Vicious (32 page)

He nodded. “I called them for real when you and Mattie were cleaning up in the restroom of the Thai place.”

“The idea of that one and a half million changed your mind, didn’t it?” Susan asked. “You figured on holding off for a few months, so you could play the dutiful husband and stepfather. What did you have in mind for later—an accident for Mattie and me? Why kill me in that parking lot, when you could do the same thing later and end up with a million and a half? Was that the plan, Allen?”

“Maybe at first,” he admitted. “But you’ve changed me, Susan. I’m different from the guy who killed all those women….”

Susan just shook her head in disbelief.

“Haven’t I been a good fiancé?” he continued. “Haven’t I been good to Mattie? That cop, he wants me to kill you—and Mattie. I took you out here so we could get away from him.” Allen nodded at the old, abandoned chemical plant in front of them. “I figured maybe we could find this girl he’s got trapped in there. Then I’d let you take the car, and the two of you could go to the state police. As for me, well, maybe you’ll just let me disappear….”

Susan stared at him. He had to know she wouldn’t let that happen—not after what he’d done. He seemed so tormented and tired. He still wouldn’t look at her.

“Now that we’re here,” he whispered. “The more I think of that helpless, scared teenage girl, trapped in there, probably crying for her parents—” He shook his head. He had tears in his eyes. “The more—God help me—I want to kill her….”

Horrified, Susan edged back from him. She tightened her grip on the indicator handle—now, almost completely unscrewed from the steering column.

“I don’t expect you to understand, Susan,” he said, a coldness creeping into his voice. “I can’t help it. She’s so close. Knowing she’s practically within my reach, I’ve got to do her. That cop, he knows me. He has my number. He knew I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. He wants you dead. And I’m sorry, but he’s calling all the shots here.” He gazed at her and half smiled. “I want you to know, I got him to agree that Mattie won’t be harmed. He’ll be okay.” He gently patted her knee. “I—I’ll give him a nice toy.”

Susan held the thin steel rod in her grasp—one more twist and she’d have it freed from the steering column.

“I meant it when I said you’re not like the others, Susan,” he said. “Prove me right and make it easier for both of us. Don’t struggle. It’ll be quicker….”

Suddenly, he lunged toward her.

Susan tried to recoil, but he grabbed her around the throat. He shoved her against the car door, and she let go of the indicator handle. He started choking her. Susan kicked and struggled. All the while she tried to grab the rod on the steering column. But it was just out of her reach. Her hand fanned at the air.

She couldn’t breathe. The more fiercely she fought, his grip only got tighter. He was practically on top of her now. He had this cold, calm look on his face. His eyes seemed dead. He brushed his lips against hers.

With every ounce of strength she could muster, Susan pushed him back. But one of his hands was still on her throat.

Grabbing the indicator handle, Susan wrenched it away from the steering column and slashed the metal rod across his face—just missing his right eye. Allen shrunk back and howled in pain. She’d made a deep, bloody laceration down his left cheek.

Susan pulled the keys out of the ignition—just as he started to lunge at her again. Recoiling, she flung open her door and staggered out of the car. She ran toward the old, neglected building. It was all boarded up—except for the broken windows on the second floor.

She glanced back at Allen as he crawled out of the car. He held a hand over the wound on the side of his face. Blood seeped through his fingers. He could hardly stand up straight.

“Goddamn it!” he bellowed. “You’re going to die in there, Susan! You and that bitch are going to die in there!”

Susan turned toward the darkened warehouse and ran.

Leo felt the car take a turn. Then the road changed. For the last five or ten minutes, the ride had been relatively smooth. But they were driving over gravel now.

He had a feeling they were back at Jordan’s cabin. He also had a feeling—a terrible notion—that they’d killed Jordan. But he couldn’t think about that now or he’d start bawling. Besides, he wasn’t positive his friend was dead. Meeker and the cop hadn’t actually mentioned killing Jordan. All he knew for sure was that he and Jordan were supposed to be found dead in the burnt-out cabin tomorrow morning—and it would appear as if they’d killed Moira while on some cocaine binge. Meeker’s fiancée had a death sentence hanging over her head, too.

