Let Her Lie, page 25
Miracle Jones.
I remembered Zora’s stories. Her parents. The young filmmaker who’d saved her. The truth, or at least part of it, was piecing itself together. But I needed to know for sure. I needed to catch Zora in the act.
Standing alone in my apartment, I thought about Jessica. About how she had left the project earlier. How she had said Zora had told her that I shouldn’t call anymore. She was in on it too. Zora’s little helper. As I realized that, a plan slowly took shape in my mind. I called Jessica.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you available?”
“Sure,” she said. “Did you finally edit that footage?”
“Well,” I said, pausing. I had to know. The hunger had to be fed. “No. I actually need you to meet me at the train station. Bring all your camera equipment.”
I listened to her breathing for a moment. When she spoke, her confusion seemed louder than her words.
“I thought we had all the film we needed?”
“One more shot.”
I pictured it. A grand confrontation where it had all begun. Standing on the dune. The song of the ocean as our score. Miracle’s birthplace as the backdrop. Zora, Miracle, and me. The truth revealed below a sprawling sunset. It would never happen. Not like that. But it was visually stunning to consider.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Back to where it ended. I’m onto something new. Something big!” And, with a smile on my face, I set the hook. “Just don’t tell Zora.”
* * *
I didn’t purchase train tickets. I didn’t pack up my equipment. I didn’t call an Uber for a ride to the station. No, I sat on my couch and waited until my door handle rattled. The lock popped. And Zora strode into my apartment, uninvited but not unexpected.
“You’re a persistent little shit, aren’t you?”
“Jessica called you, huh? I figured she was your plant.”
Miracle walked in behind her. She moved to the window and lowered the shade. Zora shut the door behind them, locking it tight.
“I guess it’s time for this to end,” she said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I guess it’s time for the truth.”
Zora shook her head. “I guess it is.”
* * *
ACT THREE/SCENE 14—ALTERNATE ENDING
EXT. MOTEL—NIGHT
The Halo Killer stalks the shadows outside a dark motel. A light in one of the rooms comes on. A silhouette passes in front of the glass, small, almost childlike. It is Miracle Jones. And the trap has been set. A CHYRON appears on the screen: AUGUST 13, 2016.
After finding the key card in that abandoned parking lot by the sea, Jasper haunted the motel for hours. Like a siren of the ancient tales, it sang to him, beckoning him into the light. Urging him to try every lock until one revealed his prize.
Patience, planning, purpose.
That had been his mantra. Even in the darkness of that night, his dry lips moved as he repeated it softly, over and over again. Those three words had kept him free. Yet, with each passing second, they became harder to pronounce. Harder to understand. Slowly his whispers lost meaning, slipping into the animalistic rumble of a predator.
After so long. After so much practice. What could call him this strongly? With such passion? Only the past wielded that weapon with such success. Only the closing of a circle left open for far too long.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
As if in answer, she appeared. Or, at least her silhouette did. A light flickered to life inside one of the ground units. A lithe shadow slipped between the glow and the gossamer curtains. With no detail, without even seeing her face, he knew.
Jasper moved. He stalked through the gloom, inching closer and closer. With each slithering step, he watched her. He had to have her. She was it. She was the one. The only one. He was closer. So close. Almost there.
The light cut off suddenly. The soft glow through the translucent fabric turned to blackness, swallowing the shadow of his prey in a single blink of the eye. Jasper froze, confused, panicked. Frantic. All control slipped from his fingers as he clutched the key card even tighter. Breaking into an awkward sprint, he covered the last few feet separating them. Without a pause, he jammed it into the lock. The mechanism clicked. He burst into the room. And fingers that felt like five steel rods wrapped around his thin neck. As he gasped for breath, Jasper was slammed into the wall. The windowpane rattled and the door swung shut. The light turned back on, blinding him for a moment. A dangerous voice hissed in his ear.
“If you move, I’ll fucking kill you.”
* * *
The light blazed. Zora’s pupils focused to pinpricks of black as she stared into the eyes of the Halo Killer.
“If you move, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Would she? Certainly. Was she tempted to just do it? Very much so. As her fingers tightened, however—as she relished the idea of ridding the world of this pathetic little man—she saw her in the periphery. Miracle stepped away from the light switch, her eyes wide and as dark as Zora’s mood.
Zora’s grip loosened as she remembered why they had come this far. Why she had risked everything. She felt him against her palm as he struggled to take a breath. Turning her shoulder, she dragged him toward the single queen-sized bed. When she tossed him down onto the mustard-yellow bedspread, she marveled at how little he weighed.
The Halo Killer sputtered, his frail hand covering his throat. He did not look human. His hairless skin glowed a shining pink. No stubble. No eyebrows. No arm hair. Not even lashes. Nothing. And he was small, almost childlike, with the mannerisms to match. But it was his eyes that troubled her. They stared back at her undaunted, as if looking for an opportunity to strike. Air hissed between his lips, and her hand slipped into her front pocket, finding the revolver hidden beneath her leather jacket.
