BREE’S PULSE RATE SPIKED AS OLAF CAREENED THE SUV INTO the parking lot at Dr. Walters’s office. In the next sixty minutes she had to avoid mentioning her involvement with DGM, satisfy Dr. Walters’s requirements for “adequate group participation and sharing,” and find out if Tammi Barnes would help her find a killer.
No problem.
Tammi was already seated around the circle when Bree entered the therapy room. She smiled and dipped her head toward the chair next to her, inviting Bree to sit. Here goes nothing.
“Hey,” Tammi said, a furtive smile threatening her face. “How’s it going?”
Bree shrugged. “Same old, same old.” She thrust out her leg so Tammi could see the anklet. “Not much to do when you’re trapped inside all day,” she lied.
“So you can’t leave at all?”
“Just to come here.”
“For how long?”
Until my dad takes the leash off? “Until my hearing.”
Tammi’s eyes grew wide. “Wow. What did you do?”
“Um . . .” Shit. Great job, dumbass. You haven’t even been here thirty seconds and you’ve already walked into the one conversation you don’t want to have. “It was stupid, really.”
Tammi smirked. “Stupid like stealing a car stupid? Or stupid like clocking your stepdad over the head with a softball bat?”
“I’d call that last one more ballsy than stupid.” Ballsy in a way that Bree admired, though as she pictured Tammi standing over the unconscious body of her stepfather, he suddenly morphed into Ronny DeStefano.
“Okay, everyone!” Dr. Walters chimed as she breezed into the room. “I’m glad to see we’re all here on time today. Let’s get started, shall we?” She flounced into an open chair, her voluminous peasant skirt billowing around her, and opened her notebook. “I believe we were going to start with Bree today?”
Bree nodded and took a slow, deep breath. You can do this. “Can we talk about my parents?” she asked, taking control of the conversation.
Dr. Walters’s face lit up, her eyes glistening. Bree guessed that volunteering to discuss her mommy and daddy issues would be like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull, and she wasn’t wrong. “Of course! Where would you like to start?”
Bree launched into a monologue that she’d been carefully going over in her head all morning. She started with her father, how his political career had always been the driving force in his life, dominating all of his decisions, from whom he married (an heiress with a recognizable name) to where he lived (a district where said wife’s family had a stellar and well-known reputation) to where he sent his kids to school (established Catholic institutions with long histories of Ivy League placements). Then she brought up her mother, the spoiled, infantile socialite who hated her life as a wife and mother so much that she’d run away to the South of France as soon as her darling son had left for college.
It made a great story, Bree had to admit. And the best part was that it was all true, every last detail. She couldn’t have written a movie script this believable. Her tragic, neglected little life made for excellent therapy fodder, and Dr. Walters hung on every word, scribbling endless notes as she asked Bree repeatedly how it all made her feel, how her home life influenced her decision making, and where she hoped she’d be at the end of her time in therapy.
And so Bree jumped into her feelings of abandonment and anger. At first she really thought she was playing them up, exaggerating her resentment for the sake of her audience, just like she’d practiced. But as she was relating the story of her brother’s high school graduation, long-buried memories came racing back into her mind, tumbling out of her mouth before she could edit them. The obvious pride displayed by both of her parents that day, the way they fawned over Henry Jr., parading his valedictorian honors in front of her father’s political associates and her mother’s society contacts during a lavish reception at the country club. She remembered how small she felt, how secondary. It was as if her family unit consisted of her parents and her brother, and she was merely some changeling who had appeared on the Deringer doorstep.
Bree loved her brother. Despite the four-year age difference, they’d been pretty close growing up. He was funny and kind and affectionate, all attributes her parents lacked. But as Dr. Walters drew feelings out of her, Bree’s face grew hot, and her eyes stung with the effort to suppress the tears that threatened to blind her vision and swamp her mind.
Which is when she walked into a trap.
