Chapter Twenty-Eight
Remi hadn’t intended to drive past her mother’s estate on her way to the restaurant. Not only was it out of her way, but she didn’t want Ash to know just how worried she was about him.
He was a big boy who could take care of himself, she’d whispered over and over. But somehow, her car kept making turns toward the street that ran along the side of the estate. As if it had a mind of its own.
As she slowed, however, her attention was distracted by the sight of her mother scurrying along the sidewalk with her head down and a large purse clutched in her hands.
Remi frowned. Had her mother’s car broken down? No. If there was something wrong with the BMW, she would have called Albert and waited for him to come to pick her up. It wouldn’t matter if she was ten miles away or a block.
What was going on?
She pulled to a halt next to the curb and put the car in Park. Then, swiveling in her seat, she managed to catch sight of her mother disappearing through the hedge.
A strange sensation crawled over her skin. Was it a reaction to the knowledge her mother was going to be pissed if she caught Ash sneaking around the house while she was gone? Or a premonition?
Without giving herself time to consider the wisdom of her urge to follow her mother, Remi switched off the motor and climbed out of her car. She barely noticed the snowflakes that were drifting from the low-hanging clouds. She was too intent on listening to the fading sound of Liza’s footsteps.
Picking up her pace, Remi wiggled through the opening in the hedge. Once in the backyard, her gaze tracked her mother as she hurried across the frozen ground. For once, the older woman wasn’t wearing the designer heels she adored. In fact, she had on a pair of rubber boots that Remi had never seen before. Odd. Really odd.
Expecting Liza to head for the mansion, Remi halted when her mother instead crossed directly toward the garage. Maybe there was something wrong with her car.
Remi hurried to the back of the garage as her mother entered through the front door. Then she pulled out her cell phone and pressed Ash’s number.
“Pick up, pick up,” she muttered.
Of course it went directly to voice mail. Did he have it turned off? She cursed, dropping the phone back into the pocket of her coat. She had to distract her mother.
Taking a step toward the corner of the garage, Remi fell to her knees as the silence was abruptly shattered by the blast of a gun.
She crouched low, her sluggish brain trying to process what was happening. Had the shot come from inside the garage? Yes. It’d been too loud to have come from the house.
Oh, God. Her mother. Scrambling on all fours over the frozen ground, Remi cautiously lifted herself upright. Then, barely daring to breathe, she leaned to the side to peer through the window. It took a couple of seconds for her eyes to focus. And even after she could see, she struggled to figure out what was going on.
There was a man lying on the ground. But he was too short and bulky to be Ash. Then his head flopped to the side and she jerked with shock. Albert. And next to him, her mother was standing over him, staring down with a strange expression.
Remi frowned in confusion. Had Albert accidentally shot himself?
The thought had barely managed to form before the older woman took a step back, and the purse she had slung over one shoulder swung aside to reveal that she was holding something in her hand. Something that looked like a . . .
Gun.
Remi pressed a hand to her mouth, watching as her mother entered the large safe that was open. Then, before she could wrap her mind around the fact that Albert was injured and her mother was seemingly doing nothing to help him, the older woman reappeared.
Deep inside, Remi knew she should be dumbfounded by the sight of her mother calmly walking past the possibly dying Albert with a gun in her hand. It was unthinkable. As if she was peering into a bizarro world.
Instead, a strange certainty settled in the center of her soul.
Her mother had pulled the trigger.
Remi’s stomach twisted into a tight knot, autopilot taking over as Liza headed for the door of the garage. Crouching down, Remi listened to the crunch of her mother’s footsteps. Where was she going? It wasn’t toward the mansion. She could hear the boots squeaking against the tiles around the pool.
The pool house?
Not bothering to try to figure out what the woman was up to, Remi hurried in the opposite direction. Darting around the corner of the garage, she pushed open the door.
She paused, forcing herself to glance around before stepping inside. She still wasn’t sure exactly what was happening. Or if there was someone else running around the estate. She couldn’t help Ash if she stumbled into a trap.
Once convinced there was no one hiding in the shadows, she entered and rushed toward the body on the floor. At the same time, she pulled the phone from her pocket and dialed 911, demanding an ambulance and as many cops as they could send. Then she crouched next to Albert and reached out her hand to place it against his throat.
“Please be alive, Albert,” she whispered.