Miracle inched closer. When the movement caught his eye, his attention snapped toward her. His hands moved, fingers bending into claws. Zora gripped the gun, pulling it free. Before she could level the barrel, she stopped, staring, for something had changed. As he focused on Miracle, his fingers relaxed. The murderer became a man. The Halo Killer became Jasper Ross-Johnson once more. As if, somehow, he already knew.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
Zora took a silent step backward as Miracle sat beside him on the bed. He remained still, transfixed.
“You killed my mother,” she said softly.
“My first,” he said.
There was no way he could have known that. It was impossible. The gun dangling at her side, Zora had never experienced something as surreal in her life. Joined together in a cheap motel room that smelled of marsh and chlorine bleach, the three could not have been more different. A professional, a victim, and a killer. That’s how she saw it, at first.
Miracle met those eyes without flinching. Her right hand slipped across her stomach, cupping the growing child within.
“Do you remember her?” she asked.
“Every day,” he said.
Zora flinched. She wanted to lunge across the room and smash the avian bones of his face in with the butt of her gun. Miracle’s presence held her in check. All she could do was watch and listen.
“What did she look like?”
His eyes closed. “Broken.”
Miracle flinched. And he noticed. His tongue darted out, moistening his lips. At the same time, two fingers pinched at a nonexistent eyebrow.
“Tell me about her.”
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“I am.”
“I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t planned. I saw her at night, on the beach. Much like … But it wasn’t that. She was alone. But there was something else. Something … calling me.
“It might have been the way she moved. It was not … right. She lurched. Staggered. Like a wounded … I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. But it was something … more, too. Something that slipped through the night and entered me. A … sadness.”
She shifted closer. “Sadness?”
“Broken,” he whispered. “I could tell you more. I could tell you everything. But that’s not what you’re after, is it. That’s not why you brought me here. Because that’s what you did, correct? Somehow, you found me and you brought me here. How?”
Miracle glanced at Zora. Zora cleared her throat.
“Tell him,” Miracle said.
“I waited for a missing-person report in this area.”
“So, what,” he said. “I was careful. I was always careful. They could not figure me out. No one could.”
“I didn’t have to figure you out,” Zora said coolly. “I needed to figure them out. All the women you murdered. I stepped into their shoes, not yours. I bought a neon-yellow Walkman, the exact model that her mother had with her. I added the flower to make sure the hook set. But otherwise, I became one of them. One of your victims. You did the rest. You found me.”
He nodded slowly. “You should be a detective.”
She ignored that comment. A silence spread between them. Jasper returned his attention to Miracle.
“She said something about your birth.”
“What?”
“Your mother. I believe it all happened that same night. Your birth. Her death. Beautiful … in a way.”
“My mother abandoned me in a sink—”
“You are the Miracle Baby,” he said, his voice rising. “I remember. I remember well.”
A new expression grabbed his face. His lips pursed. His eyes focused, and he nodded his head over and over again. Zora had never wanted to kill anyone as desperately before.
“You’re strong,” he said. “Not like the others.”
“I survived,” Miracle said. “I don’t know if I had a say about any of it.”
“Oh, you did,” he said. “Not in what was done to you. What you did with it. But it haunts you still. Anyone could see that. You want to know why she did it.”
“No,” Miracle said, her head turning. She rose, moving to the window. Peeling back the curtain, she stared at the darkness, cradling her stomach. “I need to know that I won’t.”
CHAPTER
10
I COULD ONLY STARE at Zora, trying to comprehend the story she’d told me. It had been her on the beach that night in August 2016. The one from the very first story Jasper told me. Not Barbara Yost. Not Miracle Jones. All along, as we searched for the answer to that mystery, she had stood right beside me.
When I didn’t say anything for a time, Miracle approached me. I can’t say I understood. Maybe I never would. I had questions. A million. Before I could ask, however, she reached out, her phone in her hand.
“That’s my son,” she said.
I took it and looked at the screen. A chubby, healthy, glowing young boy smiled up at me.
“I know. He’s beautiful,” I said.
“He is,” she agreed, taking the phone back. “Sometimes, when I look at him, I wonder. When they found me, I weighed under three pounds. He weighed over nine when he was born. I saw a picture of me when I was in the hospital. My body had eaten away what little muscle I had been born with. I looked so frail. So unlike him. He means everything to me. And I will do anything to keep him safe.”
My eyes shifted. I looked at Zora, how she stood in front of the door. How one hand was in the pocket of her jacket. For the first time, maybe ever, I was scared. Not that I would die. Not really. No, I feared that I would never get to finish this story. As I felt that, everything became clear to me.
“You’re protecting her,” I said.
Zora smirked. “You are something else, Theo Snyder. I’ve never met anyone like you. A pit bull with no teeth.”
I laughed. “If I didn’t have teeth, would you be here?”
She blinked slowly. Miracle moved back to her side. Lightly, she touched the exposed wrist of Zora’s left arm.
“Let me tell him the rest,” she said.
