Софи Келли - Final Catcall

“I would,” I said. “Thank you.”

“I’m sitting in the lounge at the hotel. Could you join me right now?”

“I could be there in about fifteen minutes,” I said.

“Perfect,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

I ended the call and looked at Marcus. “I know what you’re going to say. There’s something off about Chloe calling me now. And then we’re going to argue back and forth about whether I should go and whether you should go with me.”

“That pretty much sums it up,” he said.

“So can we just fast-forward through all that and go?”

He hesitated. I had no idea what I was going to say if he said no.

But he didn’t.

• • •

Chloe was sitting at the hotel bar talking to the bartender. I could tell by the goofy smile on his face that he was charmed. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Hannah was right. Chloe wasn’t a bad person. She was sick. Part of me hated that I was about to go knock down all the walls she’d worked so hard to put up around herself. But she had killed someone. I knew I was right about that. And no matter what Hugh Davis had done, he hadn’t deserved that.

I walked over to Chloe and touched her shoulder. “Hi,” I said.

She turned. “Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “I’m glad you came.” She looked back at the bartender and flashed him a smile that probably made his week. I thought about Andrew, who did the same thing to women. “Thanks, Charlie,” she said. “You have a good night.” She slid off the stool and said, “Let’s go.”

I looked at her uncertainly. “Where are we going?” I said. “You said you had some pictures for me.”

She nodded. “I do. I left my briefcase in the car. C’mon.”

She knew. Somehow she’d guessed that I had figured out she’d killed Hugh. I knew it was a very bad idea to go anywhere with Chloe Miller.

“It’s been a long day, Chloe,” I said. “I’ll just order a cup of coffee and wait here while you go get them.”

She moved a step closer to me so her arm was pressed against my side. She looked at me and smiled. “I have a gun in my pocket,” she said, just the same way she might have said, “I like crème brûlée.”

I swallowed down the sour taste in my throat. “Are you going to shoot me?”

She shook her head. “As long as you come with me, I’m not going to shoot anyone. If you don’t, I’m going to have to turn around and shoot Charlie, the very nice bartender.” She smiled again. “I don’t think you’d want that on your conscience.”

Chloe was a lot sicker than I’d realized. But Marcus was waiting outside. Once he saw us come out the front doors he’d know something was wrong. All I had to do was stay calm. “I’ll come with you,” I said.

We moved toward the door. To anyone who noticed us we probably looked like two good friends, heads together, catching up on old times.

“This way,” Chloe said, turning toward the back of the hotel when we stepped into the lobby.

“I thought we were going outside.” I motioned toward the wide glass and metal doors.

“We are,” she said. “But we’re going this way.” She narrowed her green eyes at me. “Hannah’s big brother’s out there, isn’t he?” She shook her head. “That’s a little obvious, Kathleen. You might as well have put Big Bird out there with a badge.”

I told myself to remember that when I got out of this, so I could tell Marcus. Because I was going to get out of this.

Chloe led us down a hallway and out a side entrance that opened onto a narrow alleyway and then the street. She pulled her hand out of her pocket. She was holding a gun. “Just in case you thought I was bluffing.”

“Where are we going?” I said. My hands were shaking, but she couldn’t see that and so far I’d managed to keep the shaking out of my voice.

“We’re going to go for a walk along the river.”

“And what?” I said. “I’ll have an unfortunate accident and fall in?”

“Something like that,” she said with a smile. She made an offhand gesture with one hand. “I know it’s very clichéd, but things become clichéd for a reason. Because they work.”

We crossed the street and headed for the boardwalk. I wondered if I could run and then roll behind one of the cars parked along the street before she could shoot me.

“You can’t,” she said, nudging me with the gun. “I know what you’re thinking. I saw you look at those cars. You’re wondering if you can get to one of them before I could shoot you. You can’t—and I would shoot you. I’m a very good shot. I wouldn’t miss.”

“You can’t get away with this, Chloe,” I said. “It’s crazy.”

She shook her head and gave me a look of pity. “Of course I can. We went for a walk—your idea. You got too close to the edge of the embankment and went over. I’ll be distraught. I’ll try to crawl down and save you. No one will doubt my grief.” She sighed. “Sadly, you’ll be dead, head cracked open on those rocks like a pumpkin falling off the back of a pickup truck.”

She nudged me again with the gun. “And don’t use the word ‘crazy,’ Kathleen. It’s disrespectful. ‘Psychologically challenged’ sounds much nicer.”

We crossed the boardwalk and cut across the grass. I concentrated on breathing, trying to keep the panic down so I could think clearly.

“How did you know?” I asked.

She was scanning the shoreline as we walked. “That you guessed what had happened to Hugh? Ben. He told me you asked him about a rumor you’d heard that there had been bad blood between Hugh and him. He wondered how it had gotten started.” She looked at me then. “I told him I had no idea.”

We were almost at the edge where the grass gave way to the rock wall, huge boulders that protected the shoreline from being eroded by the water.

I needed to buy time. I glanced back over my shoulder. There was no sign of Marcus, or anyone else. “What I don’t understand is why you shot him. Why now?”

“He deserved it,” she said, as though the fact were obvious. “I should have shot him years ago, but I just never got the chance. I couldn’t let this opportunity pass.”

“Because of Yesterday’s Children . Hugh pushed you so hard you ended up . . .” I hesitated, not wanting to push her any closer to the edge—physical or psychological—than she already was.

“I ended up in a hospital,” she said. Her free hand played with the scarf at her neck. “You can say the word, Kathleen. I was in the hospital because I was sick and that was Hugh’s fault.”

“You didn’t have a car accident.”

She smiled. “I should have guessed that you’d have good research skills.”

I needed to keep her talking. “How did you get the scars?”

She ran her hand over her wrist. “These ones are Hugh’s fault,” she said. “The other ones . . .” She exhaled slowly. “I banged my head against a window . . . a few times.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.

Chloe had stopped walking. “Hugh wasn’t sorry,” she said. “I had a part in a movie. Jessica Lawrence replaced me. You know what they’re saying about her now? She’s probably going to get an Oscar nomination.” She stared up at the sky, a canopy of inky darkness sprinkled with stars. “That was supposed to be me. That was supposed to be my life.” She looked at me. “I wanted him to apologize. He laughed at me. He laughed. It was the wrong thing to do. It was rude.” She shrugged. “So I shot him.”

I looked over at the rocks piled on top of each other, seemingly all sharp, jagged edges. About six feet down, off to the left a little, I could see what looked like a flat ledge. Maybe, just maybe, I could land on that flat space and get back against the rocks so Chloe couldn’t see me. I swallowed the lump in my throat, except it wouldn’t go down.