Three Days in Seattle

by Debra Burroughs

  “Shows what you know,” he spat. “I came here yesterday to recall my happy memories. Lucky me, the house was vacant. Let’s just say, I left the door open. After I couldn’t do what I’d planned at the apartment today, I knew it would be the perfect place to bring you.”

  Ethan pulled Kate inside the dark house, shoved her to the bare floor in the living room, and loomed over her. Moonlight shone in through the large picture window and the light bounced off the hardwood floor, illuminating the whites of his eyes.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked him. He looks like he’s high on something. She noticed his dilated pupils and his jittery movements.

  “You know exactly why,” he shot back.

  “I don’t.” She closed her eyes and moved her head slowly from side to side, still trying to regain full consciousness.

  She looked up at him, squinting, as the fog in her mind began to dissipate. It was him in the apartment today—he left the TV on, not Suki. Then she remembered he was the one who had phoned her at the restaurant, and she recalled going through the kitchen and out into the back alleyway. As soon as she stepped out into the alley, everything went black. It was coming into focus for her. Lying flat on her back, she put a hand up to the side of her aching head.

  “Why am I doing this? I think you already know the answer to that question.”

  “I don’t know, tell me.”

  “It’s because I have to finish what you started!”

  “What I started? I still don’t understand,” she said.

  “It’s because you are the high and mighty Kate McAllister, the girl that killed my mother and destroyed my family.” An angry sharpness lined his voice.

  “What? No!” she responded, shaking her head. “No, Ethan, listen. I didn’t kill your mother. It was an accident, a terrible accident.” Battling to stay calm, she was determined not to let him see her fear.

  “It was your fault! Stop denying it! After you killed my mom, my dad drank himself out of a job and we lost this house.” Ethan paused and looked around the room, as if he was still grieving the loss of the life he once had. “Dad committed suicide, and my sister got shipped off to a stinkin’ foster home. And you, Miss Kate McAllister, got off scot-free! Well, you’re not going to get away with it anymore. It ends here, tonight.”

  Her head was pounding with pain as she lay on the hard floor, and his words became a jumble in her mind. None of what he said made sense to her at that point. He sounded like a ranting madman, which made her all the more terrified of him.

  He pulled a piece of thin rope out of his back pocket to tie her hands behind her back. Crouching down, he grabbed one arm and she kicked and scratched at his face with her free hand. He hit her hard with the back of his hand and violently rolled her over onto her stomach.

  No longer laying on the aching back of her head, the throbbing began to subside and her thoughts became clearer. Kate mustered all the strength she could to keep her voice even, not wanting to incite this lunatic further.

  “You don’t have to do this, Ethan. Please, can’t we talk about it?”

  The phone in her bra began to vibrate against her breast, which gave her a start. She coughed a few times to cover up the noise and her initial reaction to the vibration. Kate continued to hope that it would help someone locate her.

  “We’re done talking,” he snarled. “There’s nothing you could say that can save you now,” he said, wrapping the rope around her wrists. “I thought killing your mom and dad would be enough payback,” he muttered as he cinched the rope tight, “but it wasn’t.” He rolled her back over and pulled her into a sitting position on the floor as he stood.

  Ethan’s admission to killing her parents hit her like a slap in the face. “So, it was you that caused their accident.” Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought of them, victims of his crazy obsession to exact revenge against her.

  “I didn’t think you knew.” He smiled a little, seeming to take some sick pleasure that she knew what he had done.

  “I didn’t know, not until today.” A few drops trickled down her face.

  “Hmmm.” He frowned and pursed his lips, as if he was disappointed that she hadn’t been weighed down under the knowledge of it all this time. “So how’d you find out?”

  “I went to the crash site today. There was a blue cap stuck in a bush by the tree they hit, a cap like the one you’re wearing now. I put two and two together, just like the police will.”

  “I don’t think so. They’re not that smart. Besides, I’ll be long gone by the time they find you and your sister.”

