Page 33 of By the Time You Read This (Raisa Susanto #3)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Delaney

Day Six

Delaney didn’t let herself worry about Roan of the Carolina mountains. She tucked their afternoon on the boat away in her mind, something to reflect upon when she needed the fantasy.

She lived in reality, where kind men were actually just lying to you.

She did let herself wonder what he wanted from her. Was he a journalist in disguise? A cop? A family member of one of Isabel’s victims? Delaney had done her best not to follow along with the trial—thinking that putting distance between herself and an airing of all Isabel’s misdeeds would somehow help her move on.

Of course, it hadn’t. Isabel wouldn’t allow for that.

Let’s play a game . . .

Delaney had made some excuse when they’d gotten back from their boat excursion. Roan lingered, but couldn’t pressure her further without coming off like a cad.

Would he realize what he’d done? Later, when she disappeared from the motel and his life altogether, without even a goodbye?

He probably wouldn’t—and she hoped that mystery haunted him.

Delaney could be petty, especially when she was being used.

You used him, too, some part of her whispered. But she’d used him in a way that had been honest. She’d wanted the relief of casual sex and had made no promises that she was looking for anything else.

He, on the other hand, had only wanted to get close to her because of who she was.

She hadn’t seen him since they’d parted ways yesterday evening—he hadn’t even tried to contact her. She now scrubbed the disappointment off her skin before dressing in all black for her plans.

When she left the motel, she couldn’t help but stare for one extra-long moment at the light in Roan’s window.

She should never have gone on that boat ride anyway.

There had just been something about enjoying the afternoon away from Isabel’s mind games that she hadn’t been able to resist.

A small slice of fantasy.

But that wasn’t her life now.

As ever, her life was about death.

“Let’s play a game, Lana,” Isabel said. Her hands were cuffed to the table, but she looked as in control as ever.

Relaxed, amused. Pleased that Delaney had finally come to see her.

“ Delaney. ”

“ Look who’s all grown up,” Isabel purred. “It only took you about forty years to grow a spine, my dear. Although it is nice that it finally came in. ”

“What do you want?” Delaney gritted out. She had done her best to remove Isabel from her life, from her mind. She had hidden herself from all the vultures who wanted a piece of her because Isabel was infamous; she’d turned down book deals to write the Parker girls’ story; she’d even let Raisa dictate their relationship, not for her sister’s benefit but because looking at Raisa reminded Delaney that she, herself, was far more like Isabel than Raisa.

“You hate yourself, don’t you?” Isabel asked, flatly curious.

Delaney didn’t say anything. How she felt about herself was ... complicated. She understood why Raisa hated her, she understood why Isabel couldn’t feel anything toward her. But she had survived by justifying her choices to herself—otherwise she probably would have drunk herself to death years ago.

Twenty-five years of that? Of telling herself that she’d done the right thing—for her family—had become fairly foundational to who she was as a person.

Did she hate that person? Maybe. She judged her, at the very least.

“What do you want?” Delaney spit out again.

“ I want to give you a redemption arc,” Isabel said. “Aren’t those the very best stories? The villain becomes the hero we all deserve. ”

Delaney drove to Gabbi’s place this time instead of the beach. She didn’t have to wait very long for Gabbi to emerge.

The girl who had idolized her sister.

Who, if Delaney was right, had become her.

Or, a less successful version of Isabel.

That was a big if , though. So far, Gabbi had avoided incriminating herself. She’d made some leading comments about wanting to kill sexual predators, but they had all been couched in gauzy language, no matter how much Delaney had tried to draw her out into something more concrete.

The time for gentle probing was over, though.

Delaney needed to actually catch her in the act.

Something that would be harder to do with Roan Carmichael on her tail.

Had he been the one who’d found Delaney in Seattle? The one who’d sent her fleeing in the first place? Had he then followed her to that hotel, rented a room, slept with her, lied to her? All to ... what?

Well, the answer to that was obvious. Kill her.

She tried to picture Roan with a knife at her throat. Or maybe a syringe of something so it would look like natural causes. Just like what must have happened with Isabel.

Delaney sucked in air. She could picture it because she could picture anyone a killer.

But then a memory nudged into the frame. Roan smiling at her on the boat, handing over his sunglasses.

He could have killed her so easily out there.

Not a single person in the whole world knew she was in Gig Harbor. It would have taken days, if not weeks, for her body to wash ashore somewhere.

Maybe he wanted to torture her instead of making her death quick and easy.

Get over it, she told herself, and then returned her attention to Gabbi.

The girl was nervous—her fingers curled tightly around the strap of her bag.

Delaney’s own heart beat strongly at her pulse points. Maybe Gabbi was just going out for a drink with friends.

Maybe Delaney had gotten this all wrong.

But Delaney had been on this hunt now for six months. She wasn’t often wrong for that long.

Although ... she hadn’t been sure. Gabbi had told Delaney about Lindsey Cousins in their private conversations.

They went to the same school, although Lindsey attended most of her classes online. She must have rubbed Gabbi the wrong way at some point, because Gabbi had confessed to Delaney—well, to Delaney’s online persona—that she’d used her algorithm to figure out the likelihood that Lindsey’s father had actually drowned. The results had come back that the chance he’d died of natural causes had been less than 10 percent, given weather and ocean patterns on the day of his demise.

