The FBI Thrillers Collection(266)

She leaned right into Marlin’s face. “Did you kill Belinda?”

He grinned up at her. Blood flowed from his nose and mouth. But he didn’t look to be in any pain.

“Did you, Marlin? Did you kill Belinda?”

“Why should I tell you anything?”

“So I can judge which of you is the better man, Marlin, you or your daddy. I can’t really know until you tell me about Belinda. Did you kill her?”

He looked away from her, upward, but the ceiling was dark, impenetrable. What was he looking at? “You want to know what she did, Marty?”

“What did she do?”

“She killed my kid. Oh yeah, she tried to tell me it was a miscarriage, but I know she killed the kid because she was scared it would be all crazy even before it was born. She told me about her pa being a loony. She told me she’d have to be nuts herself to have a kid that I fathered. That’s why she killed my kid. She told me she wanted the kid, she didn’t care if it was crazy, but then she went and she killed it.”

His eyes were vague and wide. She leaned close. “Listen to me, Marlin. Belinda didn’t abort your baby. Her husband hit her and she miscarried. It wasn’t her fault. It was Douglas’s fault. He probably found out the baby wasn’t his and he hit her.”

“Oh God, I knew I should have killed that jerk. He couldn’t father a kid, at least he hadn’t been able to with her. Belinda told me he had this real low sperm count.”

“You knew I was Belinda’s sister, didn’t you, Marlin?”

“Not at first. I recognized you when you came to the hospital. Then I knew who you were.”

“But how?”

“You were just a teenager then, but we did have fun with you. I took Belinda to see my maze, made her promise she’d scream and groan and carry on, all for your benefit, to punish you for hiding in the trunk, for spying on us. You really pissed Belinda off.”

He closed his eyes and sucked in air. Blood trickled out of his mouth as he whispered, “We drove to the warehouse and Belinda pulled you out of the trunk, told you that you’d been captured and you’d have to walk the walk with her. She told you she was going to die, die because of you, but she prayed that you’d survive. You were sobbing and pleading with me, but Belinda pulled you into the warehouse and kept you with her. She screamed real good for you, then she even let me pretend to knife her when you got to the center of the maze, and you saw it all. You just collapsed then. Nobody touched you. You just fell over. Belinda got scared but I told her you were just a nosy teenager and you’d get over it. When we got back to Belinda’s house, you were still unconscious.

“Belinda told me later that you never remembered a thing. She felt guilty about doing that to you. Even though you were a sneak, she loved you. She realized you admired Douglas and were afraid she’d leave him for me. But then she killed my kid. Then I had to kill her. I had no choice at all. She had to die. She betrayed me.”

“It was a miscarriage. You killed her and she didn’t deserve it. You made a big mistake, Marlin.”

“I believed she’d betrayed me. I had to kill her but I didn’t really want to.”

“She didn’t betray you.”

He opened his mouth again and a fountain of blood spurted out. Blood flowed from his nose.

Lacey positioned his head back, then leaned really close to his face. “It’s over now, Marlin. You’ve destroyed quite enough. Yes, Marlin, die now.”

He tried to raise his hand, but couldn’t. He whispered, his voice liquid with his blood, “You sure are pretty, Marty. Not as pretty as Belinda, but still pretty.”

His head fell to the side, his eyes still open, a small smile on his mouth.

She looked up to see Dillon standing there, not two feet away from them. There were at least twenty other police officers and special agents in a circle around the center of the maze. No one was moving. No one said a word.

She smiled up at him. “No more questions. No more mysteries. He killed Belinda. He told me so and he told me why.” All this time—seven long years—she’d driven herself, felt consumed with guilt. All this time she hadn’t remembered that Belinda had forced her into Marlin’s maze.

She couldn’t dredge up a single memory of that night, even after being told what had happened. She wondered if she’d ever remember, even under hypnosis. Well, it didn’t matter. Belinda had been dead for seven years. Her murderer was dead. Lacey’s life was her own again. And she had Dillon. She had a future.

“Yes,” Dillon said. “We all heard him confess. It’s over, Sherlock.”