Her fingers pressed against his skin, relieved to discover it was warm. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? She was concentrating fiercely, trying to feel for a pulse, when his head turned and, without warning, his eyes opened.
Remi barely managed to swallow her startled scream. “Oh thank God,” she rasped. “Hang on, Albert, the ambulance is on its way.”
His lips parted, blood dribbling down his chin as he tried to speak.
She’d known Albert most of her life. He’d treated her like she was his daughter. Now his face was a terrible shade of gray and blood was leaking from a gaping wound in the center of his chest.
It didn’t seem possible he could survive, but she grimly held on to hope.
“No, save your strength,” Remi pleaded, her hand moving to smooth back his hair.
He held her gaze, finally managing to force out one word. “Marcel.”
“Do you mean Ash?” She leaned in. “He’s not here. It’s just me.”
“Tunnels,” the man managed to choke out. “Warn him.”
As quickly as they’d opened, his eyes slid shut and his body went limp. Remi surged upright, realizing what Albert was telling her. Ash was in the tunnels. She had to find him.
Glancing down at the unconscious Albert, Remi sent up a quick prayer that the ambulance would arrive in time. Then, unable to battle against her overwhelming need to make sure Ash hadn’t been hurt, she headed toward the safe.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that the door was open. Not when her father had always sworn the combination to the lock had been lost.
Remi warily entered the safe, ignoring the voice in the back of her mind that was warning her to wait for the cops to arrive. She didn’t know where her mother was or what she was doing, but Remi had an unmistakable sense that Ash was in danger.
Inspecting the small space, she frowned. Where was the entrance to the tunnel? Her gaze lowered to the floor, studying the footprints visible in the layer of dust. They led to the back wall of the safe. She took another step forward, her toe landing on a rock. There was the sound of a soft click, then a creak, as a hidden door slid open to reveal a set of stairs leading to an underground passage.
A blast of musty air swirled around Remi, filling the safe with the scent of rich dirt. At the same time, she heard the sound of her mother’s voice drifting from below.
Remi swayed, nearly falling down the stairs as she was hit with a dizzying wave of memories. It was as if triggering the hidden door had opened a matching door in her mind.
Suddenly, she was reliving the night when she’d been attacked. And now she had pulled into this very garage and jumped out of her car. She was at the point of running to the house when the vehicle that had been following her pulled in next to her.
She could remember vividly the acute relief when she realized it was her mother. She’d even laughed at her ridiculous overreaction. At least until her mother had moved with surprising speed to stand directly in front of her, lifting her arm and slashing it toward her neck.
Remi had been too surprised to move, and even when she felt the stab of pain from the hypodermic needle, she’d simply stared at the older woman in confusion. But then her mother had pulled the knife from beneath her coat, and Remi had known that the danger was horrifyingly real.
Numb with shock and whatever drug had been pumped into her system, Remi allowed her mother to force her into the safe and down the steps into the tunnel.
Christ. It was no wonder she’d blocked out the memories.
Her dark thoughts were interrupted at the sound of Ash’s voice.
He was in the tunnel. With her mother.
Without considering the fact that she’d just had flashbacks of her mother drugging her and threatening her with a knife, she headed down the stairs. She’d reached the bottom step when she caught sight of Ash and her mother disappearing down a side tunnel. Remi forced her feet to carry her forward, following behind them. But when she reached the doorway, she found herself hesitating as she listened to her mother tell Ash about her twisted childhood, and her revelation that she should never have given birth to Remi.
Her words just confirmed what Remi had already suspected. Liza Harding-Walsh had never loved her. She’d been incapable of seeing her daughter as anything but an unwelcome intrusion into her life.
A disease.
A distant part of her brain acknowledged this was a pain she would have to deal with at some point. But not now. Any childhood issues became inconsequential when she heard Ash name her mother as the Butcher and her mother agree.
A part of her had known, of course, but she hadn’t been able to process the truth. So she’d simply blanked it out. And now the older woman was going to kill Ash unless Remi could stop her.
Stiffening her spine, she forced herself to step through the doorway, her gaze darting around the surprisingly large space that looked like it’d been used as a nightclub. How could she have lived on the estate for the majority of her life and never realized there was all this just below her feet?
With an effort, she shook off her sense of unreality and turned her attention toward the two people who were standing near an open closet. Her heart squeezed with fear as she caught sight of her mother pointing a gun at Ash.
