Working with Ghosts

Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious

A/N: I feel as though I'm depriving you of half the chapter since this was written with the last chapter but separated for length purposes. Andre's interrogation is a separate piece and should be separated from Cat's statement, but still, here you are.

Chapter 25 (Descent to Madness)

It took some time to recover mentally and emotionally from what Cat said, and even then Jade was still shaken up. She needed proof, she needed somebody else to say something that would make this add up.

That's when she turned to Andre. Even though he had his lawyer, they had enough to put him away for the murders. If Beck truly masterminded everything, and Andre was just a loyal assassin, he wouldn't want to go down alone.

In order to put Beck away for certain, she had to rely on Andre's information. Although the security footage and Robbie's testimony was enough to show that Beck lied about being on the grass outside.

"I have a lawyer," Andre said as Jade entered the room. "You can't talk to me."

"Shut up." Andre jerked his head back and Jade approached him. "You have a right to the lawyer, and you don't have to talk to me. You know this, and you understand your rights I presume?" Andre nodded and raised an eyebrow at her. "You understand that you are under arrest also for the murders of Lisa White, Victoria Vega, and Katrina Vega."

Andre's mouth fell into a frown and he crossed his arms. There was a coldness in his eyes that could steal her breath and chill her bones. Once she thought of herself as the iciest and coldest person around, and over the years she saw criminals colder than she, but nothing could prepare her from the look of death in Andre's eyes.

She took a deep breath and set down a picture of the bloody clothes. Andre's eyes widened and his lips separated. "Beck buried these in his father's yard. He says you asked him to burn them, but he kept them preserved for you." Andre's eyes slid upwards and his eyebrows moved together. "Beck also kept his father's gun. He claims you stole the gun, forced him to the door of the Vega apartment, and knocked him out on the spot."

Andre shifted to the right and looked away as his lawyer informed Andre to remain quiet. Jade was more than happy to ignore him. "We found your semen on Lisa White's body. The traces of your DNA match the victims of the Seaside Killer." Andre's eyes darted back to her and he started to growl. "Your blood was found in Tori Vega's bedroom, presumably after a fight with Trina before she was gunned down. Your blood is on this hoodie, the same hooded jacket that contains a mixture of blood spatter from both sisters, and the same jacket seen by Miss White's kid brother on the day of her murder."

"Okay, so you have all of this." Andre shrugged and leaned his head to the right. "What motive would I have?"

"Obsession. Obsession with me." She blew out a heavy exhale and closed her eyes. "How close am I, Andre? You thought that by killing those three you could be with me?"

"Andre," The lawyer said quickly, "You do not need to-"

"Shut up." The lawyer gasped and Andre slammed a fist on the table. "She knows something more. I have a feeling a little mouse might have squeaked, Beck was trying to keep her quiet…" Jade smirked, but the lawyer moved his hand over his forehead, groaning in defeat.

Andre started to smile, and his tongue slid carefully across his lips. "I am the Seaside Killer. I'll confess." A shiver ran down Jade's spine as she watched his movements. While terrified, she knew better than to show it. "Every girl I slaughtered out there, I was thinking of you. It's true."

Freddie entered the room, looking at her with great concern. He wanted to protect her from this monster, she could see it in his eyes, but this was her moment now. Andre was hers, but she would be more than happy to let Freddie have Beck. That would be his; for Sam.

"You know, I was just thinking about how I couldn't have you, and angry that Beck had broken his promise to let me have you. I wanted Beck to know what I would do to you if I ever came back…what I would do to him, to his family." Andre rolled his head to the right and chuckled dryly. "I'm the Seaside Killer, it's true. I forced my wife to take the bodies to the docks, that I did."

She swallowed her bile and forcibly closed her throat. Her nausea had increased so that she needed a bucket, but she was doing her best to hold the vomit down.

Andre slicked his tongue over his lips again and sank his eyebrows in the middle. For the first time, Jade was seeing the evil inside of him. "The idea to use weapons belonging to someone else? Not my idea, but Beck's, unintentionally. Why? Because he once told me the best way to get away with a crime was to not be the original owner of the weapon."

"Why, Andre? What drove you to kill?"

"I can't stand not having what I want. Women have been pissing on me all my life anyhow, whether it was my own grandmother, you, or whatever other woman out there…" He closed his eyes and slammed an angry fist on the table. "But if I'm going down for Tori and Trina, if I'm going down for that Lisa bitch, I'm not going down alone."

"Okay Andre."

"No." Andre's shoulders fell and he shook his head. "Every serial killer has a trigger; something that sets them off." He leaned his body forward, completely ignoring the attorney who had all but given up on telling him to shut up. Jade didn't budge, but held a stern glare with him, letting him know she wasn't backing off. "Beck was my trigger. Playing with me, using me, telling me he'd let me have what I wanted…if I just did what he wanted."

"What did he want, Andre?"

