A View to a Kill

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  “Can’t tell you. And the truth is, I’m sorry you found out. I hoped you wouldn’t.”

  The interior lights in the room switched off, leaving nothing but the faint, distant glow of streetlamps outside. He was close, a few feet away, maybe closer. He’d round the corner any second now, take a shot. Maybe several shots. His .357 Magnum was a lot bulkier than her Glock 19, but she’d ejected and reloaded the magazine the night before. She was ready, and she had to act. Now.

  The floor creaked, giving away his precise location. She rounded the corner and fired. Kyle shrieked and a resounding thud was heard as his shadow hurled to the ground.

  The room went silent. Quinn questioned whether he was still alive. She’d taken a single shot in the dark. She’d be a fool to assume she was good enough to kill him on her first try.

  Inside Evie’s office, Felicity’s phone lit up, followed by her anxious face peeking out between bent slats of mini-blinds hanging on the office window. Felicity’s head darted around, searching for Quinn. When she couldn’t seem to locate her, the blinds went down, and the door to the office opened.

  Idiot. Why doesn’t she listen?

  Felicity’s wiry hand reached out, plugging a cord into a socket on the wall. A blue and red neon fertilizer sign lit up like a sign in a beer joint. It wasn’t bright, but it was something.

  “Quinn?” Felicity whispered. “You all right?”

  Quinn debated. Say something or say nothing. Knowing she needed to preserve her exact location, she chose the latter.

  “You there?” Felicity repeated. “Say something, Quinn. Are you hurt? Do you need help?”

  Quinn started to raise a hand in the hopes of waving Felicity back into the office. Mid hand raise, she stopped. Her stomach felt weird. Wet. She glanced down, finally realizing what she’d missed moments before. She wasn’t the only one who’d discharged her weapon. He had too, the bullet from his pistol puncturing her lower abdomen. It was a curious feeling at first, like being stabbed with a syringe filled with hot liquid. And then the blood came, bleeding an oozing stream through the bottom of her shirt.

  She’d bent to the ground and lifted up a few inches of her shirt when Kyle’s sudden movement rattled her. He was alive. Trepidation seized her body. In the neon glow, she watched him army-crawl toward her, one leg pushing him forward, the other injured and limp, dragging along the floor.

  Gun erect, he fired a second shot, the bullet narrowly missing her face. She ducked behind a desk. Felicity re-closed the office door.

  “I’m sure you’re wonderin’ why I plugged our old classmate full of holes and watched her die,” he said.

  He’s trying to get to you. Keep it together. Don’t speak.

  “Not gonna respond, huh?” he continued. “Not even if I’m the only one who will ever be able to tell you the last words Evie uttered before she died? Come on, now. You wanna know, don’t you?”

  Stay where you are. Say nothing.

  “Guess you could call her the woman who knew too much,” he joked. “Wrong place, wrong time sort of thing.”

  From the six-inch space between where the desk ended and the floor, Kyle’s head came into view. She smoothed her fingers over her neck. Touching her necklace now made her feel stronger somehow, like she wasn’t fighting him alone.

  Just a little closer. Almost there.

  When his head reached her desired target area, she released her coiled leg, thrusting it forward. The heel of her boot collided with his neck, snapping it back. The gun fell from his hands. In one, swift movement she rolled forward, her gun pressed firmly against his chest.

  “You won’t shoot me,” he teased. “Wanna know why? You haven’t changed one bit. You’re the woman behind the woman. The polite, scared girl hiding beneath her mother’s skirt. You always were.”

  While his fingers grappled to secure his gun, a single thought crossed Quinn’s mind: Not today I’m not.

  Her final shot was a bulls-eye to the heart. Out of breath, and weak from a lack of blood, she rolled off of him, hands pressed against her throbbing wound. “What can I say? I guess I’m not the same girl you remember.”

  CHAPTER 54

  An audible drone of sirens vibrated throughout the city streets. Quinn remained still, in the same spot where she’d collapsed a minute before, depleted, the loss of blood producing a sensation like her life was ebbing away once more. Maybe it was. And maybe it would be for good this time.

