mask her fear with an air of confidence and sympathy.
“But if you give yourself up, if you come out with me now, it can only help you. Your two previous acts of violence, while horrific, were directed at people you felt wronged you. Your lawyer can argue credibly that you just snapped. But if you attempt to harm a law enforcement officer in a premeditated fashion—one who is trying to help you—that takes things to another level. No lawyer can spin that. So this is the moment, right now. We can salvage this together or you can ruin it alone. What’s it going to be?’
More silence. Jessie was at a loss. She had nothing more to say, no more help to offer. Did this mean that Callie was too far gone to save? Was she even in the prop room at all?
Then she heard it—the sound of movement up ahead to the left. A figure stepped out from behind two mannequins, both missing arms and with entrails dangling from their abdomens. Jessie felt a shiver run down her spine.
Someone stepped into the main path wearing black pants, a black turtleneck, and a black ski mask. Even though she’d never seen the movies, Jessie recognized it as the Marauder costume from the film series. It was how Callie had been dressed when she killed Corinne.
Seeing that her hands were empty, Jessie tempered the urge to draw her gun. Callie reached up, pulled off the ski mask, and tossed it aside. Her brown hair shot everywhere, a victim of the mask’s static electricity. Her eyes were dull, lacking the frenzied energy from the audition room.
“You made the right choice, Callie,” Jessie said calmly. “Now walk toward me slowly with your hands above your head. I’ll need to handcuff you.”
Callie did as she was told, moving forward, her hands held high, clenched together into tight, angry balls. Jessie pulled out the cuffs and moved forward to meet her. The woman was approaching faster than Jessie would have liked and she was about to tell her to ease up when a silent alarm when off in her head.
Clenched fists. Moving fast. Something’s not right.
At that moment, Callie pulled her hands apart, revealing that her fists had been hiding a balled up cord. Now only six feet away, she charged at Jessie, swinging her arms forward to wrap the cord around her neck.
Jessie didn’t have time to grab her gun. But she did have the cuffs. Without pausing to consider it, she clutched one cuff by the loop and whipped the other end at the advancing woman, smacking her hard in the nose with the metal cheek plate. Callie grunted and her head snapped back momentarily, making it impossible for her to see that Jessie had dropped into a crouch.
Callie ran straight into her and careened forward over her, doing an awkward somersault before landing hard on her tailbone. Jessie spun around, snapped one cuff on Callie’s still extended right wrist, and then connected it to the left. Then she grabbed the cord and yanked, ripping it from the woman’s fingers. She stood up, walked around to face Callie, and shook her head.
“You should have listened to me,” she said simply. “I was trying to help you, Callie.”
Callie Hemphill, aka Calliope Mott, looked up at her with loathing in her eyes.
“I’m done trusting other women,” she growled.
Jessie had no response to that.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
The sun hurt her eyes.
Jessie had stepped out into the Central Police Station courtyard at 6:21 a.m. to get some fresh air after working through the night. But she hadn’t been prepared for how bright it was. She felt like some kind of vampire.
She sat down on a bench, allowing herself to take her first mental break in hours. Callie Hemphill was in custody. Her arraignment was later this morning. Miller Boatwright was in the hospital. The medic had managed to resuscitate him.
When Jessie and Trembley had gone to interview him, he was alert, though hoarse and clearly weakened. He told them about his time with Callie in the audition room before Jessie burst in, about her accusations that he’d cast Corinne because she was willing to sleep with him.
“But I swear Corinne and I hooked up after she was cast,” he reiterated raspily. “And like I said, she was the one who pursued me after I broke it off.”
“But Callie didn’t know any of that,” Jessie reminded him.
He acknowledged that, as well as the fact that he’d aggressively come on to