"Keep your eyes on the road," the True Serial Catcher ordered and tightened the rope.
Sapphire kept one hand on the wheel and used the other to claw at the mask.
The True Serial Catcher moved her head and spoke, letting the necklace device modify her tone until it was unrecognizable.
"Sapphire, Sapphire," her dark voice hushed. "You think this is bad? Imagine being trapped for days, tortured, starved, and humiliated. If you could truly imagine it all, Sapphire, you wouldn't have spared all those monsters. You'd kill them, like I do." She tightened the rope again.
Sapphire gasped and swerved the car in jagged movements. Her eyeballs bulged, desperately seeking oxygen.
"You forced me to do this." She leaned into Sapphire's ear. "I told you to leave them be, to let them be mine. Yet here you are, chasing the Beverly Hills Killer. I saw him walk out of the UPS store before you went in."
She tightened the rope again and Sapphire's body went into panic. She tossed her head, desperate for air.
The car swerved to the shoulder and scraped against the railing, creating sparks.
"I will not let you spare this monster. He's mine, you hear? And he is as good as dead."
Sapphire's face reddened and her lips turned purple. She nodded frantically, eager to please.
"I'm giving you the gift of trust. Waste that gift and you'll find yourself back in this situation. Next time, I won't take the rope off."
She removed the rope and watched Sapphire suck in air. The heiress hit the brakes and skidded to a stop on the shoulder. She grabbed her throat then leaned forward to cough and gasp in intervals.
"Who are you?" Sapphire Dubois squeezed out.
The True Serial Catcher laughed. "Why Sapphire, you've already met me. We're old pals." She smacked Sapphire in the head with the handle of her knife. "Sweet dreams."
Sapphire's forehead plunked to the steering wheel and stayed there.
The True Serial Catcher was just about to leave, when she noticed the crumpled up card in Sapphire's passenger seat. She took it and unraveled it.
Happy 10th Birthday.
Dear Daughter, fool me once...
Sapphire walked in empty handed, then came out with this. It was no coincidence; the Beverly Hills Killer left it for her.
True Serial Catcher howled with laugher as she put the pieces together. As twisted as her life was with the one at home, Sapphire Dubois' own father was a serial killer. It didn't get more fucked up than that.
The True Serial Catcher was still laughing when she shoved the birthday card into her bag. One thing was clear. Trust was out of the equation. Sapphire would never leave her own father be, and there was no question that she'd spare him from death too. The True Serial Catcher couldn't allow it. The problem was she had let the man take off, and now she had no idea where he was.
She had to wait for Sapphire to lead her to the monster again. Then, they'd both die and the True Serial Catcher knew just the right place for the pair.
• • •
Sapphire pressed her palm to the wound. Her head was bleeding again, and the migraine wouldn't stop. She could barely see straight. The stress in her chest was building and she felt like it'd break her into a million pieces at any second.
When she woke up, she'd lost her father's trail and could do nothing but go back to the UPS store to drive an upset John home. At least he was upset until Sapphire said she'd snapped a photo of the supposed cheater and would show it to Chrissy.
She dropped him off then returned the rental and paid an astronomical sum for the damages that happened when the Copycat made her swerve into the railing. Sapphire headed for the bus stop, her only company a throbbing migraine.
If the Copycat killed William Dubois before Sapphire got to him, she would never find out where he kept Chrissy, and her friend would be left to die God only knew where. Sapphire had to find out who her new enemy was, but didn't know where to start.
You've already met me. We're old pals. The words tumbled in Sapphire's head. She couldn't make sense of it, so all it did was torture her.
She touched the blue strangle line that snaked around her throat as her eyes slid to the acres of grass and she realized where she was. Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
Sapphire stopped for a beat, then stepped onto the grass. She passed graves upon graves, until she reached the old iron gates and opened them.
She stood before the grave, the origin of pain, and stared at the name above the flaccid white tulips. Charles James Dubois II.
Her chest hurt so badly Sapphire closed her eyes and wished herself back to Paris—a simple place where Colette smiled and called her bitch, where Sapphire was in control, and where she could suppress her dark memories.
The last conversation she had with Charles was back. He told her she was walking a thin line between Serial Catcher and killer. "Be careful," he'd said, "not to step into your father's path." She had no idea how right he'd turn out to be.
Everything that had happened in the past few months writhed like a painful worm inside Sapphire. It twisted her mouth and forced the tears out. Bloody, feverish, and beaten by them all, she sank to the ground.
"I'm sorry, Charles," Sapphire cried, feeling the heavy mourning rock bulge in her chest. "I'm so sorry." She heaved over, the tears shutting her down. She cried and squeezed the top of the grave stone until her fingers ached.
"Oh, Sapphire..."
Sapphire turned.
She stood with white tulips in hand and Sapphire saw her own sorrow reflected in the woman's expression. The anger and hurt she'd held onto since the arrest evaporated.
"Julia," Sapphire said, tears flooding her eyes. "I'm sorry."
