“Absolutely.”
The door to the bedroom stood open, the soft glow of a lamp spilling into the hall. “What’s her name?” Miranda asked softly, glancing back just in time to see the butt of a gun coming for her head.
Pain mingled with Summer’s voice as stars exploded in her head.
“Cathy,” Summer said. “Her name’s Cathy.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
7:10 P.M.
Miranda came to with a splitting headache. Disoriented, she looked around her. She was on the floor, propped against the wall of a small, plain bedroom. Bed turned down. Water and a plate of cookies on the night table. Lamp burning, nice and cozy.
Where was she? She brought a hand to her head; it came back sticky with blood. Miranda gazed at the red staining her fingers.
And remembered. Summer calling … a woman ready to step forward … turning to ask the woman’s name— Cathy.
Summer was Cathy from all those years ago. But having been right brought her no satisfaction.
She had to get out of here.
Miranda reached for her phone, only to find it wasn’t in her pocket. Of course it wasn’t; Summer had thought of that. Miranda got cautiously to her feet, head throbbing with every move. She crossed to the closed door, grabbed the knob, and twisted.
Locked. She was locked in.
She jiggled the knob, just to make sure, then heard footsteps from the hallway beyond. “Help!” she called. “I’m hurt and can’t get out!”
Silence. The sound of soft breathing.
Summer.
“I know it’s you, Summer. Open the door. Let’s talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” She sounded despondent. “How’s your head?”
“It hurts. I think I need stitches.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, just let me out.” She jiggled the knob again. “Please Summer.”
“I can’t do that, Miranda. I’m really sorry, I didn’t want to hit you.”
“Then why did you?”
“You left me no choice. I saw the printout.”
“The printout? What—”
The age regression of Summer. How had she … She’d forgotten her jacket in the booth at the bar.… It must have fallen out of her pocket.
Stupid, Miranda. Careless.
Miranda breathed deeply, willing her racing heart to slow, trying to clear her mind.
Think, Miranda. She has a plan. What is it? Figure a way out.
“I know you’re angry at me. And I’m so sorry.” She leaned her forehead on the door. “I tried to get help, I did. No one believed me.”
“I know,” Summer said softly. “I’m not angry with you. I was for a long time, but then I learned the truth…”
Her voice sounded muffled, as if she also had her face pressed close to the door.
“Now I know you’re a victim, just like me.”
A victim. She used to be. But not anymore. “Then why are you doing this? I thought we were friends.”
“We are.”
“Then why’d you hit me?”
“So you couldn’t stop me.”
Miranda’s mouth went dry. “Stop you from what?”
“Don’t you want to hear what happened that night, after you got away? Haven’t you wondered all these years?”
She had. So often. But now, a part of her didn’t want to know. “I was so afraid you were … that he’d killed you. I always hoped you were alive, Cathy.”
A soft sob came from the other side of the door. “But he did kill me. They killed me. You understand, don’t you, Randi?”
“Yes,” she whispered, the word coming out a croak.
“Because he did the same to you.”
She pressed her palm against the door. “That night … after I ran, what did he do?”
“Lost it … just went totally off the rails. I screamed and screamed, I couldn’t stop … so he hit me until I did.”
The screams she’d heard that night, the ones that echoed in her head for years. Goose bumps raced up her arms.
“When I woke up, I didn’t know where we were but I learned it was his family’s summer place. On Lake Pontchartrain. I was pretty messed up.… He was pacing … scared about what was going to happen to him.”
Summer’s voice dipped even lower; Miranda pressed closer to the door. “His dad showed up, slapped his face. I thought he was there to save me…”
She choked on the words; Miranda finished the thought for her. “But he was there to save his son.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I was a problem to be taken care of.”
“His dad, he wasn’t alone, was he?”
“No. He had two cops with him.”
“Chief Buddy Cadwell,” Miranda said, heart hurting. “And Officer Clint Wheeler.”
“Yes.” She paused, as if collecting her thoughts. “His dad offered me money to keep quiet. He said no one would believe me, I was just a tramp. Trash, same as you were. Nobody was going to believe us making accusations against a fine young man like his son.”
“How much money,?” Miranda asked, voice tight. “What was your silence worth to them?”
“Five thousand dollars. It seemed like a fortune back then.”
“So you took it.”
“I convinced myself the money would make up for what he did to me. I convinced myself I’d forget, move on.”
“But you couldn’t?”
“Did you?”
No, Miranda acknowledged silently. That night, its aftermath, had colored every moment, every decision of the past fourteen years.
Anger swelled up in her. It tasted bitter against her tongue. She hated feeling this way—discounted and overlooked, betrayed in the most elemental way.
Let it go, Miranda. Help Cathy let it go, too.
“It’s done,” Miranda said. “It’s over. We have to move on.”
“I tried. I can’t.” Her voice cracked. “I’m finishing this.”
She meant to kill Buddy. And Ian Stark. “Listen to me, Summer … Cathy,” she corrected, “we can beat them. You and me, together.”
“No, nothing’s changed. They have the money and the power and we don’t.”
“We’re not naive girls anymore. We’re strong, smart women. People will listen.”
Summer was crying. Miranda’s heart wrenched at the broken sound. “We need to let it go, Summer. Both of us.”
“That accident you asked me about, the one that took my face? That was no accident, Miranda. I wanted to die. Every day, I’d drive past that wall and imagine driving into it … pressing down the accelerator and pointing my car at it.”
She paused and cleared her throat, then went on. “But I didn’t die. Instead I woke up in the hospital a mangled mess. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t the one who was supposed to be dead. They were.”
Miranda brought a hand to her mouth to hold back a cry. It hurt. To know the pain this woman she’d grown to care about had suffered, how she still suffered.
“What justice would there be in me dying?” she continued. “I was the victim, they were the monsters.”
“Let me help you, Summer.”
Summer went on as if she hadn’t heard her. “That’s how I fought my way back, through brutal surgeries and physical therapies. Every minute was torture, but I made it through by focusing on my goal. Justice, Miranda. For me and you and every girl they hurt.”
“You were a victim. But you don’t have to be anymore. Don’t let them make you a murderer.”
“That’s already done. I have two left, that’s all.”