A/N: It took me forever to write this chapter. Was so busy with thesis and did not have time to write at all. Hopefully the next update will not take this long!
Chapter 14
The entire world around Tamsin started to spin. It was just like when she had first learned that Bo and Dylan had been engaged.
She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths as she stumbled back a little. She eventually gripped the edge of the nightstand so she wouldn't fall.
"What-what else do you remember? I mean, what else do you see in your dream, beside those...blue eyes?"
Tamsin heard her own voice shaking. The silence, it might have been only a second or less but it felt like eternity.
Bo frowned a little. "I sometimes see Dylan, I think," she muttered. "He was standing there in front of me, and then he wasn't."
"He was standing where? I mean, where were the two of you?"
"I don't know, some place dark," Bo frowned hard. "I can smell...the wet mud."
"What did Dylan do? Did he walk away from you?"
"No...he was right there in front of me and then he wasn't."
"Was he...was he facing you, or was he facing away from you?"
"I think he was facing me. Yeah, I think he was." Though, she did not sound so sure.
"Did he say anything to you? Did you two talk at all?"
Bo's face suddenly dropped. Anger flashed in her eyes. "How could you do this to me?" She growled with a low, deep voice. She didn't sound like herself at all. She sounded like Dylan. "How could you do this to me, Bo?"
Tamsin swallowed hard. "He said that to you? What exactly did you do to him?"
Bo blinked. All of a sudden, she was innocent and confused again. "I don't know. I didn't do anything. I have no idea why he would say that to me."
"What happened next?"
Bo smiled. "Tamsin," she murmured. "Why are you suddenly so interested in a silly dream of mine."
"Tell me, Bo," Tamsin gritted her teeth as she held Bo's shoulders. "What happened next?"
Bo frowned hard. "He pushed me," she said hesitantly. "I think. He pushed me and then I pushed him."
"He pushed you? And then you pushed him?"
Bo nodded. "Then, he fell."
"But, he had a rope. He didn't actually fall, did he?"
"No, he had a rope, but I cut the rope. I cut his rope. I cut his rope with a knife," Bo sing-songed, like a cuckoo clock bird.
Tamsin's blood ran cold. She tightened her fingers around Bo's shoulders. "You did? Why did you do that?"
"I...I don't know. I guess I just didn't want him to get up and push me again. He was really angry and I didn't like that. It scares me when he gets mad at me, Tamsin."
"Did he get mad at you often?"
"Sometimes...not a lot. It just scares me when he does that."
Tamsin nodded. "What happened afterwards? Did you get down to where all those blue eyes were?"
"Hmmm...I think so...yeah those blue eyes, they were watching me. They were watching us. They were watching him. He was there. He wasn't moving at all. He was lying on the ground staring at me. I am scared."
"Did you get close to him, or were you looking at him from afar?"
"I don't know...I don't remember...he was lying there, not moving. Tamsin I am so scared."
"He had something in his hand, didn't he?"
Bo nodded hesitantly.
"What was it?"
"A blue...a blue eye," Bo replied in shivers.
"What happened next? Did you run?"
"I ran. I ran through the woods. I ran all the way home."
"Then you hid your muddy boots, and the knife. And your earring."
Bo touched her left earlobe nervously. "Then I hid my muddy boots, my knife, and my earring." She sounded like she was reciting a verse.
"You only had one earring on when you got home that day, right?"
Bo nodded. "I lost one of them," she muttered. "I think I lost one of them in the mountains."
"Which one did you lose?"
"The left one."
"How did you lose it? Did you just drop it by accident, or-"
"Dylan. It was Dylan. He grabbed it. He snatched it from me. He took it when he fell." Bo said quickly. "I like my earrings, Tamsin. Do you think maybe he'll give it back to me? I really liked those earrings."
Tamsin watched Bo intently. Bo looked disoriented and confused. It was as if she was half asleep and she was describing something that wasn't real.
"Everything will be okay, Bo," Tamsin pushed those words through her clenched teeth. She asked more questions, mostly related to the details at the crime scene - things like which of Dylan's hand that lost earring was in, what was the color of Dylan's pants, etc, and Bo answered each of them.
"Bo, have you told anyone about this...this dream of yours?"
"Yeah, I just told you," Bo chuckled as she touched Tamsin's face gently. "Are you okay, Tamsin?"
"I mean, anyone other than me. Have you told Stella, or...Kira about this? Anyone else?"
Bo frowned hard, and then she nodded. "Karen," she eventually admitted. "I think I told Karen about it."
"You did?" Tamsin was surprised. "Did you tell her about those blue eyes?"
Bo tilted her head. "I don't really remember, Tamsin. I'm so exhausted. Can I go to bed now?"
