by Ellery Adams
Laurel asked Olivia to boot up her laptop while she placed a call to Chief Rawlings, hoping to prime him for information before he made what was sure to become a celebrated arrest.
“No luck,” she told Olivia. “He’s not answering his office or cell numbers and I can’t reach Officer Cook either. He’s kind of been my go-to guy. That man loves the idea of having his name in the paper.”
As Olivia began a search for the Donald family, the doorbell rang. Haviland, who had stretched out on the tiles under the kitchen table, raised his head and lifted his ears in curiosity. Then, seeing that his mistress hadn’t reacted to the sound, he flopped back onto the cool floor and closed his eyes.
Upon hearing more than one set of footsteps in Laurel’s hallway, Olivia stopped typing. It seemed odd to her that there were at least two people in the house, perhaps more, and yet no one spoke. The feeling intensified. Sensing something was wrong; she swiveled in her chair and gasped.
There was Laurel—trembling hands held above her head in surrender, face ashen with terror.
She stood shakily between the rigid bodies of a man and a woman. They both had tanned skin and brown hair streaked gold by the sun. They were both armed and their deep-set dark eyes were cold with rage.
The woman held a knife with a sinister black blade and the man held a length of steel wire. They wore identical work gloves with red rubber palms.
Olivia’s eyes moved from the bloodred hue to the clenched jaws and icy calm stares of the Cliché Killers. Rutherford and Ellen Donald had clearly not fled town.
The siblings had another agenda. They’d come to exact their revenge on one more Pampticoe High alumnus.
They’d come for Laurel.
Chapter 16
So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending.
—J. R. R. TOLKIEN
“I’m sorry, Ellen!” Laurel cried, turning to face the woman on her left. “I was an idiot to tease you like I did! I was more than an idiot! I was cruel but I am so, so sorry!”
Ellen shrugged, indicating that Laurel’s apology hadn’t moved her one bit. “You were a stupid sheep. You were all sheep, doing what the cool kids told you to.” Her words were flawlessly clear and laced with bitterness. The woman who had grown up with a major speech impediment now spoke with the elocution of a Juilliard actress. “Rutherford and me were little bugs for you to step on. You didn’t think about anything but your clothes and your boyfriends. Now you’re all grown up and you’re still the same.” She gestured in a wide circle with her knife. “Perfect house. Perfect little family. Sheep.”
“And a perfect job where you get to judge other people in print. Do you think you’ve earned the right to influence people?” Rutherford growled. “We’ve read what you’ve written about us, little lamb. Let me ask you, what do you really know about us?”
Laurel’s face crumpled. “I know you’re not wicked! People were mean to you and you both suffered. I played a part in that, but I have two precious boys—”
“Shut up!” Ellen shouted angrily, spittle flying from her mouth. “My brother and I never got a chance to have families of our own. Not only did our folks force us to live at home until we were nearly thirty, but people screwed with us for too many years before that for us to come out normal. We’ve waited a long time to punish everyone who hurt us. You need to understand”—she brought the tip of her black blade within centimeters of Laurel’s eye—“we have nothing to lose.”
“You were one of them, Laurel,” Rutherford hissed and then, in a frightening singsong, he whispered, “Cat got your tongue, cat got your tongue, cat go your tongue,” until Laurel put her hands over her ears, her fingers shaking like branches in a hurricane wind.
Olivia had sat through this charged scene as though made of stone. Her focus was divided by the appearance of the Donald siblings and the absurd thought that if she were a character in a movie or a book, she’d immediately come up with a plan to save her friend. There would have been some useful weapon at hand and the police would have been battering down the front door, moments away from rescuing the women in the midst of a desperate struggle against the villains.
When Ellen raised her knife to Laurel’s face, Olivia was able to break the spell of immobility and react. Slowly turning her head, she looked for a weapon that could stop both Ellen and Rutherford, but the only items nearby were Laurel’s laptop and two plastic sippy cups belonging to Dallas and Dermot.
Yet, Olivia had two advantages. The Donalds weren’t paying attention to her, giving her the element of surprise if only for the next few seconds. And she had Haviland, out of sight beneath the kitchen table. It would only take a single word to subtract from the intruders’ advantage and Olivia knew the moment had come to call it out.
“HAVILAND!” Her shout was infused with authority. “ATTACK!”
She jumped up and jerked her chair to the side, giving Haviland the space he needed to bolt out from under the table. In a flash of black fur and bared teeth, he was on Rutherford before the man could even think of slipping his length of sharp wire over the poodle’s head.
When Rutherford howled in pain, Olivia lunged forward, grabbing hold of Ellen’s wrist. The knife tilted away from Laurel’s face and Olivia yelled, “RUN! NOW! CALL RAWLINGS!”
Laurel complied. In a flash of blond hair, she raced through the kitchen to the garage.
Olivia had no time to feel relief that her friend had escaped. Ellen, who was younger and stronger, suddenly wrenched her forearm to the side and broke free of Olivia’s grasp. Her eyes were wild, glittering with madness and decades of unspent rage.
She slashed at Olivia’s chest with her knife and Olivia leapt backward, but not quickly enough. A searing pain screamed along the flesh of her upper arm and Ellen smiled, delighted to have drawn blood from this stranger who’d dared to interfere.
