Divas and Dead Rebels (43 page)

Really. I was getting weary of being talked about as if I’m the size of a Georgia Tech linebacker, and almost said so aloud. Prudence kept my mouth shut, however. We’d done what we could for Breck, so we stood up and joined Rayna and Gaynelle near the fieldstone fireplace. Bitty took the roll of masking tape from Victoria.

“Make it tight, and do several loops around their wrists. No, do it with their arms behind their backs. Like that.”

Bitty tied me up first. I tested the strength of the bindings when she moved on to Gaynelle and thought that with a lot of effort, I could break the flimsy tape. While looking for it, I’d seen a roll of duct tape but pushed it back into a corner. We had a better chance of getting free with the thinner masking tape. Thankfully, Victoria didn’t seem to know that little fact.

When Bitty had us all tied, Victoria snatched Rayna’s car keys, then marched us to the back door, single file, with her pistol pointing the way. We were very obedient. None of us wanted to risk the others by trying to be a hero.

I found it appalling that Victoria didn’t even glance at her dying husband as we left. They had to have been married at least twenty or twenty-one years since their son was around that age, but she apparently didn’t spare him a thought as we got into Rayna’s SUV. She jabbed the pistol at Bitty, the only one of us still unbound.

“Drive. And do exactly as I say, or I’ll shoot your cousin first. Understand?”

I made a squeaking sound, and Rayna nudged me. The three of us sat in the back seat like ducks trussed up for dinner, while Bitty got into the driver’s seat, complaining all the while.

“I can’t drive this big ole thing! It’d be like driving a log truck. I’m used to cars that drive easily.”

Victoria wasn’t impressed. “It has power steering and brakes. You’ll be fine. Shut up and drive.”

Bitty started the car with Rayna’s keys and adjusted the rear-view mirror. I could see the reflection of her eyes, and she looked caught between fear and outrage. I hoped she didn’t do anything too foolish. But then again, this was Bitty, and she’s known for foolish. She was in good company. If we hadn’t been so foolish as to think we could trap a killer, we wouldn’t now be in danger of becoming murder victims ourselves.

I saw that Breck’s car was hemmed in by Victoria’s as we left the driveway and headed toward the highway a mile or so down the narrow road paved with black tar. Tall trees lined the road, and gravel crunched under car tires every time Bitty got off the road. It was a bumpy ride to the highway, made worse by our circumstances.

I didn’t think it could get much worse.

Boy, can I ever be wrong.

Chapter 21

So there we were, barreling down Highway 7 toward Holly Springs, with no idea what our maniacal navigator planned to do with us. Every time Rayna, Gaynelle or I tried to communicate with one another, that blamed pistol would be aimed right at us. I had no doubt Victoria would shoot with or without much provocation.

Next to me, Rayna fidgeted about. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but thought it must be similar to what I was doing—attempting to loosen the tape around my wrists. Up front, Bitty hunched over the steering wheel. She looked like a leprechaun sitting behind the wheel of the huge SUV, but my thoughts went to a horror movie I had been coerced into watching,
Bride of Chucky
. In the movie, a doll was possessed by the spirit of a serial killer. While that described Victoria more than it did my dear cousin, I had a feeling Bitty was not taking this well. It could go either way.

That feeling was not dissipated when she began to mutter to herself. Victoria’s eyes narrowed. She sat with her back to the passenger door, not seat-belted, just watchful.

“I don’t know what you’re saying, but you can stop it. No talking to each other. Or you’ll end up like my dear departed husband.”

“So how were you able to kill Catherine?” asked Gaynelle. “Did she let you in, or did you have to sneak into the house?”

For a moment I thought Victoria wasn’t going to answer. Then she gave a short bark of laughter. “That stupid slut. She had no idea who she was dealing with, I’ll tell you that much. She thought my husband had broken in on her. How she thought Breck smart enough to pull all this off without leaving any evidence makes me laugh. He’s never been smart, just charming. But charm can only get you so far. Oh, he had ambition, just nothing to back it up. If it wasn’t a football play, he was lost. I had to do everything. All of it! While he pretended he didn’t know about it so he could be safe.”