  “My sister? Do you know where my sister is?”

  “Maybe,” he taunted her.

  “Did you take Whitney?”

  “Suki took her.”

  “Suki?”

  “Funny, isn’t it?” he chuckled.

  “Tell me, please. Is my sister alive?” she begged.

  “Well, I don’t know. Probably not.” Ethan toyed with Kate, like an animal playing with its prey before it devoured it.

  Kate struggled to blink back the rush of tears that were stinging her eyes. On the heels of his blatant admission that he had killed her parents, the thought that he may have also killed her little sister was too much to take.

  Ethan’s glassy eyes lit up. Kate noticed the evidence of his delight at having struck a painful nerve in her, although he appeared to relish the pleasure for only a moment or two before refocusing on why he brought her to this place.

  “We’ve wasted enough time talking. Let’s finish this thing.” Ethan pulled his pearl-handled switchblade out of his back pocket, clicked it open, exposing the long metal blade. “This used to be my father’s, and my grandfather’s before that.” He looked at it lovingly. “My grandpa brought it back with him from World War II.”

  “No, Ethan, please!”

  The moonlight glinted off the metal as he put his boot on her chest and pushed Kate backwards with force.

  She cried in pain, as her back and head slammed down on the hard floor.

  He stooped down over her, leaning one knee on her stomach. She gasped for air as his weight pressed on her diaphragm. Terror immobilized her, and her throat constricted. She tried to scream. No sound came out of her open mouth.

  Wild eyed, he grabbed a handful of her blonde hair in one hand and raised the knife to stab her.

  Kate was paralyzed with fear, and her eyes were riveted on his. Horrifying scenes flashed in her mind, visions of him stabbing her over and over again, as he released his fury.

  * * * *

  Patel’s phone rang. It was the tech guy. The GPS had zeroed in on the house on Comstock. “Well, you were right, Ryan. It is the house you thought it was,” he said, hanging up his phone.

  They were still at least ten minutes away by car. Porter flipped on the lights and siren. Traffic was dense, bumper to bumper, in this part of town, and with vehicles parked all along the street, there was nowhere for the cars in front to pull over to let the police cruiser through.

  Ryan couldn’t wait. His adrenaline surged at the confirmation that Kate was so close. He had to get to her! If her phone was still broadcasting a signal, that had to mean that Ethan hadn’t found it, and that had to mean that Kate was still alive.

  Patel must have sensed Ryan’s desperation because he turned around and made eye contact. “Ryan,” he started, “I know what you’re thinking, and don’t.”

  Ryan didn’t say a word to his friend. The wheels in his head were turning so quickly that he almost didn’t hear the warning tone in Patel’s voice. Instead, his inner-cop kicked in and he did the only thing he could. The safety latch wasn’t engaged and he knew he could open the back door and bolt. So that’s what he did. I’m coming, Kate. Just hang on a little longer.

  The last thing he heard as he ran from the car was Porter, “Aw, crap.”

  * * * *

  For an instant, the room lit up. Headlights flashed across the picture window. Ethan froze and listened. There was t
he sound of a car door opening and closing in front of the house.

  “Not. A. Word.” His voice came in short panting bursts, his knee still pinning her down.

  Then Ethan raised his head and stretched to peer out the bottom of the bare front window. With the pressure off her chest, Kate lifted her head to see. There was a dark SUV parked in front and a man getting out. It resembled Ryan’s SUV, and that’s when she realized why the house seemed familiar. It was the one Ryan had wanted to show her, but it had been too dark. For a second her heart surged with hope, but it dropped again when she noticed the man go inside the house across the street.

  “Whew. It’s not the cops,” he muttered under his breath. His forehead wrinkled with a frown, but he seemed to relax a little, seeing that it was just a neighbor.

  Ethan’s expression changed. The crazed, cold stare came back. “Now, where were we?”

  Kate stared at Ethan intently, trying to read his face, searching for a chance to escape. She knew now that that was her only hope. No one had come to help her. It was just her and this lunatic.

