61

Emily Crier said, “Turn around slowly, Noah.”

I did as she said.

“You two having fun?” she asked, pointing my gun at me. She tucked her gun into the waistband at the front of her jeans. “Looks like it.”

I could only stare at her. Blond hair piled on top of her head. Black sweater and black jeans. Black sandals and black gloves. The blond hair was the only thing that made her stand out against the night.

Randall came up next to me, steadying himself against my shoulder. “I took care of Charlotte, Em. Like you wanted.”

Emily didn’t respond.

“And I didn’t tell Noah anything,” Randall said. “I swear.”

She looked at him. “That’s great to hear.”

She moved the gun from me to him and shot him twice in the chest, the shots echoing like cannon fire in the night.

Randall’s eyes widened, his mouth open in a large, silent circle. He stumbled backward, clutching at his chest.

She fired again, hitting him where his hands were clawing at the first two wounds on his chest.

He looked at her, confused, took two more steps backward, his legs giving way, and tumbled over the ragged edge, disappearing from sight down into the unwelcoming water below.

I stared at the empty spot where Randall had just been.

I turned to Emily.

“You were the other woman,” I said.

She laughed softly. “Brilliant.”

“Randall’s shirt,” I said, holding up the blue fabric in my hand. “That was the same shirt you had on when I came to your place the other night. It wasn’t your ex you were with. It was Randall.”

“I hope my parents weren’t paying you too much,” she said. She motioned with the gun to move. “Nice and easy, okay? Move under the light where I can see you.”

I dropped the piece of cloth and sidestepped slowly about fifteen feet to my right so that I was back under the dim light, next to the warning signs.

“Somebody’s gonna find Randall,” I said.

“I’ll be gone,” she said.

“They’ll find you.”

“No, they’ll think you did it. Came here all pissed off and shot him.” She smiled. “Your bullets, Noah.”

“How long were you with Randall?” I asked, now wondering if there was any way I was going to survive.

“Too long.”

“You love him?”

“Actually, yes, believe it or not. I loved him.”

I processed what I knew. “But he wouldn’t leave Kate.”

She let out an irritated sigh. “That’s right, Noah. He wouldn’t leave her. Little Kate won again.”

“Won again?”

She laughed. “Kate always won. Since we were kids. It got so damn old. Kate got everything she ever wanted.”

“I don’t think she wanted to die,” I said.

She laughed again. “No, you’re right about that.”

“You killed her because Randall wouldn’t leave her?”

She paused for a moment, as if she was considering what she was going to tell me. Then she gave a tiny shrug, like it didn’t matter one way or the other.

“If you wanna put it that way, I guess I did,” she said, rolling her eyes. “She decided to confront me before she went back home.”

“Confront?”

“She found out about me and Randall,” she said, smiling, her teeth biting into the darkness. “She listened to a message I’d left for him on his cell phone. A couple of weeks ago. She didn’t go to Randall with it. She blamed me, and I guess it took her that long to get up the nerve to call me on it.” She shook her head, clearly annoyed that her little sister was so weak. “So she called me up the night before she was supposed to go back to San Francisco, ranting and raving. I played dumb and offered to go down to the hotel to meet her that night. She was waiting for me in the parking lot, a little drunk and a little strung out. She started threatening me, telling me to stay away from Randall, and I had to make a decision. We were all alone.” She nodded, as if she were affirming her decision. “It wasn’t hard to do, and I felt better the second she stopped breathing.”

The way she spoke, the way she recounted killing her sister, came off like she was reciting a grocery list. I knew she’d have no problem killing me.

“But more than anything, I just got tired of coming in second,” she said, her eyes flashing. “Jesus, she even got out of the heroin thing.”

“You put the heroin in the car?”

“No, I had Randall do it,” she said, frowning. “That’s one of the things I made him do, as he started to tell you. I wasn’t touching that crap. But I knew she’d take the blame for him. Good little Kate.”

We stood there on the clifftop, the water crashing below us, the dark sky getting darker by the second. A realization hit me.

“You introduced Kate to heroin,” I said, staring at her.

Her frown shifted into a small smile. “That I did. She came to visit me my senior year at UCLA. A little weekend partying. Friend of a friend showed up with it. I never used it. But I wondered if she would.” The smile on her face darkened. “She did, and she was in love.”

I had family issues. Since I had never known my father, I guess it was just one issue—my mother. I wasn’t sure that I loved her, but I didn’t hate her, didn’t have the sick anger that would make me look for ways to destroy her.

“You see,” she said, shaking the gun at me, “Kate was always number one in our family. I was a distant second. Always. The only thing she ever did wrong was date you. I had to push her along, get a few more black marks on her record.”

I glanced around, letting her talk. There was nowhere to go.

“I figured when she hit the heroin, that was it,” she said. “Finally, she had done something that would make her look less than perfect. But, no. My parents…her parents…did everything possible to help her.”

“And you didn’t want to help her?” I asked her.

“I could’ve cared less,” she said. “So when Randall and I started sleeping together, I knew I could finally have something of hers.”

“But you couldn’t.”

“Oh, I would’ve,” she said, smiling. “If you hadn’t gotten into this. Let that Mexican guy take the rap. I could’ve gotten Randall to go my way. The heroin thing did a lot of damage to their marriage. It was over, and I think even Randall was finally ready to let it go.” She paused. “But you just wouldn’t let it go. My mother must’ve known you’d chew through steel for Kate.”

“Why give me the key then?” I asked.

“I needed you to find that,” she said. “When Randall started having guilt issues, I figured, fuck it. Let him go down. The key made Randall look like your man. I figured I’d kill him and make it look like a suicide.” She shrugged. “I found the money and the note in Kate’s car. Those were hers. I didn’t fake those. I’m assuming you finally found them and that’s why we’re here. Only mistake I made was leaving Charlotte’s name in the car. It was too much.” She paused, her eyes tearing up. “And I thought it would work out, you know? Because you and I were starting something. Picking up where we left off eleven years ago.”

All along, I knew that being with Emily never felt completely right. I’d thought it was because of the situation and because of the feelings I’d had for her sister. Instead, I realized that it was probably a gut reaction to the real Emily, the sick and screwed up Emily I was seeing now.

“But then you messed that up, too,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s when I knew this was where we’d end up.”

“Here?” I said, waving my hand in the air.

“Figuratively,” she said. “Randall called me in a drunken stupor, said he couldn’t take it anymore. Was going to tell you about our affair. I knew you’d put it together.”