Tamsin sighed and closed her eyes. "Of course you can," she said as she squeezed Bo's shoulders gently. "Of course you can, Bo. Why don't you get some sleep and..."
Bo nodded. She got into bed and tucked herself under the blanket. "Can you find my earring for me?" She whispered.
"I'll try," Tamsin eventually promised.
Bo smiled. It seemed that finding the earring was much more important than what she had just confessed. In fact, she didn't look like she was aware of the possible impact of her confession at all. It was just a harmless bedtime story to her, and now she was ready to go to sleep.
Tamsin breathed heavily as she hid herself in her father's den. She found herself no different from a child hiding away from a monster. And the monster was approaching quickly, following a whiff of her fear.
Fuck, fuck, shit. She thought to herself. What the fuck am I gonna do?
The whole time, she had thought that it might be Bo, but she had never really believed it. Bo couldn't be a killer. She couldn't hurt anyone. She was not a killer.
But, was it really Bo? Was this person in front of her really Bo? She had not seen her, or had any contact with her, for over a decade. Maybe, the Bo whom she had known and remembered was nothing but an illusion, a piece of memory, something that had kept her alive for all these years.
The woman in front of her had just confessed murder. Was it true? Did she really kill Dylan? How could she have done that and then thought it was all but a dream? How could she have talked about the details of the crime scene with absolutely no guilt at all? How could she have hidden all that evidence in the same room she and Dylan had shared for all this time?
And she had told the family doctor about it? Why would she do that? And the doctor did not call the police or report to anyone? Was she an accomplice, or was she simply hiding the truth because she had a thing for Bo?
Tamsin took her phone out. 9-1-1 was just a three digit number, but she couldn't gather enough strength to tap and dial. She squeezed her phone, so hard that her fingers started to hurt.
She wondered if she should call the police now. It seemed to be the right thing to do. She was here looking for an answer to Dylan's death, and she had finally found it. She should be relieved.
Except that she wasn't.
She wondered if she should talk to someone else first. Or maybe, she should talk to Bo again when Bo was more lucid.
Fuck, fuck. Tamsin cursed again as she took a deep breath. Her brain was now a scrambled mess. She could barely think straight.
She tried to think like a detective, like she was solving a crime committed by someone she didn't know. She had heard a confession from the killer. The killer seemed to know all the details. She had also found some evidence that would link that killer to the crime scene. Motive? There had been fights and money problems. There might even be an affair or two….
Now putting the pieces together...that day, Dylan got up and had his last breakfast. He headed to the cave, thinking that he'd make a fortune. He met the ranger on the way and chatted with him briefly. He then entered the cave.
Then, Bo showed up - she had probably followed him all the way over. She confronted him about his secret mining business. She felt betrayed that he had not told her about it at all. He argued that it was for the family and that he was trying to protect her.
Things quickly got physical. He pushed her and then she fought back. She pushed him off by accident, and while she did that, he grabbed her earring.
For some reasons - maybe fear, or maybe it was just something she had wanted for a long time - she cut his rope and let him fall.
She must be scared, and shocked, by what she had done. She probably had stayed at the edge of the drop inside that cave for a moment. Maybe she even yelled his name, trying to figure out if he was still alive.
She eventually decided to go down and check on him. There she found him dead. She did the only thing that had come to her mind: to clean up her mess and run.
Her memory issue made her think that it was a nightmare of hers, and she just...believed that it was just a bad dream.
There, that was the whole truth. Everything would fit perfectly.
Or, would they?
Tamsin thought about the things that couldn't be explained. No, I am not looking for excuses. She told herself. This is just standard procedure. I have to be able to answer all questions.
So...what were the things that didn't quite belong?
Like...if Bo had really gone down in the chamber to check on Dylan, how could she have left her earring there? If she really was that scared, she wouldn't be calm enough to wipe all her footprints clean, would she? If she was calm enough to clean after herself, she could have retrieved her earring, unless...she wasn't aware that she had lost it until she got home.
That would bring another question. How did she really get home that day? Did she run all the way home? She couldn't have done that without being seen by anyone in the park, and Tamsin didn't remember seeing her presence in any of the surveillance footage she had watched earlier. Of course, she could have avoided all the cameras since she knew the town well, but was she really a calculated, cold blooded murderer who could have planned that? If she was, how could she have confessed all of a sudden, and why would she even keep that evidence? Was it all part of her plan?
And the postcard...how could Dylan have known? He wouldn't have, unless he had found out about Bo's plan. Why didn't he call the police, or at least tell one of his cop friends? Why would he walk right into it?
Either it was an accident that eventually got fatal, or it was planned. Tamsin thought. If she had planned the whole thing, she wouldn't have told me about it. If she hadn't, she couldn't have done it without being noticed. She was either a cold blooded murderer, or the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time. She can not be both.
