Too Near the Edge

by Lynn Osterkamp

  I held my breath, waiting for the shot. But Waycroft only reached out with his left arm and pushed her away from him. She staggered, but didn’t fall.

  “Back off, Sharon,” Waycroft said, sounding irritated, but still in control. “Adam wasn’t Nathan’s father. And he was a bad influence. He encouraged you to raise Nathan in a sloppy home with no structure to his life. You’ll both be better off without him.”

  “So will Nathan be better off without me too?” Sharon asked icily.

  “He’ll have me,” Waycroft said, “and I’ll make sure he gets a good education. Too bad Adam didn’t tell me he’d printed out pages from the website. I could have found them and destroyed them, and we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  I finally got a grip and spoke up. “You can be a complete jackass, but I can’t believe you’d kill your own daughter just to save a piece of research,” I said.

  “Believe it,” Sharon said giving Waycroft a look of pure hatred. “In his eyes, I’m mostly just a piece of research gone wrong. I never behaved according to the learning theories he used on me, never followed the script he set out for me, never lived the life he had planned for me. He’ll be glad to see the last of me and have Nathan all to himself.”

  “I know where I went wrong with you, Sharon,” Waycroft replied.

  “I can do much better with Nathan, especially if you’re not around to get in the way.”

  Elisa had surreptitiously reached into her purse and started fishing around. Waycroft noticed her movements and grabbed the purse out of her hands. “Give me your cell phones and drop your purses on the floor in front of you,” he barked. “Now!”

  We gave him the phones, still too stunned to resist. Any hope of calling for help had vanished.

  “Donald, you don’t seriously think you can get away with killing all three of us, and simply continue your work?” Elisa asked incredulously.

  “Of course I know it’s not that simple,” Waycroft said in a mocking tone. “But accidents happen.” He pointed to a door on his left, marked “Lab.” “In here! Now! All of you! You first, Sharon, then Elisa, then Cleo. Now move.”

  We were moving slowly in the direction of the lab room when we heard noisy chanting from outside the building. “Enlighten, empower, expand. Seek to believe, not understand. Enlighten, empower, expand. Seek to believe, not understand.”

  Waycroft turned toward the window. I realized in a flash that if any of us were going to get out of there alive, now was the time. I couldn’t meekly walk into that room and let Waycroft kill us all. I bolted, ran past Waycroft toward the front door, and pulled it open. I heard a shot ring out, but didn’t realize it had hit me until I got outside and saw blood running down my arm.

  “Cleo, what’s happening? Is someone shooting at you?” It was Narmada with a bunch of women carrying cardboard signs with painted slogans like “My spirit group rejects Waycroft!” “There’s more to life than Waycroft knows!” and “We foresee disaster for Waycroft!” I realized this must be her protest rally supporting my cause.

  “Do you have a cell phone? Call the police!” I yelled. “He’s got Sharon and Elisa in there, and he’s got a gun.”

  “You’re bleeding! Are you okay? Do you need an ambulance?” There was a group gathered around me now.

  “Call the police! Hurry! We have to get Sharon and Elisa out!” I felt panicky, desperate to somehow save them from Waycroft.

  “I called the police,” someone yelled. “Do you need an ambulance?”

  I felt around my left shoulder where it was bleeding. The bullet had grazed my shoulder. It seemed to be a superficial wound. “I’m okay. But we need to save my friends.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Narmada said. “Donald Waycroft shot you, and he’s holding his own daughter and someone else at gunpoint? We knew he was an asshole, but this is over the top even for him. What’s going on?”

  “I can’t explain it all now,” I said frantically. “But he’s extremely dangerous. He’ll kill them if we don’t stop him.” I realized now that I was out, Waycroft’s secret was moot. He couldn’t come after me with so many people out here. So he must be considering some strategy for getting away.

  Sure enough, before the police had time to show up, Waycroft appeared at his lab door pushing Elisa in front of him, his gun in her back. “Don’t come anywhere near us, or I’ll shoot her,” Waycroft threatened, moving Elisa in the direction of his Red Jeep Cherokee.

