Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise Book 1) (24 page)

“Good decision, Ava,” Walker said. “Get in the driver’s seat.”

Ava stared at him like she was deaf.

“Now, Ava.”

The business end of the gun was digging into my forehead. It hurt, but not nearly as bad as his big hand pressing my windpipe closed and his fingers digging into the back of my sunburned neck. I couldn’t breathe.

Ava got back in the truck and crawled across to the driver’s side.

Walker eased off some, and I gasped for breath. He paid me no attention. To Ava, he said, “You’re going to drive this truck to Baptiste’s Bluff. Katie’s going to drive my car, and I’ll ride with her. We’ll be right behind you. You and I both know there’s no place for you to run, and if you try, first I’ll shoot Katie, and then I’ll come find you. And I will find you. I won’t shoot you, though. We’ll have some fun and see where it takes us.”

My mind couldn’t wrap itself around what was happening. Baptiste’s Bluff. He was taking us to Baptiste’s Bluff? I could see Ava in my peripheral vision. My keys were still in the ignition. Ava turned on the truck. She put her hands on the wheel. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound.

“Do you have a phone with you, Ava?” Walker asked.

She shook her head.

“It wouldn’t matter anyway. There’s no cell reception up on these roads.”

I did, though. I had a phone. Or did I? Was it in the truck along with everything else I’d dumped from my purse? I tried to think when I’d last used it. We’d plugged it into the USB connector at the Packin’ Male to upload our pictures to their desktop so we could print them. I had disconnected my phone when we were done. And I had . . .

“Move it, Katie. You’re driving my car.”

He released my throat and pulled the gun away from my forehead, but kept it pointed at me as he stepped back. “Get in.”

As I slipped into the driver’s seat and shut the door behind me, I put my hands down, ostensibly to adjust my body, but really to slip my cell phone out of the loose side pocket sewn into the right hip of my sundress. My mother always told me to avoid unflattering hip pockets, and I was glad I hadn’t listened. I lay the iPhone on the seat between my thigh and the door. I thought about calling 911 or Rashidi or even Bart, but I knew I’d lose connection when we were a hundred feet away from Annalise. Rashidi was ten miles away by now, Bart and the police were further than that, and what help could I expect from the St. Marcos police, even if the call went through? But then another thought hit me. Sherry. She had taped Zane McMillan with her phone.

Walker’s hand was on the door latch now. I quickly tapped the screen to pull up a voice recording app that I used to use to record witnesses. I pressed Record and the timer scrolled forward. One second, two seconds, three seconds it read, confirming that it was recording. The door opened. I slid the recording volume to max and returned to the home screen, leaving the phone recording, a record for posterity or whoever found my body.

Walker lowered himself into his seat. I put both of my hands on the steering wheel and fought to act normal. When he handed me the keys, I noticed a rivulet of blood running from his temple to his cheek, a souvenir from the scaffolding trick my jumbie friend had played. I pretended to try to insert them in the ignition with my right hand, fumbling them as much as I could, while I dropped the phone back into my hip pocket with my left hand. I did the fumbling so well that I managed to drop the keys.

“Come on,” Walker snapped.

I tried again, and this time I turned the car on. Walker was holding his gun in his right hand. He turned his body slightly toward me. He rested his elbow on the dashboard with the gun’s muzzle pointed at me. “Make room for Ava to back out. Follow her to Baptiste’s Bluff.”

I did as he said, trying not to think of the implications of our destination, all the people that had met their death off that cliff, people like my mother and father. Bart was expecting me to show up at 7:30, a full hour away from now. No one would miss us in time to come to our rescue. I didn’t want to die.

Ava pulled out, and I fell in behind her. I swallowed hard. My father’s coaching returned to me, the times he had earnestly explained to Mom, Collin, and me how to lull an attacker into a false sense of security while you stalled and looked for his weakness. I could get him talking, distract him while I waited for my chance, and maybe even learn something to use to our advantage, anything. Except my brain was having a hard time communicating with my tongue.

“Why’d you kill the senator?” I asked, finally.

“Haven’t you figured that out by now?” he responded.

I hesitated. The man had just confessed to killing Guy Edwards. I didn’t know for sure why he’d done it, but I’d developed a decent theory in the last few hours. “Because of the bank records that Guy found?”

