Part 17 (1/2)

He gave a disgusted snort. ”He claimed it was because of me. That I was too jealous. Too possessive. That I was suffocating him with that obsessive jealousy.”

”He didn't say anything like that to me...”

”It's enough that he said it to me on the day he died!”

Lily's unease blossomed into full-blown panic. ”You said you hadn't seen Evan that day...”

”I hadn't. The little coward left a message on my cell phone saying that it was over between the two of us.” His nostrils flared. ”He wouldn't take any of my calls to him either, despite the dozen messages I left for him to call me back.”

Messages left on Evan's cell phone...

The cell phone that had been destroyed.

Because of those d.a.m.ning messages?

Surely Todd wouldn't have, couldn't have attacked Charlie and Evan? Killed Charlie and Evan? No, the idea was too preposterous.

Wasn't it?

Why would he do such a thing? Surely not because Evan was having second thoughts about their relations.h.i.+p?

Oh G.o.d, where was Liam?

Where was Jonas?

”I tried to distract you from Evan, thought you would be flattered to have a secret admirer,” Todd continued conversationally. ”I sent you those letters telling you how much I liked you. How much I wanted to be with you. But it made no difference. Evan felt even more protective of you. So I decided to stop being nice and give him a reason to feel that way,” he added in a hard voice.

”You were the one who wrote those disgusting letters and delivered the white roses?”

”Yes.” His mouth turned back in a sneer. ”I thought the blood dripping from the petals was a nice touch. At no little cost to myself, I might add.” He looked down to where an inch-long cut had recently healed in the palm of his hand. ”But you wouldn't listen, would you? Wouldn't back off. Why couldn't you just leave Evan alone? He didn't need you when he had me.” He bared his teeth in a snarl.

Lily felt nauseated. All this time, they thought she had an admirer who had become an obsessive stalker, and instead it had been Todd's reaction to and jealousy of her friends.h.i.+p with Evan.

A jealousy that had led him not only to writing and sending those obscene letters, but also to spray-painting her dressing room, calling her those disgusting names?

To breaking into her apartment and destroying her bed, before plunging a knife into her pillow?

To killing both Charlie and Evan?

If that was true, then Todd had to be completely mentally unbalanced.

And Liam was missing, leaving Lily alone in her dressing room with a man who had already killed twice. Perhaps a third time, if he had harmed Liam.

”Move away from the door,” Todd now instructed pleasantly.

Lily tensed. ”Why?”

He gave her a pitying look. ”Because I don't want that big guy, the one who follows you around, to interrupt us.”

Jonas. He meant Jonas. Except Jonas hadn't been following her around, he had been protecting her, and for the past six days, he hadn't even been doing that. But he was here now, she reminded herself. Somewhere in the theater. As were Seth and a dozen of his men.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ”You don't want to do this, Todd.”

”I don't?” He no longer waited for her to move away from the door but pushed her roughly to one side and turned the lock before taking a knife from his breast pocket.

Lily backed away. ”Jonas and his men are outside.”

”Exactly, they're outside, on the other side of a locked door,” he said with satisfaction. ”This room doesn't have any windows or other doors, and the bathroom window has bars over it on the outside. I know, because I checked when I decorated your dressing room for you.”

She moved slowly sideways. Away from Todd and the knife he held. ”Did you attack Evan?”

”It was an accident,” he snapped. ”I came back from my business trip after receiving his message, only he hadn't arrived yet, and he was still refusing to answer any of my calls. I'd been to the theater dozens of times with Evan, so it wasn't too difficult to persuade Charlie into believing I wanted to leave a surprise present in Evan's dressing room.”

Instead, he had left a message for Lily...

Todd really had killed Evan. Charlie too. And maybe Liam. As he was now about to kill her?

Todd shrugged. ”I intended waiting in Evan's dressing room and having it out with him face-to-face. But I saw some spray paint in one of the workmen's bags as I walked through and decided to leave a little message for you instead. Several little messages,” he added with satisfaction. ”Did you like my artwork?”

What was she supposed to say in response to that? To a man who talked so calmly of killing two people? A man she realized would have no qualms about killing her too.

Todd didn't wait for her to answer. ”I remembered later that I had signed into that stupid visitors' book the doorman kept in his room, so I came back before the evening performance, intending to destroy the evidence I had ever been here that day. The stupid old man caught me doing it. Ironic, don't you think, that he died by being hit over the head with his own walking stick? Unfortunately, Evan had forgotten to take his cell phone with him after the afternoon performance, and when he came back for it, he literally caught me in the act. I had no choice but to silence him too.”

He spoke so dismissively, as if he wasn't talking of killing two people-one of them the man he'd professed to love and wanted to marry.

Not only that, but he had returned to the theater a third time that day, giving the misleading impression he had recently returned from his business trip.

He'd pretended he had no idea what had happened to Charlie and Evan, and all the time- Lily was too horrified to move now, felt as if her legs were frozen in place. ”But you loved Evan.”

He scowled darkly. ”I told you, he'd change his mind about me.” A nerve pulsed in his jaw.

”But you don't kill people you love!”

Todd's eyes flashed. ”He said he was going to call the police. He gave me no choice.”

”Everyone has a choice, Todd.”

He shook his head. ”I didn't.”

”But what if Evan had survived? What if he'd regained consciousness and named you as his attacker?”

”That wasn't going to happen.”

”You don't know that-”

”Of course I f.u.c.king knew that!” His eyes became feverish. ”If I couldn't have Evan, then no one else was going to have him either. It took Evan's family some hours to travel down from Scotland, and in the meantime, I had convinced the nursing staff that Evan and I were engaged, that I was effectively his next of kin until his family arrived. They very kindly allowed me to sit with him.”