“I’ll get them,” said Grant.
He left the room and found Isabelle in the living room with Keith, who held a white paper sack.
“Amanda could use some of her pain meds,” he said.
Isabelle nodded. “I’ll take care of her. You can go now. I don’t want to hold you up.”
Grant felt a little more of the ground under his feet slip away. He was stalling. First, he’d told himself he needed to fix Rachel breakfast. Then he wanted to help get Amanda taken care of. Now he was telling himself he needed to make sure she got her pills.
They didn’t need him for that. He was looking for reasons to stay. Time to suck it up and act like a grown man. “You’re right. I should get going. Long drive.” To where, he had no idea. There was no place for him to go anymore. All he knew was that he couldn’t be anywhere near Isabelle or he’d end up right back here like some kind of deranged stalker.
“I brought you a snack for the road. Cookies,” said Keith. He held the sack out to Grant.
“Thanks,” said Grant, taking the sack.
Isabelle walked to the door and opened it—a clear sign she was asking him to leave now.
Grant could take a hint. He walked to the door, paper sack in hand, but got only as far as the threshold. Isabelle was only a few inches away—so close he could smell her. His stomach tightened as if preparing to take a punch. He took a deep breath, and knowing he would later regret it, he leaned over and kissed her.
She went stiff, but only for an instant. Her mouth melted under his, opening for him. His body trembled with the force of his need to pull her against him one more time. He barely resisted but managed to hold back at least that much.
He pulled away, and her cheeks were wet with tears. This was as hard on her as it was on him. That was the thought that finally got him moving. He didn’t want her to suffer. He loved her too much for that.
“Good-bye,” he whispered.
Her exotic eyes were a luminous green, and he knew he’d never forget exactly how they looked right at this moment. “Take care of yourself, Grant.”
“I will.” What choice did he have? There was no one else to do it for him.
Keith’s hard slap on his back jarred Grant’s gaze away from Isabelle’s. “Thanks for all your help.” He stood next to Isabelle and put an arm around her. Grant wanted to break it off and use the bloody end to wipe the smug smile from the man’s mouth.
“Don’t worry,” said Keith. “I’ll take good care of her when you’re gone.”
Isabelle took a quick shower while Keith was still here to watch over everyone for her. Besides, it was the only place in the house that would muffle the sounds of her crying. She thought she’d be stronger—hold it all in until Amanda was well and Dale and Rachel had started to heal—but she’d been wrong. The pain of losing Grant was overwhelming. Too much to bear wearing a smile on her face.
Five minutes of tears left her tired but better able to focus on what she needed to do. People needed her now, so she would throw herself into that. Thank God she had the distraction to keep her from dwelling too long on how lonely she was, or how it felt when Grant’s Mustang had slid down her street, carrying him out of her life for good.
She dried her hair with a towel, not wanting to take the time to blow it dry. It didn’t matter how she looked, anyway. There was no one around for her to try to impress anymore.
When she came out of her bathroom, Amanda wasn’t in bed. With those pain pills running through her system, she should have been out like a light. Maybe she’d had to use the bathroom and gone upstairs because Isabelle had been in this one.
Isabelle felt guilty for taking so long in the shower.
She went down the hall, into the living room, and stopped dead in her tracks. Amanda was tied to one of her kitchen chairs, as were Dale and Rachel. They were all gagged with duct tape. Amanda’s head fell limply from her shoulders at an awkward angle. Rachel was white and trembling. Dale’s skin was red with rage, and his eyes darted from her to the kitchen door over and over.
He was trying to tell her something. Whoever had done this was in there.
Panic jolted through her, making it hard to breathe. Hard to think.
She had to get to a phone. Call the police before she gave away the fact that she was also home.
Isabelle turned around to go back to her bedroom to use the phone and ran right into Keith. He steadied her, keeping her from falling.
“Someone’s here,” she whispered to him. “I’ve got to call the police.”
“No need, Isabelle. We won’t need them for a while yet.” His voice was soothing, gentle, and way too loud.
She covered his mouth. “Shh. Quiet. They’ll hear you.”
His grip on her arms tightened. “They? You mean the bad guys who broke in here and tied everyone up?”
A sick sense of understanding slithered around inside Isabelle’s stomach. Keith was smiling. Relaxed.
Why wasn’t he afraid? Why didn’t he . . . Oh, God. He was the one who’d done this. Tied everyone up.
Isabelle nearly doubled over under the pain of betrayal. It didn’t make any sense. “Why?” she asked him, unable to think of anything else to say. “Why are you doing this?”
He gathered her hands behind her back, and she felt the cold metal of handcuffs bite into her wrists. She was so shocked that Keith would harm the people she cared about, it hadn’t dawned on her to fight back until just now. Too late.
Whatever Keith meant to do, it wasn’t good. She had to escape.
