Amy Maxwell & the 7 Deadly Sins (The Amy Maxwell Series Book 2) (15 page)

Beth grips him tightly in an affectionate kind of embrace that I have never witnessed even once from my sister. She is so anti-PDA that she only allowed Derek to give her a very stilted peck on the cheek at her wedding. And even that looked like it pained her. I’ve never seen their lips near each other since.

“Oh Kevin, it’s just awful! Claudia is denying she took Jillian! I was just trying to find her because I know she did it! We were looking to see-”

Kevin presses his finger to her lips. “
Shhh
. It’s okay. I know where she is. I’ll take you to her and we can all put this nasty mess behind us.” He uses his hand to smooth her hair down as she crushes herself against his rotund body.

“Wait just a minute,” I interject with my hands planted firmly on my hips. “We heard you talking to your wife in there.” I point toward the window. “We heard you yell at her about how she messed up ‘
the plan
’ and ‘
taking care of the sister’
.” I use air quotes like a boss.

Dropping his hands from around Beth’s body, Kevin hangs his head and shakes it sadly. “I know. But you don’t understand. When Claudia found out about me and Beth, she went ballistic. Threatened to cut me off from my daughters and kick me out of the house.” He runs his fingers through his hair nervously. “I may not look like much, but I’ve made quite the name for myself among the journalism circuits. And I make a decent amount of money; enough to support a family. Not nearly as much as my wife does, however. And believe me, she lords it over me almost every single day.” He squeezes my sister closer to his side and adds, “That’s why I fell in love with Beth. She was like a breath of fresh air.”

A breath of fresh air? More like one laced with choking perfume or some other overbearing scent. Cuz ‘fresh air’ is not how I’d describe my sister.

Beth is positively beaming up at this man. My sister, who is suspicious of everyone to the point of lunacy, totally and completely trusts this guy. A man we just heard discussing ‘
the plan’
with his wife. (Sorry, I’m just not going to be able to let that go…)

“She told me she would cut me off if I didn’t stop seeing Beth. What’s more, she wanted to make Beth’s life a living hell as payback. Her idea was to kidnap one of the kids, just to scare Beth a little and let her know that she had the upper hand. I tried to explain to her that was a crazy idea, but I could tell she was hell bent on carrying out her plan. So a couple of days ago when Beth told me her sister was picking Jillian up during our rendezvous, I decided to trick Claudia. I told her that I would snatch Jillian, hoping she would forget all about it.”

Beth gasps and recoils from Kevin, covering her mouth with her hand. I also gasp; from the realization that I have aided and abetted my sister in her affair. “Oh,” I retort with disgust. “I guess there was no spa appointment today now was there?” I glower at Beth. I shake my head with repugnance, but resist the urge to comment on my sister’s adultery. Besides, she’s preoccupied with more pressing matters right now.

“I..I wasn’t going to do it,” Kevin quickly stammers. “I just led Claudia to believe that I would so she wouldn’t go ahead and-” He appears to be choking back sobs as he reaches for my sister’s hand. “I had no idea she would disregard the plan and go take Jillian on her own.” He squeezes Beth’s hand. “I’m sorry I let it get out of control.”

Beth shakes her head and squeezes his hand back. “It’s ok. I know you didn’t. Claudia is a crazy person. We both know this. You did what you had to do.”

“Oh God Beth! How can you ever forgive me?” Kevin looks absolutely distraught right now. I am starting to see Beth’s attraction to him. She needs a man that she can bully and push around. This one is such a wuss, he completely fits the bill, despite his earlier show of machismo.

“It’s okay, Kevin,” she crones. “Let’s just get Jillian and everything will be ok. We will figure out what to do about Claudia on a night when emotions aren’t running high.”

Kevin bobs his head up and down. “You’re absolutely right. Come on, she’s down in the basement.”

“The basement?” I gasp with horror, unable to contemplate how a fake kidnapping turned into my niece bound and gagged in a basement!

Beth shakes her head. “He doesn’t mean like a cobwebby basement from a horror movie, Amy. Their basement is complete finished and furnished, Amy. It’s not like a damp cellar with cockroaches and rats.” She rolls her eyes, poking Kevin in the side. They both laugh.

I am annoyed.
Of course…make fun of the poor person who associates basements with Halloween and horror films. All the basements that I’ve known in my life have fit that bill.