Gaynelle nodded as if in understanding, but I don’t know how anyone could ever understand murder. “Your son Bret—he didn’t mean to kill Trisha. It was an accident.”

Victoria nodded. “Yes. He was so scared. And Breck, as usual, was off with one of his sluts. I had to take care of it. And I did. I was the one to think of putting her under a dorm window, and I was the one who arranged for her car to be driven to the parking lot. I took care of all the details. I had to, you know. Breck has never been there for Bret or for me. And Bret knew it. I was the one he came to when there was a problem. I always fixed it.”

“Like you fixed Monty?” asked Rayna.

“Like Monty,” Victoria agreed. “He was going to the police to tell them about that silly girl being killed. Bret didn’t mean to do it. There was a struggle, and she fell from the deck and hit something on the way down. It broke her neck. He would have been arrested, and there would be charges . . . I didn’t see any reason he should have to suffer for the rest of his life because of that girl. Or because of Monty being such a coward.”

“Some might call it having a conscience,” I couldn’t help saying, and Victoria shrugged.

“Some might. I couldn’t let him do it, though. And he was a weakling anyway, just like Breck. He would have broken under interrogation and told everything.”

“It was a private party, wasn’t it?” I said, remembering details from the movie
Dead at Seventeen
that Catherine had left for me. “And it got out of hand.”

“Something like that. Bret used the Visa card to book it, and since it was in his father’s name, I knew if police suspected us they could track it unless I did something.”

“If it was a party,” said Rayna, “then there had to be more people than Bret and Monty there. What about the other boys? Wouldn’t they have told?”

“They’d gone home before she fell. Only Bret and Monty were still there. By the time anyone found out about it, Bret and I had already done everything. Monty drove her car to the parking lot while Bret and I put her on the ground under her dorm window. I put on her coat in case someone saw me or the security cameras were on, then I took her key card to go upstairs and open the window to make it look like she’d fallen. No one would ever know. I thought of
everything
.”

She actually sounded proud of herself. It gave me the chills.

“You thought of everything except the Divas,” Bitty snapped. I felt like smacking her in the back of the head. Victoria did
not
need a reminder. But Miss Clueless went on, “We know. And if we know, then the police know.”

“There’s a big difference between knowing and proving,” Victoria replied coolly. “I left no evidence behind. You four are the last incriminating remnants.”

She spoke calmly and emotionless, as if we were minor annoyances that needed disposal. I figured she was a sociopath. No remorse. No conscience. Just tidying up. So now Bitty was dethroned. Victoria was definitely the new
Bride of Chucky
.

For some reason I couldn’t help muttering, “‘Auday duay dumbalar, give me the power I beg of you . . .’” Of course, transferring souls any place except where they’re supposed to be is impossible unless you’re in Hollywood making an implausible horror movie with dolls possessed by evil.

Yet somehow Bitty picked up on it. “Lamar Deswayze,” she replied, mangling the quote yet keeping it somewhere in the ballpark. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Who else in the world but Bitty and I would be quoting horror movies when stuck in a car with a mad serial killer?

Victoria thumbed back the hammer on her pistol. “Is that code for something? I told you not to talk to each other!”

That stopped the laughter, I can tell you. “It’s from a movie,” I explained. “
Bride of Chucky
. It’s a spell to transfer the soul of a living person to a doll, and—”

“Shut up,” said Victoria more calmly. “I think all you Divas are nuts. What kind of stupid club is it, anyway? Just one of those social things where you get together to eat and gossip?”

“No,” Bitty defended us. “We drink wine, too. And lately we solve murders.”

“Yeah. Good job with this one. You had no idea who killed Spencer or Catherine until I told you. You thought it was Breck.” Another bark of laughter sounded way too loud in the SUV. “Idiots. You couldn’t figure out how to tie your own shoes, much less solve any murders.”

I could see that Bitty was getting irritated when she should be cautiously scared. I wanted to tell her to be careful but didn’t want to risk Victoria getting too frisky with the pistol. That would be disaster.

