Jayden Roe Mystery 02-The Final Lie by Lily Campbell (read a book .TXT) 📗

until you took my father down. It was so clean, so perfect. I knew, one day, I must beat you.”

Jay leaned back on the table, and Dave relished the display of weakness. “I killed all those women on your wall. I framed others when the police finally took action. I have led you every step of this journey. I killed Hector and Natalie Piers. I killed Gary Peters and Jack Newman. Even now, the real Lloyd will have taken care of all my tools at the station before having it out with the guys from Boston. A fight he won’t win. I found your pathetic spyware the first night, and you have been seeing only the trail I let you see. I took out every chance for aid, thwarted your every move. You cannot deny how hard you have been outplayed.”

Jay shook his head. “That’s impossible. You were with me when Gary was murdered.”

Dave laughed again and watched Jay wince at the inhuman sound. “Fool. I wasn’t working alone. Do you want to know who helped me?” Jay remained mute with surprising gray eyes. “Amara Young. I put her in your prison to spy on you. I ordered her to fake the assassination attempt at Mr. Haraby’s. She’s the one who turned Bridgette into a replica of Stella.”

Jay snarled and Dave raised a control. “Where is Stella?”

Dave waggled the control. “I thought you’d never ask.” He pressed the button, keeping his eyes firmly on Jay’s face as the tank lit up.

Jay turned his head to the source, but the horror Dave had hoped for never appeared. Instead, the man started to laugh.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Jay turned obediently to the new source of light. He took a few seconds to make sure of what he was seeing, then the tension of all these weeks dissolved in a sudden burst of relief and triumph.

He turned back in time to catch Dave shaking his head. By the man’s demeanor, he had not yet looked at the tank.

“I had hoped you were stronger and wouldn’t become unhinged.”

Jay barked another laugh, “Unhinged? I was laughing because you genuinely thought you had beaten me. You should have seen your face.”

Dave’s eyes snapped back to his face, and Jay felt an instinctive shiver race up his spine. The face watching him now bore little resemblance to the cheerful young man that had tried to sell him a car. In fact, it barely looked human. Still, his eyes filled with vengeful silver fire.

Jay gestured towards the tank. “No need to take my word for it.”

Dave shifted his deadly gaze for a tiny fraction of a second. The tank held no drowned body. In fact, it no longer held water at all. Dave’s eyes shifted over the form of Amara curled on the damp floor, and the bigger form of Lloyd slumped against the back wall.

“You killed them?”

Jay let his grin stretch wide as Dave turned back to him. “Of course not. Neither was anyone hurt at the police station. I am not you. I am better.”

“Do you never get tired of the sound of your own voice?” inquired a new voice from a doorway to the left.

“Of course not. He wouldn’t be Jay if he did,” replied another from the kitchen doorway behind them.

Dave’s eyes flickered around the room with comic speed, but his face only grew darker. “You brought company?”

Jay took in the note of disappointment and sighed. “I couldn’t very well deny them the opportunity. After all, you did try to have most of them killed.”

The lights in the room all came to life and the doors opened. Hector and Natalie came from the left, Elliot and Keira from the kitchen. From the right came Gary Peters and Gregory. From the final doorway came three people Jay had wanted to exclude. In the end, he had been overruled. Ruby, Frank, and Dr. Daniels stepped into the room

“What… How did...” Dave stumbled on his words as he blinked around him.

Jay waved Hector and Gary to stand down. “I know, but first I want one honest answer. Look carefully at each of those pictures. Are they all your victims?”

Dave turned to the wall Jay had pointed at and looked from photograph to photograph. Jay kept his eyes on Dave to watch for any hint of emotion as the man looked over his victims.

After a long pause, where Dave’s expression didn’t alter in the slightest, he turned back to Jay. “I kidnapped them all. Some of the first lot managed to commit suicide. Others died of starvation or cold. And you’re missing one. Amara Young was kidnapped by me when she was only three, though of course, I never killed her.”

Jay took the matter of fact words and let the disgust roll through him, then the same feeling he had had when Goldstein faced his conviction. The world would be less one monster today.

“I’m not going to ask why. I don’t care, but I will answer your need to know how I beat you.”

The others grumbled a moment, and Jay shot them all a glare then focused back on Dave. “I had noticed inconsistencies in your behaviors for a while, but the real first slip was the shooting at Mr. Haraby’s. If you had wanted to play the hero, you should have made sure the guards were either killed messily or not at all. Your perfect wound baffled the doctor. I see you don’t care how your failures gave me an in, but rather only on what I did to end up here. You really want to know? I did it by playing on your arrogance.”

Dave bared his teeth.

Jay smiled in a feral way and continued. “You believed you would win so completely that every time I played along and let you claim a win, you’d slip up.