Hey all,
Again, thanks for hanging in there on this update. Obviously these are taking a bit longer than I'd like them to (no one wants to hear my excuses anymore), but the next (final, or almost final?) part should be out to you in a bit. In the interim, I have a few survey questions for you all, which I will post in a separate chapter following this one. Basically, I just need reader input to make sure that my next book is the best it can possibly be. (: Thanks again everyone!
Muchisimos besos,
Railene
***
Carrie
More exhausted than fearful for my life at this point, I just rolled my eyes.
"This is getting to be very cute. If you wanted to spend all this time with me, you know, you could've just asked. There's no need for all the theatrics."
"You got lucky last time," she reminded me.
"I get lucky all the time," I retorted, quoting someone I knew.
"You're done for."
"I'm shaking."
"You should be."
"You know," I said quietly, gesturing at the space between us. "I wasn't a math major, but this looks like slightly less than 250 feet."
"You think I fear that TRO?"
"I think," I ventured. "That you just can't stay away from me."
She looked me in the eye, unmoving. "Something like that."
"Where is she?"
"Where is who?"
"The attorney who's supposed to be prosecuting you in a matter of days. I'm not that stupid, Lindsay," I reminded her, then couldn't help but add, "I'm certainly not stupid enough to attempt a pre-meditated murder inside a government building."
"An empty government building? Nobody works this late here, you know. Nobody except the DA himself, who seems to be away at some conference, and of course that one over-zealous attorney who practically lives in her office so she can properly kiss his ass, all in some ploy to take his spot when he finally quits or dies. Or is that why you do it, Caroline? Maybe it's because your life is so empty otherwise, so devoid of love, or passion, or emotion, that you work to distract yourself from the vacancy?"
"You don't know a damn thing about my life," I tried arguing, but sounded so defensive I was almost defeating myself.
"Right, because your life doesn't really lack passion, does it? I forgot you're cohabitating with your bodyguard."
"You don't talk about her."
"Quite the relationship of convenience," she continued, disobeying me. "Rescuing you from certain death by day, and we don't need to discuss what she does for you by night, but you know, you are quite lucky she's finally yours."
I just inhaled, not knowing what to say or how to say it.
"Although, she's not really rightfully yours, is she?"
"You don't know anything about that."
"You're right, I don't," she agreed, crossing the room. For reasons unbeknownst to me, she placed a hand on my closet door, not taking her eyes off of me once as she opened it. I was bemused, rendered silent, plastered to the floor, when out of it walked two individuals: first, my intern, as I could've expected - but then the secret number one source of my guilt.
"Maybe she does."
I made a face like I'd been stabbed. "Grace," I said unnecessarily. "What are you..." I trailed off, then went silent. Dumb questions, Carrie. No time for them.
"I asked her to come here," Lindsay answered anyway. "She had no objection."
"How did you even get in?"
"Caroline, so intelligent yet so lacking in sense. Did you really think you left your key at the bar that night? Caroline Everett doesn't make mistakes."
"You insufferable bitch," I couldn't help castigating, shaking my head in disbelief.
"Name-calling won't save your life, I'm afraid. In fact, now no one will."
"Why is she here?" I questioned, talking about Grace instead of directly to her because I was that lacking in the respect department.
"Well, someone has to pull the trigger, Caroline," she tried explaining. "And I've had my fun with you, even if I didn't quite get to finish the job the last time, so I figured I'd let someone else whose life you ruined have a chance."
"I didn't ruin her life."
"Grace, care to respond?"
"How can you say that?" she wondered out loud.
"Say what?"
"How can you say you haven't ruined everything?"
Grace, as always, couldn't keep the flood gates closed, and was already watering at the eyes. It was almost laughable as Lindsay McVale, the licensed assassin, assuredly passed her professional-grade firearm off to Princess Grace, who could try like hell to kill a fly, but would probably end up missing.
Part of me had to wonder, though, what makes an assassin an assassin and a crying princess just that. Something biological, maybe, a few wires loose in the head, or maybe it was just the result of a poor upbringing. Or maybe, in my worst case scenario, the only thing that separated an assassin from the rest of us was a heavy dose of anger and a sentiment of having nothing to lose. Grace, I knew, had both, and so I had to ask myself: what is more dangerous than a jealous ex-girlfriend?