I trail after the happy, reconciled couple as we wind our way through the expansive garden that wraps around the entire length of the house. I try not to throw up in my mouth as my sister stares at the repulsive Kevin with googly eyes. We finally reach a door at the back of the mansion and Kevin punches a code in the panel located next to the door. He then presses his finger against the plate and a click is heard before the door pops open.

I really need to get one of these security systems.
That way I wouldn’t worry about Lexie losing a key (or me losing a key and then having to prop the ladder up against the house to climb in the bathroom window and falling and cracking my head on the toilet bowl). Not like that actually happened or anything. Strictly hypothetical.

“After you ladies,” Kevin says as he steps back and sweeps his hand toward the door.

Beth positively beams at him before she steps inside the darkened room, me right behind her. Kevin follows us. He flicks on the light and our eyes are immediately assaulted by several hundred watts of recessed lighting. The lights line the ceilings of this gigantic room that could easily double as an airport landing strip. I blink a few times to adjust to the brightness, in awe of the open floor plan spread before us.

There is a pool table in the middle of the room, a fully stocked bar lining an entire wall, and, I kid you not, a
stage
with purple velvet curtains on another wall. On the stage is a complex looking sound system, drums, and a microphone stand. As I turn to examine my surroundings, I notice there is a huge 72 inch plasma TV mounted to one wall and several smaller ones mounted next to and behind the bar.

Roger would be in football watching heaven on Sundays.
He wouldn’t even have to miss his dumb reality TV shows or flip back and forth.

As if that weren’t enough, there is also a jukebox in the corner, a popcorn machine, a full sized refrigerator, another cappuccino machine, and about a dozen comfortable chairs scattered throughout the space. And not in a crowded, let’s squeeze as many people in here as possible kind of way, either. It is without a doubt a relaxed place for entertaining or hanging out with the family, not a scary basement.

This vast space may be full of anything one could desire in a rec room, but there’s one thing that is standing out in the definitely missing category.
Jillian
.

Beth realizes this at the same time I do and she turns to Kevin. Her mouth is open, ready to ask the obvious question of the hour when Kevin reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a gun, pointing it directly at me and my sister.

“Let’s get comfortable now ladies, shall we?” he remarks with a sneer, just as my sister faints dead away, smacking her head on the corner of the jukebox.

~Twelve~

“Class, we are here to posthumously honor our classmate, Amy Maxwell, who has valiantly given her life in efforts to save her sister and her niece from certain death.”

I am airily floating above my old classroom at college, watching Professor Peckerhead bow his head as he folds his hands tightly in prayer. Yes, I have come back from the dead to see how I am received at my memorial services. My funeral was attended by no less than a thousand sobbing people, including each of my children’s entire classes at school. Allie and Lexie serenaded my coffin with a rousing duet of
Amazing Grace
that reduced the entire packed church to tears. I floated from one guest to the next at the repast, listening to all the nice memories each person had about me. With tears in my (dead) eyes, I learned that I was being hailed as a hero for taking a bullet to save my sister.

My sister, on the other hand, had become a family pariah for her part in the entire debacle and was being treated as such at my funeral. At least three aunts had stood together and whispered how I had been ‘the best of that bunch’.

So now I was hanging out in good old Milo Hall (which was a ton of fun to haunt), listening to my least favorite person in the world eulogize me in front of my old classmates who never even gave a shit about me. Except for River. River was a good kid.

I can see River in the back of the room, blowing his nose into a hankie. It’s black of course.

“While her sister and niece have survived, her sister will never be the same because she knows it was all her fault that Amy has gone to the great beyond.” There is an appreciative murmur that arises from the crowd.

“Too bad she was a selfish trollop,” a young girl pipes up from the front row. The murmuring continues.

“Too bad she couldn’t just keep it in her pants. Her sister had to pay the price for her dalliances,” another joins in. Heads nod all around.

Then there is a pause. “Well, she
is
hot. Even for an old broad. I’d do her,” a young man in the second row counters. The murmur now escalates into a rumble, mostly amongst the male students.

Wait a minute. Are they talking about me or Beth?

“Definitely,” I hear River chime in. “That’s the only reason I was being nice to Amy. I heard her sister put out and she was way hotter than Amy.”

What? What is going on here? I nearly fall from my hovering position and land on Professor Cummings, who looks like he is also agreeing with River’s assessment.

“Have you seen the third sister, Joey? Now that’s a piece of ass,” one of the bonehead jocks from the back of the room adds.

Wait a minute! Stop! This is my fantasy! It’s getting completely out of control! Back to reality, folks!