Then, Tamsin asked herself. Could it be someone else? Was she missing something that would explain every little detail?
Consumed, her mind started to get hazy, and she briefly fell asleep. In her dream, she witnessed the murder scene. She saw a dark shadow following Dylan. She saw the shadow pushing him down and cutting his rope. The shadow then swiftly slipped down into the chamber and checked on Dylan.
Was it Bo? Or was it...someone else...? Who was it...? Who was that shadow…?
For a moment, there was only darkness, like she was staring at the moonless, starless night sky.
No, it wasn't starless. There was one star. There was a blue star sparkling. It stared at her, like it was angry that she was falling asleep at a moment like this.
That star got bigger and brighter, and then she realized that she was holding it in her hand.
She was looking at the blue star closely. Oh wait...that wasn't a star. That was a gemstone, a blue gemstone. She was looking at it through a loupe. The wooden loupe had a gold plated rim.
There was a voice. She was talking to someone, or rather, someone was talking to her.
"...fit your budget, young lady," that voice was patient and polite.
There was a smile. An old man, in a pair of old fashioned gold frame glasses. Somehow that smile reminded her of one of the seven dwarves.
He then leaned in and taught her how to find a feather inside the gemstone. In fact, that feather was big enough that she could see it without the loupe, if she held the gemstone close enough. "These aren't perfect. But, for your budget, these are probably the best ones you'll find in Crimson Rock. If you don't believe me, feel free to ask around. I'll hold these for you till the end of this Friday."
Right, that was the day she was shopping for Bo's birthday gift. Dylan wanted to give her something nice but he had no idea what to buy so he asked her for help. She spent the entire day looking for something nice and special in town until she walked into that little jewelry store.
The owner, that old man who smiled like one of the seven dwarves, introduced her to those earrings. He was honest with her about all the imperfections of those gemstones, and taught her how to find them.
With a limited budget, Tamsin eventually bought those earrings, and Bo loved them. She loved them so much that she wore them all the time. Later, for a purpose she could hardly fathom, Tamsin told her about all those imperfections. It was as if she was trying to convince Bo that those earrings weren't worthy of her love.
She remembered herself talking about the feather inside one of them.
"Seriously, it's huge. You can see it with bare eyes."
Bo saw it, but she wasn't upset or angry. She just grinned and said, "Guess now I have a way to tell the left from the right then."
"Huh?"
"I'll always wear this one on my left ear from now on."
"Yeah whatever, who cares, like that matters." That was Tamsin's reply, with a snort.
Yeah, who would care about something like that? Distinguishing two earrings that looked the same? But, Bo seemed to care. Yeah, she would always care about little things like that.
Bo grinned happily at her. Her grin seemed so close yet so far. Eventually the image of her face, and her voice, reduced into a quiet buzz of nothing. The only thing that remained was that sparkling gemstone. The one with the feature.
Tamsin jolted as she woke up. With a loud thump, she fell off the couch and landed on the floor.
She coughed as she reached into her jacket pocket, in which she had kept the earring she had taken from the crime scene.
She turned on the flashlight on her cellphone and held the earring close.
It did not have a feather inside.
This wasn't the left earring. The earring that Bo had lost in the cave was the right earring. Bo was lying when she said that Dylan had snatched her left earring.
But, why would she lie about something like this while confessing to a murder?
She must have remembered it wrong, then. With her being scared and panicking like that, she probably had the details wrong. It was common. Witnesses often couldn't name the correct color of a car from a crime scene. It would make sense that Bo would remember it wrong. She had memory problems, after all.
Or, she could have forgotten about the whole feather-earring-goes-to-the-left-ear thing entirely. She had worn the earrings wrong that morning. She had a whole day planned and earrings seemed to be the least thing she would care about.
Left, right, whichever. She had just confessed about the murder, except that to her it was a bad dream. In her mind, she did not kill Dylan. She just dreamed it.
Tamsin thought of the look on Bo's face. She was confused and absentminded. She was...distracted. A part of her mind was focused on something other than the confession, so it seemed.
There wasn't a single ounce of guilt in her eyes when she confessed that she cut Dylan's rope.
And she had not mentioned a thing to Tamsin about this dream until now. How could she have not mentioned anything to her after she had visited Dylan's body in the morgue? How could she have not talked about it when she had learned about the crime scene? If she had really done it, how could she have completely forgotten about it until now?
It was as if she had suddenly remembered everything when she saw Tamsin holding the knife and the earring.
It was as if-
Tamsin took a deep breath as her eyes shot wide open. Yes, there is a way to explain everything! She exclaimed internally. It would explain everything!
She squeezed her cellphone hard, and then she made a call.
"We need to talk," she said firmly. "Now."