She swayed. Braddock steadied her.

  How could this be real?

  “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  She turned to Braddock. Collapsed in his arms and closed her eyes against the reality.

  Was it possible that the nightmare was finally over?

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  815 Wheeler Avenue, HPD, 5:00 p.m.

  “Are you sure you have to do this?”

  CJ looked into Braddock’s worried eyes. He didn’t want her to talk to Edward. But she had to. She had to ask him why.

  All the books necessary to research electrical wiring, police procedures, surgical procedures—every detail essential to carrying out the murders—were in his personal library. Between the room he’d prepared for her, which was way, way over the line, deep into the obsession zone, and the items they’d discovered in his home, like the Taser and Shelley’s cell phone, as well as cameras he’d obviously at one time had in her attic, and dozens of videos of her all through the years, they had sufficient evidence to go forward with charges for all the murders.

  Possibly even his mother’s. Considering all that he’d said to CJ, an order had been issued to exhume his mother’s body and take a closer look at cause of death.

  But Edward refused to talk. He hadn’t uttered a single word since C J had run out of his house.

  She, Braddock, and Cooper had pieced together a theory. Edward had intended to make her his wife—the one he’d deemed his perfect mate. Shelley had interfered once too often for his liking and he’d gotten her out of the way.

  The pain of it lunged deep into her heart like a knife. He’d been so obsessed with the idea that CJ couldn’t fail, had to accomplish all these goals. He must have been afraid Shelley would keep getting in the way. It seemed from the videotape that she had figured out he was basically insane and she’d confronted him. She’d obviously found his video equipment in the attic when she’d gone up there to set up her own.

  And all this time CJ had thought she was the one doing the protecting. She’d had no idea what her sister had done in an effort to help her.

  The Taser found in Edward’s home was the kind used on Ricky, Lusk, Cost, and Tyrone.

  CJ could only assume that Edward had killed Ricky because of something he knew. Maybe Shelley had told him what Edward was up to. Or perhaps he’d killed Ricky in hopes of putting an end to the investigation into Shelley’s murder. Lusk and Cost because of what they had done to Shelley and how their actions hurt CJ. Or maybe because he feared her relationship with them would prevent her from going back to Baltimore. CJ couldn’t be sure. She’d gone over and over everything she’d said to Edward about the victims. It seemed everyone she’d complained about had ended up dead.

  He’d killed Tyrone for obvious reasons. Tyrone had probably tried to blackmail him just as he had Cost.

  Five murders. Five people had lost their lives. CJ just couldn’t come to terms with all this.

  “Whatever he says to you won’t change anything,” Braddock offered in a last-ditch effort to change her mind about talking to Edward again.

  She pushed all the questions aside. “I know. But I have to have closure. I need to speak to him alone.”

  “All right. If that’s what you really want.”

  A psychiatrist was scheduled to start an evaluation tomorrow morning. Edward likely wouldn’t talk to him either.

  “Don’t worry,” CJ assured Braddock. “He can’t hurt me any more than he already has.”

  Braddock walked her to the holding area. “He’s in a private cell. Don’t get too close to the bars, okay?”

  She nodded.

  He gestured to the guard who opened the door. “I’ll be right here,” Braddock reminded her.

  She nodded, then walked through the door that separated the common area from the individual holding cells.

  “Last cell on your right, ma’am,” the guard told her.

  Her legs felt heavy, her chest tight with dread as she made the journey. She reached the last cell and turned to face the man who had betrayed her and her sister.

  He sat on the bench staring at the wall.

  “Edward.”

  He turned to her. Stared. Didn’t speak.

  “I need to know the truth.”

  He blinked.

  “Did you kill Shelley because she discovered your video equipment? I just need to know what happened to...to trigger all this.” CJ’s heart wrenched with the misery that accompanied the words.

  Edward said nothing.

  She shook her head. Braddock was right. This wasn’t going to help. He wasn’t going to give her the answers she sought. And if he did, what difference would it make? Shelley was dead. They were all dead. Anything Edward said at this point might be some twisted, surreal version of the truth.

  She took a breath, squared her shoulders. “I’m going back to Baltimore and finish my residency.”

  Another of those empty blinks.

  “I’ll be back to visit.” Maybe if she goaded him, he would react. “Braddock and I are together now. When I return I’ll be moving in with him.”

  Nothing. Not even a blink.

  “I’ve never been in love before, but I think he’s a man who’ll be easy to love.”

  Still nothing.

  CJ stared at Edward for a while. She wanted to remember every detail of this moment. The moment she realized that she was finished with allowing anyone else to run her life.

  She was starting over. From now on her every choice would be her own.

  “Goodbye, Edward.”

  She turned and walked away.

  She didn’t slow until she was on the other side of that big steel door and looking into the eyes of the future.

  “You were right,” she confessed. “Talking to him didn’t change a thing.” She reached up, put her arms around Braddock’s neck. “I’m never looking back again. Only forward.”

  He held her close and the hurt dissolved a little.

  This wasn’t the end...it was the beginning.

