she
moved made me feel worse and worse about what waited for me in the bedroom. I
looked at Jonathan’s feet, still pointed in the air. They hadn’t moved an inch.
He’s dead , I thought.
I shook my head and closed
my eyes, forcing the thought away.
I couldn’t believe it.
Katherine took a bottle of
wine from the counter and poured some into a glass that was next to the wine.
She swirled it and the wine danced around the wide glass. She smelled it and
smiled, then took a big sip.
“Not sure what I’m smelling
it for or tasting it for,” Katherine said. “Just looks good, doesn’t it?”
It did look good. So did
Katherine in my body. She wore it better than I had. She was meant for dresses.
She was meant for wine. She was meant for the lifestyle Jonathan Black had
given me.
And maybe that’s what she
wanted.
“If I did anything...”
“Oh, Isabella Grace,”
Katherine said, “you can’t just start apologizing, can you? You don’t know
enough to apologize.”
“Then tell me. You tell me
right now why you sent text messages to me and Mr. Black.”
“Mr. Black?” Katherine laughed.
“I remember a time when I called him that. But not anymore. He was the one
begging me. He was the one desperate to get away. But in the end...”
Katherine slid around to the
other side of the counter and opened a drawer. I stiffened and took a step back.
I immediately prepared my last thoughts as I waited for the gunshot.
So be it , my mind
told me.
Instead, Katherine pulled
out a knife. She held it up and where there should have been a glistening
coming from the blade, there wasn’t. There wasn’t a glisten because the blade
had blood on it.
-2-
I didn’t run, I went faster
than running. My mind had a one track purpose and that was to get to Jonathan
Black right then and there to know the truth. If he was dead, I couldn’t take
it, but I could see it. I could hold him. I could kiss his lips, one last time.
Maybe he was still alive, dangling by the threads of his own heartbeat. Maybe
he was waiting for me, to see if I’d come back to him.
Of course I would.
Did he doubt for a second I
wouldn’t?
Did he believe that
something would happen with Kellen?
I moved, my eyes on the
room. I made it no more than ten charging steps before I saw the flicker of the
red blade again. Katherine waved the knife at me and I panicked. I couldn’t
explain it but something about knives just freaked me out. I tried to stop but
couldn’t. I tripped over my own two feet and fell to the floor. On my hands and
knees I was in the position Katherine wanted me to be in.
I kept my head down, trying
to catch my breath and trying not to break down. As I turned my head I saw
Katherine’s black heels moving towards me. I looked up at her, feeling broken,
on the verge of my own death.
“Something wrong?” she
asked.
“The knife. The blood.”
“Oh, that. Just something I
needed from Jonathan.”
“No... you didn’t...”
“Oh, I had to,” Katherine
said.
She was so calm and
collected. She was much like Jonathan, as horrible as that sounded. She held
the knife between her pointer and thumb and hung it over me. I watched the very
tip of it moving left to right, left to right.
“Now that you’ve seen this,
I don’t need it anymore.”
Her fingers opened and the
knife fell. It hit the floor and fell to the side, blood smearing on the
carpet. It was just a few inches from my face. If I wanted to, I could have
licked the blade and the blood. Maybe the idea went through my mind for a
second, I’m not sure. When I looked back at Katherine she was smiling ear to
ear. She then bent her knees and in the most elegant fashion I’d ever seen, she
lowered herself to my level.
It was amazing to see.
In such a tight dress, she
moved with ease.
Some women would have
fallen. Some would have torn the dress. Some would have exposed themselves
somewhere.
But not Katherine.
She was perfect.
She touched my hair and I
felt