And here he was, lying in the back of this smelly cop car, unable to do a thing about it. The car doors were locked, and the mesh screen separated him from the deputy in the front seat. All he could do was play ’possum and wait until the creepy cop stopped the car and opened the back door. Then he could either attack the cop or make a run for it—or both. But Leo didn’t have anything he could use as a weapon. Meanwhile, the deputy had a gun and a nightstick and God only knew what else.

Leo felt a few more bumps in the gravel road, and then the patrol car came to a halt. He heard some static from the police radio. “Hey, Nancy, you there?” the cop asked.

It didn’t exactly sound like the way they talked on TV police shows.

“Corey, we have a noise complaint at 2113 Louise Court,” the woman said through a hiss of static. “Some teenagers are having a wingding. I also got a call from Rosie at Roadside Sundries. She’s closing up the store in ten minutes. Seems she’s been babysitting for that Ms. Blanchette’s little boy. Ms. Blanchette was supposed to be gone for only fifteen minutes, she said—and that was over an hour ago….”

“Tell Rosie not to get her panties in a twist,” the deputy said. “I’ve found Ms. Blanchette’s missing fiancé, and I found Ms. Blanchette, too. They’re both at the house on Twenty-two Birch, and everything’s copacetic. Either the fiancé or I will be over in about twenty minutes to pick up the kid. Tell Rosie to sit tight. As for the noise complaint, I’ll check out Louise Court when I get around to it. Okay?”

“I’ll pass the word on to Rosie,” the police operator said.

“Over and out,” Shaffer said. Then the static died. “You awake back there?” The deputy banged on the mesh screen. “Hey, kid…”

Leo let out a drowsy groan. He heard the ignition shut off, and then the front door opened and shut. After a moment, the back door opened by his feet. “C’mon, hotshot, it’s the end of the line for you….”

His eyes half closed, Leo watched the deputy lean into the car and reach for his leg. Leo kicked his foot at Deputy Shaffer’s face, but missed and hit his shoulder. Still, he stunned the cop, who reeled back and fell to the ground.

Leo crawled out from the back of the patrol car.

“You little shit!” Shaffer growled, scrambling to his feet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Leo saw the cop pull out his nightstick. Leo tried to run but suddenly felt the club come crashing down on the side of his head.

His legs went out from under him, and he slid down on the gravel. Dazed, he tried to get up, but couldn’t.

The deputy grabbed his foot and dragged him across the gravel toward the cabin. Through his jeans, Leo felt stones and pebbles digging against his backside. He tried to yank his foot free, but he was too weak and stunned. He felt utterly helpless. His vision was blurred. He tried to focus on the cop, but he could only hear his voice.

“C’mon in here and join your buddy,” the deputy said.

Allen kept screaming that she was going to die.

Susan ran away from that taunting, angry voice—and toward the abandoned building. She ran until the sound of the old, heavy shades flapping in the wind began to drown him out. The plant’s front door and first-floor windows were boarded up with graffiti-marred plywood. Racing around to the side of the building, she weaved through dead shrubs and litter. The ground floor windows on the side of the building were barricaded, too, but she found one plywood board that was askew. She managed to boost herself up to the broken window and climb inside.

Once inside the dusty, dank building, she took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Susan found herself in a tiny office—with two broken chairs and a pile of trash on the floor. Starting for the office door, she accidentally kicked some old beer bottles and cans. She winced at the thought that Allen might have heard the clattering.

Susan hesitated and listened for a moment. She didn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear anything except the wind howling through the second floor—and those shades banging.

In the narrow corridor, she poked her head into several dark offices—all full of cobwebs and discarded broken furniture. On the floor of one room, she saw two rats crawling around by some trash, and she quickly ducked out to the hallway again.