“Now, Bree, do you think this desperate need for attention and approval from your parents is what prompted your association with DGM?”
Bree caught her breath. Her head jerked up, aware suddenly of her carelessness. Beside her, she could sense Tammi’s body go rigid, hear her breaths as they came faster and faster.
“I . . .”
Dr. Walters’s alarm dinged with perhaps the worst timing in the history of the world.
“And we can pick up with that on Monday. Thank you, ladies.”
Tammi bolted from her chair and raced out the door before Bree could say anything.
Dammit.
Bree ran down the hall and into the lobby, just in time to see Tammi disappear through the door.
“Tammi!” she cried.
“Where you go?” Olaf said, as Bree dashed through the lobby.
But she didn’t wait to explain. Tammi was already hurrying down the street. “Wait!” Bree cried.
Tammi didn’t slow down or even glance back as Bree thundered after her, just continued doggedly forward as fast as she could go without breaking into a run.
“You have to listen to me,” Bree said, as she began to overtake her prey.
“Why?” Tammi asked over her shoulder. “So I can make an idiot of myself again?”
Gah. This was not how this was supposed to go down. And after being outed as DGM, she couldn’t exactly lead with “Hey, would you like to play possum for a killer?” So she tried a different approach. “Tammi, you might be in danger.”
“I live in a halfway house,” Tammi said with a laugh. “How much more dangerous can it get?”
“Wendy Marshall,” Bree said, panting. “Xavier Hathaway. Maxwell and Maven,” she paused for air, “Gertler.”
Tammi stopped, right in the middle of the sidewalk, and half-turned back to Bree. “What about them?”
“They’re all missing,” Bree said.
Tammi stared at the pavement, her mouth working up and down as if she were literally chewing on Bree’s words. “Why are you telling me this?”
Why was she telling Tammi this? If she was the killer, she was tipping her hand. And though in her heart Bree didn’t really believe that Tammi was responsible for three murders, an attempted murder, and four kidnappings, she had tried to kill her stepfather. And DGM had kinda ruined her life. How big of a leap was it to actually finish the deed and get back at her enemies at the same time?
No, she couldn’t believe it. This Tammi Barnes was a different person than the one Bree had known in high school. And Bree was willing to bet her life that Tammi wasn’t a killer.
“Look,” she said at last. “Everyone in the area who’s been a victim of DGM is either dead or missing.”
Tammi’s face clouded. “And you felt the need to warn me, right? Out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Tammi,” Bree said, the sting of her words hitting hard. “I just want you to be careful. Whoever is doing this is . . .” Insane? Relentless? “Dangerous.”
Instead of a look of fear or concern passing over her face, a slow grin crept up her cheeks. “I know what dangerous is,” she said in a raspy voice that made the hairs on the back of Bree’s neck stand up at attention. “And you don’t have a clue.” Then she turned and disappeared around the corner.
Okay. So maybe Bree had been wrong.
A horn blared as Olaf screeched the black SUV to a halt beside her. “Get in car!” he bellowed. “Does Olaf need to carry you?”
“No.” Bree opened the door and climbed into the backseat.
“That better.”
“Olaf,” she said, “I need you to follow that girl I was just talking to. She went down Maple. Can you—”
Olaf pulled away from the curb and blew past Maple Street so fast Bree couldn’t even catch a glimpse of any pedestrians.
“What the hell?” she said, grappling with her seat belt. “I need to find out where she went.”
“Home,” Olaf said.
“It’s a matter of life and death.”
But instead of his usually quick response, Olaf paused this time and snuck a glance at her over his shoulder. For a split second, she thought the big beast would show some humanity for once and throw her a bone.
“Olaf have orders,” he said instead.
“Yeah,” Bree muttered, slumping in his seat. “I bet you do.”
But as he sped off toward home, his eyes fixed on traffic, Bree slipped John’s cell phone from her bra and sent a quick, silent text.
Time for plan B.