Julia hurried to drop the tulips on Charles's grave, then fell to her knees and opened her arms. Sapphire dove into Julia as the sorrow fell out of her.
"Es okay. Es okay," Julia whispered, stroking her hair.
Somewhere between the twelfth and forty-seventh Es okay, Julia brought Sapphire back to her and her husband Antonio's apartment up the road.
Sapphire lay on their plush living room couch, next to the gas fireplace, and listened to Julia's calming words until her eyes grew heavy. She slept deeper than she had before Paris, before the wedding, and before her life turned so dark.
That night, on Julia's couch, Sapphire dreamt of the end. She, the Copycat, her father, and Aston stood in a room waiting, watching each other. Then came blood.
When Sapphire woke up the next morning, she knew.
Not all of them were going to make it out of this alive.
• • •
The pain was so bad Chrissy couldn't think straight.
Her thoughts whirled and she had a hard time grasping reality. She wished he hadn't left the radio on. The broadcasters were going on about a new earthquake somewhere in Southern California and the voices tortured her feverish mind.
Why was this happening to her? It was as if God, or the universe, or whatever was in charge up there, had confused her with someone else, someone lesser. She didn't deserve this. Chrissy was a Kraft.
"Why did you fire me?" The voice overpowered the radio.
He stood by her bed, dressed in his penguin suit, and kept saying the same thing. "Why did you fire me? Why did you fire me?"
I don't know. I don't know! I DON'T know! Chrissy screamed at him in her mind. Leave me alone! Tears burned her eyes and she wished she could blink them away.
The horrible man with his knife and his paralyzing drug had finally left, but he could be back anytime.
Nobody was coming to help Chrissy. If they were, they would've been here already and she wouldn't be missing so many nails.
He wasn't keeping her for ransom. He was the Beverly Hills Killer; she knew this now.
Chrissy had never experienced anything like the pain he'd caused her. The fact that she couldn't move her body while his knife did excruciating things made the panic that much worse. She tried to think of happy things every time he put the blade to a new nail, but all her mind did was go back to two places.
The first was when she fired that bartender. The second was the night she first found out Sapphire was back in L.A.
They'd all been gathered in the dining hall. Chrissy loved it when her Daddy was home. The mansion seemed too empty when it was just her and her mother. The twenty employees were nameless shadows and didn't count as company. She had known their names when she was younger, but they kept making mistakes so her daddy had to keep firing them. There was no point in learning their names or faces.
"Christina," her daddy interrupted her mother, who'd been talking about her new curtains.
"Yes, Daddy?"
"Peter Sinclair told me the Dubois girl is back, and got sent to jail to await her trial." One of their waiters came up to refill his glazed carrots.
"What? When?" Chrissy got excited. Her father rarely paid attention to Chrissy's life: boyfriends, friends, and shopping. "I want to see her, but I'm like mad at her a little, and also, O-M-G, jail's like, ew."
"I can't have you seen with Sapphire Dubois in public right now." Her daddy turned to their personal waiter. "For the love of God, three carrots are more than enough. What am I, a donkey to you?"
"Of course not, sir. Terribly sorry, sir." The waiter removed the fourth carrot.
"Imbecile," her daddy muttered as the waiter went back to the staff line by the wall.
"What do you mean?" Chrissy shook her head, confused. "Why?"
Her daddy never liked Sapphire per se, but he usually let Chrissy's life be Chrissy's. When he found out they met at Winchester Private Academy years ago, he told her she should consider befriending a Fortune 500 heir instead of a child of DubCorp. He said nothing when she stayed friends with Sapphire.
"Because, I've made an arrangement..." He turned to the line. "Do I have to grab my own gravy?"
After the woman grabbed the gravy boat next to his plate, her daddy told her. In the end, Chrissy understood, but had suddenly lost her appetite.
"Can I trust you will not consort with the Dubois girl?"
"Of course, Daddy," Chrissy agreed. It felt wrong, but she knew her daddy was always right.
"Good," he said. "On a different note, Mr. Vanderpilt wondered where the heck you went. He said little John's been a sulking mess since you stopped coming around."
Chrissy nodded, but said nothing. She felt guilty that she and John slept together one night when he and Sapphire were engaged. When Sapphire later said she didn't love John, but in fact hated him, Chrissy and John jumped into a hot summer romance. People turned their heads wherever they went. Two heirs of the richest families in America, holding hands and smooching, was the best thing they'd seen since... ever. Then he forced her to dump him.
Now she wasn't sure she'd made the right call. Chrissy had never spent time overthinking things, but time and thoughts were all she had in this horrid room.
"Why did you fire me? Why did you fire me?" The white haired bartender stared down at her, his eyes nearly black.
Chrissy wanted to scream. She didn't know why she fired him, she just did.
A young woman in a maid uniform appeared at the other side of the room. "She got me fired too."
"She told the cops I put drugs in her purse," a younger man said. "She got me arrested."