“Hello?” Susan called softly. “Moira? Can you hear me? I’ve come to get you out of here!”

No response. Then again, Susan was afraid to yell too loudly. She didn’t want to make it any easier for Allen to find her. She wondered if the girl was really here—or if she was dead already. For all she knew, the deputy might have lied to Allen.

Her heart racing, she searched through the maze of offices, going from one gloomy room to another, unsure of what was around each corner. Susan’s voice cracked as she kept calling out to the girl—each time a little louder. She poked her head into an old laboratory. The built-in counters and some archaic equipment were covered with dust. Moths fluttered around the big, unlit room. Against the wall were two large, refrigeration units. One was missing a door; the other still had its door attached, and it was shut. She pulled on the handle, but it didn’t budge.

“Moira?” she called again. “Yell out if you can hear me! Moira—”

Susan fell silent at the sound of a distant, muffled scream. She realized it wasn’t coming from inside the refrigerator unit. “Moira, keep yelling!” she shouted, heading out of the laboratory—then down the dim hallway. “Keep yelling! I’m trying to find you!”

She listened to the girl’s stifled cries and realized she was getting closer to her. The garbled whimpering became louder—and more frantic. It sounded like she was trying to scream past a gag in her mouth.

Susan kept wondering about Allen. Why hadn’t she heard his footsteps? Had he already found a way inside the building? For all she knew, the deputy might have told Allen exactly where to find the girl, and Allen was with Moira now—waiting for his unwitting fiancée to come to him.

Susan noticed a leg from a broken table on the floor, and swiped it up. It was about the size of a baseball bat.

She could still hear the girl’s muted screaming. She followed the sound—to a larger office at the end of the hall. With the table leg ready, she poked her head into the room. She didn’t see anyone and almost moved on. But then she noticed an old chair wedged against the door to a closet or a connecting room. She moved toward the door and heard Moira’s stifled cries on the other side of it.

Pushing the chair away, Susan opened the door. She found Moira curled up on the closet floor in just a torn shirt and panties. The teenager was shaking violently. It looked like her arms had been tied behind her, and she was pushed up against a pipe that ran from the floor to the ceiling. Moira tried to talk past a rolled-up rag stuffed in her mouth.

“It’s okay, I’m going to get you out of here,” Susan said, reaching for the gag.

As she pulled it out of Moira’s mouth, the girl gasped. “Oh, God…thank you…thank you…” Then she started coughing. Susan tried to help her to her feet, but Moira shook her head. She turned away from Susan to show that her hands were handcuffed around the pipe.

“Oh, Jesus,” Susan murmured. She tugged at the handcuffs. “Okay, listen, I’m going to look for something to free you up from these damn things. Just hold on.”

Moira let out a weak laugh. “I ain’t going anywhere….”

The table leg clutched tightly in her fist, Susan headed down the shadowy corridor until she spotted an old fire box with a broken alarm, a coiled hose—and peeking out behind it, an ax. The glass on the firebox door was cracked. Susan struggled to open it up. She finally dropped the table leg and pulled at the door with both hands. When it finally gave, a shard of glass fell off and shattered on the floor.

“Are you still there?”
Moira called weakly.

“Yes, that was me!” Susan replied. She pushed the coiled hose aside and reached for the ax stashed behind it.

The thing was heavy and awkward to carry, but the blade still looked sharp. Susan ran back down the corridor with it. Ducking into the office, she hurried to the closet where Moira had managed to stand up. She was leaning to one side, putting all her weight on one foot. When she saw Susan with the ax, a look of horror swept over her face. “My God,” she gasped. “I thought you were going to get a bobby pin or something to trip the lock.” She started coughing again and shook her head at Susan.

“Listen, I don’t know a thing about picking a lock,” Susan admitted. “But my aim’s pretty good. Okay?”