  His knife blade flashed with the light from the streetlamp. Kate’s fear froze into the shape of a lump in her throat. This is it. I’m going to die, she thought. Oh, Whitney, I’m so sorry. What was I thinking?

  Just then, the sound of rattling at the front door. The MLS lockbox! At that instant Kate knew it was Ryan outside.

  They both looked toward the front door and they could see Ryan, his hands cupped around the sides of his face, trying to peek inside the dark house.

  Ethan dropped low and frantically dragged Kate to the basement door before Ryan made it inside. “You make a sound and I’ll kill you right here. Understand? You know I’ll do it. Then I’ll kill your nosey boyfriend.”

  She nodded.

  He pulled her to her feet and down into the basement. He lifted her up and slid her bound wrists over a broken two-by-four in the wall. It was too high for her to get herself free, but if he left her alone long enough...maybe.

  “Not a peep,” he warned her again. Then Ethan closed his blade and shoved it in his back pocket. “I could stab him, but I’m saving my dad’s knife just for you, Kate.” Hastily, he rummaged around the basement for something else to use to deal with Ryan.

  Finding a few loose bricks, he grabbed one and climbed back up the stairs, opening the door just a crack to peer out. He flashed a warning glare at Kate as he slowly eased the door open, not making a sound.

  “Ryan!” Kate shouted, trying to warn him, but she was too late.

  As much as she hoped that Ryan would see Ethan first, the loud thud she heard as Ethan stepped through the door told her he had managed to sneak up behind Ryan and had likely smashed the brick against the back of his head, sending him flying to the floor. A sharp crashing noise made her jump, which she figured was Ethan dropping the brick on the hardwood. When there were no further sounds of a struggle, she figured that Ryan was out cold.

  Ethan came running down the basement steps, breathing frantically. He unwrapped her wrists from the two-by-four and dragged Kate up the stairs sideways, by her tethered arms. As he headed to the back door, she caught a glimpse of Ryan lying prostrate on the floor. Is he dead?

  “Ryan!” she called out as Ethan dragged her away, but he remained motionless.

  “Come on,” Ethan demanded as he pulled her to the car. “Get in.” He opened the back door.

  She kicked him hard in the shin and turned to bolt.

  Cursing at her, he grabbed Kate by her long hair and shoved her hard into the back seat. Then he jumped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and furiously backed down the narrow driveway. Once on the street, he floored it.

  Chapter 20

  Kate bounced around in the backseat worrying about Ryan and trying to think of a way out. She tried working at the ropes binding her wrists, but they weren’t budging.

  Ethan eyed her in the rearview mirror. “That’s okay,” he said. “When things didn’t work out at the apartment earlier, I decided to kill you in my childhood home, where my family’s nightmare began. But I’m smart. I have plan B. Kerry Park. It’s just a few blocks from the house. It was one of my parents’ favorite places to go.”

  She didn’t say anything, just studied him looking for a solution.

  Ethan got a wistful look on his face. “My mom and dad loved how Kerry Park was built into the side of Queen Anne Hill and how it was terraced, you know, with that long set of concrete steps from the street below up to the top tier, along West Highland Drive. Their favorite was the top tier. You could really get a good look at the Space Needle and downtown Seattle. Suki and I used to play on the lower tiers, on the swings and playground equipment.”

  Kate watched, as Ethan’s face again became the crazed one she was now familiar with. “Before you ruined everything!” he yelled. “If I can’t kill you at our old house, this is the second best place.”

  Kate pondered the irony, not only that she had come here with Ryan, but that it had been her parents’ favorite spot, as well.

  * * * *

  Ryan lay on the floor for a few minutes, coming to as he heard his phone ringing in his pocket. Weak from the blow to the head, he struggled to sit up. Leaning back on one hand, he answered his phone.

  “This is Ryan,” he said, feeling a few drops of blood trickling down his neck.

