“What?” I almost choke. “Patricia, I am not going to have this discussion with you. Trust me. Everything is fine.”
“I want to know where the body is. I need to know. Please tell me.”
I grunt in disgust. “Your minute is up. I have to go.”
“Is it in the house somewhere?”
I hesitate a beat too long, and her eyes widen. “You have the body in the house?” she gasps. “My God. Where is it?”
“I can’t discuss this with you.”
“But, Dr. Hale—”
“Look.” I pause one more minute to address her. That’s all she gets—I can’t babysit this girl any longer. “The only people who know about this are the two of us. All we have to do is keep the secret.”
Patricia’s eyes don’t blink once as she stares into mine. “My mother always says the only way two people can keep a secret,” she says, “is if one of them is dead.”
And then her fingers bite into my arm. A cold feeling comes over me, and I realize I have made a terrible mistake. I should never have gotten Patricia involved in this. I knew exactly how dangerous she was.
And now I am going to pay the price.
Please forgive me, Luke…
Chapter 50
TRICIA
Present Day
Adrienne Hale is hardly the first person I have killed. Not even close.
The first was a girl named Whitney Young. She tormented me when I was sixteen years old, like only teenage girls do. She spread rumors about me all over the school and stole my best friend. She even convinced a cute boy named Victor （who I later discovered was Whitney’s boyfriend） to ask me out on a date, then brought everyone to the coffee shop where we were supposed to meet so they could laugh at my humiliation when he stood me up. The funny part is that it was Victor who took the fall when Whitney’s body washed up in a nearby river. We could all agree they both deserved it though.
Then Cody and Alexis—Megan was unfortunate, but it couldn’t be helped. And then Grammy, of course. But she was so old, we can’t really say if the heart pills would have saved her, even if I had given them to her.
For all her pompous attitude, Adrienne went down easy. Not as easy as Grammy, of course, but my goodness, even Whitney put up more of a struggle—that girl fought like a banshee.
I buried Adrienne’s body just off a deserted dirt road, about a two-hour drive away from here—somewhere nobody will ever find her. I was smarter than her about that. I wouldn’t put a dead body in my own home, for God’s sake. Right below the floorboards. How stupid could you possibly be? You don’t need to be an MD or PhD to know not to put yourself in danger that way.
After she was gone, I knew I had to find and dispose of Jamison’s body. Except I still didn’t know where she stashed him. I meant to search her house right after I took care of her. I even kept her keys. But there was no time that night because she had her date coming, and by the next morning, her house was crawling with cops.
I thought for sure the police would find Jamison’s dead body. But they never did.
It didn’t matter though. The only important thing was that nobody came looking for me. By then, I was already living in Manhattan. The police didn’t even question me.
After taking care of the Dr. Hale problem, I moved on with my life. I enjoyed life in the big city and my new job. I met Ethan, who knew nothing about my past, and we got married. I was happy.
It was only by chance that I noticed Dr. Hale’s old house had gone up for sale. I asked Judy about it when I saw the house on her website, and she said she was getting it cleaned up right now, but it would be ready for showings shortly. I got a chill down my spine at the thought of Judy having free rein on that house. Then I thought about the number of people that would go in and out of that house before it was sold. I calculated the odds that somebody might run across Jamison’s dead body, wherever Dr. Hale hid it.
I don’t know how long the video recordings are kept of the casinos, but I was convinced there was a way to connect me and Jamison. I wasn’t about to risk giving birth to my baby in prison.
That’s when I knew what I had to do. I had to search the house and get rid of the body. Before anyone else could find it. So I picked the night of a blizzard to go out there, hoping Judy would have cleared out because of the weather, knowing I’d have a couple of solid days to search the house.
When I found the hidden room, I thought for sure I had hit the jackpot. I hadn’t. But I found something even more important. If anyone heard that tape of Dr. Hale blackmailing me, I would be finished. They would hold me responsible for her murder and Jamison’s. Nobody can ever hear this tape except me.