She didn’t know how she was going to convince her mother not to shoot. The older woman was obviously bat-shit crazy. But she had to try.
“I thought we were supposed to meet for lunch?” she said, strolling forward.
Ash whipped his head around, sending her a horrified glare. “Remi,” he snapped. “Get the hell out of here.”
She ignored the command, her attention focused on her mother, who was smiling at her with smug satisfaction.
“I knew there must be a reason you wanted me away from the house,” the older woman told her. “You never invite me to lunch. I snuck back to find your . . .” She sent a sour glance toward Ash. “Boyfriend trespassing on my private property.”
Remi came to a halt in the center of the room. It wasn’t just fear of her mother, although there was plenty of that bubbling through her gut; it was more a sense that there was an evil surrounding the older woman. Remi had an irrational horror that she might become contaminated.
Tilting her chin, she tried to act as if her heart wasn’t slamming around her chest with an erratic refusal to find a rhythm and stick with it.
“You shot Albert.” She didn’t know why, but they were the first words that burst from her mouth.
Her mother arched her brows, as if baffled that Remi couldn’t comprehend her need to kill the man who’d devoted his life to her. “A pity, I’ll admit,” she said. “He’s been a loyal servant, but he’s not stupid. After today, he would know about my little secret. I couldn’t let him tell anyone.”
Remi slowly shook her head. “So many people hurt and all because you wanted me dead.”
“Yes,” Liza swiftly agreed. “It’s your fault.”
“Bullshit,” Ash growled, moving to stand at Remi’s side. He pointed a finger at the older woman. “It was you. No one else.”
Remi sucked in a sharp breath. Was the man trying to get himself killed? Reaching out, she gave his arm a warning squeeze, trying to silently tell him that the cops were on the way.
They just had to stay alive until they arrived.
“When did this all start?” she demanded, trying to distract her mother from Ash.
Liza glowered at Ash, clearly trying to decide whether to pull the trigger. Then she gave a small shrug. “Ten years ago.”
“Ten years?” Remi didn’t bother to hide her shock.
“The first woman I killed was an accident. I saw her, and she reminded me of you. The next thing I knew, I was following her to her house.” Her mother shrugged, as if she was discussing an impulsive decision to get a tattoo. “I didn’t know why. Not until she was lying on the ground with her throat slit.”
Nausea rolled through Remi. “Oh my God.”
“It was awful, of course, but the sight purged the poison that had been escalating inside me.” There wasn’t a trace of guilt on the older woman’s face. In fact, there was a glitter in her eyes that suggested she was relishing the memory. “It was over a year before I felt the darkness return.”
Remi swallowed the lump in her throat. “Is that how you found all your victims? Just seeing them on the street?”
“No.” Liza shook her head. “Some I encountered during my charity work. There were always the catering and cleaning staff I hired for my events, as well as the occasional models if I included a fashion show. Sometimes I would see their picture in the paper. In the past few years, I began to use social media.”
“That’s how you found Angel and Rachel,” Ash accused.
Liza sent him a frown, as if annoyed he would intrude in their conversation. “Yes,” she snapped.
“Why did you carve a C into their flesh?” Ash demanded.
“They were my cancer. Their death was meant to end the disease.”
Ash continued to press her. “Did you mark the women you killed and burned?”
Liza paused, her lips parting in surprise. “Very good, Detective,” she murmured, clearly assuming no one had connected the deaths of those women to the Butcher.
Remi grimaced. When Ash had told her Jax had discovered more victims, she’d been horrified. Now that she knew they’d been brutally murdered and set on fire by her own mother . . .
She didn’t have words to describe her revulsion.
“Why not just kill me?” she burst out.
Liza looked oddly offended by the question. “I may be sick, Remi, but I am your mother,” she chastised. “I tried to battle the urges.”
Remi shuddered. Since her earliest memories, she’d blamed herself for her mother’s lack of affection. Her childish mind had been convinced it had to be her fault, that she wasn’t lovable.
Now she knew it had nothing to do with her. Liza Harding-Walsh was completely insane.
“Until the night you followed me home from the art show,” Remi reminded her mother. She needed to keep the older woman talking. The cops had to be close.