  Chapter Sixty

  Edward stared at the place where she had stood.

  His heart had already shattered into a million screaming pieces.

  She was gone.

  Nothing else mattered.

  He had lost her.

  Whatever the authorities did to him, he did not care.

  His life was over.

  His precious CJ was lost to him.

  He closed his eyes and wrapped the agony into a small mental box and stored it away.

  Edward!

  His eyes opened.

  Edward Abbott!

  Did you really believe you could do such a thing? You possess neither the brilliance nor the courage to attain such a lofty goal.

  You are just like your father and you always will be.

  Edward nodded. “Yes, Mother.” His mother was always right. “It’s just as you say. I’m a failure, just as Father was. I’m nothing...no one.”

  That was as it had always been and always would be.

  But Edward had shown her—for his long-deceased father’s sake as well as for his own—when he’d placed that feather-soft pillow over her sleeping face.

  Edward had felt that same curious anticipation as he had when he’d watched her do the same to his drunken father.

  Edward smiled. He might be no one, but she was the one rotting in the ground.

  Bitch.

  LIES

  A Novel

  Debra Webb

  Chapter One

  Laurel, Mississippi

  Sunday, December 17, 8:42 p.m.

  “Jingle bell...jingle bell...jingle bell rock.”

  Danny Jamison lay in bed and hummed the Christmas song. He didn’t know all the words, but he liked this one a lot.

  His mommy had told him at breakfast this morning that in just eight more days it would be Christmas. Another good thing about today was that it was the last day of school for two whole weeks. The paper ornament he had been working on at school was on the Christmas tree. Pretty soon his mom would put some presents with his name on them under the tree so he could try and guess what was inside.

  But the bestest part of all was the stories she told him every night. Some of the stories were about the elves and the reindeers. His favorite one was about how good little boys always got what they wished the hardest for at Christmas.

  But she hadn’t come to his room to tell him a story tonight.

  His dad was in one of his moods.

  More of the yelling made Danny put his hands over his ears. He didn’t like when his mommy and daddy had fights. Tonight was scarier than ever before. His daddy was screaming real loud. Saying the meanest things. Meaner than the other times when he yelled.

  “I told you not to let this happen! Damn you!”

  Danny pressed his hands harder against his ears, but he could still hear his mommy crying and his daddy yelling. His daddy didn’t like yelling. He told Danny so. It was always his mom’s fault. She messed up too much. Just like his grandparents. That was why Danny hid sometimes when he went to their house. Then he didn’t have to hear the yelling when they got mad at his daddy.

  He wished he had a place to hide now. But his dad had warned Danny never to hide from him...for any reason.

  “Now look what you’ve done! You’ve ruined everything!”

  Danny tried to block the bad words his dad kept yelling by singing along with the Christmas music on the radio. “‘Jingle bell...jingle bell...’”

  His mommy screamed. Danny burrowed deeper under the covers but he could still hear her crying...crying and begging for his dad to please stop. Danny felt bad for her even if she had messed up again.

  “There will be no princess in this house!” his dad shouted.

  Something crashed. Sounded like glass. It was the same sound the kitchen window made when his baseball went through it last summer. His dad had been real mad about that, too.

  The screaming and the crying stopped.

  Danny dragged his hands from his ears. He lay still for a moment and listened to make sure it was really over.

  No more screaming. No more crying. Just the Christmas music.

  “Jingle bell time is a swell time...”

  Maybe if his mommy had fixed everything she would come tell him a story now.

  “...to rock the night away...”

  His bedroom door flew open, banged against the wall. “Danny!”

  Danny bit his lips together to keep from crying out as his daddy jerked the covers off him. He didn’t want his dad to be mad at him, too. He was supposed to be asleep. “You should be asleep by now, son.”

  His daddy sat down on the side of the bed. Danny tried not to shake or to cry for his mommy. That would only make his daddy more upset. Danny told his mouth to smile but his lips just kept shaking like he was cold.

  “Don’t be afraid, son.”

  His daddy smiled at him, but the smile looked funny with that red stuff smeared on his face. Why would his daddy have ketchup on his face?

  “You don’t have to worry about anything, son,” his daddy promised. “No princess will ever take your place.”

  Chapter Two

  Huntsville, Alabama

  Friday, December 23, 10:30 a.m.

  The Christmas tinsel tickled her breast.

  She shivered.

  The shiny silver strands slid down her sweat-dampened torso. Over her belly button. Along her inner thigh. The tip of a deliciously wicked tongue followed that same path.

  A sigh whispered from her lips. God, that felt good. But she was so ready to get on with it. This guy was evidently going for a foreplay record.

  Adeline Cooper propped up on her elbows and peered down her nude body at the red and white hat. She couldn’t believe she was about to say this. “Look, Santa, patience has never been one of my virtues.”

  Her lover lifted his attentive face from the task of tugging down her skimpy panties with his teeth. His brown eyes were glazed with the same anticipation currently throbbing in her veins.

  “I’d like my present now.” She crooked her finger. “Come on up here and show me what you’ve got besides that nifty hat.”