  “Ryan, this is Raj. I’m not going to lecture you right now for running off—I’ll do that later. We have the GPS location of Kate’s phone. It’s not at the house on Comstock now, but it appears to be nearby. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the house on Comstock. I think Ethan was here.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because the house was dark when I got here, but there was a car in the driveway. So, I used my lockbox key and let myself in to look around.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Ryan.”

  “I know, I know. I wish I hadn’t. I got hit from behind and knocked out.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, a little dizzy, but I’ll be all right.”

  “Good. You were lucky.”

  “I know,” Ryan agreed.

  “Hang on.” Raj put Ryan on hold. He came back. “Well, it looks like the GPS is showing Kate’s phone is at Kerry Park on West Highland Drive,” Raj told him. “We’re headed over there right now. We’re just a few minutes away.”

  “I’ll meet you over there.”

  “No, Ryan. You sit tight, and I’ll send someone to pick you up.”

  “But, Raj, I—”

  “You heard me. Sit tight. I mean it.”

  * * * *

  Ethan stopped at the curb along the narrow strip of park. Since it was late and there was an icy chill in the air, the tiny park was empty. He yanked Kate out of the car and pulled her across the park to the overlook railing near the top of the concrete stairway. Peering over the railing to the playground area below, Kate grew dizzy with fear.

  “Ethan, don’t do this. Please,” she pleaded.

  “You didn’t give my mom a choice to live or a chance to beg for mercy when you slammed your big fat SUV into her little car.”

  “It was an accident. I keep trying to tell you—it was an accident!” she screamed, her lips trembling.

  “It was your fault!” he yelled back, tightening his grasp on her arm.

  “Ethan, please, you have to believe me,” she implored. Physically and emotionally exhausted, she was losing the battle to control her tears. “That’s why the police never charged me, it wasn’t my fault,” she said, trying to explain between sobs. “Please...believe me. I, I beg you, don’t do this.”

  “Shut up! If it hadn’t been for you, I’d still have my family!” He was becoming more erratic and agitated.

  This guy is losing it. I can’t just crumble and let him kill me. Maybe if I can keep him talking...you can do this, Kate.

  She took a deep breath, thought for a moment. “I don’t understand,” she said, deter
mined to rally her courage and get more power over the situation. “What do you mean you’d still have your family? Why do you think your family’s problems were my fault?”

  He did not answer her. Ethan had that faraway look in his eyes again.

  Kate remembered him saying something about his father back at the house, but it didn’t make any sense to her at the time. She was not aware of anything having to do with his family except his mother dying in the car crash. She didn’t know a thing about their father’s depression and the drinking that began after his wife died.

  How could she have known Mr. Henderson committed suicide or that Suki had been sent to a foster home? Once the investigation of the accident had been completed, she had gone on with her life and had no further contact with the Henderson family. She had no clue that revenge on her had become the obsession of that family’s last remaining members.

  “What do you mean, Ethan? I want to know.”

  “Are you serious?” he asked, with biting sarcasm.

  “I am serious. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “Are you trying to say you didn’t know my dad started drinking after the accident and lost his job and killed himself?”

  “No, I didn’t know. How could I? I didn’t have any contact with your family after I was cleared of the accident.”

  “It was because you killed my mom that all the bad stuff happened with my dad. Then I had to quit school. I would have finished college and had a good job and a nice family. Now look at me, look what I’ve turned into!”

  And that’s my fault? Kate asked herself.

  “And my sister, oh, my sister,” he chuckled in disgust, “she wouldn’t have had to be raised by those freakin’ foster parents. We could have had a good life, Suki and me, but you took that all away from us!” he screamed. “And nobody made you pay for it. Nobody! You got off scot-free.”

  “Listen, Ethan. You already paid me back, remember?” She tried to reason with him, acutely aware of the nearness of the long line of cement steps leading down to the street below. “You told me you killed my parents and probably my sister. Isn’t that enough?”