Rachel was killed, I know she went to see Susan. I guess since it was Rachel who killed Charley, and she was now dead, Susan saw no use in revealing what her twin had done anyway.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Susan then assured me that she didn’t want to ruin Rachel’s memory by revealing that she had killed Charley.”
“Of course, you’d say that,” Cameron said. “Why should I believe you?”
“It was my car,” Linda said while pointing at herself. “ I was driving. Rachel and Charley were fighting in the back seat—”
“Over Ronald?”
“No,” Linda laughed. “I knew about Ronald and Charley. Big whoop. He was marrying me.”
“What were Rachel and Charley fighting over?”
“Charley had too much to drink and ripped Rachel’s dress,” Linda said. “After getting us thrown out of the club, that was the final straw. I told you, Rachel has a temper and when her temper blows …”
“Are you arresting Linda?” Susan Burke asked when Joshua and Cameron returned to her home.
Ignoring her question, Joshua asked casually, “Lovely weather we’ve been having this summer, isn’t it?”
She narrowed her eyes as she peered from him to Cameron.
“We really aren’t that far from the mountain where you dumped your best friend Charley’s body,” Joshua said. “I’m sorry. My mistake. Charley was not your best friend. She was Susan’s best friend.”
“She must have been an annoyance to you,” Cameron said, “with her bipolar disorder.”
“What are you talking about?” She flipped her red curls over her shoulder.
Joshua shook his head. “You had us fooled. You had everyone fooled. Being identical twins—”
“But then,” Cameron said, “you two weren’t totally identical in every way.”
“I have twins,” Joshua said. “No two people are completely identical. Environment and personalities shift. One is serious, like Susan was. Has compassion, like Susan did. The other was the beauty queen with a little less depth—and a temper that can turn murderous at the snap of the fingers.” He snapped his fingers in her face. “Like it did that night that Charley Halston tore your expensive cocktail dress after getting you and your friends kicked out of a club for starting a fight with Linda over Ronald.”
“If Linda told you that,” she said in a low voice, “she’s lying.”
“Maybe,” Joshua said. “But we do have confirmation from the Syracuse police where the missing person’s report was filed after Charley disappeared that it was Linda’s car, not yours that you girls were driving that weekend.”
“Which means that most likely Linda was telling the truth about it being her who was driving,” Cameron said. “You were in the back seat with Charley. She was out of control. She tore your expensive dress. You flipped out and killed her. Now you had a problem. This was October, 1996, the same year that you were Miss Pennsylvania. It would have looked really bad if you went down for killing one of your friends while having a hissy fit.”
“It already looked bad getting thrown out of club,” Rachel said in a frightfully low voice. Her eyes narrowed to slits. Her mouth drew tight.
“No matter who’s telling the truth about killing Charley,” Joshua said, “Both you and Senator Pryor are going down for her murder. One of you killed her, while the other was an accessory in covering it up.”
“We do know that the senator isn’t lying about it being Susan that she had discovered having an affair with her husband,” Cameron said. “That means it was Susan who you killed, Rachel. When Linda called her on the affair in front of you, you realized that your sister was sleeping with your lover. Ronald wasn’t just cheating on his wife; he was cheating on his mistress.”
“That’s crazy!”
“Tyler’s birthday is in March 2002,” Joshua said. “We checked. That means you were two months pregnant when you discovered Ronald was cheating on you
Rhonda Riley
Edward Freeland
Henrik O. Lunde
Tami Hoag
Brian Keene
Cindi Madsen
Sarah Alderson
Gregory Shultz
Eden Bradley
Laura Griffin