Aftermath Page 24

  Maybe David and Bebe saw themselves as heroes. They had achieved what even the cops and politicians had been unwilling to do, and everyone was the better for it. Except the drifter who’d been trying to earn enough to start a life with his fiancée and except Tara herself. As badly as she’d treated me, she didn’t deserve to have her love stolen from her forever.

  My attempts to compel Bebe to confess had failed, and I was sure I’d fare no better with David. So here I was, in a trap of my own making: stuck in a house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by ice and snow, with a couple of murderers. No means of transportation, no cell, no accessible weapon.

  Tim’s expression when I left him now made more sense. It wasn’t disbelief—he suspected David, too, and, given my recent habit of making wild accusations, he’d been afraid for me.

  I did the only thing I could think of. In a room near the front door, I found a cordless phone and called the chief of police.

  CHAPTER 23

  I rocked from one foot to the other, listening to Cade’s phone ring while I took in my surroundings. The front room was a large space with an impressive collection of art and artifacts David probably had bought while on book tours all over the world. Statuary, paintings, ceramics, and much more totally overwhelmed the groupings of couches and armchairs.

  Cade answered his cell, voice slow and hollow, the sound of a man who hadn’t slept in a long time. “Graylee Police. This is Chief Wilson. How can I help you?”

  “It’s Janet.”

  “I was hoping it was you.” He sounded relieved instead of happy. “Tim called me about Stark taking you to his place.”

  “Tim did?”

  “He’s worried. I’ve been trying your cell for over an hour. What do you need?”

  His innocent question hurt like a kick to my ribs. Clearly he saw me as always asking for something. And, dammit, I always seemed to be. “Needy” had been one of the words Andy bludgeoned me with while booting me out of his life. Maybe he hadn’t been wrong.

  To salvage my pride, I contemplated ending the call after a little small talk. But then I reminded myself I’d gotten in way over my head. “I know you’re overwhelmed,” I stammered, “but I ne—uh—have to see you.” Glancing at the two doorways in the room, I didn’t spot anyone. Still, I lowered my voice. “It’s about my father’s murder.”

  “I figured. Not sure it’s a good idea to be calling me from Stark’s phone.”

  “My cell battery is dead,” I said automatically, and then I replayed his comment. Did he suspect David, too? If so, why hadn’t he done anything about it? Or at least warned me?

  Paranoia set in, making the absence of sound from anywhere in the house seem ominous. Noticing a pair of samurai swords in curved scabbards on one wall, I transferred the phone to my left hand and selected the shorter of the two. I gripped the leather-wrapped hilt and drew out a two-foot arc of shiny steel. The blade rang as it came free. While no lighter than the gun vault, I could actually use this as something more dangerous than a shot put. I’d been pretty good with sparring weapons at the Y. A real sword was something else entirely, but I had no alternative.

  Cade asked, “What was that noise?”

  “Just arming myself. A girl can’t be too careful.”

  “Tell me what’s happening there. Right now.”

  How could I explain that nothing happening was even scarier than dealing with something? I replied, “I’m leaving. Can you meet me on the highway?”

  “Just hunker down inside and wait for me. It’s too easy to slip on this ice and break something. I’ll come out there as quick as I can.”

  “Cade—” I clicked the Off button to hang up on him. A little suspense, I figured, might bring him sooner rather than later, as well as save me some hiking in the wrong footwear.

  As I replaced the phone in its charger, I noticed a message on the screen: “Line in Use.” Except I’d already ended the call, which was odd. Then the message vanished, and I realized what it meant.

  Someone had been using another handset and clicked Off after I did. Here I’d been worried about an eavesdropper lurking nearby, but I hadn’t considered that as soon as I’d pressed the Talk button, every other phone in the house would show I was making a call. Either Bebe or David, or both, had listened in. I’d so screwed myself.

  No way was I waiting around to be rescued. I hurried to the front closet where Bebe had hung my coat the day before. There, I found a heavy, wool number, which came down to my ankles and would keep me warm during my trek to the highway. At the front door, though, I was thwarted by a locked deadbolt that required a key.

  Hopefully I could still get out the way David and I had come in. I considered my route to freedom: straight shot back up the hall, through the kitchen and French doors, into the passageway, and then outside via the garage.

  With my sword point leading the way, I crept along hardwood, passing the wall of photos, and paused before crossing the entrance to the study, in case Bebe or David was waiting to ambush me. No one there. I made it to the opposite end of the hall and stood still again, listening. The refrigerator compressor hummed, but I didn’t hear anything else.

  Scary scenes from David’s books flashed through my mind, which made me even more paranoid. I kept checking behind me to make sure someone hadn’t snuck up.

  Halfway across the tiled kitchen, I remembered how the gaslights and overhead heaters switched on when we had entered the tunnel. An electric eye must’ve triggered them, so after I turned the knob of one of the French doors—mercifully unlocked—I stepped high across the threshold. My exaggerated stride left me off-balance and feeling ridiculous, but the passageway stayed dark and quiet.

  The pale light from the kitchen faded, and the garage at the other end had no windows, so I was soon navigating nearly blind. My boots seemed to crunch every bit of gravel and grit on the concrete floor. Worse, the air tickled my nose with the smell of damp stone, making me want to sneeze.

