CARLA LYNCH LOOKED NOTHING like Katie Childress, yet she claimed to be her. When Arianna accused her of lying she fired her gun in anger, just to make her point, and Arianna knew she’d better pretend to believe her. Otherwise she’d be lying next to Brian, long before Chase got back or the ambulance arrived. Someone would come. Chase would not let her die.
Some things, she just . . . hoped were true.
“I thought Katie was dead,” she said simply.
“But you love to chat with dead people.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the ring. “When you’ve got this.” The Australian accent was gone.
“It’s not a trick, Carla.”
“The name’s Katie.” She threw the ring on the floor, where it bounced a few feet from where Brian was bleeding to death. “Katherine Childress.”
“I read your obituary.” Arianna kept her gaze on the deranged woman while flipping through every option of how to escape without getting shot. She came up with none.
“The obit.” Carla gave a dry laugh. “My dad covered every frickin’ base, didn’t he?”
“Your dad?” The plastic surgeon. She remembered that tidbit from the police report. “How? Why?”
“How? With power, money, and influence—the coin of the realm in this town. Why?” She shrugged. “Daddy’s little girl was in trouble, and he understood I had to kill or be killed.”
“Who did you kill?”
Carla drew back, looking a little bemused. “If you don’t know, then I’ve been losing sleep for no damn reason. I thought she was whispering in your ear, all these months.”
The vision. The Jaguar. The cliff.
Carla waved the gun toward a chair. “Go over there. I want this to look like a murder-suicide. That’ll be good for Closure ratings, don’t you think?”
“That’s what this is all about?” Arianna kept her voice, and her shock, well modulated, moving slowly to the chair. “Ratings?” Could Carla be that ambitious? Did she want Arianna’s job? “Is that why you paid Eric Scheff to send me e-mails and steal my ring?”
“Hey, you handed him to me. Somebody had to go trace your nasty notes from whacko fans and even more whacko enemies. When I read them, it was too easy to track him down and set him up. Plus I figured if I had to get rid of you, I could direct the police to him. And no, this is not about ratings.”
“Then why? Why did you shoot Brian? Why did you . . . why did Katie die?”
“Katie died because I was stupid enough to let myself get blackmailed by an underbelly of this city you probably don’t even know exists. I had information and access at my internship at a studio. But they kept wanting more, and then . . . I got in that inevitable place you get with those people. I just beat them to the job and made it look like an accident.”
So Katie wasn’t in the Jaguar when it went over the cliff. She’d faked her own death. “But who died?”
“Some prostitute no one will ever miss. And my father ID’d ‘my’ body, after he’d put my ass on a private plane to Australia to have his med school cronies make me into a new person.” She touched her face. “They’re just a little too good down there.”
Arianna heard the crack in her voice, and instantly knew it was also the crack in her hard shell. “Brian didn’t recognize you, did he?”
She paled. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Was he in love with me, or the outside of me? I freaking killed myself getting back here, getting this job, getting in his face. I was sure that he’d fall in love with Carla—because underneath, I’m still the same person.”
Oh, yeah. She was cracking. Now Arianna just had to figure out how to widen the gap until she broke. “He’ll never love anyone but Katie,” Arianna said sadly.
Carla’s laugh was bitter. “I realized that today, when I walked in on him stroking a hard-on while he watched old videos of our engagement party. Funny how a man can be so in love, he can whack off just looking at a picture of a girl—yet when she’s standing right in front of him, he doesn’t even know it’s the same person.” Her voice wavered again, and Arianna grew hopeful. “So I decided I ought to just come over here tonight and tell him how I feel about him.” She looked at him again, her face contorted as she fought pain. “He didn’t take it so well.”
“Why did you want my ring so bad, if you were going to tell Brian?”
Carla looked at Arianna as if she was insane. “I wasn’t planning on telling him the truth! And I sure as hell didn’t want you blurting it out to camera two. You’ve always been the wild card, Ari. Ever since I realized you were the real deal, I’ve been scared. I’ve tried so hard to get rid of you, but I know that ring is the key. I finally lucked out today, when you left it at home. I’ve been in your house so many times looking for it, I feel like I should stock your fridge.”
The thought sickened her. “How did you get in?”