Kevin waves the gun in my face. “I’ll be back soon. I’ve got to tell Claudia that I discovered the two of you snooping around outside. I’ve got plenty of security cameras down here, so don’t you dare try to escape,” he remarks with a chuckle.

“I hardly doubt either of us are in any shape to be trying to escape,” I snort. I am bound by duct tape, while Beth is huddled in the corner. She has literally passed out. I really, truly did not think anyone could faint and stay…well,
fainted
, for more than a moment or two. Beth has been out cold for ten solid minutes. I’d be worried about her except for the fact that she is moaning every once in a while. “I think she needs a doctor,” I tell Kevin. “She hit her head pretty hard. She might have a concussion.”

Kevin laughs as he waves his gun around. “I really don’t think it’s going to make of a difference in the long run.”

I eye him suspiciously. “What is that supposed to mean?” I ask, even though in the pit of my stomach, I know
exactly
what it’s supposed to mean.

Kevin taps the gun to his lips and stares upwards at the ceiling, almost pensively. “Well you see, this little endeavor wasn’t actually meant to include you
or
your sister. But…you’re involved now and I hate to be the one who breaks this to you, honey buns, but you both are rather expendable.” He offers me a sympathetic smile as he patronizingly pats me on the head. Stepping toward the door, he picks Beth’s purse up off the floor and holds it up.

“Can’t have her trying to call the police with her phone now, can we?” He loops the purse over his shoulder and shoots me a shit eating grin. “Where’s
your
purse?”

“Unlike my sister, I tend to not bring my handbag with me when I am trespassing and peering into windows. Everything is in the car,” I remark with a sigh. I jerk my head toward the front pocket of my hoodie. “My keys are in here. If I have my phone, it’s in there, too.”

Kevin licks his lips and bends down, causing his khaki pants to groan with agony. He sticks his big meaty paw in the front pocket of my hoodie and grabs my car keys. Then, as he’s pulling his hand out, he squeezes my soft stomach.

“Hey!” I yelp.

He leers at me as he remarks, “I can see you don’t have your sister’s hot body.”

I want to spit in his face, but I’m pretty sure that sort of thing gets you killed pretty fast when you’re being held captive. Instead I have to hope Kevin splits his pants in the process of standing up.

My wishes are not fulfilled as he manages to get to his feet without incident. He offers me a sneer as he tosses my keys in the air and catches them in the same hand.

“No phone?”

I shake my head. I could have sworn I grabbed my phone and shoved it in my hoodie pocket, but I guess not. My luck, it probably fell out into the puddle that I wanted to push Beth into.

“Gonna go take care of a couple of things,” he remarks. “You guys stay right here.” He laughs maniacally at his own joke.

I stick my tongue out at the door as it closes. When I am sure he is gone, I glance around at my surroundings. I really wish I had watched that You Tube video that had been going around Facebook; it was about how to get out of zip ties or duct tape if you were kidnapped. At the time I had laughed and skipped over it. I should have known it would have been useful in the future.

Beth is slowly coming back to life now, shaking her head and blinking with confusion as she peers around at our surroundings.

“What happened?” she asks me in a dazed voice. She attempts to sit up and realizes that she can’t because her hands and feet are duct taped together. Staring incredulously at her appendages she asks again, this time in a panicked voice, “What the heck happened?”

“Apparently your boyfriend is into bondage, Beth. I really wish your bedroom antics hadn’t gotten in the way of my evening,” I remark wryly while bobbing my head toward my own hands that are not only duct taped, but tied behind my back and taped to the chair on which I am now sitting. Like a kidnapped idiot who fell right into the kidnappers trap. I attempt to stand, thinking I am going to be able to waddle over to the door. Beyond getting to the door, I have not formulated a plan, but I am going to try anyway. Until, I crash to the floor. With the chair attached to my ass.

You’re hog tied to a chair again, Amy! And you’re lying on your side! How is it that stuff like this keeps happening to you?

Without being able to control myself, I start to laugh at the irony of this situation. Like laughing so hard tears start running down my face. I would be clutching my sides if I could actually reach them. I really have no idea what I find so funny.

Beth also does not see what is so funny. “It’s
not
funny, Amy!” she tells me in her best “big sister” voice.

“No, it’s not,” I snap back. “And do you know what else isn’t funny? The fact that we are stuck down here in this basement tied up and we still have no idea what has happened to Jillian or where she is. And do you know what is even more not funny, Beth?” I am now screeching at the top of my lungs. “Roger thinks we’re picking up a fucking pizza! Nobody has any clue where we are, nobody else knows that Jillian is missing, so that means that nobody is even coming to look for us! You know why, Beth? Because you didn’t want to tell anyone, or call the f’ing police!”

