Tell Me True (12 page)

I TRIED TO
push the image of Maxwell's body out of my mind as I used my good arm to pull myself up the rope ladder. Jon did what he could to help, pushing me from the boat, but when I had to use my left arm for support, the pain nearly destroyed me. Still, I pushed through.

How m
any more people had the Midnight Murderer killed already?

Lucky was a hired hand. Not the real killer. He wasn't even at my parents' house that nig
ht. Just someone the real killer used to frame and do some dirty work.

Lauren, my therapist, was part of the plot, and she had a role in my parents' murder, but she wasn't the one there that night
, raping and stabbing and killing.

No, the real killer was on the yacht, and I had to stop him before he took everything from me. Again.

My body shook as I reached for the last rung on the ladder and pulled myself overboard. Tears streamed down my face, mixing with the salt water already there. I felt cold, then hot. Sticky and miserable. But I stood, bare feet leaving wet footprints as I stumbled forward to find Ash. I had to find Ash and Bridgette. Nothing else mattered.

I
was walking past the lifeboats when a hand reached out and grabbed me. I spun around, heart racing, and found Mr. Davenport staring at me. I pulled my arm away from him and stumbled backwards.

"Catelyn, what are you doing skulking around here? And what happened to your clothes?" He looked down at my oversized sweats and shirt, my bare feet, my wet hair dripping salt water on the deck.

"I have to find Ash. Where is he?"

"He's at the party with everyone else. He's been asking about you." He paused, his eyes devouring me. "You looked beautiful today. Just like your mother."

"Um, thanks. But I have to go." I pushed past him and another body blocked my way.

Detective Gray came out of the shadows to stand by Mr. Davenport. "What's going on here?"

I looked back and forth between the two men and wondered if I could trust either of them. "Please, just let me by. Something has happened, and I need to talk to Ash."

Neither of the men moved.
The air seemed heavier, the walls closer. I was about to scream for help when Detective Gray pulled out his gun. "Just tell us what you found, Catelyn. What did your mother's book say? Who did it implicate?"

I shook my head,
feigning confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"We know you found the book," Mr. Davenport said. "That you killed Jon to get back at us. When is it going to stop? When will it be enough?"

"I'm not the one killing people," I said, looking pointedly at his gun. "What do
you
think my mother's book said?"

Gray smiled. "Your mother was always the cleverest of us all. And the most squeamish when it came to making the hard calls."

Things clicked together in my sluggish mind, my mother's last words falling like puzzle pieces into place with what they were telling me. The rage I felt cleared my mind, overtaking any pain I’d been in before. "Is that why you all had her killed?" I spat the words at him, no longer caring about my life.

"That wasn't our call," Davenport said. "Your mo
ther wanted out, but she'd already benefited from the club she'd helped form. She couldn't be allowed to leave."

Gray took a step toward me. "She knew too much. Just like you. She knew the laws we'd all broken. The compromises we'd each made to help each other."

I looked back and forth between them, my eyes narrowed. "All of you were in the club. The Greek letters, it was your club, wasn't it? Alpha Pi Omega—the beginning and end tied up in a never ending middle. You two, Maxwell, my mother, Lauren… you all met at Harvard…"

"Close.
" Davenport smirked. "Maxwell wasn't involved."

"So you called yourself what, Alexander? Which one were you?"

"Caesar," said Davenport. He pointed at Detective Gray. "He was Alexander."

"Why'd you kill all those people? The Midnight Murders?"

"We started innocently enough," said Davenport. "We just wanted to create a club that would support each other. But opportunities came and we couldn't pass them up. We all wanted wealth and prestige in our chosen careers. Some of us wanted more. A certain thrill. But it all came at a cost. Your mother got tired of lying to her husband. She didn't want you hurt by our choices, so she tried to pull out. Not everyone was okay with that. Everyone we killed could have gotten in our way. Just like that little bitch my son couldn't help but knock up."

My heart sank. "Molly. You killed Molly
. Why?"

Davenport smirked. "She was starting to ask too many questions. Piece together things she had no business knowing."

I turned to Gray. "And you're covering it up. Making it look like a suicide."

He gave a mock bow. "We do what we have to. While my peers retire on nothing but a tiny pension and a fake gold watch, I will live like a god. It's a small price to pay."