I laughed at the prospect anyway.
"I'm sorry," I finally said. "You're going to trust her with a firearm?"
"Like it's hard?"
"She'll probably end up shooting herself in the foot," I warned. "Quite literally."
"Carrie, shut up," Margaret implored from the corner of the room. "Please, just humble yourself for once and say you're sorry!"
"Margaret," I said quietly. "Perhaps you don't quite know what's transpired between the three of us in the past weeks, but if you think sorry is going to fix it, I wish both your GPA and your bar exam good luck."
"The most intelligent thing you've said all day, Caroline," Lindsay agreed. "Now, I'm going to let the three of you work it out together how this is going to play out, kind of like a social experiment of sorts. I'm going out to the hallway to make a phone call, and when I come back, I'm expecting a decision."
"A decision on what?"
"Well, for example, Caroline, if you'd like to have the first shot, I'd be willing to let you do that. Of course it'd be easier to watch someone else put a bullet through your own protégé than to do it yourself, but there's no guarantee, of course, that I'll kill on contact. You may decide that you'd like to put her out of her misery quickly, rather than draw it out like I very well may, or you may decide - as I'd wager that you will - that you can't bring yourself to do it. I estimate that you're too weak and too selfish to pull the trigger, and that you'd rather let her suffer than live with being the cause of her death."
"You're a sadistic piece of--"
"Carrie!" Margaret wailed. I couldn't deal with the hysteria. Between her and Grace, it felt like I was running a daycare.
"Ladies," Lindsay said coolly, hand on the door. "I'm giving you ten minutes." Then she shut it behind her. Just like that.
"This is like Christmas," I lamented quietly.
"Well, Carrie, as hard as it is to believe it's not very much fun for me to be here either," Grace said angrily and in one breath.
"Well then, I guess it isn't Christmas," I replied in a level voice. "Children love Christmas."
"Does calling me a child make you feel like less of an old bitch?"
"Well, no," I said, pulling a confused face. "That just wouldn't be plausible, logically speaking."
"God, shut up."
"You asked me a question."
"It was rhetorical."
I actually laughed. "If that was supposed to be rhetoric, it was an abysmal attempt."
"This is absurd."
"Really? I thought it would be kind of fun, getting the old band back together."
"I don't even want to hear your name, let alone stand here and breathe the same air."
"Well, if it bothers you that much, you're welcome to stop breathing any time, Grace. Might have to close your mouth for a couple seconds, though."
"I'll close my mouth when you close your legs."
"Grace," Margaret interrupted.
"Grace?!" she nearly screamed.
"Both of you," she corrected. "We can sit here in silence for the next ten minutes until this bitch blows all three of our heads off, or we can actually figure out a plan by carrying on a cordial conversation like adults. Are we capable of doing that?"
"We are capable of doing that," I said, gesturing between the two of us. "Other parties in the room may feel more comfortable with a thesaurus."
"Listen," Grace said, actually finger pointing. "I don't--"
"I'm sorry, let me explain," Carrie interrupted. "It's a book, not a dinosaur."
"Carrie--"
"I'm done," I swore, putting up a hand. Grace, maybe taking the high road, or maybe unable to think of an apt remark, shut up too. The awkward silence was painful, and of course, going back on my word, it was me that broke it.
"So," I said slowly as a fake stab at small talk. "How was school?"
"God, shut the hell up!"
"I was just making cordial conversation, Grace."
"By connotating that I'm still in elementary school."
"Connoting."
"Carrie, she has a gun in her hand, you'd better shut the fuck up."
"Do you realize you just told your supervisor to shut the fuck up?"
"Do you realize you're minutes from death and you don't even care?" Margaret screamed in hysteria.
I laughed then, leaning against a wall. "Margaret, Counselor, honey," I reasoned. "Let me reiterate. I slept with her ex-girlfriend while they were together, and I did it again after they broke up. Now we're in a deserted office building and she's holding a handgun under directions to kill me. What, pray tell, do you suggest I do to change her mind?"