Beth gasps as the reality of this situation hits her with full force.

“Oh crap,” she mumbles under her breath.

“Yeah. Crap, shit, fuck. You might as well say it all because really, we’re probably dead and you are well on your way to hell now anyway, so you might as well enjoy the trip!” I am so indignant and furious I can actually feel my blood pressure rising as the blood angrily courses through my veins that are ready to pop. I am almost hoping for an aneurysm to put me out of my misery.

Beth puts on her, ‘
I’ve eaten a sour lemon’
face. “Why would you even say that, Amy? Why would I go to hell? Why would you even…”

“Gee, Beth. I don’t know. Maybe the fact that number one, you cheated on your husband, and number two, you cared way too much about your pride and your precious name to call the police to save your child. And number three…
you cheated on Derek
!” If I had my fingers free, I would be using them to count and point in her face. “And with that…
gross man thing
!” My brain is so muddled that I can’t even come up with a witty enough insult to describe our captor Kevin.

Beth’s face crumples. “You don’t understand,” she says quietly, lowering her eyes.

“I understand perfectly, Beth! Your perfect little life wasn’t good enough and you got greedy.” I am practically spitting at her now.

“You really don’t understand-”

“I thought you were the mother who had all the answers, the daughter who never falters, and the wife to whom all other wives compared themselves. Instead, I find out that you’re a phony of a wife and a selfish mother. Shit, I thought hiding the kids’ Reese’s Peanut Butter cups that they get from trick or treating was selfish, but damn, you certainly take the cake. Too bad I’m going to have to die in this process of discovery. You couldn’t have made this clear over Christmas dinner or something? We couldn’t have had a spa day to reveal the depths of your selfishness to me? Nah, you drag me down with you into a pit of despair. It’s a fabulous ending to my not so fabulous life.”

Beth looks away, her expression full of pain and hopefully a little self-loathing. I know I should feel a tiny bit guilty about bashing my sister, but I don’t. I want her to feel the pain that I’ve felt from 36 years of living in her picture-perfect shadow without any hope of redemption.

“Haven’t you ever wished you were someone else, Amy? That you had made different choices in life?” she asks me quietly.

“Yeah,” I scoff. “Ironically I’ve spent the past 36 years wishing that I was you.”

“And I’ve spent it wishing I was you,” she remarks so quietly I almost can’t hear her. In fact, I’m certain that I’ve misunderstood.

“There’s no need to blow smoke up my ass, Beth. It’s not like I can save you and I’m your only chance of survival here,” I scoff with annoyance

“No, I’m serious. I always wished that I could be a little more like you,” Beth continues in a soft voice.

“Oh so you’ve spent your whole life wishing you could be a hot mess full of flaws?” I remark sarcastically. “I gotta tell you, it comes pretty damn naturally to me but I could write a self-help book for you if you’d like.”

Beth ignores my self-depreciating remark and says, “You never seem to care what people think about you.”

“Is this about the sweatpants? Please forgive me if I don’t feel like discussing that right now,” I pipe up bitterly. Beth has been on my ass for years about wearing sweatpants.

Beth sighs. “No, Amy. It’s not about the sweatpants. Although…” She is quiet for a moment, as if she is deep in thought.

“Just get on with it,” I snap.

“You do what you need to do. What’s best for you and your kids and your family, and you don’t care what other people would do or say or even
expect
from you. You didn’t care that we thought it was strange when you married Roger, because you loved him. You did it and said to hell with what anyone thinks. You don’t let other people dictate your life.”

I take one thing away from that monologue. “You thought it was
weird
that I married Roger?”

“Oh for goodness sakes, Amy! The guy practically had an AARP card when you met him! He was a member of the Hair Club for Men!”

“What difference does his age make?” I retort, trying to right the chair, but finding it futile with my appendages bound. I am starting to wish Kevin had duct taped Beth’s mouth shut. That would have a least made this a little less painful for me.

“It doesn’t make any difference. The point is that when you married him, I thought that you were making a bad decision and you didn’t care about that. And look, Amy…you proved me wrong.”

“I’ve proved
you
wrong?” I am amazed those words are coming out of my sister’s mouth in that particular order. Something is messed up here. Perhaps her brain is scrambled from hitting her head. Usually that set of words sound like this, “
Amy, I’ve proved you wrong
.’ I didn’t think Beth Phillips-Katz was capable of
being
wrong.