Page 51 of By the Time You Read This (Raisa Susanto #3)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Raisa

Day Seven

Raisa stared out over the harbor, wondering if she should seek out Delaney once more. It would be a long time before she forgot her own mental slip on that cliff, thinking she was trying to save Delaney, even though her sister had never been close to the type of monster Gabriela had become.

Still, it felt like maybe they had said to each other what they’d needed to on that boat.

She was about to head to the hospital—she wanted to check on Kilkenny herself—when Essi Halla strutted toward her, dolled up to perfection.

“Well, this all seems rife with potential for melodrama,” Essi said, hands on her hips. “Maybe it will be my second book. I was targeted by a serial killer.”

“Well, good luck, I guess?” Raisa said, not bothering to mention that she’d already flagged Essi as a person of interest for the white-collar boys at the Bureau.

Essi winked at her. “Don’t you worry. I’m a survivor. I always come out on top.”

“I’m sure you do,” Raisa said, laughing, almost hoping it was true. “So Gabriela Cruz was the one who told you Isabel had killed your father?”

“Yeah,” Essi said, brows raised. “Why? Did something happen with her?”

“She was the one who killed Emily Logan,” Raisa said. “And likely Isabel, and a couple others.”

“She didn’t kill Isabel,” Essi said. “No way.”

Raisa turned to her. “What?”

“I mean, I’m no FBI agent,” Essi said, drawing out the acronym. “But she contacted me right after the news dropped. Said I needed to get up here and bring all the attention with me. She was convinced Isabel was killed, but knew she wouldn’t be able to get anyone to listen to her. She thought me being here would help.”

Raisa pictured that moment on the boat when she’d accused Gabriela of murdering Isabel.

She had been about to deny it, but clearly hadn’t wanted to be distracted in that moment.

“Like, maybe she was that good of an actor,” Essi continued, “but it does seem weird.”

Raisa nodded, staring blankly over the water, trying to figure out where her misstep had occurred. Obsession and hate were two sides of a coin. It had seemed logical to her that Gabriela, who had been losing control, would want to kill the idol who had set her down that path. But Gabriela had maintained her hero worship up until the end.

“Well,” Essi drew out. “Toodles.”

And then she was gone, hips swaying as she went to try to eavesdrop on the police still swarming the harbor.

Isabel had said that she’d wanted both Delaney and Raisa to break.

To do so, she’d created a ruse where she’d had an impressionable protégé kill in order to prove her worth to Isabel. She’d then set it up so that it looked like Delaney was putting that very protégé down like a dog who had the taste of blood in its mouth. To push Raisa to the brink, where she might actually have killed Delaney and claimed self-defense, she’d put Kilkenny’s life into play.

But Delaney had never planned to kill Gabriela—her strategy had been to get a recording of a confession.

Isabel had thought she could force Delaney into actually, finally killing someone.

Because that had been the difference between the two sisters. Delaney wasn’t like Raisa; she didn’t think she was a morally upright person. She knew she lived in the gray areas.

What defined her as better than Isabel was that she had never actually taken a life. Not in the real sense of the word.

If Isabel had wanted to push Delaney past the breaking point, that was what she had to get her to do.

Delaney was so smart, though. And Isabel had been in prison.

Isabel had thought she was a mastermind—she’d lived out her little fantasy through those Biggest Fan letters and the reviews she’d written herself. That was how she’d seen this all going.

But where Isabel was brilliant at manipulating people into doing her bidding, Delaney was brilliant at being, well, cold. Logical. Isabel could have threatened to kill Raisa and Kilkenny, but Delaney would have found a way around that.

There wasn’t a problem out there that Delaney couldn’t solve—even if Raisa didn’t always like the way she solved it.

In the end, though, she hadn’t had to.

Because . . .

Because . . .

Isabel had already been dead.

Raisa laughed.

Delaney was better than Isabel because she’d never taken a life.

Except that maybe she had.

Delaney was sitting on the edge of the motel’s empty pool, her legs dangling into nothingness.

“She broke you,” Raisa said as she dropped down next to her sister.

The corner of Delaney’s mouth twitched. “As intended.”

Delaney was smart, but so was Isabel.

She had known that Delaney would figure out a way to avoid killing her protégé.

But Isabel had left Delaney with no choice but to kill her .

“Insulin?” Raisa asked.

Delaney shot her a look, and Raisa held her hands up. “No recorder. No wires.”

“Right,” Delaney huffed. “I’m going to tell Little Miss Goody Two-shoes that I killed our sister.”

“I’m sorry,” Raisa said.

She was sorry Delaney had been driven to that point—over a line in the sand she’d always refused to cross before.

She was sorry Delaney had to bear the weight of that alone when Isabel had been out for both of their blood.

She was sorry that they were the two left standing. That they were each other’s family when Raisa couldn’t bear to call her that.

And, technically, Raisa should’ve been attempting to arrest Delaney.

There would be no evidence, no trace of anything.

“Okay, hypothetically speaking,” Raisa said, mostly because she was nosy. “How would someone go about that?”

“ Someone might have paid off an inmate to try to assassinate Isabel within the prison,” Delaney said. “Because that someone realized that Isabel was never going to stop trying to kill people. And that someone felt like they’d spent their life making a huge mistake in letting her live.”

“And when the shiv attempt didn’t work,” Raisa prodded.

“ Someone might have researched all the guards until they found one with a personal vendetta against scumbag murderers,” Delaney said, kicking her feet out. “The guard easily snuck a syringe of insulin into the prison and then pricked Isabel right before roll call. It took a couple hours for her to actually die in her sleep.”

“That guard should probably be fired,” Raisa mused.

“And they would be, if this was anything other than a hypothetical,” Delaney said with a shrug. “ Someone might also know that said guard is planning on taking her ill-gotten money and retiring to some island on the other side of the world, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It really, really doesn’t,” Raisa said, and Delaney smirked.

“That’s where we differ,” Delaney murmured.

“Where did you get the insulin?” Raisa asked, for lack of any better question.

Delaney shot her a pitying glance. “Please tell me you’ve ventured onto the dark web at least once. It will help you with your career if you get a passing familiarity with what’s available on there.”

“I’ve been on it,” Raisa said, though they both knew she was lying. “Anyway. When did Isabel know? What you had planned.”

“When I went to visit her,” Delaney said. “Maybe six months ago. She wanted to play a game. I said I wouldn’t do it.”

Isabel had never been made for prison, but she wasn’t exactly built for suicide, either. Her ego was too dominant—it would have fought tooth and nail to stay alive.

So she’d tried to arrange it to where she could pull the pin and take Raisa and Delaney down with her.

Her ultimate dream. Making them hers for eternity.

But not even Isabel could outsmart her own death.

Raisa wondered if she would ever see Delaney again. Isabel was what had held them together, in a strange way.

Kilkenny would tell her that Delaney was family, and that mattered for something. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. Only time would tell.

But right now, Raisa was just thankful.

Thankful that the rage-fueled fire that burned in her whenever she thought of Delaney had been put out.

Delaney had never been able to stop Isabel when it mattered.

Until she finally had.

As an FBI agent, Raisa could never condone someone taking life and death into their own hands. They had a justice system for a reason, and Raisa was staunchly against the government killing people.

As Isabel Parker’s sister, though, Raisa would thank the powers that be every night for the rest of her life that the monster had been slain.

“I don’t feel broken,” Delaney said, sounding like she was confessing something terrible. “It feels like I finally did something right.”

Raisa bumped her shoulder, and gave Delaney the one thing she’d always withheld from her. “Yeah, I think you did.”