  My right arm started to ache from holding the weapon up and ready. I knew I’d have to be careful not to trigger the lights and heater at the opposite end, too. With my left hand, I touched the nearest stone wall and proceeded that way, walking in darkness with both arms out and a curved short sword waving ahead of me. I soon felt the edge of the wall and stopped. The electric eye would be at ankle-level. Again I held my breath and took an arching step. So far, so good.

  Once inside the large space, I saw only one, faint light source: a greenish bulb glowed on the wall button that would raise the garage door. I imagined the chain-ratcheted clatter as the panels curved overhead. Not a good choice, but I hadn’t noticed earlier whether there was a regular door through which I could exit in silence.

  My eyes had adjusted a bit, allowing me to make out the vague shapes of vehicles before I blundered into any of them. As I eased between David’s Hyundai and truck, however, my sword point clunked off the passenger side mirror of the sedan. I sucked in a breath and held still.

  “So, you’re, like, the lamest samurai in the world.” Tara’s voice, soft but unmistakable, somewhere in the dark. “I’m just saying.”

  It took a moment to calm myself—I’d nearly shrieked and leapt straight up to the rafters like a cartoon cat. Once I remembered how to breathe again, so many questions crowded my mind I whispered the first one that occurred to me, “Tar, where are you?”

  “Other side of the truck. Don’t come over here because I’m, like, scared you’ll poke out my eye by accident, or whatever.”

  It wouldn’t be accidental, but I needed to remain civil. She could make a racket louder than the garage door and bring Bebe and David running. I crept around the side mirror and made it to the tailgate of the truck without further incident. “You can see me?” I asked.

  “Daddy’s night vision goggles. They’re great for hunting.”

  She had her father’s pistol and
one of mine, but hopefully she wasn’t hunting for me this time. I eased around to the opposite back corner of the truck and lowered the sword so she wouldn’t view me as a threat. “How’d you get in here?”

  “Well, duh. You had a hand-drawn map to this place in your purse, which is a total mess by the way. I almost threw out the napkin thinking it was just more crap. So, when you and the writer dude rolled up in his truck, I made a break from my cover in the woods and got inside right before the door closed—dived under it total commando-style, way cool—and hid on the other side of the Mini, which looks cute, but I really like the Jag better. Sorry, I got it, like, stuck out at the tree nursery—not exactly an off-roader, but I didn’t want to be on the streets in case you went loco on me and got the Graylee Gestapo to put out a BOLO or whatever. Once the snow clears and the dirt trails firm up I’m sure it’ll be totally drivable again. Might need a new suspension, and I think I sort of bent, like, one axle. Well, both.”

  At last she inhaled, so I had a chance to murmur what probably should’ve been my first question: “But why are you here in David Stark’s garage?”

  “I took the Jag and all back to my campsite, and the snow started to fall, so I cranked up the heater and got snug on those great leather seats and went on Facebook to see if I could get more, like, intel on why this place is such a hot mess. With the way that Denny’s waitress kept going on about your daddy and looking at me sort of like I was jailbait but definitely not the first hottie to sit in that booth, I wondered if he had a thing for, you know, young chicks or whatever, so I started searching for girls that listed Graylee as their hometown.”

  She kept her voice low, but the patter was machine-gun fast and nonstop. I just leaned against the tailgate in the dark, set the sword at my feet, and let her continue to spew. “So, this one chick who lived in town friended me back and was, like, ‘Whoa, you need to write to this other girl to get the 411 on what’s been happening here forever.’ And then that girl friended me back and was, like, ‘Your fiancé’s a hero for shooting that dirty old man,’ and she introduced me to a whole bunch of other girls—some older than you even—and they’ve got this secret society, or whatever, because their parents all made them spend their senior year of high school with your daddy, who was a major creepster it turns out.

  “So, some of them have gotten over it, but lots are still bummed their folks sold them into, like, slavery. This one chick was the very first but didn’t want to talk about it and unfriended me real fast after I told her what my connection to Graylee was. I recognized her last name because it was the same one on your napkin map, and I remembered my daddy keeps a ratty David Stark paperback in his gear for when it gets boring in the tree stand, or whatever. Anyway, by then it was, like, midnight and the windows were all covered in snow, so I hunkered down in my sleeping bag in the tiny back seat. When I woke up today, I decided to track down this Stark dude and get him to tell me more.”

  As much as I would’ve liked to observe a conversation between those two, I wanted to make a run for it even more. Part of me was in awe of her ability to get to the heart of the scandal so much more quickly and effectively than I did. If I hadn’t grilled Cindy, I still would’ve been figuratively in the dark. Of course, what had led me to interrogate Cindy was Tara forcing me to flee my home without ID, money, or keys, so most of me remained seriously pissed. And all of me was literally in the dark thanks to her.

  I hefted the blade but kept it against my leg as I went around to the other side of the truck. Still unable to make her out in the gloom, I whispered, “I’m pretty sure ‘this Stark dude’ set up Wally to kill my father and then get killed by the police. Now he knows I know. That’s why I’m carrying around this sword.”

