Leigh’s throat worked. She pulled herself back from the blinding rage for just a second before slipping back in. “I have to go.”
“I love you,” Callie said. “There has never been a moment in my life when I didn’t love you.”
Leigh’s tears flowed unchecked. She tried to speak but, in the end, she could only nod her head. Callie heard the words anyway.
I love you, too.
The car door closed. The engine grumbled awake. Leigh swerved out of the parking space. Callie watched the taillights brighten as she slowed for the turn. Her eyes stayed on her sister’s fancy car until it disappeared into the vacant intersection at the end of the street.
Callie could’ve stood there all night like a dog waiting for its best friend to come back, but she didn’t have time. She thumbed through the fat stack of hundreds in the envelope as she walked back into the clinic. She put the money in Dr. Jerry’s lockbox. She thought about what she was going to do next. The giant loaded syringe was still in her right jacket pocket. She packed up her dope kit and shoved it into the left.
She found Sidney’s keys in her backpack. Callie would give the BMW one final spin.
Leigh’s panic had made her vulnerable, the same way it always had. Callie had used that knowledge to get her sister out of the way. Andrew hadn’t taken Walter to his sleek, serial killer murder mansion. There was only one place this would end—the place where it had all started.
The mustard-colored house on Canyon Road.
Callie was sweating inside of the yellow satin rainbow jacket, but she kept it snapped up all the way to her neck as she walked down the street. Phil had already peeled out of the driveway in Sidney’s BMW. This was the second time in her life that Callie had given her mother a stolen car to get rid of.
The first time was when she’d handed off Buddy’s Corvette. Callie’s feet had barely reached the pedals. She’d had to sit so close to the steering wheel that it stabbed into her ribs. Hall & Oates was playing softly through the car’s speakers when she’d careened to a stop in front of Phil’s. The Voices CD was Buddy’s favorite. He loved “You Make My Dreams” and “Everytime You Go Away” and especially “Kiss on My List,” which he had sung along to in a funny falsetto.
Buddy had played the song for Callie the first night he’d driven her home from babysitting Andrew. She had wanted to walk, but he’d insisted. She hadn’t wanted to drink the rum and Coke he’d put in front of her, but he’d insisted. And then he had pulled over in front of the Deguils’ house, halfway between his place and Phil’s. And then he had put his hand on her knee, and then on her thigh, and then his fingers were inside of her.
Jesus you’re like a baby your skin is so soft I can feel the peach fuzz.
Back in Dr. Jerry’s office, Callie’s initial response to Leigh’s confession had been a blinding jealousy. And then she had felt sad. And then she had felt so incredibly stupid. Buddy hadn’t just done the same thing with Leigh. He had done the exact same thing with Leigh.
Callie took a deep breath. She held tight to the knife in her pocket as she walked by the Deguils’ house. The loaded 20-ml syringe pressed into the back of her hand. She had torn the top part of the pocket to make sure it fit snugly into the lining.
Her eyes traveled upwards. The moon was hanging low in the sky. She had no idea what time it was, but she estimated Leigh was halfway to Andrew’s house by now. Callie could only hope that her sister’s panic hadn’t yet ebbed away. Leigh was impetuous, but she had the same animal cunning as Callie. Her gut would tell her that something was wrong. Eventually, her brain would figure out what.
Callie had given in too easily. She had put the idea of going to Andrew’s house in Leigh’s head. Leigh had sped away without thinking and, now that she was thinking, she would realize that she needed to turn around.
Waiting for that eventuality was a pointless use of Callie’s time. Leigh was going to do what Leigh was going to do. What Callie had to focus on right now was Andrew.
There was always a moment in a crime novel where the detective said something pithy about how the killer wanted to get caught. Andrew Tenant did not want to get caught. He kept making the game more dangerous because he was addicted to the adrenaline rush that came from taking big risks. Callie, Leigh and Walter had done him a favor by going after Sidney and kidnapping Reggie Paltz. Leigh believed that Andrew was panicking because he’d lost control. Callie knew that he was chasing the high the same way she did with heroin. There was no drug that was more addictive than the ones your body could make on its own.