"I don't know, Carrie," she admitted. "But I'm going to go ahead and say this isn't it."
"Would you kill me, Grace?" I asked plainly.
"In a heartbeat."
"Do you really mean that?"
She looked like she was going to break down at any moment. She couldn't even keep her hands on the grip. And yet somehow, her seriousness - which was now bordering on craziness, craziness that existed outside her usual realm of crazy, which was frightening in and of itself - had me wondering. Given the chance, would Princess Grace take me out?
What in the hell would stop her?
Not my asshole tongue-in-cheek remarks, I thought, which I couldn't have stopped if I wanted to. "Why wouldn't I?" she questioned, verbalizing my thoughts. "You just said it yourself."
"Well, as a professional in the field, I'd advise you against it," I said honestly. "Your prints are already on the gun, and if it needs to come to light, you have motive, the cameras outside place you here at the scene, that's opportunity..."
"Carrie, for once in your life, don't talk down to me," she implored.
I put my hands up. "If pro bono legal advice is condescension..."
"I'd risk prison," she cut me off, getting to the heart of the matter. "Of course I would. Why wouldn't I? I don't care. There was one thing I cared about, and you took that from me. What am I supposed to do now?"
The bitch had a point.
"Grace," Margaret said in her Margaret voice. "You have so much to live for."
"You met me forty minutes ago."
I almost laughed, then wondered how messed up it was that I liked mid-psychotic-break, homicidal Grace more than I liked regular Grace.
Margaret shrugged. "I've heard a lot about you," she tried, which was probably the worst possible thing she could've said.
"Margaret," I tried to say kindly. "Please stop speaking."
"Stop telling everyone what to do," Grace said, utterly batshit at this point, if she wasn't before.
"Excuse me?"
"You think you're better than everyone, you push people around, her, Jennifer--"
"You know nothing," I interrupted, slowly, forcefully. "About Jennifer and me."
"I know you used her. The entire time, you used her."
"I didn't use anyone," I absolutely told myself.
"Then why aren't you with her anymore?"
"That's none of your business."
"I think you and I both know exactly how it's my business," she reminded me, and it was true. I did.
All too well.
***
Kim
"Where's Carrie? She's not answering my calls."
Carver exhaled, with a roll of the eyes that I may or may not have imagined, before beginning to walk away.
I looked expectantly at Clapp, hoping someone in this room had answers. He, unfortunately, just shrugged. "Left to find Maggie, I guess thirty-ish minutes ago."
"Where's Maggie?" I circled.
"Well if we knew that, then we'd know where Carrie was."
"She's missing?" I pushed, wishing someone would tell a full story instead of useless tidbits.
"Not for another twenty three odd hours, not according to GFPD."
"Stop being a smart ass piece of shit, Clapp, and tell me what's going on."
"Legal aid is here for Gaines, but we're waiting on Maggie to put a deal on the table. Carter's off at some conference and she's not answering her phone. What do you need Carrie for so badly?"
I swallowed hard, just now realizing that I couldn't think of a damn thing. "I was just wondering if she brought that evidence by," I decided.
"You mean that evidence Bagley found?" Carver threw out from the corner of the room.
"Yeah, that evidence Bagley found," I agreed. "So you have it?"
"Dropped it at the CSRU ten minutes ago. Anything else?"
I looked around. "No, I guess not."
"You can call it a night, then," Clapp suggested. "We're just going to wait to finish with Gaines and then turn in."
"And no one's worried about Carrie?"
"I wouldn't say no one," Carver said quietly, but more than a bit acrimoniously. "Sure sounds like you are."
I ignored her tone because I didn't want to think about what she was thinking. "Should I go check her office?"
"If you can't go another fifteen minutes without her, then fine, go," Carver continued. I decided I didn't like ballsy Carver as much as I had previously enjoyed the show when the animosity wasn't aimed at me.
"What's your problem tonight, Carver?"
"Don't make me answer that," she said before sitting down and ignoring me.