A shot rang out, and bits of blood and skull and brain tissue splattered my face and chest. Detective Gray tried to duck, but another shot took him down. I spun around as a woman laughed. "The price just went up," Mrs. Davenport said, training her gun on me.

I CHECKED MY
rearview and side mirrors again, turning down random streets and stopping and starting multiple times before I felt safe that I wasn't being followed.

I'd snuck away after the funeral and memorial, saying I needed to pick up some Tylenol at the store and grab something for dinner. I insisted Ash stay home and rest and that I'd surprise him with something special, but I didn't have much time before he'd become suspicious.

The motel parking lot was empty, likely so was the motel, but I pulled into the spot in front of room 13 and knocked on the door.

When Jon answered, I pushed him into the room and shut the door behind me. "What were you thinking, showing up at your own funeral like that? If I recognized you, someone else might have as well." It hadn’t taken me long to figure out the figure hiding in the distance had been Jon.

He flopped on the bed, his expression one of boyish dismissiveness. "You worry too much. No one expected to see the dead guy at his own funeral. Besides, I wanted to see what people would say. It seems I'm loved more in death than I ever was in life. Maybe it's better if I just stay dead."

"YOU'RE MOTHER…
EVERYONE
loved your mother. She wasn't even the prettiest of us, but she was the most loved by all. And then she wanted out. I couldn't let that happen. She would ruin it for everyone. She wouldn't have settled for just leaving quietly, she would have eventually confessed everything, and I couldn't let that happen." Mrs. Davenport took a step forward, and I took a step back as I searched for something I could use to fight her.

"So you had her killed?"

"It wasn't hard. There were others who had issues with your mother. The men always thought they were in charge of our little club. They were fools."

I scrambled away as she moved closer. "You were the one who shot me."

She frowned and raised a finger to her chin. For a slight moment, she was distracted.

My hand gripped a bucket someone had left out, and I threw it at her face and turned to run, screaming for help.

I heard Mrs. Davenport scrambling behind me, her heels clicking on the deck as she chased me. Smoke billowed from somewhere and I smelled fire. "What did you do?"

"You and I are getting off this yacht
, and you're taking me to your mother's book. While we're gone, there's going to be a terrible fire and this yacht will sink. It will be a true tragedy on the night of such a lovely celebration." Her voice shook with insanity, and I screamed again and ran straight into Professor Cavin.

"We have to run. She's insane
. She's going to kill everyone!" I yelled.

I saw Ash and Bridgette talking across the yacht. I called to them, but two shots rang out and t
hey both fell to the deck. "No!" I tried to run to them but Cavin pulled me below deck. "Catelyn, think this through. You can't help them, but if you go out there, she will kill you, too. We have to hide." Even through my panic, I could tell his hands were too steady, his voice too calm.

My heart died in my chest, and I slumped against my professor as he led me to one of the cabins below.
Cavin hid in the corner. As I tried close the door and secure it, Mrs. Davenport pushed it open and held a gun at us both.

"This is where it all ends," she said.

"You killed my husband," I cried. "My best friend! Everyone I ever loved."

She sneered. "Love is overrated. Power is what matters. Everyone saw me as the pretty arm candy to the powerful Ashton Davenport, but I was the true power in our relationship. I was the one who got us where we are today, as the most influential and
successful family in Massachusetts. I sacrificed everything to make us what we are, and what thanks did I get? Your mother trying to tear it all down. Bridgette's mother stealing my husband. My son dying. Well, to hell with you all. I will rise from the ashes stronger than ever."

She held a gun to my head and was about to pull the trigger when Jon pushed me to the side. "Mother, don't
."

Her hand fell. "Jon? You're… you're dead."

"No. I'm not. I faked my death, Mother."

She blinked rapidly,
not trusting her own eyes. "Why?"

"T
o draw out the Midnight Murderer." He sounded so sad, like a lost little boy.

She held her hand out to her son. "Come to me, Jon. Come to me, son. We can leave this all behind. We just have to get rid of everyone who can hurt us first."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mother. I choose Cat."

I froze in that split second, knowing what he was about to do, shocked that he could really do it.

He raised his hand, which held a gun, and fired a bullet into his mother's forehead.

JIM WAITED AT
a remote table in the corner at the coffee shop, his tattoos and dangerous look ill-fitted to the yuppie upper-middle-class clientele this establishment usually catered to.

