Page 70 of Ruthless Riches

“I wanted to know what you knew. I was so sure you were close to finding me when you were still on the outside, and I figured you might’ve written some stuff down somewhere where people would eventually find it. If that was true, I needed to find it before anyone else did,” she said. “Unfortunately, you made it clear you were never going to tell me anything. Not as the Butcher. But I knew you’d tell me, as your sister. So I came down here while you were sleeping off the last round of drugs and set up the speaker with the recording on it. Then I acted like I was locked in there.” She turned and jerked a thumb at the opposite cell. “I had a remote with me. I just needed to press play to make the recording start. After you heard that, it was easy for me to bring the conversation around to where I needed it to be. I asked you what you knew about the Butcher, and I begged you to choose yourself to go free so you could tell it all to the police.”

“But you knew I wouldn’t actually choose myself, didn’t you?” I said. “You just wanted to see what I had to say.”

She nodded smugly. “Of course. You were always going to choose me. So I made up that bullshit about perfecting a cocktail of drugs that would erase all my memories of being down here,” she said with a smirk. “It didn’t exist, of course.”

“Jesus,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand over my forehead.

“When you told me you knew nothing about the Butcher, I realized you were serious. You really didn’t know anything, apart from the stuff about Central Park,” she went on. “But it was too late by then, because I already had you down here. I needed you here anyway, because if I let you stay on the outside, it was only a matter of time before you figured me out. That’s why I took you. You know that.”

I nodded slowly. Then I wrinkled my brow as something else occurred to me. “Why did you tell Nate you were drugged at a bar?” I asked. “Or was that a lie too?”

“It wasn’t a lie. I had to do that because I was down here with you for sixteen straight hours. I figured some people might eventually wonder where I was all that time, and they might wonder about the giant bruise on my arm, too. So I came up with the cover story about being drugged and passing out in an alleyway. Now it looks real because there’s a record of me going to the hospital and getting tests done. I even spoke to the police about it.”

“Wow. You really thought of everything,” I said, rubbing my aching forehead again.

A gleam of pride appeared in Sascha’s eyes. “Yes. I did.”

“What’s going to happen to Nate now?” I asked. “Are you going to leave him alone?”

“Only if he stops looking for you. But I really don’t think he will.” She let out a short, irritated sigh. “Honestly, I wish I could just move you off the island altogether, but it’s too risky.”

My heart began to thud painfully in my chest. “What are you going to do if Nate starts getting too close to finding me?”

“I already told you the other day,” she said, lips curving into another twisted smile. “I’m going to kill him.”