Watch Me Die (41 page)

“It’s okay,” Connor whispered. “It’s over.”

It was, she realized. All of it. Not just the tending to her new, physical wounds, but all of it, past and present. She rested her cheek against his chest, reassured by the steady beat of his heart. They were alive and safe.

And they were together. She lifted her face to his. “I love you, Connor Scott. Thank you for waiting for me.”

EPILOGUE

Saturday, April 7, 2012

3:00
P.M.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Spencer bent and kissed Stacy. Not a chaste peck or brief meeting, a long, deep kiss that testified to both passion and commitment.

Mira curled her fingers around Connor’s. He looked at her, happiness shining from his eyes. She knew he saw the same emotion shining from hers.

They turned back to the newly married couple. Mira thought of Chris and the final pieces of the puzzle, uncovered by the police investigation.

Chris’s mother had been murdered, her remains found buried in the backyard, the remnants of a suitcase with her. According to old-timers from Sisters of Mercy, the last time Mary Johns had been seen alive was at the school, the day she’d picked up Chris and informed them that they were moving to Texas.

Those same parishioners remembered Chris’s grandmother as extremely odd, refusing to believe her only child had gotten pregnant out of wedlock and claiming that Chris’s had been an Immaculate Conception. When others refused to believe her, she’d left the church.

No wonder Chris had turned out the way he had, Mira thought. Knowing what his grandmother had done, then fed a daily diet of madness.

The forensic anthropologist determined that the grandmother had been dead for quite some time and had classified her death as a homicide as well—the woman’s hyoid bone had been crushed, the probable manner of death strangulation.

What had happened? Mira wondered. Had Chris just snapped one day and killed her? Then, unable to deal with that reality, brought her back to “life”?

Back to life, she thought. To the world of the living. Leaving behind the demons of the past, letting go.

Mira supposed she should find it strange that she was recalling such events now, at the marriage of two people who had become her friends. But she didn’t. If not for those events, she wouldn’t be here. Not physically. And not emotionally. She could have ended up like Karin Bayle, so unable to let go of the past that she had thrown her future away.

Her future. Connor.
She curled her fingers tighter around his, happier, more at peace than she’d ever thought she would be again.

The newlyweds started down the aisle, heading toward the open church doors and the beautiful day—and future—beyond.

Holding tightly to Connor’s hand, Mira followed them.

Also by Erica Spindler

Blood Vines

Breakneck

Last Known Victim

Copycat

Killer Takes All

See Jane Die

In Silence

Dead Run

Bone Cold

All Fall Down

Cause for Alarm

Shocking Pink

Fortune

Forbidden Fruit

Red

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

WATCH ME DIE.
Copyright © 2011 by Erica Spindler. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Spindler, Erica, 1957–

  Watch me die / Erica Spindler. — 1st ed.

          p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-312-36394-9

1.  Women artists—Fiction.   2.  Glass artists—Fiction.   3.  Murder—Investigation—Fiction.   4.  Psychological fiction.   I.  Title.

  PS3569.P5436W38 2011b

  813'.54—dc22

2011015756

First Edition: June 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-3980-5

First St. Martin’s Press eBook Edition: June 2011