the desk. “Such a bitch,” she adds, but she stumbles backward, trips on her dress, and goes down.
I grab the letter opener, no, the knife that it has become, and I start running.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
My eyes open abruptly, staring at an unfamiliar white ceiling, the scent of medicine teasing my nostrils, a chill to the room around me.
I jerk to a sitting position, my gaze ripping around what appears to be a dimly lit hospital bed. A movement in the corner draws my attention as a large man unfolds himself from a sitting position. “You’re awake.”
I blink up at the familiar face. “Mike?”
“Yes,” he confirms, catching my hand, an IV dripping in the crevice of that same arm, a numb sensation in my belly, I don’t quite understand. My mind is a jumbled, blurry mess. “I got your letter, Mia. I’d have preferred you gave me time to help before you went off and got stabbed.”
My hand instinctively goes to my belly. “How did I get here?”
“One of the off-duty police officers working a shift at the library found you and got you here to the hospital. I’d already talked to him about looking out for you and Jack. He called me right away. I’ll explain everything I know so far soon. Right now, you just need to know you’re safe.” He hits the call button. “And we need to let the medical team know you’re awake.”
In my mind I object to the interruption to the answers I crave and need, but already a nurse is rushing into the room, and Mike is backing away from my bed, disappearing out of view. The nurse, a woman I guess to be midfifties, with brightly colored reddish-brown hair, asks me random questions. “What’s your name?”
“Mia Anderson.”
“Like Mr. Anderson?” she teases. “You know, from—”
“The Matrix,” I say. “Yes. I’ve heard that more than a few times.” I shift, and a stabbing pain rips through my belly.
“Easy,” she murmurs. “You had a pretty deep stab wound, but the good news is it missed all the important stuff. You’re going to be just fine. How bad is the pain?”
“Bad, but just when I move.”
“That’s what I hear a lot. And you know what I say?”
“Don’t move?”
“Exactly. Now we’ve had you well checked out. You’re going to be just fine, so I’m going to let you finish your chat with Mike.” She slides the call remote into my hand. “If you need me, just hit the button. And, Mia? I’m Mia, too. Bet you won’t forget my name.” She winks and then backs away from the bed.
Mike remains out of sight until the door to the room opens and closes. That’s when he rolls a stool to my side. “You up to talking now?”
I try to sit up and grimace. He captures my arm. “Not a good idea.”
“I guess not, but yes on talking. I need to know what happened. I need to know—so many things. Like how are you here? They told me you wouldn’t get my letter until Monday.”
“They being the Adam you left the letter with?”
“Yes. Yes, him. I was afraid he was working with the other Adam.”
“Adam is just a barista who happened to be on duty when our team called in a big order that afternoon. He delivered it and your letter. I was surprised you left something for me, so I opened it right away. Needless to say, you got my attention. I was working on finding the other Adam and getting you help, but you had to get yourself stabbed before I got the job done.”
“I see,” I whisper, memories flooding my mind. My lips curl, biting back the question I have to ask, my lashes lowering as I whisper, “Jess?”
“She’s dead, Mia.”
My lashes lift again, tears burning in my eyes. “I killed her?”
“You hit a major artery. She bled out before we ever found you in the back parking lot behind the library. Neil has cameras in each records room. It’s all on film. We know it was self-defense.”
“I don’t care what you know,” I say, my voice lifting. “I care that she’s dead. I care that I killed her.” I huff out a breath, my voice lowering, rasping painfully from my throat. “I loved her. I didn’t want—”
“I know you loved her, and I know you didn’t want her dead. Believe me, I’ve done enough research in the past twenty-four hours to know more than you think I know.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Start with what you do know.”
“Jess said she hired Adam and a team of men to basically fix my broken life.” I swallow the bile in my throat. “I think she paid them a lot of money.”
“She did,” he confirms. “Based on Jess’s journals now in our possession, and the contracts and communication we found on her electronics, Adam and his team of men were part of a black ops mission. Once we saw their contract, which wasn’t new to us, we pinpointed who they were, and the investigation came together. The FBI is actually aware of this group, and while they’ve proven slippery, we’ve compiled a great deal of data on them. Pulling that prior knowledge allowed me to demystify a lot of information related to your case.”
Perhaps the whole black ops mission should be where I home my thoughts, but the very nature of Jess was to go big or go home. Adam was an actor is what plays out rather brutally for me, and with a sharp twist of shame in my belly. I bared my soul to that man. I dressed up and let my hair down for him. I exposed myself to him in all kinds of emotional ways, and even now my cheeks heat with the idea of his men listening in to our conversation, perhaps laughing while they did. I wonder if Jess listened and judged me incapable of functioning on my own.
Even beyond the murders, how could she not see the betrayal of trust all this created between us? I answer my own question. She didn’t. Jess really believed she was my guardian angel—she always did. No one has to tell me—she planned to fix my life and ensure I never found out.
Now I wonder if she’s actually made me a target for killers. “Am I in danger? Will I be considered a liability?”
“I’ve talked to the task force. This group, DC9 is their name, operates with strict rules, no credit, and no favors. They only do what they are paid to do and nothing more.”