Walker snorted. “That stupid bitch left them out where Guy could see them. He may not be a rocket scientist, but he was smart enough to know there was only one reason Lisa would keep a rich client’s files off bank premises.”

“So she kept a phony set of books at the bank, and the real set at home? What, was she helping Bonds launder money?”

“She thought she was helping herself, that Gregory loved her, and that she was securing their future together.” Walker drew out the word “loved,” turning it into something absurd. “Little mami called big daddy to tell him she’d blown it, and I’ve never seen him so mad. I think he’ll take that bitch out next.”

Lisa was a criminal, but she didn’t deserve to die anymore than Guy did. Neither did Ava and I, for that matter.

“Who set Ava up?” I asked.

“Nobody. I followed Guy. I knew he was heading to meet some skank because that’s what he always did. I didn’t know it was Ava, though. I got lucky.” He twirled the gun on his finger. “You better hope she’s as steady up there as your dad was, otherwise I’ll have to shoot you.”

Strobe lights went off in my brain. The faulty synapses that hadn’t made the connections earlier finally got it right. Of course. My parents had died because they’d seen Gregory with Lisa on the beach that day, the giant blond man and the tiny black woman. Because his connection to Lisa was the link to his laundered fortune. And now Ava and I might die for the same reason. I gasped for air like Walker had gut-punched me.

Walker’s laugh was maniacal. “You know what’s funny, besides you hiring me of all people to help you figure out what happened to your parents? What’s
really
funny is that Gregory had written them off as two stupid tourists. Then your parents had to run off their mouths about it to the wrong person. Which makes them stupid tourists after all, I guess. Full circle. Visitors never get it. This is a small, small island. Their waiter that night at Fortuna’s? Jilly Edwards, Lisa’s daughter. And your mother literally points to a picture of Lisa in the paper and says to your father, right in front of Jilly like she’s not even there,” and here Walker used a simpering falsetto, “Oh my gaw-wad, this is the woman we saw naked on the beach with that big blond man, honey. And she’s a senator’s wife.”

Oh, Mama. My heart broke. My sweet, sweet mother, who had no idea there was evil around her, who saw the beauty and not the danger. Just as she had everywhere in her life. It was one of the things I’d loved most about her. She was positive, she was strong, she was smart, but she was, well,
naive
.

“Yeah, Jilly girl called home. Lisa convinced her it was mistaken identity, but Lisa knew it wasn’t. So, Lisa called Gregory. Who called me. Who always calls me.”

Ahead of us, Ava’s car turned right onto the familiar lane I’d ridden down with her one month before. The cliffside was very close now.

“So you just do all Bonds’s dirty work and let him keep his hands clean?” I was fighting to keep my voice normal.

“He got me out of a tight spot once,” he said, and shrugged. “And he pays well.”

Ava pulled over when we broke from the trees.

Walker grunted. “Put it in park, and turn it off.”

I did as he asked. The sun was sinking, but no green flash tonight. I looked into the sky of fire, hell above earth. It’s not hell, I thought. Hell is this. That’s what salvation looks like. I wasn’t ready for either salvation or hell, though. I wasn’t sure yet how, but I was going to fight until the end. I had to.

“Get out of the car and stand with your hands on the hood.”

I did as he told me.

He got out of the car and walked around to my side. “Walk to the front passenger seat of your truck and get in. Go.” He shoved me with his left hand and held the gun against my back with his right.

I walked to the truck and got in. Ava was staring at me.

“Are you OK?” I asked her.

“I fine. You?”

“Yes.”

“Shut up.” Walker dropped himself into the back seat. He shut the door and scooted over behind Ava.

Ava gave a war cry. I saw a flash as she lifted my machete from underneath the bench seat, leaned forward, and whirled her right arm backhand toward Walker, the blade horizontal and inches from my face in the awkwardly tight space. “There’s not enough room for this to work,” I thought, anguished and hopeful at the same time. Walker’s arm shot up and he caught Ava’s wrist as she swung. Thud. He twisted. Snap. The machete fell into Walker’s lap in the back seat. Ava screamed and rocked forward, holding her arm.

“That was stupid,” he said, calm as the eye of a hurricane. “Shut up, put the car in gear, and drive forward.”

“I can’t,” Ava sobbed.