Liza kept the gun pointed at Ash even as her attention was focused on Remi. “There was a voice in my head that was telling me the only way to destroy the malignancy was to cut it out of me,” she said, as if that was all the excuse she needed to kill her own daughter.
Remi paused, battling against the urge to try to make sense of her mother’s madness. “You took me through the tunnels,” she instead said.
“Yes.” She offered a condescending smile. “I wanted you to be in your room, surrounded by the things you loved.”
“Nice,” Remi muttered. “What happened?”
“You passed out before I could get you in the house.” Her mother’s face tightened with something that might have been pain. “Then the door opened and your father appeared.”
Remi released a startled gasp, unable to imagine her father’s reaction. “That must have been a shock to him,” she rasped.
“No. He confessed that he’d begun to suspect I was the killer weeks before,” Liza admitted.
“The file,” Ash muttered.
Remi glanced at him in confusion. “What file?”
“Your father had a file hidden in his desk, with a map of the murder locations along with notes that were written in code,” he explained, glancing toward Liza. “I’m guessing he was trying to determine if his wife could have crossed paths with the victims before they died.”
“Oh.” Remi gave a shake of her head, disgusted with her gullibility. Of course, in her defense, Liza possessed an extraordinary talent for lying. “You never believed Dad was having an affair. You canceled dinner with Bobby because you were planning to kill Tiffany Holloway.”
Her mother sniffed at the note of repugnance in Remi’s voice. “I could sense Gage was watching me,” she said. “Sometimes I would even catch him tailing me when I drove around the city.”
“What happened that night?” Remi demanded.
“He found us on the stairs. You’d already collapsed, so he carried you into the kitchen,” Liza told her. “Then we went into the living room, so we could talk. He insisted that I tell him everything.”
Remi could easily visualize her father. He would have been distraught, perhaps even in a panic, but he loved his wife. He would be desperate to help her, no matter what she’d done.
“Did you confess?”
“Yes.” Liza clicked her tongue. “A mistake, but I hoped he would understand.”
Remi shivered. “Of course he didn’t understand. No one would.”
Liza pretended she didn’t hear Remi. Or maybe she truly hadn’t. She looked lost in her memories.
“He pleaded for me to go to a hospital. I knew what he meant. He was going to lock me in some horrible institution with crazy people for the rest of my life.” The older woman made a choked sound. “I couldn’t let that happen.”
A terrible fear curdled in the pit of Remi’s stomach. “What did you do?”
Liza’s features hardened. “I pretended to agree. Then, when Gage came toward me to give me a hug, I slashed his throat.”
“You . . .” Remi swayed, momentarily afraid she might pass out. Then a strong arm encircled her waist, keeping her upright. She’d known her father was dead. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t found his body. Deep in her heart, she’d known he was gone. But the realization that her mother had slaughtered him just to protect her terrible secret threatened to overwhelm her. “I thought you loved him?”
Fury darkened her mother’s eyes, offering a rare glimpse of the emotions that stewed just beneath the surface.
“I loved him with all my heart.” She jerked her hand to the side, pointing the gun at Remi. “It was because of you. If you’d never come into our lives, everything would have been fine.”
The accusation didn’t hurt Remi. Her mother was incapable of taking responsibility for the evil she’d committed. Besides, Remi was still reeling from the image of her father lying in the middle of the living-room floor with his throat cut.
“What did you do with him?” she rasped.
The emotion was wiped from Liza’s face. Almost as if she could turn it on and off like a switch.
“There’s a special trapdoor behind the bar. It took me a half hour to wrap his body in the plastic my father kept in the garage and drag him down here.” Her gaze flicked toward the bar before returning to Remi. “By the time I got back, I heard you calling the police. There was no time to clean up, so I grabbed some clothes and headed to the garage. I didn’t want to be found at the estate.”
Remi swayed again, her gaze lowering to the ground. “He’s down there?” There was a shrill edge to her voice, revealing the swelling hysteria that made it hard for her to breathe.
Sensing her horror, Ash pressed his lips to the top of her head, his arm tightening around her waist. “Shh.”
“I had no choice,” Liza insisted.
Remi was forced to pause and gather her shattered thoughts. Later, she could grieve a second time for her father, she grimly reminded herself. And try to process the damage her mother had wreaked on dozens of families.
For now, she was supposed to be keeping the woman talking. Something Liza was oddly happy to do.
