Page 85 of The Change
“So she killed him.” Nessa wanted to make sure.
“She did,” her grandmother told her. “I’m not gonna lie to you.”
“But the Bible says ‘do not kill,’” Nessa reminded her grandmother.
“The Commandments only apply to humans,” said the older woman. “Nobody goes to hell for killing a monster.”
“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Jo noted. She and Nessa were driving into town for an appointment with the host ofThey Walk Among Us. Josh Gibbon had responded to Jo’s email immediately and proposed meeting at a café in town. “Something on your mind?”
Nessa wondered what Jo would say if she knew about Miss Ella. But in the thirty-five years that had passed since that conversation in her grandmother’s kitchen, Nessa had never shared the story with a single soul. And that wasn’t going to change. She figured she owed it to Miss Ella—a penniless old woman in South Carolina who’d risked everything to avenge the young and helpless. Miss Ella deserved discretion, even if she’d been dead for twenty long years. “Just thinking about all the bad men out there and what we should do with them.”
Jo glanced over at her friend. “I’m sure Harriett was kiddingabout killing Spencer Harding.” It was a lie. Harriett hadn’t been joking—and the idea had been growing on Jo as well. She’d been fantasizing about it all morning.
Nessa responded with a smile. Jo was protecting her. It was sweet, in a way—and condescending in another. Somehow, Jo had discovered the truth about Harriett, and she was worried it would scare Nessa. But Nessa had been aware of Harriett’s true nature all along. Women like Harriett and Miss Ella wouldn’t exist if the world functioned as it was meant to. The way Nessa saw it, in these situations, you followed the rules first. You toed the line. You made sure to cross every t and dot every i. And when that didn’t work, it was time to bring out the goddamned gators.
“You think Harriett was kidding?” Nessa asked pointedly.
“No,” Jo admitted. “Not really.”
“Me either,” Nessa replied.
Just as the conversation was taking an interesting turn, Jo pulled into a parking space in front of the café, where a youngish man was sitting at a table by the front window.
“That’s him.” Jo turned the engine off.
“That hairy little frat boy?” Nessa scoffed. “Are you sure he’s who we need to be talking to? He looks like he spent all night watching dirty movies and playing video games.”
“That hairy little frat boy has thirty million listeners,” Jo told her.
“Well then.” Nessa was duly impressed. “Let’s go spill some beans.”
Though he’d been eager to meet, Josh clearly wasn’t letting bygones be bygones. He was going to make Jo pay for her rudeness. While she and Nessa tag-teamedthe tale of finding the murdered girl and every strange thing that had happened since then, he satback and listened, his face expressionless and his arms crossed over his chest.
“Wow. That’s quite a story,” he said when they finished. “Too bad no one’s going to believe it.”
“We have evidence,” Jo argued. “There’s a DNA test that proves the girl who died wasn’t related to the woman who claimed to be her mother. We have pictures of the photo we found in the locker at my gym. And there’s a man in jail right now for breaking into my house.”
Josh Gibbon leaned forward. “Yes, and according to the story you just told me, you also have a friend who claims to be a psychic and another friend who seems to be the town witch, and the three of you are accusing one of the richest men in New York of being a serial killer.”
“Sounds to me like a story millions of people would want to hear.” Nessa tried to lure him with honey. “One that could turn a popular podcast into a cultural phenomenon.”
“Really?” Josh turned to her. “’Cause to me, it sounds like a story that will get me sued straight into bankruptcy.”
“Then let me ask you a question,” Jo said. “Doyoubelieve it?”
She simmered as Josh sat back, his fingers woven together pompously and resting on his ample paunch. In what screwed-up universe did this twentysomething Comic Book Guy get to cast judgment on her story? Jo wanted to pick up the table and hurl it across the room.
“Yeah,” he finally said. “It’s crazy as hell, but I believe it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to put it on my show, though.”
Jo closed her eyes. It was the only way she could resist leaping over the table and strangling him. Three girls were dead. Her daughter had almost been kidnapped. And this little shit wasn’t interested. Fortunately, Nessa kept her cool.
“How many murdered women and girls have you featured on your podcast? How many who’ve been mangled and tortured and chopped into bits?” Nessa asked. “Hundreds?”
“At least,” Josh admitted.
“A thousand or more?”
He nodded. “Probably.”