“Brian had your key and alarm code in his desk for months.” She smirked. “You don’t really think your ring was some big secret, do you? It’s so obvious.” She imitated Arianna with an exaggerated motion of playing with her ring.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that gun, and Brian’s terrifyingly still chest. “Why did you shoot him?”
“He wasn’t interested in Carla.”
“So you killed him?”
“No. I told him the truth.” She swallowed. “You’re right. He didn’t care who I am. He blames me for Katie’s death, even though I am Katie.” She laughed, but it was a sob. “He wanted to turn me in. I had to stop him.”
Where is that ambulance? Where is Chase? “You’ll never get away with this,” Arianna said. “I wasn’t alone.”
“I know. I ditched the car, ’cause I figured you’d go after me. Then I sneaked in the back to wipe out my fingerprints, not expecting you to stay behind.”
Her voice hardened. “I locked your bodyguard out. Now, should I shoot your temple to make it look like suicide? Or maybe in the mouth? Something close, ’cause I suck with this thing. I must have missed you by fifteen feet the other night.”
There had to be some way to buy time. She had to have some power over this unstable woman, some way to turn this around. She thought about the tough, ruthless man she’d watched in action that day. What would he do?
Chase had power. He had size. He had a gun. She had . . . nothing. Her gaze slid to the spot on the floor where her mother’s ring lay. She didn’t even have that anymore.
With a shaky hand, Carla lifted her gun.
Suddenly, a forceful ping hit low in Arianna’s spine, and she sat straight in surprise. A swift and familiar chill ran up her body, blossoming into a vision. A face.
A scared young girl with a delicate voice and hollow eyes whispered softly in Arianna’s head. “My name is Taylor.”
This was her power. This was her gift. And this was going to save her life.
Arianna looked over the gun and met Carla’s gaze. “Her name was Taylor.” She paused, listening. “Taylor O’Neill.”
“Stop it,” Carla hissed. “You’re a total fake.”
“She wants you to know she wasn’t really a prostitute.”
“You can’t do this without your ring!”
Evidently, she could. “You offered to help her, Carla. She trusted you.”
She swung the gun to the floor where the ring lay and fired. The ring catapulted in the air, then landed, split and useless on the floor.
“There. Now you have to stop.”
But the image and the power were very much intact. “She was a runaway. Did you know that?”
Carla paled and her arms trembled, shaking the gun she held with both hands. “What I know is that you can’t do this without that ring on!”
“She was a runaway from . . .” Arianna closed her eyes and listened. “Seattle.”
“Stop it!” Carla’s voice cracked. “Stop it!” She fired directly at the ring, leaving another black hole in the smooth oak floor. “I don’t care about her!” she screamed.
One more time—if she could just get her to turn to that ring one more time . . .
“Listen, Carla. She wants to tell you something. She says that—”
Carla fired at the ring three times in rapid succession, loud enough that she didn’t hear the chair scrape as Arianna leaped up and jumped her. She knocked the gun to the ground and pushed Carla off balance, but she threw her weight forward on top of Arianna. Immediately, Carla started to crawl them both closer to the weapon.
Grunting, Arianna tried to stop her, to claw her eyes, to bite her shoulder—but Carla was much stronger and pulled them both within range of the gun. Arianna yanked on a handful of black hair and Carla thrust her knee into Arianna’s stomach, the blinding pain taking her breath away.
Carla pinned her with her chest and legs, reaching with a loud grunt toward the gun. Arianna thrust her arm out to her side, patting frantically on the floor, knowing it was there . . . it was right . . . there!
The jagged edge of the ring scraped her fingertips. Closing her fist over the metal, she whipped her arm back, scraping a long, vicious swipe on Carla’s cheek, making her howl. The unexpected attack gave Arianna the advantage, and she flipped Carla off her and scrambled toward the gun.
Just as she seized the weapon a blast rocked the room, silencing Carla’s cries. Arianna spun around, the gun in one hand, her ring in the other.
Chase held his weapon over Carla’s body, his shirt torn, his face filthy, his hands bleeding, his chest heaving.
Arianna dropped the gun, and the ring. Silently, she stepped into his strong, protective arms, with no intention of leaving for the rest of her life.