"She withheld the truth from me, knowing what it would cost me." Sapphire appeared at the foot of her cot.
Shut up! Shut up! Chrissy closed her eyes to drown them all out, but couldn't. More people popped up, and said she'd done more things, and a suspicion crawled upon her. Maybe...
The door to the room flew open and the man with the knife was back.
The moment his foot stepped over the threshold everyone vanished. Even the ghosts of her mind feared him.
The terror spread inside Chrissy. Her heart wrenched with fear as he smiled at her, hungry for more of her pain. He gazed down at her remaining nails in excitement. She knew what was about to happen. The sharp pain that came every time he peeled off another nail would be all-consuming. As he moved on to the next, the previous finger would throb and burn. Soon all the pain from every missing nail he touched would join into a symphony of torturous sensations. All Chrissy could do was lie there and let the agony happen.
Maybe, she thought as the horrible man brought his terrible knife to the first nail, maybe Chrissy had this coming.
• • •
"Por qué?"
"Because it was better to just hang up." Sapphire bounced Julia's daughter, Elsa, on her lap. She cooed at the child.
"Por qué?"
Sapphire sighed at Julia. "Because I didn't want them to trace my call."
"Por qué?"
"Because I couldn't go home!" She handed Elsa to Antonio and got up. "Obviously, I should've never returned."
"Por qué?"
"Because... gaah, quit por-que-ing me!" Sapphire paced Julia's kitchen. "I told you, I'm not who they say I am. I'm not tracking serial killers, and I only killed Richard Martin in self-defense. You have to believe me, Julia!"
"Of course, Sapphire!" Julia held her hand out. "If you tell me this is so, I believe you. I never think you could do somesing so..." she shook her head. "Es okay."
Nice lie, Sapphire's thought hissed. You know who make good liars?
Her body went rigid. She knew the answer: Sociopaths, serial killers. But the truth would crush Julia.
"Here, Sapphire." Antonio handed her a stack of papers. "I went to put away your purse, and they fell out."
"Oh, thanks." Sapphire snagged the papers she'd stolen from Aston quickly, hoping Antonio hadn't read them.
We've already met. The words came back to her as she stared down at Aston's Copycat notes. He'd circled a sentence. A victim of torture looking for revenge. A woman who has been through something so traumatic, she has to kill men similar to the one who captured her.
Sapphire looked up as the image of the girl came to her. She wanted to be wrong. Who did she know who'd been captured and tortured? Shelly McCormick.
"No." But it had to be. Shelly had been in Beverly Hills the day Sapphire got the recording and the Copycat had spoken about being held and tormented. This is what Shelly did to cope.
"Qué pasa, Sapphire?"
Sapphire sat still, feeling the old guilt invade her body. She did this; she caused Shelly, a happy college girl to become this psychopath.
Julia hunched down and took her hand. "Please, tell me so I can help."
Sapphire stared at Julia. She could never tell her the whole truth, but to open her mouth would be a relief. "I hurt someone unintentionally. And now, they're this whole different person, someone bad, because of my actions."
"Oh." Julia stood and grabbed Elsa. "Es jos like with Michelle Evans when you were little."
"No, not like Michelle Evans." Sapphire looked up at Julia—bless her heart—who had no idea she was talking about a killer.
"Si. Es jos like Michelle Evans," Julia insisted. "She didn't get invited to your birthday party, and then she go crazy, calling you names, stealing your snack pack. And you need to do what I tell you then. Take the bruja down. You did, and she never bother you again."
The faintest image of Michelle Evans's face covered in tapioca popped into Sapphire's mind. "I don't think throwing a snack pack will cover it this time."
"Si." Julia winked proudly. "Jos like Michelle Evans."
When Julia pulled her boob out to feed Elsa, and started singing one of Sapphire's personal childhood classics—Gary had a little limb—it was time to leave for court. She grabbed her stuff and walked toward Antonio who was leaning against the doorway.
"God, she's bad." He shook his head at his wife's notorious singing. "I don't think I've ever heard her get a lyric right."
"You think this is bad?" Sapphire glanced back at Julia. "Try being a kid and wondering why you got sent to the principal's office for singing: He's got the whole world in his pants."
Antonio chortled and gave Sapphire a pat on the shoulder before she headed out. She didn't even make it to the bus stop before her phone rang. Caller Unknown.
Sapphire stared at the screen then answered without a word. She waited for the Copycat's breath to sound. In that silence she realized Julia was right. It was jos like Michelle Evans. Not the snack pack part, but she had to fight back.
"I know who you are." Sapphire paused to let confidence fill her voice. "And I'm coming for you."
Instead of waiting for the Copycat to hang up this time, Sapphire did.
She couldn't afford to pity Shelly McCormick. The girl may have been innocent once, but not anymore. Sapphire had to stop her. The Copycat might be more brutal than she ever was as the Serial Catcher, but Sapphire had something she didn't.
Seniority.