Nicole Young - Love Me If You Must

“As soon as Rebecca got wind of the divorce papers, she was back in Michigan, staying at the house, threatening to turn me over to the authorities if I didn’t withdraw my petition. My crimes add up to twenty-five years or more. She loves to hold that over my head.”

I thought of the twenty-five red roses David had given me, and the morbid card I’d found to go with them. David didn’t seem deranged enough to create such an elaborate charade. And yet, if he were capable of murder . . .

“I’m sorry, Tish,” David said. “I know I led you to believe Rebecca was the one to file for the divorce.”

“Why didn’t Rebecca want a divorce? She’s been gone a year, hasn’t she?” I asked, hoping to shed light on his diabolical thought patterns.

“As long as we’re married, she figures she can control me, even from across the country. But Michigan is a no-fault state. She can’t stop the divorce process once it’s started. Only I can. I’d risk prison, deportation, and even death to be free of her.”

So, David had filed for divorce and pretended Rebecca had been the one to file. Probably hoping I’d be a sucker for his puppy-dog eyes.

I’d fallen right into his net.

“Rebecca really can’t turn me in to the authorities without implicating herself,” he said. “And the penalty for her crimes adds up to far more than twenty-five years.”

There was a shuffle and a shadow behind David. Then from nowhere, an object hit the side of his head with a sickening crunch.

I screamed.

David’s silhouette disappeared from above the ledge. I heard muffled thumps as his body settled against the floor on the other side of the cistern wall.

Then came hard breathing. But not from David. Some shriller quality to the sound made me think of a woman.

“Tish,” a voice said in barely a whisper.

Chills attacked me.

The sound of scuffing on stones. A face appeared above the cistern. Wisps of blonde hair shone golden in the pale light.

“Tish is what they call you, isn’t it?” The alluring voice was unfamiliar.

I squinted to see the face, but couldn’t make it out in the dim light.

“We haven’t met,” the speaker said, “but we’re practically neighbors. I used to live around here.”

I thought about Jack’s insistence that the woman who used to live here entered the house with Dietz the night of his murder. Perhaps this was the woman he’d been thinking of.

And from the confident toss of her head and the evil dripping in her voice, I could only conclude that she was the illustrious Rebecca Ramsey.

But if Rebecca really was still alive, then who was buried at my feet?

“Sorry you had to see that.” Rebecca hefted a spade and laid it along the top ledge. She set a flashlight next to it.

I squeezed back a bout of guilt. David had tried to warn me about his power-hungry wife. Now he was dead because I hadn’t believed him. The fatalities that could be in some way attributed to me had grown to outrageous proportions.

But I’d have time to wallow in self-pity later. Figuring out how to escape the cistern alive was the immediate issue.

I rubbed my arms in an attempt to thaw my muscles. If I could move, I could reach the hammer. Then I’d have a fighting chance against this lunatic.

Rebecca hoisted herself onto the ledge and sat there. Her legs dangled into the cistern. She rested one hand on the shovel. With the other, she picked up her flashlight and shone it in my face.

I squinted and held up a hand against the light.

“My, my,” she said. “You really do look like Sandra Jones. How ironic.”

She flashed the light at the bottom of the cistern. The exposed diamond cast glimmering beams on the stones of the tomb. I glimpsed the hammer, close to the cistern wall, between my captor and me.

“I see you and Sandra have already met.” Rebecca pointed the light back in my direction. “How did you know she was under there?”

I shrugged. “A hunch, I guess.” No sense giving away my own shaky sanity. It was all my imagination, wasn’t it, brought on by a guilty conscience, finally cleansed?

Rebecca kicked her legs casually against the cistern wall. “Too bad David had to end up pulling a ‘Sandra.’ Guess religion does that to people.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” My body vibrated with cold.

“Sandra was my right-hand woman. You could almost say she made me what I am today. She taught me everything I know about schmoozing the system. And with David’s help manipulating computer records and manufacturing endorsements, I built a dream life for myself. You should see my penthouse in L.A. And if you think that silver Corvette is something, you’d love my new Jaguar.”

“Sounds like you didn’t have much to do with your own success.” I made a show of sitting on my bottom, nonchalantly extending both legs toward the hammer.

“Behind every great woman there are a few dead bodies. It’s the only way past the glass ceiling.” Rebecca let go of the spade and flipped her hair back. “I wish it didn’t have to be that way. But when people know your intimate secrets, they have to be able to keep them for life. That holy roller stuff doesn’t have a place in the real world. You want to suddenly get a social conscience, then you better be ready to die for it.”

Rebecca directed the light across Sandra’s grave. “Anyway, she asked for it. I warned her not to ruin my life. I worked hard to get where I am, and no backbiting wench gets in the way of my plans.” She laid the flashlight across the ledge and gripped the shovel. Her knuckles shone white. “It was her choice. She could have just played along. But she had to try breaking it off. Then she threatened to turn me in.”

With a leap, Rebecca was in the cistern. She crouched low and threatening. The handle of the spade twirled in her hands. Metal flashed in the light.

“If Sandra could have kept her mouth shut a little longer, maybe she could have had a proper funeral, instead of being buried under cement in a hole in the basement.”

Rebecca lifted the shovel over her head and smashed it on the concrete. Sparks flew from the impact.

I screamed and jumped, imagining Sandra’s head directly beneath the blade. My ears rang in advance when I thought about that shovel against my own head. I felt the hammer beneath my shoe. I inched it toward my hands, all while cowering in utter fear.

“Casey was smart. She kept quiet about everything Sandra told her, so she got the nice, quiet death. Martin wasn’t so smart. Not to mention my idiot husband.”

“How did Martin cross you?” I might as well keep her occupied while I planned my attack.

“Greed was Martin’s tragic flaw. He tried to blackmail me. So I simply said I knew where Sandra’s diamonds were. I led him down here, and the rest is history.”

“And you poisoned Casey?”

“It was easy. I injected small doses of arsenic right into her jugs of supposedly pure water. It’s in your water now too. I thought I’d be nice and let you go just as quietly. Too bad you couldn’t mind your own business.”

My fingers touched cold metal. I gripped the hammer in my hand.

With a shriek, Rebecca took a step and swung the spade. I leaped forward and slashed at her shin with the hammer. Her shovel hit the rocks where my head had been, echoing through the basement along with her cries of pain.

Rebecca fell backward. She leaned against the shovel and stood. I twirled, wound up, and threw the hammer at her face. She dodged the weak throw and bad aim with hardly any effort. I reached for the abandoned chisel next to me and clenched it in my hand.

Rebecca came at me. Her shovel looked like a spear aimed at my heart. I rolled to the side. The blade hit the wall, driving the handle into Rebecca’s stomach.