I slipped in across from him and accepted the coffee he offered. Of course he knew how I liked it, being the stalker that he was. "Why did you want to meet without Ash?" I asked. Ever since he called me over and asked for a meeting, I'd been playing every scenario out in my mind, worried and wondering what he'd found.

"I know everything, Catelyn."

This could be a trap. A game to get me to reveal more than he'd discovered, so I waited for him to continue.

He smiled. "You play this well." And then he laid out my full plan, the plan that no one knew but myself. He really was the best P.I. money could buy.

"Why didn't you take this to Ash?"

"I might. I haven't decided. I want to know why first. I think I do, but I want to hear it from you."

"You know how my parents died," I said. "How my mother was raped in front of me and my father, and how they were both killed as I watched. How the Midnight Murderer stalked me, tortured me and tried to kill me. It has to end. I'm ending it."

"This is a dangerous game, Catelyn."

"I know. But I'm not going to be the one to lose this time."

"I can't get involved, but I won't stop you. I'll keep your secret, but if you get yourself killed, which you likely will, I'm telling Ash the truth. He deserves to know in that event."

It was more than I'd hoped for and I shook his hand. "Agreed."

"If anyone asks," he said, standing, "you know nothing about where I've been or where I'm going. Good luck, and don't hurt that man of yours. He really does love you."

JON DROPPED HIS
gun and grabbed me. "We're safe now, Cat. We can be together. You still want to be together, don't you?"

I looked up into his handsome face, a blond lock of hair falling into his eye
s, and wondered what I should say. He'd just killed his mother. His blue eyes were glossed over and he surely had to be in shock.

I shook, in shock myself that he could kill his mother like that without hesitation.

"Jon…" I pulled away just slightly and had him sit on a trunk. "Jon, I…"

He glanced away and stared past my shoulder. "Cavin?" His eyes widened. "Cat, you have to—"

Three shots and Jon fell forward and crumbled to the floor like a pair of old pants. "Jon!"

I turned to see Cavin holding Mrs. Davenport's gun. "This has been an unexpected party," he said, a gleam of madness in his eyes. Had the whole world gone crazy?

"
What did you just do?
"

"I had to tie up loose ends. It's probably for the best. The charade had to end eventually."

I sunk to my knees, everything in me spent. "It was you all along, wasn't it? You were there that night. You raped and killed my mother."

"You always were a clever girl, just like your mother." He ran a finger over my cheek and I shuddered and pulled away. He laughed. "Just like your mother. I'm going to have fun with you, just like I did your mother. I've waited so very long for this."

He held the gun to my temple as he tore open my shirt, exposing my bare breasts, and ran a hand over one. "You might even be more beautiful than her."

My stomach cramped and my vision blurred. I trusted him.
Saw him as my protector, my mentor. "She trusted you. She never suspected you would turn on her."

"That's the beauty of it." He knelt before me, running a hand through my hair as he held the gun steady. "Poor Catelyn. You know
, she did in fact set up a trust for you. Nothing shockingly huge, she had a lot of debts to pay as she tried to pull out of our little club, but she made sure you were taken care of."

"But…"

"I was the executor of her will. Whoops. Forgot to tell you that, didn't I? Well, I had to see what you were made of. You were her daughter, but you were also
his
daughter. The man who made her weak and pathetic. The man she was going to give up everything for."

"My father was a better man than you could
ever
be."

"And look what
that got him," Cavin said. "I've killed and lived to enjoy it. I have people of every walk of life in my pocket. Your daddy is dead. Who won that game, eh?"

"So now you're just going to kill everyone who was in the club, and what? Get away alive and without blame?"

He laughed. "Exactly. I honestly thought you would figure this out sooner, but like your mother, you have a soft spot for people. It's your greatest weakness, Catelyn." His hands continued to explore my body as I tried to think of a way out.

"Oh
, and there's more." He leaned in and whispered in my ear as his hand slipped down my pants. And he confirmed without a doubt what I'd already suspected.

"You won't get away," I said.

"Yes. I will. I am, after all, Augustus. Do you know what Augustus means, child?"

I shook my head.

"Great." The word was almost a prayer. He looked far off as he said it, the same look I’d seen on his face many times before.

And as he
lost himself, worshipping his own greatness, I grabbed Jon's gun and shot him dead.