the door. She walked down the short hall and looked at Peter, now pretending to sleep on the chair. She then turned toward Sean on the couch, also pretending to sleep.
“Suz,” Lucy said, “she has a gun in her right hand.”
She raised her gun toward Sean.
Suzanne came out of the bedroom and karate chopped her arm. She dropped the gun, turned to face Suzanne, but Suzanne kicked her legs out from under her and had her on the ground in seconds, her knee in Alexis’s back.
Sean hobbled over and put his gun on Alexis while Suzanne cuffed and searched her. By the time Alexis was on her feet, Noah and Lucy were in the apartment.
Peter rose from his chair and stared at her. “Why?”
“He knows where you are. He’ll find you.”
“Let him come,” Suzanne said, sitting Alexis down in a chair. “We’re ready.”
She shook her head. “He won’t come now. He’s the smartest person I know. And patient. He’ll wait.”
Lucy sat down across from her. “Alexis, tell Peter the truth. He deserves to know why you went to Syracuse.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “You don’t understand how hard it was for us after Cami disappeared. She was just … gone. We didn’t know where, if she was dead or alive. Kip blamed himself because he was there, at the park with her. Mom told them, watch out for each other.
“But it wasn’t until you came back that Kip changed. He wanted so desperately to be your friend. He wanted to talk about your sister, and his sister, and you wouldn’t. He became fixated on you and everything about Rachel and the investigation.”
Suzanne said, “You were part of it.”
She looked down, but Lucy saw the anger in Alexis’s face. When she looked back up, it was hatred. “Feds like you fucked up the investigation. Cami was alive for a year. And no one cared; no one was looking; no one believed she was alive. Do you know what she suffered at the hands of the man who took her? The pain? Repeated rapes? Torture? For a year. All because Rachel’s family had this wild life. All the attention was paid to her. Her killer was caught and in prison while Cami continued to suffer.”
Peter said, “None of that was my fault.”
Alexis softened when she looked at him. “I know that, baby. I know. That’s what I told Kip, but he didn’t understand. When he found you in Syracuse, I convinced him to let me get close. I tried to protect you. And for a while, it worked. Kip was in college, and focused on finding out what really happened to Cami, on tracking the cops who screwed up the investigation. I fell in love.”
“Is that why you put the dead pig in my bed?”
“That was Kip. I walked in and saw it and realized he was going to kill you. That’s why I cleaned the apartment and disappeared.”
Lucy said, “Why didn’t you tell the police?”
Alexis looked at Lucy. “You of all people should understand how broken the system is! We had a plan, and it worked.”
“You just didn’t want Peter to be part of the plan.”
“Kip agreed to stay away from Peter if I left him, so I did. I did it to protect you.” She implored Peter, “I love you, Peter.”
“When did the plan change?” Lucy asked.
“When Presidio went to New York. He was looking in all the right places; if he figured it out before we were done, it would blow everything.”
Lucy said, “You stole the file after you poisoned him.”
“I had to. I didn’t want to do it like that, I wanted him to know why, but I had no choice.”
“You killed him?” Peter said in disbelief. “You killed an FBI agent?”
“Three cops,” Suzanne said. “Retired agent Theissen, Detective Bob Stokes, and SSA Presidio. Plus you put Assistant Director Vigo in the hospital.”
“He was looking into Presidio’s death. It was a heart attack, it should have been dismissed as natural, but he was suspicious. I had to do it.”
“You can make amends, Alexis,” Lucy said. “Help us stop your brother before he hurts anyone else.”
She shook her head. “You’ll kill him.”
“He needs help.”
“By locking him up? Like a criminal?”
“He killed at least two people—Rosemary Weber and Dominic Theissen.”
Alexis stared at her defiantly. “So?”
“This is getting us nowhere,” Noah said. “DeLucca and I are going to put her in Holding until I can get a transport to federal prison.”
“Alexis,” Lucy said. “You killed a federal agent. That’s a death