  Felicity was by her side now, applying pressure to the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Her non-stop chit-chat was annoying, but it was the only thing keeping Quinn from doing the one thing she longed to do—sleep.

  Vehicles parked outside, one after the other after the other. So many of them. Doors slammed. Male voices yelled back and forth, filing into the room like a swarm of locusts.

  Bo’s voice was the loudest, booming over all the others. “Quinn?! Where are you?”

  Felicity cradled Quinn’s head in her lap and shouted, “Here! She’s here!”

  Bo’s face came into view. It expressed a myriad of mixed emotions. “Oh, no ... Quinn. No.” He looked at Felicity. “Where was she hit?”

  Felicity lifted her hands, exposing the bullet’s entry point.

  “I tried to keep pressure on it,” Felicity said. “But the blood ... it wouldn’t stop coming.”

  “You did great. Thank you.”

  Bo slumped to the floor. “Talk to me, Quinn. Please. Say something.”

  “I’m so tired, Bo,” she said. “So sleepy.”

  “I need some help over here,” Bo shouted. “Now!”

  “Kyle’s dead. I did it. He killed Evie, and I killed him.”

  Bo leaned forward, kissed her lips. “We’re going to get you to a hospital, Quinn. You’re going to be okay.”

  She felt her body being lifted onto a stretcher, wheeled outside, then guided with care into the back of a vehicle with flashing lights. A vehicle she’d seen a thousand times before, but at the moment, she couldn’t recall its name.

  Bo hopped in the vehicle with her. “Let’s go! Let’s move this thing!”

  Two uniformed men hovered over her, pushing buttons on machines, messing with her body.

  She glanced around. “Bo?”

  He reached out, caressed the back of her hand with his fingers. “I’m here, Quinn. I’m right here.”

  “I need to tell—”

  “It doesn’t matter what happened. We can talk about the details later.”

  “No ... I need to ... tell you. I. Love. You. Too.”

  CHAPTER 55

  “I don’t think we can take another scare like this, sweetie,” a male voice said.

  Quinn looked up. Saw her father. Her mother. Her sister. All of them standing next to her hospital bed.

  “Hey,” Astrid said. “I can umm ... leave if you want me to. You know, if me being here stresses you out or anything.”

  Quinn shook her head. “Stay. It’s fine.”

  “You sure?”

  Quinn nodded. “No more fighting, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Quinn surveyed the room, saw dozens of bright, floral bouquets resting on every shelf, in every corner. “Uhh ... where did all of these flowers come from?”

  Her mother grinned. “Everyone. They just keep coming.”

  She glanced around. “Where’s—”

  “Bo?” her father answered. “He’s here. He went to the waiting room to update Ruby. She wanted to see you for herself, but she didn’t want Jacob to know you’d been hurt.”

  Quinn glanced at the clear fluid flowing through a PICC line that had been inserted into her arm. A thin, white blanket was tucked around her body. She tugged on it, glanced at the substantially-sized wrappings across her abdomen. “Am I ... okay?”

  A woman wearing a Daffy Duck scrub top, cream pants that looked several years old, and dingy tennis shoes entered the room. “You’re going to be fine. You’re a lucky girl. The bullet missed your spleen and your liver. N
ot by much, but enough to spare your life. How are you feeling?”

  “I don’t know? Alive. When can I get out of here?”

  The nurse winked, like she’d heard the question a thousand times, and walked out as Bo walked in.

  “What’s the rush?” he asked.

  Quinn’s father thumbed at the door, looked at his wife, then Astrid. “Let’s stop hogging her and give these two some time alone, shall we?”

  The trio filed out and the door closed.

  “Did you find Marissa?” Quinn asked. “Did you figure out why Evie died? Do you know how everything is connected to Kyle?”

  Bo approached the bed, leaned down. They kissed. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “I just wanted to look at you for a minute first. See you. Awake. Alive.”