Zora nodded.
* * *
ACT THREE/SCENE 15—ALTERNATE ENDING
INT. MOTEL ROOM—NIGHT
They come together for the first time—Miracle and the Halo Killer. Between them, the detective, ZORA MONROE, stands, pointing a handgun at her prey.
Miracle sat in the motel room, beside her mother’s killer, her stomach in knots, her entire body covered in a cold sheen. She wanted more than anything to run away. To get as far away as she could. She couldn’t even remember what had brought her to this moment. How she’d ended up face-to-face with the Halo Killer.
After meeting Bunny, she’d made the appointment at the clinic. How could she be a mother? How could she be expected to take care of a child? What choice did she have? The genetic test only made it worse. Meeting Bunny, the same. It proved that at the most basic level, she was simply a copy of who had come before her. Her mother was inside her. Her mother made up at least half of her. And her mother had left her in a filthy sink, alone, to die.
On the morning of the procedure, she drove there. She parked her car. She even walked up to the door. The test hadn’t told her anything, really. Nor had Bunny. She knew her mother had disappeared after that day. That was it. What she still didn’t know was who her mother was. And without that, she couldn’t know who she was. Not really.
Maybe there was a reason. One she could not imagine on her own, but something that could fill the hole that had bored so deeply into her soul. She had thought to talk to Meg. Tell her the fears that had crushed every moment of every day since she’d found out that she was with child. It was one thing to survive alone; it was another to bring someone else into her damaged existence. Her mother could never understand, though. She thought of her daughter as a whole person, not as the remnants left in a bathroom.
Miracle wished she’d had an epiphany before entering the clinic. Some great self-realization, some spout of strength that would turn her away. Instead, as kismet would have it, her phone rang. When she answered, it was Zora Monroe.
“Hi, Miracle, do you remember me?”
“Of course,” she said. “How are you?”
“Great. Look, I was … just … thinking about you.” She laughed nervously. “Not in a crazy way, I mean. I just wonder … if you might want to meet up for—”
A tear ran down Miracle’s cheek as the words tore free without her permission.
“Will you help me find my mother?” she asked.
Zora’s voice cracked when she said, “Yes, I would … really like that.”
* * *
Miracle sent her the genetic test results. Zora said she would not see Miracle in person until she found her birth mother. Not two days later, the call came. Miracle knew when she saw the number on the screen.
“Hello,” she answered.
“I’m outside,” Zora said.
Normally, that might have troubled her. She’d never given Zora her address. But this was the woman who had found her mother in forty-eight hours.
“I’m coming down.”
They drove into town and got a table at the same café at which Miracle and her mother had sat weeks before. Zora looked pained as she pulled a yellow envelope out of her biker bag. She placed it on the table between them.
“She’s dead,” Miracle said, before touching the file.
Zora nodded. Miracle’s head throbbed. The discomfort under her ribs, one that grew with each day, screamed out, threatening to break her will. She had to know. But her questions would be left forever unanswered.
“There’s more,” Zora said, as if immediately regretting her own words.
She pulled a copy of an old news article out of the envelope, cautiously sliding it across to Miracle. Miracle’s eyes lowered. She saw the words:
LONG UNSOLVED MURDER MAY HAVE BEEN HALO KILLER’S FIRST
“What is this?” she asked, tears running down both cheeks.
“Do you know about the Halo Killer?”
“Everyone does. It scares the shit out of all of us. But what does this have to do with …”
“A few years ago, a detective made a connection. A body was found near the ocean. Six months before that monster’s first victim. She was a young woman … only nineteen. She had been strangled. But they didn’t find her for over three months. The autopsy.… maybe this is too much.”
Fighting back the tears, Miracle shook her head adamantly. “No. Tell me.”
“The autopsy showed signs that she had recently given birth. There were whispers, I guess. Even then. That this woman might have been the Mir … your mother. But there was no way of knowing then. So it got shelved.”
“But … why didn’t they …”
“They couldn’t prove anything. It was just a theory. The body—there was just no way of knowing for sure.”
“What does this have to do with that serial killer? You said this was before he …”
“It was. But about three years ago, a detective reopened the file. There was a picture, I guess. Of the body. She had one of those old Sony Walkmans, the neon-yellow ones, over her head. It looked like a halo.”
“But he leaves flowers.”
“The detective looked at all the evidence they had. And he put out another theory. That your … mother was the first. It makes sense. The first time for men like that tends to be raw and unpracticed. They learn. And, as bad as it sounds, they get better. More careful.”
“You believe this? You think the Halo Killer murdered my mother?”
“Yes, I do.”
“But there’s no proof. You said it yourself. They’re just guessing that she’s my …”
“There is proof. Now.”
“What?”
“I gave the detective your DNA test results. He ran them against the Jane Doe. It was a match. He was able to positively identify her. Her name wa … is Abbie Henshaw.”
“Honey,” Miracle whispered.
“What?”
“That’s what they called her,” Miracle said, her lip quivering.