  “Where’s Sharon?” I yelled at him. “You know you can’t keep your secret now, so why not let Elisa go?”

  He ignored me, pushed Elisa into the passenger side of the Jeep, kept the gun trained on her as he walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and drove off. I memorized his license plate number, then ran inside to find Sharon.

  She lay on the floor in the small lab room. One side of her face was bruised and bleeding. She looked to be unconscious. “Now we need that ambulance,” I shouted to the women who had followed me inside.

  “Let me check her. I used to be a nurse,” said a young blond-haired woman wearing a black tee-shirt dress. She knelt beside Sharon on the floor. “She’s breathing, and her pulse is good,” she said, after checking Sharon for a minute.

  “Hey, Cleo,” Narmada called from the doorway, “The police are here. You need to tell them what happened.”

  “Tell them to go after Donald Waycroft,” I shouted back. “Red Jeep Cherokee, license number J57163.”

  “I told them he’s armed and has a hostage,” she called in a minute later. “They need to talk to you for more details about her.”

  I jumped up, ran out, and gave them identifying information about Elisa as well as Waycroft. The ambulance arrived and loaded Sharon up. She was still unconscious, so I had to give them information about her. As I did that, I remembered Nathan was at soccer practice and would need to be picked up. I rescued my cell phone from Waycroft’s desk where he’d left it, and called Joel. “I can’t give you the details now,” I said, “but can you pick up Nathan at the soccer field at 11:30?

  “Where’s Sharon? Has something happened to her?” he asked anxiously.

  “She’s okay,” I reassured him. “But I think she hit her head, and she’s unconscious. She’s on her way to the hospital in an ambulance now. Could you take Nathan out for lunch or something, keep him occupied for a while. There’s a lot going on here right now and I need to go. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  “A lot going on where? Where are you calling from, Cleo?”

  “Joel, I have to go. Can you just trust me and pick up Nathan?”

  After he agreed, I hung up and went over to talk to the police to find out what had happened with Waycroft and Elisa. There were quite a group of them there by then, examining Waycroft’s lab, taking pictures and notes. They said they had broadcast a statewide wanted person bulletin for Waycroft with information about his vehicle and cautions about Elisa. They wanted me to go to the police station to make a statement about what had happened. I agreed.

  We had come in Elisa’s car, and she had the keys, so one of the police officers offered to drive me to my office to get my car. I must have been running on pure adrenaline up until then, but suddenly I couldn’t stop shaking. When we got to my office, the police officers made me some tea and helped me wash the blood off my shoulder and put some ointment on it. Suddenly I realized Elisa’s husband and daughter didn’t know anything about what had happened. The officers said they would locate them, fill them in on the situation, and have them call me on my cell.

  After I finished the tea, I felt much better and convinced the officers I was able to drive. They left and I followed them over to the police station to make a statement about what had happened. After that I went to the hospital to see how Sharon was doing. She was still in the ER—awake, a little groggy from some pain medication, bruised, but basically fine and ready to go home. She had been worrying about Nathan and was relieved to hear Joel had picked him up.

  While
they got the papers ready to release her, I brought my car around to the door. As soon as I got her in the car, I could see that emotionally she was still reeling from the morning’s events. I drove out onto the street, found a parking space, and stopped so we could talk a bit before I took her home.

  “How are you doing with all this?” I asked.

  “It’s hard to believe Dad killed Adam. He didn’t like him, didn’t want me to marry him, didn’t want him to adopt Nathan—but I never thought he’d murder him.”

  “It must be overwhelming. I can’t imagine.”

  “And that Mexico project. Who would have guessed? Maybe I should have paid more attention to what Dad was doing in the last few years. I knew he was fanatical about proving that behaviorism can save the world, but I never would have thought he would go that far. I wish Adam had told me. Maybe none of this would have happened.”

  “What happened in the lab after I ran out? What did he do to you?”

  “After he shot at you, I jumped at him, tried to grab the gun. He hit me—I guess with the gun—and that’s all I remember.” She suddenly clicked in on the whole thing. “Oh my God, where is he? Did he get away? What happened to Elisa? Is she okay?”