  His well-shaped mouth split into a grin as he crawled his way up her tingling body, all those gorgeous male muscles bunching and rippling with the effort. “Baby.” He nipped her lips with his teeth. “I got the package you’ve been waiting for all year.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he growled as he nibbled her chin.

  Pounding on the front door dragged her attention from his hungry mouth. Damn. “I should get that.”

  “It’s your day off,” he muttered between kisses.

  “Yeah, well.” She reached for the cuffs on the table next to the bed. “That’s the thing about being a cop, there’s no such thing as a real day off.” She fastened one cuff around his wrist with a titillating click. “Now, don’t move, because I’ll be right back to interrogate you, mister.” While she plundered his mouth with her own, she attached the other bracelet to the iron headboard.

  Adeline scooted off the bed and grabbed his shirt. She poked her arms into the long sleeves and hugged the warm flannel around her. At her bedroom door, she paused, surveyed his long, lean frame stretched out on her bed, and made a sound of approval deep in her throat. Merry Christmas to me.

  “Hurry on back, now,” he teased, “and you can unwrap your present.”

  She would definitely hurry back.

  Another round of pounding echoed from the front door.

  “Hold your horses,” she shouted as she padded through the house. “I’m coming.” Or she would be if whoever was doing all the banging hadn’t interrupted.

  She yanked open the door. “What?”

  “Morning, Cooper.” The man in the FedEx uniform, Wesley McElroy, nudged his Ray-Bans down his nose and surveyed her from head to toe. “You look all relaxed this morning.”

  “It’s my day off,” she said. She sent a pointed look at the large padded envelope in his arm. “That for me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He held out his electronic clipboard. “You need to sign for it.”

  She put her signature where he indicated. McElroy passed the padded envelope to her. “You have a nice day now.”

  “You, too.” Distracted by the sender’s address, she bumped the door closed with her hip and leaned against it. Though she didn’t recognize the specific return address, the location surprised her. Besides her mother, there wasn’t a soul in Mississippi who would contact her. Not by mail anyway.

  Both Christmas and her birthday were coming up...maybe her scumbag uncle had finally decided to forgive her for doing her job nine years ago.

  “Yeah, right. And hell just froze over.” She stalked into the kitchen and placed the envelope on the counter.

  “Santa’s waiting!” her cuffed lover shouted from the bedroom.

  She ignored him. Her well-honed cop instincts were revving up, overriding all else. Getting anything from anywhere in Mississippi was too bizarre to ignore—even for great sex. She dug up a pair of latex gloves and scissors. Pulled on the gloves and then slowly cut the envelope’s flap free. Carefully parting the severed edges, she bent her head down and peeked inside.

  Adeline jerked back. Her heart bumped her sternum.

  “What the hell?” She tucked two fingers inside and pulled the item from the envelope. A white sheet of copy or printer paper.

  More of that pulse-pounding adrenaline seared through her as she read the cut-and-pasted words.

  Pretty, pretty princess. See her smile...see her die.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.” Adeline dashed back to the living room, almost slipping on the slick hardwood, and searched through the stack of old mail on the table by the door. In her haste she sent junk mail and monthly statements fluttering to the floor.

  Where the hell was that other letter? Unlike this one, the first letter had been hand-delivered to her mailbox at home. No return address, no postage. And no prints.

  She’d nagged the guys at work, thinking one of them had been playing a joke on her related to her birthday and the fact that she was about to be promoted to lieutenant. She’d brought the letter back home that same day. It had to be here.

  “Addy! What the hell are you doing?”

  “Gimme a minute.” She shoved a handful of hair behind her ear. The letter wasn’t in the stack. Hand shaking, she yanked open the table’s only drawer.

  There it was.

  She picked up the single sheet of plain white printer paper. Stared at the words that now carried entirely new significance.

  She was born a princess for all to see. Her light was so bright that they could no longer see me.

  Adeline returned to the kitchen to compare the two notes. Paper looked to be the same weight and shade of white. The way the words were pasted on the page, right side angled slightly upward, was the same. No continuity in the spacing.

  She set the two letters to the side and looked in the envelope to see what else it contained. A newspaper clipping. Big article. Front page. She pulled it out. Hattiesburg Press. She read the headline.

  City Attorney Cherry Prescott Missing

  Adeline skimmed the article. Prescott served as Hattiesburg’s city attorney. Four years older than Adeline, Prescott was married with two kids. A photo accompanying the article was in black-and-white, but the woman’s smile was nothing less than dazzling—oozing self-confidence. Blond hair, pretty lady. According to the article she was a brilliant attorney with a great future in politics. Prescott had gone missing three days ago.

  Adeline braced her hands on the counter, analyzed the details a second time. The woman’s car had been discovered just outside Moss Point. Only a few miles from where Adeline had grown up.

  There were no suspects as of yet. No ransom demand. Just the abandoned vehicle. Prescott’s family was offering a sizable reward for any information that helped to find her and the person responsible for her abduction.