Page 103 of Blade

“Artis! Stop the car!”

He reaches back and grabs my dress in the plastic bag. He holds it up to my face, and he smiles.

“I don’t know, Ana. Did I? You had much more to lose. This dress proves you killed that trucker fifteen years ago. Dawn kept it all this time because she didn’t know what it meant—and because she didn’t want any of that night to come back to bite her.”

Right, I think. Of course—the night they told me Indy died. Because of what they did to her. The falling and the bruise and then having her disqualified. They all played a role.

Artis continues. “When I told her about the murdered trucker and the wounds in the skull, how they were shaped like a blade—she remembered that night you ran away. Right after they told you about Indy. And then she showed me the dress.”

I get it now. “So, what, you both kept this secret? To protect The Palace and Echo?”

“We also protected you. All of us. Shannon could have gone to the police when she found the dress in the dumpster. Dawn could have done the same when Shannon gave it to her. And when I read about the body and Dawn told me about that night—I could have gone to them as well.”

The car skids again, and Artis goes faster, bringing it back onto the road. The lights shine on the path carved by the plows.

And a figure up ahead. Someone walking.

“You did it to protectThe Palace. Don’t pretend any of you cared about me. I would have been fine. That man assaulted Kayla. He’d been convicted of rape and domestic violence—it was in that article after they identified his body. He was a predator. And Emile convinced Kayla to stay quiet. He took her clothes. He gave her a bath. It could have destroyed her.”

I look ahead to the figure, and as a gust of wind clears away the snow, I can make out the coat. The bare head. The ponytail.

“There she is!” I tell him.

But he just keeps driving. “No, Ana. I didn’t kill Emile.”

And now he starts to move to the right, onto what would be the shoulder if it wasn’t buried in snow.

The shoulder Grace is walking on.

“What are you doing?” I ask. He’s heading right for Grace, and there’s no way she’ll hear the car with the wind whipping past her ears.

“Artis!”

“I didn’t kill Emile. And neither did Dawn or Dr. Westin.”

“It’s over!” I scream now. “Grace already told me Dawn and Westin were there! And the fourth car she saw—it had to be yours!”

And now, as he steps even harder on the gas, Grace just yards away, he says, “Maybe you’re lying.”

“What? Why would I lie?”

“Because maybe you did it,” he says. “Maybe you killed Emile.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Excerpt from Testimony of Mio Akasawa

Ada Olson: What happened the next day—after you drove home from the rest stop outside of Denver?

Mio Akasawa: Ana woke up at six a.m. for her morning sessions. She went to the rink, skated, then went to school. Nationals were just three weeks away.

Ada Olson: Back to normal?

Mio Akasawa: Yes.

Ada Olson: And did you ever ask her again why her dress, and her skate, were covered in blood? Where she’d been or what she’d done?

Mio Akasawa: No.