  “He brought Elisa out at gunpoint as a hostage, put her in his car and drove off. The police are trying to find them.”

  “Oh, my God! I feel responsible for getting you two into this. I had no idea he was so dangerous. He can be a self-focused jerk who makes trouble for people who won’t do what he wants, but I never thought he’d kidnap or kill anyone.”

  My cell phone rang. We both jumped. I grabbed it, hoping for good news about Elisa. But it was Joel, wanting an update.

  “I just picked up Sharon at the hospital. She’s fine and we’ll be at her house in a few minutes,” I said. “How’s Nathan doing?”

  “He’s fine. I told him something came up, and Sharon couldn’t pick him up. We got some pizza and came back to my place, since I didn’t know how we’d get into Sharon’s. Nathan doesn’t have a key with him. So we’ll meet you over there.”

  I closed the phone, pulled out and headed toward Broadway. “We need to get back,” I said to Sharon. “Joel is bringing Nathan over to your house now.” I realized Sharon would have some explaining to do when we got there. Just looking at her, Nathan would know something had happened.

  “Have you thought about what to tell Nathan?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking about it. But I don’t have any good ideas. I don’t want to lie to him. But I don’t want to tell him his grandfather killed Adam and threatened to kill me.”

  I wished I could help her, but some suffering can’t be soothed by others at the moment of impact. I could help her with grief therapy in the coming months, but right then it was her family, her sadness, her tragedy to face however she could. We drove on in silence, thinking about the horror we had seen and the pain that waited for us.

  Chapter 39

  As I pulled into Sharon’s driveway, Elisa’s husband Jack called on my cell phone. He was so distraught he could barely choke out the words. “Cleo, what happened? Why did Donald Waycroft kidnap Elisa?”

  “Jack, let me come talk to you in person about it. Are you at home?”

  He was. I thought Jack and Maria needed my support more than Sharon did at that point. Plus, I thought she and Nathan could talk better without me. So I left her with Joel and Nathan, and drove to Elisa and Jack’s house in the foothills.

  A police car was parked in their driveway when I got there. Elisa’s daughter Maria answered my knock wearing baggy shorts and a tank top. Her hair hung over her face as usual, but I could see her eyes were red and swollen.

  “Cleo, tell me exactly what happened. I need to know exactly. The police are so not clear on the details.” Her voice was shrill, her words tumbled over each other. I could feel her panic and my heart ached for her.

  I put my arms around her and hugged her long and hard, patting her back to calm her like I used to do when she was little. “I’ll tell you what I can, Maria. Let’s just go where your dad can hear it, too.”

  We moved into the living room. Jack sat in a chair next to the fireplace, talking to two police officers seated on the couch across from him. Jack is a lanky, sandy-haired man, generally easy-going and sociable. But that morning he had a tense, tightly coiled look to him, a aura of hyper-vigilance. “Cleo!” He jumped up, darted toward me, and threw his long arms around me in a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re not hurt.” Then he stepped back. “I need to know everything you can tell me about Elisa and Donald Waycroft. Do you have any idea where he might have taken her?”

  I sat on the other couch, pulling Maria down next to me, and began the Waycroft story from the beginning—much of which Maria knew, but I wasn’t sure about Jack. I talked about how he’d threatened Elisa, Sharon and me, how we’d found out about his horrible project and confronted him—but I left out the part about him pushing Adam over the cliff. I didn’t think that part was my story to tell. At least not until I’d talked with Sharon.

  The police officers sat quietly, listening without comment. Just as I finished recounting the details of the confrontation and shootout at the lab that morning, one of the officers’ cell phone rang. He got up and walked toward the front door as he answered. We listened, drawing what conclusions we could from the side of the conversation we heard.

  “Mathews. Right. When? Where was it? How long? So what do we …. Okay.” He walked back to where Jack sat. “They found Waycroft’s Jeep. He drove up the canyon to some friend’s house off Sugarloaf, locked his friend in the closet, stole her car and left his there. When the friend missed a lunch appointment with her daughter, the daughter drove up there to check on her. She found her mother in the closet, and they called the sheriff’s office. It looks like Waycroft took your wife with him in the friend’s car. They have a bulletin out for it now.”