I looked around and knew Carver had a point. In spite of that weird, unshakable feeling I had that it was somehow an anomaly that she wasn't here, Carrie was able to take care of herself. She was thirty three years old, after all. And, while we're being completely honest, there was a quite dominant part of me that didn't want to prove Carver right. As much as I wanted to follow that pesky savior instinct, I didn't want to barrel out of the precinct and hunt her down with no reasonable basis to do so, because that would just reaffirm everything that was probably going on in Carver's mind. So I instead resolved to find an excuse to sit down and shut up.
"I have a couple reports I need to file," I said ambiguously. Clapp grunted his indifference and Carver went back to fuming or mourning the loss of her ex-girlfriend or doing whatever it is that Jenn Carvers do.
***
Carrie
I wondered just how long Grace would hold it together. I considered that maybe if I stared intimidatingly at her for long enough she would break down and die. I figured that if anyone could kill with a stare, well, I was probably that person, and if anyone could die from intimidation, it would be someone as fragile and hopeless as Grace. In a room of three, I knew I was the most fit to survive, and yet I had the shittiest odds of walking back out. The tables are so quick to turn in a society that pivots not on merit, but sheerly on the element of surprise.
I wondered if it was better to cooperate or defect. I wasn't sure cooperation was an option. I was at this point quite unsure of what these people wanted from me, short of my blood on the laminate, but at the same time I knew I wasn't quite ready to offer it, whatever it was. What would fix things at this point? What concession would optimize my outcome? Did my only chance to keep my life exist in a world in which I ceded everything I'd wanted in the past month, year, or several? I had a viable opportunity to withdraw my testimony, for example, a slightly less viable opportunity to convince the DA to drop the charges, and perhaps least viable of all, I had the opportunity to give Grace what she wanted and let Kim go.
But, once I decided to be honest with myself, I also knew that I would let Grace put a hundred bullets in my head before I let any one of those things happen.
"Carrie," Margaret whispered desperately, somewhere to my left. "You need to kill me."
"Margaret, don't be fucking absurd, I'm not going to kill you."
"I'm not walking out of here alive--"
"Yes, you are. Grace might have the hatred and the balls to shoot me, but I guarantee you she will shit herself and pass out from fear before she's able to pull the trigger on a stranger."
"I'm right here," Grace indicated, just as a reminder.
"Yeah, and what about her? I'm prosecuting her, Carrie, of course she'd kill me."
"I don't know," I admitted. "Okay? I don't know. Just stop talking and let me think."
"If you kill me, will you let her go?"
"Oh my God," I bitched. "I am so sick of hearing those words."
"Do you hear yourself?" Grace questioned.
"No one's killing anyone for the other," I dismissed. "I won't let her martyr herself, and regardless, we're now both witnesses to the same felony and if McVale is an assassin worth her shit, she's not going to let one run and tell the morning gazette. Now all I ask is that everyone shut the hell up for thirty seconds."
I considered calling the police, but I knew my door wasn't all that heavy, and that McVale would undoubtedly hear if Grace didn't stop me first. I considered sending a text to Kim, to Jennifer, to anyone, but I knew that the last thing Grace wanted to see was me pulling out my phone and letting her imagination run wild about all the things I was writing to her ex-girlfriend. So I resolved to reach into my pocket and feel around blindly and send something - anything - to Kim, just hoping that it was her name I'd touched, that I'd made some kind of message and some kind of contact with the send button.
And she'd have to know what it meant, wouldn't she?
No decision made, Lindsay opened the door again what felt like ten seconds later. I wondered in that moment exactly whom she'd had to call.
"So," she cut back. "What's it going to be?"
"I'll do it," Grace said all too eagerly, so eagerly I almost didn't buy it. If Lindsay had been right about one thing, it was that I was absolutely unable to plan my own death. What the hell difference did it make? The only one I could foresee was that, if that handgun held eight rounds, that was only four bullets each that we had to dodge, and maybe if Grace's aim was as poor as I presumed it was, that wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Maybe if my luck was good I could dodge one bullet and hope the other three landed in my foot, or my leg, or somewhere else nonfatal. Little victories, everyone. Life is full of them.
