Celia drove aimlessly, looking for David. If he’d gotten away without his car, he must be on foot. Maybe she would spot him.
But after some time, she realized that she wasn’t going to find him. He was too good at this.
She sobbed into her hand, unable to believe that her brother was a killer. She didn’t understand. Why would he do it? Why would he have killed Nathan six years ago? Why would he have set her up? Why, after all this time, would he have poisoned Stan? It made no sense at all.
She thought of her parents, who had shunned her at the funeral. He had eaten dinner with them tonight. They were still at the Newpointe Inn.
She didn’t know why, but she decided to go there, to confront them.
Her hands trembled as she parked Jill’s car in the parking lot and hurried inside. She stopped at the desk and asked for her parents’ room number.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to give that information.”
“Please,” she cut in, beginning to sob again. She dropped her face, tried to cover her mouth. “Look, they’re my parents…the Bradfords. I need to see them…”
The woman looked like she felt sorry for her. “Look, I’m not supposed to do this, but if they’re your parents…” She checked her computer, then turned back to her. “They’re in 305.”
“Thank you.” Celia headed for the elevator.
She rode up, wiping her face and trying to decide what she would say to them when she saw them. Should she tell them that she suspected David? Would they even believe her? Would they know where he was?
She got off and found their door. She took a deep breath and knocked.
She heard voices inside, and knew someone was looking at her through the peephole. Would they pretend they weren’t there, and hope she’d go away? She pressed her forehead on the door. “Mom…Dad…please let me in. I have to talk to you.”
The door opened, but she saw no one there. She pushed into the room, and turned to see who stood behind the door.
David grabbed her arm and closed the door behind her. She screamed, but he threw his hand over her mouth. “I have a gun,” he told her in a whisper. “Don’t scream again.”
She swallowed as he let her go, and turned around to see the pistol he held pointed at her.
“David, why are you doing this?” she cried.
“Mom, Dad,” he called into the bedroom. “It’s okay.”
Her parents came out with looks of terror on their faces. They looked at Celia, then at the gun he held on her.
“Be careful, David,” her mother said. “That thing could accidentally go off.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “Mom? Don’t you see what’s happening?”
“Don’t talk to her, Mom,” David said. “Just get out. You and Dad get out of the room where you’ll be safe. Call the police and tell them she’s here.”
Suddenly, it was all so clear to her. David was the killer. And he had convinced her parents that she was. “Mom, Dad! It’s him! He did all this!”
Her parents wouldn’t listen. Instead, they opened the door and fled out into the corridor.
The door swung shut behind them. “Why, David?” she asked him. “Why?”
He laughed. “If I shoot you, I can claim we were fighting over the gun, and it went off. I’ve convinced Mom and Dad that you’re certifiable. I’ll convince the police, too. Even Stan will believe me when it’s all over.”
“But…I don’t understand. What did I ever do to you? Why do you hate me so much?”
“Why?” He laughed again. “I didn’t hate you, Celia. I hated the way they felt about you.”
“Who? Mom and Dad?”
“You were their trophy child,” he said. “I was invisible.”
She backed away, trying to make it to the door. She turned the knob, but he came closer with that gun.
“David, that wasn’t my fault. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. I loved you…”
“And then you grew up, and there you were with your husband taking an executive position in the company…”
“You got one, too,” Celia said. “Dad didn’t overlook you!”
“He didn’t value me, either. You were gonna get the lion’s share of the inheritance, like you got everything else.”
“Then why didn’t you kill me?” she demanded on a sob. “Why did you kill him? Why did you go after Stan?”
“Because,” he said through his teeth, “if I’d killed you, you’d have been a martyr. They would have built a shrine to you. Started a foundation. Grieved over you so hard that I still would have been invisible!”
“But David, it wasn’t that way—”
“You have no idea how it was. But it changed, Celia. As soon as they thought you were a murderer, I wasn’t invisible anymore. You weren’t the trophy child; you were the embarrassment. And then the whole inheritance was mine, and I was the one who was going to take over the company some day…”
She couldn’t speak. Sobs rose up in her throat as her heart broke.
“Then Stan started working on them about your birthday, and I saw them starting to pull out your pictures again, and I knew that they were going to forgive you. I had to remind them what you really were. I had to make you a murderer again.” He stepped closer to her, ran the barrel of the pistol across her throat. “But you know what? If I kill you now, you won’t be a martyr. It won’t hurt them a bit. You’re a threat. An embarrassment. They’ll be glad you’re finally gone.”
She dropped to the floor, trying to sob silently. “David, I’m pregnant. I’m carrying your niece or nephew. You couldn’t kill me, could you?”
He bent over her. “I can’t let another trophy child be born. It would ruin everything.”
She wailed out a sob, and he yanked her to her feet.
“Now, here’s how we’re gonna do this.” He took her hand and closed it around his hand—the hand that held the gun. “We’re going to struggle for the gun, Celia. And it’s going to go off. And you’re going to die, but they’ll see the gunpowder on your hands, and they’ll believe the evidence.”
“No,” she cried, trying to pull her hand away. “No!”
He grabbed her wrist and made her hold the gun, and suddenly, she realized that if she didn’t fight back, if she didn’t struggle, he was going to kill her. She closed her hand around the gun, and tried to raise it up, but he was stronger, and he overpowered her. He turned it in to her, but she pushed it away with all her might and prayed with all her heart.