  “Not, like, the best choice of weapons. I’m just saying.”

  Through gritted teeth, I snarled, “Well, you stole one gun from me, and I’m not able to get at my pistol with the laser sight because you also took my keys, so I can’t open the gun vault I’ve been hauling all over goddamn Graylee.”

  “Uh oh, Miss Pottymouth is back. Dollar for the swear jar.”

  My voice had risen along with my temper. Stifling a further rant, I said more quietly, “I figure a sword is better than nothing. And now here I am: in the dark, in danger, and with no idea what to do except get out of here.”

  “In those boots? The snow’s all crusted over with ice. You’ll, like, slip and break something.”

  “Well, I need to try. The police chief is on the way, but I can’t wait.”

  “I’m staying. From here I can see what’s going on in part of the kitchen—I watched you wheel your bags toward your bedroom and come back to eat breakfast with that curvy chick. When I spot the writer again, I’ll, like, make my move. Get him to tell me if he framed Wally.”

  “And then what?”

  “Maybe I can rig it so the police chief shoots him, too. That would be sweet. Total poetic justice.”

  In spite of what I thought David had done, I didn’t want Cade to have to shoot him. Too many people had died already. Now, instead of saving my own ass, I wondered if I should stay to broker some sort of deal, so no one else got hurt. Maybe the best way to produce a stalemate in the violence department was to make sure I had a decent weapon myself. I said, “Since we’re on the same side and friends again, can I have my keys back?”

  I heard a hand patting synthetics, as if checking half-a-dozen pockets. Then Tara said, “So, I guess I left them in the Jag with your purse and coat. I ran the heater some this morning, and I didn’t think I’d need keys out here.”

  Another of her lies? No way to know. “That’s okay, just give me my other gun.”

  “How can I be sure you won’t try to, like, shoot me for making your life a little less boring?”

  “What if I promise?”

  “What if I hold onto it for safe keeping, in case the Stark dude sort of catches and searches you?”

  “What if I sic the police chief on you when he gets here?”

  “What if I, like, shoot you now? I’m point-blank.”

  That made me thrash around with my sword. The blade banged off the rear quarter panel of the pickup and a side window of the Mini Cooper.

  Tara giggled. “Even in night-vision green that was great. I wish I was videoing this.”

  Totally stymied, I said much too loudly, “Don’t you want to stop waiting around and just do something?”

  “So, I guess you’ve never gone hunting. That’s, like, the question every little kid asks their first time.”

  “I’m out of here, but we’re not done with each other—I still want all my stuff back.” I turned and edged around the low shape of the Mini and then held out my sword until its tip poked the garage wall. Once again I felt with my free hand, this time searching for a door.

  “A little to the right,” Tara said. “Getting warmer. Warmer still.”

  I kept moving that way until I touched one of the metal tracks for the overhead door. “Thanks a lot,” I spat and reversed course.

  “No problem. Want to play Marco Polo?”

  What I wanted was a normal Christmas Eve: last-minute shopping, too much drink, indecent portions of food, and a favorite holiday movie or two with a man I loved before a vigorous roll in the sack that made visions of sugarplums dance in both of our heads. I was about as far from that as possible.

  At last, my left hand touched wood molding and slid across a regular door. Then I found the deadbolt that required a key. I rattled the knob anyway, but no joy. After all of that, I could only put my back to the cold, smooth surface and slowly slide down until my legs stretched invisibly in front of me and the sword clattered to the concrete.

  “So,” Tara said, “I was going to tell you but you were all, like, woman-on-a-mission, and I didn’t think you’d listen.”

  She was right—I wouldn’t have. God, I was tired. I wanted to sleep fo
rever.

  The deadbolt clicked, and the door bumped my head and back. I tried to dig in, but my heels couldn’t gain traction, and my fingernails were even more useless. As the door continued to push me in a slow but inexorable slide across the concrete, a whimper escaped my throat. I reached for the sword hilt, but it had moved as well. My fingers closed around a blade so sharp I didn’t realize I’d cut all four fingers to the bone until the outpouring of blood made my hand warmer than the rest of me. I wanted to cry for Tara to open fire, but my throat wouldn’t work.

  Cade’s voice, not David’s, drawled above me. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were on the other side. It felt like I was pushing sandbags out of the way.”

  Blinding sunlight streamed in through the partial opening. All I could make out was the silhouette of his Smokey Bear hat and head above me. I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Instead of challenging him on the sandbag remark, all I could manage to say was, “How?”

  “It was Bebe. Came out to the cruiser as I pulled up and said you’d freaked—started running around with a sword and were holed up here in the dark.”

  “Hidden cameras,” I murmured to myself. I’d ended up on their highlight reel after all.

  “Hunh? Anyhow, she gave me a key and said to get you out of here before you got hurt.”

  Now shaky with chills, I put my trembling right hand into the brilliant sunbeam and gasped at the thick scarlet that coated it. “Too late,” I whispered.

  Cade took out a handkerchief, which was still warm from his pocket as he tied a makeshift tourniquet around my fingers. He told me to make a fist and squeeze hard. Red quickly soaked through the white cloth, but the pressure felt good.