Somewhere in the pocket of my suit jacket, I felt my phone vibrate, but I wasn't stupid enough to check it. I wasn't sure at this point what my escape plan was, though I wasn't quite ready, either, to die. The saddest part may have been that I was banking on the PD to come looking for me, hoping that at least someone back at the precinct had entertained the thought that maybe I'd been gone a little too long. I'd said to Jennifer, after all, to come looking if I wasn't back in an hour, and I'd said it unironically. You can't take any request too seriously when you're dealing with a serial killer, can you?
***
Jenn
"If you're not charging my client, we're leaving."
"Sit down, Mr. Tolbert, you know full well that under state law we still have twenty hours."
"Do you have a heart? Look at this man, he's been through hell and back. He doesn't need to sit here in a cell while the entire PD sits on its ass and ties its own hands. I'm going to be making a swift trip to Internal Affairs."
"We're not tying our own hands," I argued fruitlessly.
"Then where's your prosecutor?"
"Not here, is she?"
He scoffed in disbelief. "Evidently no, she's not."
I heard a tap on the window of the interrogation room, and the one-way glass didn't allow me to see who was knocking. Still, I'd have preferred to have been anywhere but in that tiny room, and so I rose.
"Excuse me," I said, dismissing myself.
When I opened the door I sighed and leaned apathetically back against the wall, resolving that - try as I might - I could never really get rid of Kim Hayden when I wanted to most.
"Problem?" I inquired.
"Did you talk to Carrie before she left?"
The sound I made, aside from "I'm not over it yet," meant to say that I was tired of her shit. "Kim, would you give it a rest?"
"No, listen, this text she just sent me makes no sense, and I'm thinking it could mean something."
"Maybe it means that she texted you by accident."
"But couldn't answer her phone?"
"Maybe she's busy."
"What did she say to you before she left?"
I exhaled slowly, trying to remember in detail my most recent encounter with Carrie, when everything in me wanted to forget her existence entirely. "'Run this evidence, make it fast, don't ask questions, do what I say. I'm going to find you a prosecutor, and if I'm not back with in the hour, make sure I'm not dead, then we're calling Carter.'"
"Verbatim?"
I shrugged. "I may have paraphrased."
She shook her head before taking off. "I'm going," she said.
I looked back in disbelief. "Going where?" I called after her.
"I'm not really sure," was Kim's response, before she was off again to go save the day.
***
Carrie
Still wielding the revolver, Grace looked me in the eye and I may have hated her less. I may have felt less contempt for her when she held my life in her hands than I did any other day. If she was ready to shoot me down over Kim, I didn't feel angry, and I didn't feel any judgment. I felt genuinely sorry. And I felt that way because I was positive there was only one person in this world that I would kill for, and it was the very same one.
"Anything you want to get off your chest, Grace?" Lindsay inquired. She wasn't going to let this be easy.
"You led me to this," Grace made sure to let me know. "I never wanted to be in this position."
"You don't have to be," I reminded her.
"For two years, I've wished I could get rid of you, but you just wouldn't go away. You showed up one day, and you never quite disappeared. She met you and forgot about me. She came back to me, but she moved to be closer to you, and I moved with her. And since then, you've been here every day of my life. Even when you weren't around, you were. You said it yourself, Carrie, I am engrossed in hating you, and it drives me crazy a hundred percent of the time. And I wished, so badly, that I could just make you go away, and change everything that was wrong with my relationship, make it right again."
I didn't know what to say, but I knew nothing I said would do the situation justice. Was it worth it to apologize for what I'd done? Should I have apologized for loving someone I couldn't help falling for, even when I'd done so silently, patiently waiting my turn?
"But I couldn't do that," she went on.
"And now you can," I filled in. "I get it, and it's okay."
"But that's the thing," she corrected me. "I can't. Getting rid of you wouldn't have fixed it. It wouldn't have made her love me, it would have made her miserable. That's the one thing neither of us wants."
I swallowed and stared forward. I had no idea where she was going with this, not a damn clue in hell. Not for the first time in her life, I was sure Grace was not making the smallest iota of sense, and that was when she raised the revolver back to chest level and rested her grip on the trigger.
And then, out of nowhere, she shot.
And I was still standing, still breathing, perfectly unscathed, yet nearly paralyzed.