“After he was dead, why not kill me?” Remi asked.
“Before Gage died, he made me swear I wouldn’t hurt you. I tried to keep my promise. I truly did.” Liza restlessly shifted, as if she was growing bored with the conversation. “But my illness became overwhelming.”
Remi barely heard her mother’s pathetic excuses. Instead, she clung to the fact that her father had used the last of his strength to try to protect her.
Proof of just how much he’d loved her.
It was Ash who continued the conversation, perhaps knowing it was imperative that they play for time. “You had the women surgically altered to look like Remi?”
Liza sent him a dismissive frown. “Dr. Bode is a personal friend and always in need of cash. It was easy to convince him to help me.”
Remi grimaced. Those poor girls. “Why would you go to such an effort?”
“I thought they would help to prevent the darkness from returning so swiftly. I sensed that I was spiraling out of control,” she finally admitted, a nerve twitching next to her eye. Where the hell were the cops? “But they only made it worse.”
Ash gave Remi’s waist a warning squeeze, as if he was sensing the same brittle tension in the air.
“You killed Angel in the park,” he said, the words an accusation, not a question.
“Yes. She was such a disappointment.” Liza’s tone was sharp, clearly blaming Angel for getting her throat slit. “She was prostituting herself for drugs.”
“Why did you drive the Mustang?” Ash demanded.
Liza looked confused. As if she barely recalled the murder. “What?”
“You drove Gage’s car to the park.”
“Oh.” The older woman shrugged. “I knew Angel would recognize mine. I didn’t want her to know I was following her. I’d forgotten just how awful it was to drive when there was snow on the road.” She shook her head. “I nearly killed myself.”
Remi didn’t miss her mother’s concern for herself and not for the young man she’d nearly run over. Of course, it was becoming clear that Liza Harding-Walsh was incapable of looking at the world beyond her own needs and desires.
Before Ash could speak again, the sound of sirens echoed through the tunnels.
Remi’s mouth went dry as she watched the older woman stiffen in fear.
“This has to end, Mother,” she pleaded softly.
“It does.” A hectic flush stained Liza’s face, her hand lifting the gun to aim it at Remi’s forehead. “And there’s only one cure.”
Without warning, Ash was rushing forward, plowing into Liza in an attempt to knock away the weapon. He was quick, but Liza’s finger managed to squeeze the trigger. The gunshot was deafening in the underground space, and Remi screamed as the two hit the floor with a heavy thud. She stumbled toward Ash as he rolled onto his back, the front of his shirt coated in blood.
Was it his or her mother’s?
The question was answered when Liza scrambled to her feet. She was disheveled but clearly unharmed.
“Ash,” Remi cried, falling to her knees next to him.
No, no, no. She’d lost her father. She couldn’t lose Ash.
It would break her.
“Remi.” Ash reached up his arm before she could determine the extent of his injuries, trying to tug her behind him. “She has another gun in her purse.”
Remi glanced up. She hadn’t realized her mother had dropped the weapon, but now she was struggling to yank open her handbag. A voice in the back of her mind told Remi to make a dash for the door. There was a chance she could escape before her mother could get out the gun and shoot her. But she didn’t budge. She wasn’t going to leave Ash. It didn’t matter what happened to her.
But before her mother could find the gun, Remi caught the sound of footsteps stomping through the tunnels.
The cavalry had arrived.
A miracle.
“It’s over,” she rasped.
Her mother glanced toward the door, her face going blank as the footsteps sounded just outside the door. There was no way out this time.
“Yes.” Liza dropped her purse, something that might have been relief rippling over her face. “Thank God. It’s over.”
Moving like she was on autopilot, the older woman walked toward the bar. Remi watched in confusion. Was her mother going to have a last drink before being hauled off to jail?
Feeling as if she was frozen in place, Remi remained kneeling next to Ash even as she saw her mother reach beneath the bar to pull out a long knife. She couldn’t believe the woman was delusional enough to think she could overpower Remi.
But while Remi prepared to fight off the older woman, Liza merely smiled as she lifted the knife and pressed it against her throat.
Remi made a strangled sound as she quickly ducked her head. She was going to have enough nightmares. She didn’t need to add the sight of her mother dying.
Ash tightened his grasp, pulling her tightly against his side as the police—led by Jax—rushed into the room.