Isabelle shoved her knee up into his groin as hard as she could. He twisted and caught most of her attack against his thigh.
Keith grabbed a handful of her damp hair and wrenched her head back so far she could hardly breathe. “Don’t make this harder on yourself than it has to be. I know how much you’re hurting. I’m going to make it all better.”
He carried her toward a chair facing the rest. Isabelle kicked but couldn’t find a target. Her toe slammed into the wall, making pain shoot up her leg. He dropped her into the chair and she popped right back up, trying to run away. Her balance was off because her hands were locked behind her, and she hadn’t made it more than three steps before Keith caught her and put her back in the chair.
He sat on her, pinning her in place while he wrapped ropes around her body. Isabelle leaned forward and bit his shoulder, tasting blood. She wasn’t sure what happened next, but when she woke up a few seconds later, she was staring at the ceiling. Her head pounded and her arms throbbed.
From somewhere nearby, Isabelle heard Rachel’s muffled sobs of terror and Dale’s furious grunts.
Keith picked her and the chair up together and put them back in place. A few quick tugs of the rope and she was locked against the chair. Isabelle screamed. Her legs were still free, and she kicked out blindly, hoping to hit something, anything, to make him stop.
Behind her, she heard the sound of tape ripping from the roll. He grabbed an ankle and taped it to the leg of the chair, then did the same with the other. All that kicking and she hadn’t landed a single blow.
Isabelle screamed louder.
“Now,” said Keith. “I know you’re scared, but you don’t need to be. It’s almost over.”
Fear chilled her to the bone. That mockingly gentle tone he used was more frightening than if he’d been raging at her. “Let me go, Keith.”
He shook a bottle of pills in front of her. She couldn’t read the label, but she was pretty sure that whatever was in there wasn’t going to be good for her.
“You’re going to be good and do exactly what I say.”
“Screw you!” she shouted.
Keith frowned his displeasure. “That’s no way for a teacher to talk. I expected more from you.”
“Prepare to be disappointed, then, you demented fuck.”
Keith walked to where Amanda slumped. He grabbed a handful of her hair, pulled her head up, then let it fall back to that awkward position. “She has the right idea. Don’t fight it. Just let go.”
Isabelle couldn’t tell if she was still alive. She couldn’t focus long enough to tell if Amanda was still breathing. Please, God, don’t let her be dead.
“Why would you hurt her? What has she ever done to you?”
“I didn’t hurt her. I freed her.”
Freed her? He wasn’t making any sense. How was she going to reason with him if she didn’t even know what he wanted? “You’re insane. What are you talking about?”
Keith’s mouth tightened, and his eyes glittered with unshed tears of sympathy. “The pain. Poor, sweet, Isabelle. I know you’re hurting. I can see it in your eyes. They’re all red and puffy from crying, so don’t try to deny it.”
“Why do you care if I cry?”
“Because I love you. I loved all of them. That’s why I had to help them.”
All of them? “Who?”
He frowned like she was stupid. “Our brothers and sisters.”
It took her a moment to untangle his meaning, and when she did, a cold lump of dread swelled up in her gut. He’d killed their friends, not Wyatt. He’d killed the children they’d grown up with. He’d staged the suicides while pretending to be her friend the whole time. “I trusted you.”
“I know. That’s why it was so hard to wait to free you. But you had to let Grant stay here and make yourself unavailable. He was the only one who had a prayer of trying to stop me, but he’s no longer an issue.”
Grant. Thank God he got away free. At least she’d managed to save him by driving him away. It made the pain of losing him insignificant. “When he finds out about this, he’ll hunt you down.”
Keith knelt before her. His blue eyes blazed with a ferocious, insane light. He was mad. Completely bonkers.
He put a comforting hand on her knee, and Isabelle strained to get rid of his touch, but she couldn’t move.
“Grant’s already gone, honey. I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife, but if it comforts you to think you’ll see him again, then by all means, do. I want to make this easy on you.”
Grant gone? No. It couldn’t be. Surely she’d know somehow, deep down, if he’d died. “He’s not dead.”
“If he’s not yet, he will be any moment now. One bite of those cookies is all he needed to help him escape.”
Grant’s cookies were poisoned. Just like her tea. It hadn’t been Wyatt who’d done that, either.
“You’re wrong. Grant’s stronger than I am, and I survived that tea you poisoned.”
Keith gave her a condescending smile. “I never make the same mistake twice. I assure you I was more careful in choosing my poison this time. And the dose.”
Isabelle refused to believe it. If she did, her world would implode and she wouldn’t be able to get them all out of this mess. Grant was alive. Safe. He had to be.
“You’re not going to get away with this. I saw you touch the sack. Your fingerprints will be all over it.”
“I don’t plan to get away with anything. After I’ve helped you, I’m finally going to be free myself.”