I opened my eyes slowly. My vision was blurring so I closed my eyes tightly and tried again. Aching and stiff I shifted. I tried to touch my eyes but I couldn’t move my hands. My thoughts thick and uneven. I was still trying to piece together my last memory when my vision cleared and I saw my surroundings as I lifted my head. A basement.

I couldn’t remember what happened. I tried to move my hands and realized they were tied behind my back and I was tied to a wooden chair. Restrained.

Panic hit me as I began to struggle but I couldn’t escape. The rope dug into the skin of my wrists as I tried to pull free.

I tried to scream but my mouth wouldn’t move. It was taped closed.

Where was I? How did this happen?

Calm down, I tried to tell myself, knowing that if I had any way of getting out of this I had to keep calm, otherwise I wouldn’t.

My mind was too fuzzy to remember anything. The last thing I remembered was Jack leaving me with Dallas at the apartment. I had avoided him for a while before I got hungry.

I remembered going into the kitchen, following each step in my memory. Finally, I was ambushed in the living room. Someone had grabbed me from behind. They had knocked me out with something. Then I remembered the last thing I had seen before I had lost consciousness, it had been Dallas on the floor of the apartment. He had been so still.

All that I knew in that moment was the person I had suspected had not been the one to take me. It meant I had no idea who was responsible and that scared me more than anything. Then I thought about Jack. He would return to the apartment and I wouldn’t be there. I swallowed. He would be frantic. I didn’t know if Dallas was dead or alive.

Despite my fear for my life, my heart felt wrenched from my chest at what Jack would be going through. We had been through so much together, shared in the same pain of losing Alice. And now he would lose me as well.

After everything we had tried to catch the killer, he had out smarted us. And now I was sitting in a dark basement with no idea what was going to happen but I was sure I wouldn’t survive. I closed my eyes when my throat burned and tears threatened. No one would save me. All I could hope was that it was quick.

All I could hear was Alice’s last breath as she died.

A door opened and I held my breath, my eyes going to the wooden stairs that creaked under the weight of each step.

Shoes appeared first and then I took in the dark trousers. I frowned when I saw the belt with a gun and then I realized it was a policeman. My heart lifted. Someone was here to save me.

I nearly burst into tears right there and then.

Then the man stepped into the light.

Terry.

It was the look on his face that made me still. I recognized him but there was something very different about it. It was coldness in the eyes, no warmth.

And then I knew.

“You looked happy to see me for a second there Hadley.”

Oh my God.

My gut had been focussed on the wrong friend. Not once had Terry even come up on radar. He was with law enforcement. He had been there the night Jack had found me. My mind was wild with so many questions but I had no answers. Not yet.

He smiled. It was evil, the way it didn’t reach his eyes as he walked over pulling over a spare chair to sit across from me.

“I bet you have some questions Hadley.” His stare was direct and intense.

He reached to pull the tape from my mouth. He ripped it quickly and I winced. It was painful.

I cleared my throat. He waited, patiently like he had all the time in the world.

“Why? Why Alice?”

He shrugged. “It was her fault.”

I bit my lip to stop from saying something. I needed the answers to the questions that had haunted me for so long. The truth was what I was after.

Then he could do whatever he wanted to but first I had to know why. After so many years of wondering I was going to finally find out what happened and why.

“She wasn’t a good friend to you Had.”

It made my skin crawl that he used my nickname, the same one Jack used for me. It hurt to think of Jack even if it was momentary. I had to focus.

“Why do you say that?” My heart was beating rapidly but I was trying everything to appear calm as I spoke.

“We were fucking and you had no idea.”

It took a moment for his meaning to sink in. He was right in the fact that I had no idea there had been anything going on between him and Alice. He was older and Alice was Jack’s younger sister.

He leaned forward bringing his face closer to mine.

“But then she fell pregnant.”

It was shocking. I opened my mouth and then closed it. “She didn’t say anything,” I said it out loud but I wasn’t sure if it was directed and myself or him.

“She told me that night.”

I frowned, not remembering seeing him at all.

“You were passed out in the car.” He smiled before he leaned back. “She was so naive and innocent.”

I hated how he was talking about my dear friend.

He let out a hollowed laugh. “She thought we were going to get married.” He shook his head like he was enjoying an inside joke.

I couldn’t believe the was the same guy I had known for years. He had known Jack for as long as I could remember.

“I only wanted the sex, nothing more. She had a crush on me, it was easy pickings.”

My heart ached for my friend who had been so innocent.

“Besides how do you think Jack would have felt if he found out I got his sister pregnant.”

Jack might not approved but he loved his sister and if that was what she wanted he would have supported her. I had no doubt in that.

The love for his sister was evident in the last three years he had committed himself into finding the person responsible for her murder.

“I wanted to pay her to get rid of it but she wouldn’t.”

I felt a wave of despair, if there was only a way to travel back in time to change things I would jump at it.

“She had outlived her usefulness. That’s the thing with young girls, they get needy.”

“So you killed her?” I found my voice in the midst of the ongoing shock.

“She was crying…begging…she wouldn’t stop…she left me with no other choice.”

His breathing was calm and steady as he talked. Where any normal person would be worked up he wasn’t.

“She sealed her fate and… yours.”

I had been living a nightmare the last three years but I knew who was responsible for that and it wasn’t Alice.

“I don’t remember much…”

I hoped he would fill in the blanks. He smiled like he was enjoying this. Like an artist showing off a canvas.

“You were out cold. I needed time to figure out how I was going to get rid of both of you, so I knocked you out with a drug.”

I frowned, feeling vulnerable. “How? The cops never found anything.”

If they had known they would have taken blood test but they hadn’t.

“Being a cop has its benefits. I injected you between your toes, it’s not the most obvious place and most people over look it. You were out for the better part of the day, it gave me the time I needed to figure out how I was going to solve my problem.”

I hated how little value he gave Alice’s life. He was truly evil.

He sighed. “It was unexpected but I adapted. I’ve always had a curiosity about death. Where most people fear it I didn’t.”

He was sick, more than I ever anticipated.

“I don’t understand.”

I wanted him to keep talking because I feared what he would do when he stopped.