"He wanted Lisa, but she didn't want him." He scoffed and roared with cold laughter. "She rejected him when he said he wanted her back. He was going to call it off with you." Her eyes widened and her heart dropped into the storm inside her. "She threatened to tell you about it, but he couldn't have it. He told me to kill her, said if I killed her he'd break up with you and then you'd be all mine. He lied."

"Evidently." Jade put her hand to her chest, now playing him as she gasped in shock. "Clearly he lied to you. I'm so sorry, Andre. I wish I had known how you felt." Andre's eyebrow rose and his mouth twisted into a snarl.

"Don't think I'm not intelligent enough to recognize reverse psychology, Jade." She narrowed her eyes and he leaned back slowly. "That little Tori found out what happened, and of course I didn't want to kill her…but Beck said she had to die."

"What happened that night, Andre?"

"Simple answer? Tori and her sister died. My answer, you get what you want…Beck pounded on that door saying you were hurt, and Tori opened it up. She let him inside, then I followed after him. When she saw me, Beck put his hand over her mouth, threatening to kill the baby in the room if she screamed…I led her into the bedroom and she turned to me. Beck kept lookout."

As Andre spoke, he wrote down his confession on a sheet of paper. His lawyer no longer made any attempt to keep him from this, but rather, appeared to be both disgusted and terrified.

"I aimed the gun at her, listening as she begged me not to shoot her. She tried to remind me of everything we had, of the history we had. But she forgot I'd already killed one person, what was one more?" Jade closed her eyes and felt Freddie's hand on her shoulder. "I shot her once, first in the stomach."

Andre's left hand tapped furiously on the table as his eyes fixated on the rushing pen. "I then shot her a second time, in the head, and watched her fall. Then I heard something else, Trina was up and she knocked Beck out. I turned around, panicking, and shot her once…but she was still up, she was still fighting me. I tried to stay up, tried to persist, and I did, only after being slammed into that damned dresser and cutting my lip wide open."

This was information that had never been given to the media, so there was no way to know it unless they'd been at the scene.

Jade stood up and felt like a weight had dropped from her shoulders. She walked around the table, astonished that Andre was still talking. His eyes were wild and his speech frantic as though he was trying to get every single word out before she reached him.

"I stood there, panting; breathing so heavily and taking in what I had just done. Beck woke up and you know what? He told me he would burn my clothes for me, so that nobody would ever know! We saw Cat and Sam on their motorcycle, catching the air with no other cars in the road. Cat looked right at us. I didn't want to kill her, not her, I begged for Beck not to make me kill her and he said he would threaten her and nothing more. He killed her roommate; no, hired someone else to do that."

A vein was bulging from his neck, and sweat was running along the side of his head. "I didn't know it was just another lie, something he could use against me, to make sure I went away and he didn't. I didn't know, that is, until he called me several weeks ago to let me know that you were just around the corner to putting me away. I had to kill him!"

Andre twitched for a second, growling like a rabid dog. "I kidnapped your daughter and told Taylor to kill her. Beck tried to stop me, he tried to protect you and his daughter. I thought, the hypocrite! I shot him. Then there was you. I had to make you stop, to make you afraid."

"Well, Andre." He shot her a glare and growled venomously as she approached was glad that Beck cared enough about his kids to protect them, but that didn't take away from his crime. She had many questions for him, but wasn't sure if she could face the man.

Freddie cleared his throat and Andre looked to him for a moment before bowing his head. "I'm not afraid of you." Jade pulled Andre up, grabbed his wrists and threw the cuffs on them. "Andre Harris…you're going away for a long time."

She had mixed feelings about putting the cuffs on him. Part of her was ecstatic that the person responsible for Tori and Trina would be behind bars, but then her work truly wasn't finished, and she was horrified to learn the truth of her husband's involvement.

Neither Tori or Trina had to die because of him, or worse, because of Andre's sick and twisted obsession. If only her friends had never been caught up in this man's insanity, or even Beck's manipulative ways, then maybe none of this would have ever happened.

When she looked to Freddie, the concern in her eyes told her all she needed to know. "Don't beat yourself up." It was time to close this case for good, but in order to do that, they had to face Beck one final time.

This time she wasn't sure who the greater monster was; Andre the serial killer, or the manipulative puppetmaster she'd been sleeping beside for sixteen years. Still, she was more terrified to approach her own husband now than she'd been approaching Andre.

Andre's words not only show what happened and just how messed up he is, but another contradiction to Beck's story regarding their approach on Tori. We'll see the mastermind next chapter. Next chapter is also a resolution to Freddie's own struggle, you'll see when that comes up. Jade's not going to be the one interrogating Beck, not first, but she will have her moment. You'll see what keeps her back next chapter, it's important to remember she is still a mother, and her daughter's awake and in stable condition...based on Andre's account, it's safe to say Vanessa now realizes or knows her father has done something incredibly bad.