“Yes! It’s the truth. Tim and Shane were working together. While Shane was strangling me in the living room, Tim was upstairs, and he… he stabbed my best friend.”

“No,” she says. “He didn’t.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes, I do.” She shakes the gun at me. “Because I’m the one who stabbed Chelsea.”

My whole body goes numb. What?

“You really think that goody two shoes Tim Reese would have done that?” She snorts. “He was just our patsy, starting with that girl he dated… Tracy Gifford. That was the plan Shane and I came up with—to let him live so the police would blame it all on him. And if you hadn’t gotten away, it would’ve worked.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This doesn’t make sense. I know what I saw in Tim’s basement. “What about that woman, Kelli Underwood?”

She licks her chapped lips. “I had to get my son out of jail. I knew you were going over to Tim’s house that weekend, so I got everything ready. I even called in the anonymous tip for the police. And it was so helpful that the two of you exchanged keys so I could get into his basement.”

I stare at the barrel of the gun. This woman is crazy. She is completely bat shit crazy. How did I never see it? I even called up a reference, and they raved about her. I can’t imagine who I was talking to—the reference was obviously fake.

“It disgusted me to watch you dating that man.” She sneers at me. “Watching him treating my grandson like his own child. But I had to encourage you to stay with him. It was the only way to clear Shane’s name. And oh my Lord, you should have seen your face when he gave you that necklace I sold him at the flea market over the summer. I found that necklace on the floor of my house after you ran out, and I thought it might come in handy someday.”

My face burns. I should have known. I always believed Tim Reese was a good man. I should’ve trusted my gut.

“Why would you do it?” My ankle throbs, but I barely feel it. I need to keep her talking, keep her from pulling the trigger while I figure out a way out of this. “Why would you and Shane kill a bunch of innocent teenagers?”

“Killing the other three was unfortunate,” Mrs. Nelson says in a voice that doesn’t sound like she cares much at all. “You were the target, my dear. A lesson had to be taught.”

“Me…?”