He cocked the trigger of his gun and pressed it into the hollow of her neck below her skull. His voice was slippery and cold. “Yes, you can, dear. Now do it.”

Ava carefully placed her broken right wrist into her lap. She tried again with her left hand. “Can you put it in gear for me?” she asked me, her voice breaking over her sobs as she swallowed them.

I didn’t say a word, just shifted the car into drive. Using only her left hand, Ava steered. We crested the rise, and the nose of the truck pointed down the short slope.

“Stop,” Walker said.

Ava stopped the car. I put it in park.

Ava put her face on the steering wheel. “You a fucked-up bastard.”

Walker’s face didn’t even flicker. But I saw his arm move. I reacted out of years of training and the instinct that had set me apart in the dojo years ago, the inner ear that mattered most, that had drawn words of praise from my sensei. As he lifted his gun and cracked it against her head, I chopped his wrist with my right hand, sending the gun skittering to the floorboard under Ava’s feet, and immediately slammed my left arm back in a vicious sword chop to his throat. Ava slumped against the door, unconscious. Walker fell against the seatback. He grabbed his throat, writhing, choking, and gasping for air.

I unclicked my seatbelt and leaned over Ava, unfastened hers, opened her door, and pushed her out to the safety of the grass. While I was extended across her seat, I felt the car begin to move. I sat up and realized with horror that my body had forced the gearshift from park to drive. I wrenched the door handle, threw open my own door, and rolled out. Blue, green, and orange spun around me as I tumbled and rolled, then fell still. I scrabbled toward Ava, not yet believing we were free, and I turned toward my beautiful gold truck to see Walker in profile, frantically trying to open the back door as the Silverado went over the cliff. I heard the scraping of metal on rock, a terrible sound. I saw my parents’ faces now instead of Walker’s, and I let down the tears that I had held in so long.

I put my face in my hands and sobbed, but only for a moment, then I shook my head, refusing to give in to grief. I clenched my fists and hit both of them into the ground. “I got you, you asshole,” I screamed in anguish, in triumph. “I got the bad guy, Dad.”

It didn’t bring my parents back.

I felt something cold, hard, and narrow against my right fist. I moved my hand and saw the glint of gold in the green grass. I reached under the flattened blades with my thumb and forefinger and plucked the object free. It was a gold band. My heart stopped. I turned it on its side and searched for the inscription.

Hannah
.

Seconds passed, maybe minutes. I became aware again, of where I was, of my mother’s ring in my hand, of Ava. I stuck the ring on my finger and crouched over Ava, the last of my tears falling on her face as I shook her gently. She groaned.

“Ava, wake up, Ava, it’s Katie. Wake up.” I smoothed her wild black curls off her face and used my palm to wipe the trickle of blood from her forehead, smearing it more than cleaning it. “Come on, Ava.”

Her eyes opened. “Katie? What happen?” She sat up, then held her head. “Oh my God, my head hurt so bad.” She took in our surroundings. I saw her remember. “Where he go? Where he?” She tried to climb to her feet, but fell forward on her hands and knees. Her wrist buckled and she cried out, then rocked back on her knees and hugged her arm to her chest.

“It’s going to be OK, Ava. He’s gone now.” I pointed toward the cliff.

She gaped at me. “You kill him?”

“Not exactly. I think the childproof locks did him in.”

Ava stared at me like I’d dropped my basket for real. Then she howled like a hyena, laughing until she held her side with her good arm. “I going to hell now, for true,” she said.

“For this and all your other sins,” I agreed.

She swung her legs around and sat on her bana, then pulled her knees in to her chest with one arm and rested her head on them. “Only one problem. That bastard the only one could prove I didn’t kill Guy.”

I patted my left hip for the iPhone. It was still there. Please, God, please, I prayed. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the phone. I opened the recorder and pressed Stop, then fiddled with it until it played back my recording.

“Come on. Make room for Ava, and then follow her to Baptiste’s Bluff.”
I pressed Stop. I swiped the timeline forward.
“Why’d you kill the Senator?”
I heard my voice say.
“Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
Walker’s voice replied. I pressed Stop again. Halle-freakin-lujah, and thank God for Sherry Talmadge.

“Was,” I said. “He
was
the only one who could prove it. Now you’ve got me.”