By this time we had reached the outskirts of Holly Springs. Daylight faded early, and street lights were on in the gathering dusk. Neon signs advertising gas, pizzas, fried chicken, and other delights gleamed in a rainbow of bright colors. Just ahead on the right the Holly Springs Police Department had taken over the site of a former medical clinic. It sat on a gentle rise and was easily seen from the highway, one of our main streets in town. So close, and yet so far, rescue waited as it came into sight. Victoria gestured for Bitty to continue down Highway 7 a few hundred yards.

“I may not be that familiar with Holly Springs,” she said, “but I looked it up on a map, and I know where we’re going. So don’t try anything funny. Turn on the next street after J Mash Drive.”

“JM Ash Drive,” Bitty corrected, and I rolled my eyes. She was going to get us all shot before we could even get to wherever it was this lunatic wanted to dispose of us. The thought gave me pause. Maybe it was better to take our chances in a more populated area than wait until she got us off in the boonies somewhere.

No sooner had I thought that than Victoria said, “If you try anything, don’t think I won’t shoot you. I don’t really care if I’m caught. I’ve saved my son, and that’s the main thing to me. Nothing else matters.”

I glanced at Rayna and Gaynelle. Their faces reflected what I was feeling. Fear. I tried to think of something that would convince Victoria not to kill us. Or at the least, give us a long enough distraction to overpower her. I had my hands almost free. The tape had worked loose enough that I was pretty sure I could get it off. If I could do it, I was pretty sure Rayna had accomplished it as well. That made two of us, and with Bitty as a third, maybe we could overpower Victoria. I wasn’t as sure about Gaynelle. She’s feisty, but she’s sixty-five or so and not as able to engage in physical exertion.

Since I didn’t know what Victoria planned for our demise—that we were to be done away with was certain in her mind—I knew we had to act soon or she’d succeed. I just didn’t know what to do that wouldn’t get one or more of us shot. Rushing her was out of the question. None of us was faster than a bullet. That job was left to Superman.

So we passed up JM Ash Drive and the hope of the police department. I wanted to yell at Bitty to pull up into the police parking lot, but we’d passed the street, and the moment was lost. A few hundred yards down we turned onto Lemac Avenue. It’s a quiet street with only a few houses spaced several lots apart. It ended at Center Street.

There’s a stop sign at the junction of Lemac Avenue and Center Street, and Bitty did one of her famous rolling stops. Then I saw the police car. My heart thudded into overdrive. She deliberately took the corner on the proverbial two wheels, and I waited to hear the wail of a siren. Rescue was at hand!

“Damn you,” Victoria snarled, and jammed the barrel of the pistol into Bitty’s ribs. “You did that on purpose!”

“I didn’t see him,” Bitty lied.

“I’m tempted to shoot you right now. You better hope that cop isn’t paying any attention. If he stops us I’m going to shoot you right in the heart!”

“This is an expensive sweater,” said Bitty calmly. “I’d rather you shoot higher.”

Sure enough, about three seconds later a siren pierced the night. Blue lights atop the car popped on, and it did a U-turn and came after us.

“Okay, say one word and I promise I’ll shoot both of you,” Victoria warned, and emphasized her threat with another hard jab into Bitty’s side.

“Ouch,” said Bitty.

As luck would have it, Officer Rodney Farrell stepped out of the police cruiser and walked up to the driver’s side window. My heart was thumping so hard I was sure he’d be able to hear it as he motioned for Bitty to roll down the driver’s side window.

He looked startled when he recognized Bitty. “Miz Hollandale . . . did you get a new car?”

“No. This is Rayna’s. I’m just driving it tonight.”

I couldn’t see her face but hoped she was making some kind of gesture to let him know we weren’t in there willingly.

“You did another rolling stop, you know,” Officer Farrell went on with a shake of his head. “I’m going to have to give you a ticket this time. You’ve been warned plenty, so don’t try to talk me out of it or say you’re going to tell my grandma. I have a job to do, and I’ve gotta do it.”