Only You (Stevens Book 12)

Chapter 24 (The End)

Mave looked at her appearance in the mirror. It was her wedding day, a day she had thought would never come, but it finally had. Her simple white dress was the perfect foil for her red hair and blush-pink bouquet, and she felt beautiful.

It had been two weeks since Thomas and his sister Tally had been taken into custody, and because of the admission that Sam had been able to get from Thomas that night in the museum, it was an open-and-shut case.

The nightmare was over.

Henry had done his homework and traced Tammy, Thomas, and Tally's whereabouts when Mave was kidnapped. While Tammy's alibis cleared her, Thomas and Tally's didn't add up. Tammy was innocent of the entire thing, and she had separated herself from her siblings years before when she realized they were both crazy.

Henry knew that Thomas and Tally both had extended stays in Los Angeles when Mave had been taken, but their comings and goings had been erratic. Thomas and Tally's visits to the city were shorter than the duration of Mave's kidnapping, but when Henry put their travel dates in sequence, it gave him the idea that they were in it together, and once he looked at it from that angle, it all came together.

Once Henry had figured it out, he wanted verification, so he went to Tammy and told her his theory. Henry knew it was a gamble, but Tammy was relieved that her brother and sister had been caught and she hadn't needed to be the one to turn them over in the end. Tammy had admitted that she was the one that had pushed Mave on the stairs, but her almost falling had been an accident. She had only wanted to scare her away from Sam because she knew Thomas and Tally were up to something when she had heard Tally talking to Thomas on the phone at a wedding they had both been attending. Tammy thought that if she could scare Mave away from Sam, then Thomas might let her go because it would break Sam's heart which was his ultimate goal. Tammy had her boyfriend lie and say she had been at work when Lincoln had checked up on her whereabouts.

Tammy had also had the hope that her telling Mave to leave Sam alone might also give them a clue, which it had. Tammy knew it might make them suspect her, but she thought it was a risk worth taking. Mave didn't agree with Tammy's actions, but she understood the power of sibling loyalty and love, and knew it wouldn't have been easy for Tammy to out right turn in Thomas and Tally even though she didn't get along with them. After a discussion with Sam and Henry, who felt Tammy was sincere, Mave agreed not to press charges.

It turned out that Tammy had a right to be worried for Mave when Tammy also revealed that her friend that Thomas had dated still suffered mental trauma from the head games that Thomas had played with her. He had held her captive and cut her, too, but she had been too afraid to press charges after she escaped, so she moved away. Thomas hadn't wanted to do anything but play with the girl, so he hadn't gone after her like he had Mave. When it came to Mave, it was about hurting Sam, and the best way to hurt Sam was through someone he loved. Tally had indeed come up with singing the Eurythmics song, but Thomas had used it to his advantage with the Jeep and the restaurant drugging.

Tally admitted that during Mave's time in the basement, Thomas would have Tally take care of her, but when he wanted to hurt Mave, he would have Tally drug her, and Mave, in her drug-induced state, was easy to manipulate. Even though Thomas was the one hurting her, Tally had always been in the room dressed up as Angel, and Mave had never seen Thomas. Angel always made sure that Mave saw her face.

However, subconsciously, Mave must have known there were two of them because of her dream. In her dream there had been two Angels.

The only thing Mave hadn't understood until it was explained to her was that if Tally really wanted to be best friends with Mave, why was she pretending to be someone else? But it seemed that Tally had big plans of her own; she would be the one to swoop in and save Mave dressed as herself when the time came to release her, and Mave would be so thankful that they would become instant best friends. But Tally fell in love with Angel's persona so much that, in the end, she didn't want to let her go. The power of being someone else was too great.