Moira winced at her. “I don’t know—”

Susan hesitated. But then she heard the rattle of bottles and cans in another part of the building. She realized Allen had found his way into the plant.

Moira must have heard it, too, because suddenly she nodded several times and turned her body away from the pipe. Susan adjusted the girl’s hands so the inch-long chain between the cuffs was vertical and taut against the pipe.

All the while, she listened to the footsteps of someone running in the hallway.

“You—you were at the general store yesterday, weren’t you?” Moira asked nervously.

“Yes, my name’s Susan. Now, I need you to keep very still.”

“Don’t you have a little boy?”

“Yes. The woman at the store is looking after him right now—I hope.” Susan took a deep breath, then lifted the ax.

“You were talking to my friend, Jordan. I think he’s got a crush on you….”

Susan didn’t want to tell her that her friend was dead. “Moira, I need you to be quiet,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry. I talk a lot when I get nervous. I’ll shut up.”

In the silence between them, Susan could hear the footsteps in the corridor getting louder—and closer. She swallowed hard and swung the ax. Moira let out a startled yelp as it hit the chain. The pipe made a loud, hollow, bang. But the handcuffs’ steel links were intact. “Do it again,” Moira said under her breath. Her hands were shaking.

In the dark little closet, Susan felt lucky she hadn’t chopped off one of the poor girl’s arms on that first try. But she hauled back and swung the ax again. There was another clatter that echoed from the pipe. Susan barely waited a beat before giving the ax a third swing. At last, the handcuffs’ chain snapped. Moira let out a grateful cry and leaned against the wall. She rubbed her arms.

Susan figured the sound of that ax hitting the pipe had reverberated through the whole building. She paused, but couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore. She wondered if he was just outside the office door, waiting for them.

“Thank you,” Moira whispered. “Thank you, Susan.”

Draping her cardigan over Moira’s shoulders, she grabbed the ax and started to lead her out of the closet. The girl could hardly walk. “I—I think I sprained something,” Moira explained. “I’m sorry I can’t move very fast.”

Susan glanced down at the girl’s swollen, discolored ankle. “Looks like a bad sprain,” she whispered. “Just lean on me, okay?” Susan held her up with one hand and clung onto the ax with the other. Before they stepped out to the hallway, she paused, put her finger to her lips, and then left Moira leaning against the wall. With the ax ready, Susan peeked into the corridor. She didn’t see anyone, just the shadowy hallway and the office doorways.

She ducked back into the office and nodded at Moira. The girl grabbed hold of her shoulder, and together they started down the gloomy corridor. They moved past the open doors to several dark offices. Susan was terrified that Allen could be lurking in any one of them.

“This guy, he’s a cop—he’s the one who did this to me,” Moira started to explain.

Susan shushed her, then nodded. “I know, I know,” she whispered. She’d lost track of which office window she’d used to enter the building. She couldn’t stop trembling—and neither could the girl. They passed the old laboratory and turned down another corridor.

She spotted a very faint light coming through one doorway near the far end of the hall. Susan bypassed the other offices and hurried toward it. Moira hobbled alongside her. Stepping into the room, Moira accidentally kicked some old bottles. They both hesitated for a moment. Susan wondered if Allen was close by, listening to them. There was a reason those footsteps had stopped. He was hiding.

She saw a shaft of moonlight pouring through an opening in the broken window where the plywood board was askew. She peeked out the window to make certain he wasn’t waiting for them there. Holding the plywood board back, she helped Moira through the opening to the ground below. She lowered the ax down to the girl and then climbed out after her.

They crept alongside the building, toward the old parking lot. Susan kept thinking that any minute now, Allen would come up and grab one of them from behind. She saw the Toyota ahead and reached for the car keys in her pocket. All the while, Moira clung to her, and Susan clung to the ax.

She noticed the drops of blood around the passenger door as she opened it for Moira. Then she checked the backseat to make sure Allen wasn’t hiding in there. “Lock it!” she said, once Moira shut the car door.