  He held her gaze for several seconds then revealed the missing pieces of the story. They’d found Marissa. Dead. Her body in the basement of an abandoned farmhouse owned by Kyle’s deceased grandparents. From what they’d been able to piece together, Kyle had been involved with Marissa for several months. It was assumed Evie found out about it. Knowing if the truth got out he’d face multiple charges, including the sexual abuse of a minor, he evaded years in prison by killing Evie first, then Marissa. Remove the threats, remove the blame.

  “It makes sense,” Quinn said, when Bo finished talking. “Right before Kyle died, he mentioned Evie. He said she was the woman who knew too much. It almost hurts more now, knowing what really happened, how unnecessary it was for her to die over something so stupid.”

  Bo took her hand. “Hey, you made things right, Quinn. You made sure Kyle could never harm anyone ever again.”

  “I wish Evie was here to see me pick myself up, make amends.”

  “Wherever she is, she knows, and she’s proud.”

  She squeezed his hand. “It means a lot, you being here.”

  “I kept thinking about how much harder it would have been to lose you a second time.”

  “You heard what I said in the ambulance, right?”

  “I ... yeah. I just didn’t know if you remembered what you said to me or not.”

  “Of course I do. Want to know what I was thinking? When I was on that stretcher, I thought, what if I die without ever telling him how I really feel? I love you, Bo. I’ve always loved you.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Nine Months Later

  Quinn folded her hand inside Jacob’s and they strolled along the grassy path. “Have I ever told you this was where I met your mom when we were kids?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  Quinn pointed. “It was on that swing right over there.”

  The park had been maintained by the town over the years, but decades of consistent use had worn down almost all of the toys on the playground. Rusted slides. Eroded flecks of rubber on the swings. In an effort to preserve Evie’s memory, Quinn had created a fundraiser over the winter. The amount raised was substantial, enough to revitalize the park with an array of modernized toys, benches, and even a lighted gazebo.

  She was proud of the achievement, proud of the way she’d turned her life around in less than a year’s time. Four months earlier, she’d purchased her own place. A two-story Victorian she was about a quarter of the way done remodeling. Her thumb was even greener these days, thanks to Rowdy, her new business partner.

  Jacob seemed more like himself with each passing day. When he started talking about Evie and Roman again, Quinn placed photos around the house in an effort to keep the memory of his parents alive. And then there was Bo. A month before, he’d told her he wanted to get married. She wasn’t sure she was ready, but she knew she’d get there again. One day. And when she did, it would be with him.

  “Want me to push you on the swing?” Quinn asked.

  Jacob nodded. “Not too high, okay?”

  Quinn knelt down until she was eye level and wound her hands around his waist, reciting a familiar line someone had told her a long time ago, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. When you’re with me, I won’t ever let anything bad happen to you.”

  To Susan Payne

  For teaching me to follow my bliss, pushing me to

  achieve my dreams, and for always believing in me.

  I miss you.

  “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise—with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.”

  —Abraham Lincoln

  CHAPTER 1

  Alexandra Weston fiddled with the cap on her black Sharpie pen, popping it off and on while gazing out the window at the patchy drops of rain bleeding from a bleak, overcast sky. It was December. And it was cold. Not frigid cold, but cold enough.

  One hour and forty-two minutes had passed since her book signing began at Bienville Street Bookstore. She was aware of the exact time because the shop had a square metal clock the size of a card table hanging from the center of the wall on the second floor. And because she was in the home stretch, the last eighteen minutes of the final stop of her book tour.

  A crooked smile broadened across Alexandra’s face just thinking of how good it felt to be home again. Home. The word itself enveloped her like the warmth of a wool blanket.