Lindsey, Gabbi had posited almost gleefully, was a murderer, and had been since she’d been a young girl.

Find the killer.

Kill the killer.

Delaney had been intrigued by Lindsey. Not that Delaney was going to kowtow to anything Isabel said, but if there was someone out there killing people, Delaney wanted to know about it.

So she had set a trap.

A trap by the name of Peter Stamkos.

Isabel had wanted him dead. Delaney had offered him up on a silver platter to anyone who’d wanted to prove themselves to her sister. She’d taken all the steps Isabel would have, by making sure someone—someone other than her, because that could get messy—had called CPS as a concerned citizen. Peter’s story was all set up for someone, the perfect suicide candidate.

Find the killer.

Kill the killer.

If only it were that easy. There was a reason Delaney had taken twenty-five years to stop Isabel—and even then it had been when Isabel herself had flown too close to the sun.

Delaney had been watching Peter’s house. She’d set up cameras around the perimeter for anywhere she couldn’t see.

And yet, whoever had killed him had avoided being spotted.

It made her wonder why she always tried so hard and came up short. Why couldn’t her genius plans ever turn out like Isabel’s did? Why was she so smart on some matters and yet constantly failing when it came to the important ones?

Delaney had been sure it was Lindsey Cousins, though. The girl was a psychopath. She was interested, at least tangentially, in true crime.

And then she’d died.

Delaney touched the hilt of the knife strapped to her thigh beneath her skirt as she watched Gabbi walk away.

I want to give you a redemption arc.

She got out of the car. Right now, with Gabbi on high alert, a car tailing her would surely send her into hiding. Delaney didn’t want that—she wanted to catch Gabbi in the act.

Or ... before the act would be ideal, really.

Gabbi looked back over her shoulder, but she wasn’t used to spotting a tail, that much was obvious. Delaney merely had to duck into the shadows to avoid detection.

Don’t do it, Delaney thought at her as she continued on her way toward campus.

But if Delaney had that kind of power, it would have worked on Isabel long ago.

Maybe Gabbi was just meeting someone after classes.

Maybe she had forgotten something on campus.

Maybe she had to turn in an assignment—professors were reverting to handwritten essays now that AI was becoming a popular cheating tool.

Maybe, maybe, maybe . . .

Delaney thought about the beach, the bonfire.

“ We have to do something, ” Delaney had said.

“ You think I haven’t tried? ” Gabbi blowing a ring of smoke.

Gabbi was different from Isabel. She wasn’t a psychopath, as far as Delaney could tell. She was just a girl who’d been hurt and whom the justice system had failed miserably. If she killed, it was because she genuinely thought she was ridding the world of villains.

Peter Stamkos had deserved to die, after all, for what he’d done to his daughter.

Lindsey had so clearly been a monster—it was at least a possibility that she’d killed her own father. Delaney wasn’t about to mourn her.

Emily . . .

Well, Delaney knew the girl was no prize, but she was probably a victim of Gabbi’s psychotic break rather than any kind of noble calling.

Raisa’s voice screamed in Delaney’s head: Call the police.

But Delaney couldn’t.

One, she could be wrong.

There was a distinct possibility that Gabbi was actually innocent and all Delaney’s evidence was simply confirmation bias. How many college girls talked just like Gabbi—wishing rapists dead wasn’t exactly a sign that someone was capable of killing one.

And two, even dead, Isabel could still make sure the rules of her game were enforced. Delaney had no doubt about that. If Delaney didn’t follow her rules, she’d go after Kilkenny and Raisa.

Some might think Delaney foolish for fearing a dead woman.

Those people should ask Kilkenny about how serious the threat was.

So as much as Delaney wanted to, she couldn’t just ignore the fact that Gabbi was now walking toward a tall, handsome man waiting on the steps of the main hall.

When Gabbi stopped in front of him, her entire demeanor shifted. Gone were the skittish nerves, and in their place was a confident coquette, her pose welcoming, her hand resting on his forearm.

It reminded Delaney of the times she donned the Lana Parker persona.

The man jerked his head toward his car, and Gabbi nodded.

“Shit,” Delaney breathed. She wouldn’t be able to follow them if they got in. She thought about stopping them in some way, even running over to Gabbi to force an introduction.

Instead she watched helplessly—as she had all her life—as Gabbi climbed into the passenger seat and buckled up.

They drove by only a handful of feet away from where Delaney was hiding, and she could see the suggestion of Gabbi’s hand resting on the man’s knee.

Maybe this wasn’t exactly what she thought it was.

Maybe this was just an affair between a professor and his much younger student. That might not be a healthy relationship, but it certainly wasn’t worth calling the cops about.

As she watched the taillights disappear, though, she wondered if she would ever talk herself out of all her maybes and do something for once in her goddamn life.

The police radio app Delaney downloaded on her burner phone crackled to life at 3:00 a.m.

Apparent suicide, over by the harbor.

Male, midforties.

They didn’t say, but Delaney guessed he had dark hair and a strong jawline, along with the ghost of a young woman’s touch on his thigh.