Susan glanced at the tires. There was nothing wedged beneath any of them to give her a flat. The back tires looked a bit low, but seemed okay. Opening the driver’s door, she quickly stashed the ax in the backseat. As she climbed behind the wheel, she saw blood on the dashboard.

“What is that?” Moira asked, staring at it, too.

Susan shut her door, locked it, and then put the key in the ignition. Giving it a turn, she prayed the car would start. The engine let out a roar—and that rattling noise started, too. Starting up the driveway, she glanced in the rearview mirror at the dark, abandoned building. She didn’t see anyone. There was no sign of Allen.

“What is this?” Moira asked again, nodding at the blood on the dash.

Susan’s heart was still racing. But she started to catch her breath. She glanced at the dark red spots and smears on the dashboard. “I had a disagreement with my fiancé,” she said.

Susan hadn’t noticed that the same kind of markings were on the hood of the trunk. It didn’t dawn on her why the rear tires were riding low. Nor did she realize the trunk was propped open—only a sliver.

It was just enough for him to breathe a little easier.

Rosie heard the bell tinkle over the door. On a dead night like tonight, it usually gave her the willies when someone wandered into the store three minutes before closing. That was what had happened one evening six years ago, and the guy had held her up at gunpoint.

But tonight she was expecting Susan Blanchette’s fiancé or Deputy Shaffer to come pick up Mattie. With a groan, she pulled herself off the play-area floor mat, where she’d been supervising Susan’s son on the mini jungle gym. “Howdy!” Rosie called, not sure yet to whom she was talking. She waddled around from behind the counter and saw Tom Collins coming up the soup and canned foods aisle.

“Hey, Rosie,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Mattie jumped off the pint-sized jungle gym and scurried in front of her, almost tripping her. “Hi, Tom!” he said, looking up at him.

Tom stopped and smiled at Susan’s son. “Well, hi, Matthew Blanchette,” he said. “Where’s your mom?”

“She’s running Aaron,” Mattie replied. “I’m going to ride in a police car!”

“Well, how about that?” Tom gave Rosie a puzzled look.

She mussed Mattie’s hair. “Sweetheart, why don’t you put the toys away, and maybe old Rosie will give you a treat for being such a good boy.” She waited until Mattie hurried to the play area.

“What going on?” Tom whispered. “Is Susan okay?”

“She swung by a little while ago and said she had to run an errand,” Rosie explained in a hushed tone. “She was only supposed to be a few minutes. Well, after an hour, I started to panic, and I called the police. But it turns out everything’s all right. See, her fiancé’s been missing since noon—”

“I know,” Tom nodded. “She came by my place this afternoon, looking for him. We had lemonade.”

“Lemonade, huh?” Rosie gave him a knowing smile. “Well, honey, from the smitten look on your face, I hate to tell you this, but that pretty lady found her man. They’re staying at the old Syms house on Birch. She’s there right now with him. I’m expecting him or Deputy Shaffer to come pick up Mattie. One of them is supposed to be here any minute. I think Mattie’s hoping for the deputy. He wants to ride in the police car.”

Tom frowned at her.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked.

He sighed. “Well, for starters, I just came from the house on Birch, and nobody’s home.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I was worried about her. I was there nearly two hours ago. She told me she was checking into one of the hotels in town tonight. But I just tried both hotels, and she’s not registered at either of them. So I swung by the house on Birch again, and nobody’s home.” His eyes narrowed at her. “Who told you she was there?”

“Nancy at the police station told me,” Rosie said, shrugging. “At least, that’s the skinny she got from Corey Shaffer.”

Tom wandered toward the counter and leaned against it. “Let me ask you something. Does Susan strike you as the kind of mother who would unload her child on you way longer than she said she would—and then not come by to apologize or explain? Instead, she sits on her ass in her rental house and sends a cop to come pick him up?”