Page 81 of Investigate Away
“A pillow?” Callie snapped her gaze in Kara’s direction and stared at her with wide eyes. “In their hand?”
“No. Under their head.”
“Why that object?”
“Again, it had to do with gifts between me and my lover. See, Renee, she loved dolphins. And Ivy, ravens. Yes. It’s a pattern. My MO. Whatever the fuck you want to call it.”
“Okay. So why change the color of the trinkets? Or right and left hands.”
Kara shrugged. “I have to do things in sixes. I’m sure some shrink will have a field day with that one, but that’s the only reason. I’ve always been surprised that the cops in Vermont never really picked up on the pillow thing. They just thought I was staging the scene. I’m a little surprised you didn’t find those cases in your nationwide hunt these past couple of weeks.”
“We’re still looking,” she said honestly. “Any other murders you want to confess to, besides mine?”
“And Jag’s and Tina’s?”
Callie sucked in a deep breath. “Are they dead?”
“Not yet.” She curled her fingers around Callie’s forearm. “Let’s go join them.”
“How about I join you?” Jag’s voice jumped through the air, landing on her eardrums with a solid beat.
Kara pressed the cold metal of the gun into her temple and stood behind Callie. “What the fuck?” Kara asked with an angry grunt. “Where’s Tina?”
Jag raised his palms to the sky and inched forward. “Not here.”
“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll kill her,” Kara said.
Jag stopped moving.
Callie tried to heave in a breath, but she couldn’t. Panic settled into her chest. Her heart beat so irrationally she wondered if it might stop altogether. She stared into Jag’s dark gaze, looking for some kind of solution.
His eyes shifted to the right and then back to her. He did that three times.
The third time she followed where his eyes took her, and it landed her gaze right on the weapon in Kara’s hand.
“Why don’t you point that thing at me, because you don’t want to hurt her. You need Callie,” Jag said. He lowered his chin slightly, as if to tell Callie to trust him and go along.
She swallowed and gave him a slight nod. She’d be ready. She only hoped she’d understand the signal and that she wouldn’t get him killed in the process.
Kara laughed. “Why?”
“To tell your story,” Jag said. “You kill her, and the story changes focus. It won’t be about you anymore. It will be about Callie, the reporter turned crime novelist who tried to take down the Trinket Killer but got her and her boyfriend killed instead. What a tragedy. Hell, I can even see a made for television movie out of this. But you won’t be the heart of the story. You won’t even have a point of view. In the fictionalized book version, you won’t even be on the page.”
Kara’s grip tightened around Callie’s arm so much that Callie thought it might cut off the circulation. Kara shifted her aim, pointing the gun at Jag. “I can’t keep her alive now, and you know it.”
“You’ve got a better chance of getting away with killing me by keeping her alive and taking her hostage.”
Kara tossed her head back and laughed.
Jag mouthed,now, and nodded.
Callie held her breath and lunged to the side, hitting Kara as hard as she could with her shoulder, knocking her off-balance.
Bang!
Callie fell on top of Kara as the gun flew to the ground, landing about five feet away.
Thud.