  It was Alexandra’s first night back in New Orleans, and she knew exactly how she would spend it—at home with her daughter, sharing a full plate of Louisiana crab cakes and a celebratory bottle of wine. After weeks spent in three-inch heels, dresses one or two sizes too small, and strained smiles while she forced herself to answer the same tedious, repetitive fan questions over and over again, she deserved an evening of indulgence. She also deserved a good night’s sleep, but rest—the “knock you on your ass so you feel like a million bucks the next morning” kind—didn’t come easily. Not since the nightmares had started again.

  Soon her life would change forever.

  Soon the world would know the truth.

  She welcomed it and feared it at the same time.

  For now, she had a few more copies of her newest book to sign.

  Alexandra’s original true-crime story, The Devil Died at Midnight, based on the life of serial killer Elias Pratt, was an instant hit when it had first released twenty-five years earlier in 1990. The book propelled to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list, where it remained for eight consecutive weeks. She wasn’t surprised. People had insatiable appetites for dissecting the minds of notorious killers, especially when it came to the dashing, debonair Elias, whose conviction was surrounded by controversy. Everyone believed he was guilty, but not everyone believed he deserved the death penalty.

  A year earlier, her agent, Barbara Berry had pitched Alexandra an idea to revive Elias’s story. Her publisher was interested in releasing a special twenty-five year edition of Elias Pratt’s story, a “where are they now” look at his victims and their families.

  “It will be simple,” Barbara had said. “All you have to do is conduct a few interviews, tack a few brief chapters onto the original book, add a few new, never-before-seen photos, go on a short book tour, then sit back and collect royalties. Easy peasy.”

  To Alexandra, there was nothing easy about it. And the timing was bad. She had other ideas. She didn’t want this book to spoil them. When she declined a second time, Barbara offered an ultimatum. Either she agreed to what the publisher wanted or the publishing house would release the amended version using another author: up-and-coming true-crime writer and television host Joss Jax.

  Joss flipping Jax?

  Even with Joss’s recent success, the mere thought of her researching Elias’s story was offensive. Joss was a child compared to her. Joss didn’t know Elias. Alexandra did. And Alexandra wasn’t about to allow Joss the satisfaction of poaching her own story. So she did a few interviews, wrote a few updates, and rebranded the title, which was now called The Devil Wakes.

  Overall, her career had been a success, even if it hadn’t started out that way. While her
friends’ parents praised the achievements of their own daughters, Alexandra’s mother had always been unsupportive. Her Westons never amount to anything attitude led

  to years of self-doubt, especially in the early days, where rejections were a frequent occurrence. “You’re a Weston,” her mother had said. “Westons aren’t authors, or lawyers, or doctors, or anything fancy like that. We’re ordinary, hard-working people. Best you accept it now than face years of disappointment trying to be someone you’re not.”

  Alexandra could have accepted her mother’s words, could have suffocated and cowered from the years spent dealing with her mother’s cruelty and abuse, but she didn’t. Instead, she let the words wash over her, allowing them to fuel her drive and determination to succeed. Now when her deceased mother’s voice rang in her ear, she smiled, knowing her mother had been wrong, and wishing her mother had been alive long enough to realize it.

  With five minutes remaining before the book signing concluded, Alexandra shifted her focus to the last two people in line. One man, one woman. The woman was familiar, in her thirties, wearing a violet zip-up hoodie, a beanie on her head, boot-cut jeans, and gray Converse shoes. The majority of her hair was tucked behind the beanie, but a few violet wisps peeked through, just enough to reveal her identity.

  The man standing in front of the woman was pushing fifty and had a receding hairline to prove it. Alexandra waved him over. He approached the table like a timid mouse and grinned, showing off a giant monstrosity of a thing—a snaggletooth jutting from the upper left side of his mouth. Alexandra averted her eyes, pretended she hadn’t noticed the dental disaster. She doubted it worked. She was gifted at playing it cool, but this was a bit much.

  Alexandra reached for the book he was holding and said, “Hello.”

  The man tossed the book onto the table instead of into her hand, pushing his pointer finger onto the center of the cover and sliding it across the table in her direction. She flipped it open to the title page, watched him rub his hands together in rapid motion like an overexcited child on his birthday.