  “Holly,” I said.

  “What?” Jack turned in my direction.

  “Holly. Dr. Waycroft’s friend. She’s an artist who used to study with my grandmother. She and Waycroft have had a sort-of on-and-off relationship for years. Her place is kind of hidden away on Mountain Pines Road, so I guess Waycroft figured his car wouldn’t be found there right away.”

  “So, do they have any leads on Holly’s car?” Jack asked the officer.

  “Not yet.”

  “What do we do now?” Jack knew the answer, but he had to ask. I know I felt like I should be doing something to find Elisa, even though I had no idea what.

  “The highway patrol will be actively looking for the car. They’ll find it. Don’t worry. For now, we wait,” the officer said. “We’ll stay here in case Waycroft calls with demands or has your wife call.”

  It was 4:30 by then. I thought about calling Sharon to update her on what we knew about Waycroft and Elisa, but decided against it. She had plenty going on, there wasn’t anything she could do, and she had my cell number if she wanted to talk. So we waited, speculated, fixed some food that only the cops ate, paced the floor, checked the phone to make sure it was working, and waited some more.

  Sharon called me on my cell at 9:30. She had waited until Nathan had gone to sleep. Joel was still there with them. “I did my best to explain to Nathan what had happened without giving him a lot of details. I told him that his grandfather had gone crazy and tried to hurt people. Joel was great at explaining how people can sometimes lose touch and do things that cause a lot of pain to people they love. I didn’t tell Nathan anything about Adam—just about what happened to us today.”

  Sharon already knew about Waycroft ditching his car at Holly’s. The police had called to see if she had any ideas about where Waycroft might go from there. She didn’t. Sharon sounded exhausted. I tried to convince her to get some sleep, but she said she couldn’t sleep while Elisa was in danger. We agreed to keep in touch during the night.

  Chapter 40

  It was 11:00 pm when the call finally came. Holly’s car had been fou
nd crashed off highway 119 near Central City. Waycroft was dead. Elisa was in serious condition at Boulder Community Hospital. We all jumped in our cars and headed into town to the hospital.

  I called Sharon, but of course the police had already notified her. She had arrangements to make about Waycroft. Fortunately Joel had insisted on staying, so she wasn’t alone.

  It was a long night at the hospital. Elisa had multiple injuries, and had lost a lot of blood. For a while it looked grim. They took her to surgery. We waited. Finally, at 3:00 a.m., good news. She was stable. We wouldn’t be able to talk to her for a long time, so at 4:00 a.m. I decided to go home and get some sleep. I was pretty groggy by then. I managed to make it home, but was having trouble getting my key in the lock on my front door, when I heard a voice from the shadows of my porch.

  “Need some help with that key?”

  I screamed, jumped about a foot, and ran back toward my car. But he was quicker than I, and grabbed me before I could reach the car.

  “Erik! What are you doing here?”

  “We have some stuff to talk about, Cleo.”

  “Look, Erik. This is one of the worst days of my life. I can’t talk.

  Now go away or I’ll call the police.”

  “No you won’t.” He grabbed my purse, before I could pull out my cell phone. “Now sit down. We’re going to talk.” He pushed me down hard onto a wooden porch chair.

  I was too exhausted to resist. So I sat there waiting to see what he would do next.

  He sat in a chair across from me. “You have me all wrong,” he said. “Everything I do is to help people. My products help people feel better, my herb business helps people make money. I help the old feeble people at Shady Terrace get stronger. But you make trouble for me everywhere. You snoop around, accuse me of killing my wife and of pushing Adam over a cliff. Why are you trying to destroy me?”

  “Erik, don’t try to sell yourself as altruistic. I know about your shady deals, your stolen assets, your self-serving life. Okay. I was wrong about Adam. I know you didn’t push him. But the other stuff I don’t take back.” I should have tried to placate him, rather than confront him. But it had been a long day, and I was too tired to be tactful.