Haviland yelped, and even though hearing his cry was like receiving another wound, Olivia didn’t dare take her eyes from her opponent. She struck out with her right leg, her foot slamming powerfully into Ellen’s stomach. She heard a grunt and Ellen bent over, the air knocked from her lungs. Olivia used the reprieve to dash into the kitchen, her arm burning in agony.
At a safe distance for mere seconds, she tried to yank open a drawer in search of the biggest knife she could find, but child-protection locks had been affixed on every drawer.
“Damn it!” Olivia had never felt such intense helplessness.
But she did not have time to waste on self-pity. Ellen was coming for her again, knife held out in front of her, lips twisted in a predator’s smile. “You’re going to pay for hurting my brother!” she snarled. “When I’m done with you, I’m going to carve up your dog like a Thanksgiving turkey!”
“What is with you and all the clichés?” Olivia asked derisively, deliberately backing into a corner. Behind her was Laurel’s new coffee machine, complete with a twelve-cup, stainless steel thermal carafe. She’d brewed a full pot of coffee only an hour ago. There were at least eight cups of hot coffee left.
As Ellen advanced, Olivia unscrewed the pot’s lid. The motion hurt her arm terribly and she could feel the blood soaking into her shirt and streaming down her skin until it had covered her wrist and fingers, but she couldn’t give in to the pain. Across the room, Haviland was also fighting for his life. Rutherford’s body had been strengthened by years of physical labor and he could easily break the poodle’s bones or punch him hard enough to render Haviland unconscious.
Olivia knew she couldn’t waste another minute tangling with Ellen. She needed to end this now.
“So now you’re mocking us too?” Ellen hissed. “We didn’t get to go to college like some people. We taught ourselves what our folks wouldn’t and worked shit jobs until we had enough to pay for an apartment and bills and the operation our ignorant parents should have given us when we were kids! But we showed them.” She uttered a strangled chuckle.
As much as Olivia wanted to hear every nuance behind the
siblings’ motives, it was more important to incapacitate Ellen Donald. She waited for the other woman to lunge with her knife hand. At that moment, Olivia jerked to the right and flung the contents of the coffeepot into Ellen’s face.
The knife clattered to the floor as Ellen raised both hands to her face, screaming. Mercilessly, Olivia swung the stainless steel vessel with all her strength, landing a debilitating blow to the side of Ellen’s head. The woman sank to the ground like a stone dropped into deep water.
Olivia stepped over her opponent’s sprawled legs.
A voice shouted, “FREEZE!”
It was Rawlings. He stood in Laurel’s foyer, his gun drawn and fixed on Rutherford. Two officers, both of whom had their weapons trained on Ellen’s brother, flanked the chief.
Olivia’s gaze turned to Rutherford. Her blood turned to ice.
Rutherford had a switchblade in his hand and was pointing it at Haviland’s throat. The poodle was growling a low, dangerous growl and was tensing to pounce. If he did, Rutherford’s blade would pass straight through his jugular.
“Haviland! Off!” Olivia commanded but terror made her words come out as a croak.
Rawlings stepped forward. “I will shoot you in the leg, Rutherford Donald. If you do not drop your weapon this instant so help me, I will shoot you!”
“Come, Haviland!” Olivia heard the desperation in her voice but didn’t care. “Come to me!”
The poodle obeyed. Skirting around Rutherford, he reached Olivia’s side and nudged her with his nose.
Olivia couldn’t stop the tears of relief that fell onto Haviland’s fur as she ran her panicked fingers over his body. There was no blood so he had not been cut and he didn’t flinch in pain as she examined him. His chest was slightly tender and Olivia suspected he’d taken one of Rutherford’s blows to that region, but all in all, he was well.
In turn, Haviland licked her, nuzzled her, and sniffed her wound, whining a little in concern. Olivia waited until Rutherford tossed his knife onto the rug and was promptly cuffed by one of the officers before she returned to the kitchen. She wound Laurel’s checkered dishcloth around her arm and winced as a fresh burst of pain shot up the damaged limb.
Rawlings was beside her in an instant.
He was angry. “You’re hurt.”
His eyes blazed with threads of green and gold and Olivia realized that they only had that appearance when the chief was struggling to keep his emotion in check. He found another dishcloth in a drawer and placed it over the first, applying pressure to Olivia’s wound. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
Don’t look, Olivia told herself, but then she did. Blood seeped through both towels, spreading across the material in a wave of red. She felt a surge of nausea and then a rush of cloying heat. She reached out for the countertop to steady herself before she passed out altogether.
“Easy,” Rawlings whispered and put his arm around her waist. He eased her to one of the kitchen chairs. “Keep your head down. Breathe deeply.” She did as he directed but he wasn’t satisfied. “No, slow down. Innnnnnnnn. Now ouuuuuuuuuuut. Better.”
They remained like this for a full minute. Olivia had the absurd thought that they sounded like an expectant couple practicing Lamaze breathing techniques. She carefully straightened and looked at Rawlings. His face was inches from hers and his eyes had softened, returning to their muddy, pond green hue. “Thank you,” she murmured. “You came just in time.”
Rawlings glowered. “Yes, we did. That’s our job, remember? When you talked Laurel into investigating the Donald siblings, you put both of your lives in danger. All I asked you to do was to think about the meaning of the clichés! I didn’t ask you to lure the killers here!”
“They would have come for her anyway!” Olivia protested but silently felt the chief had spoken the truth. After all, the robbery victims were old enough to have attended Pampticoe High with both Ellen and Rutherford. Laurel was two years younger than the others and had only ridiculed Ellen. Her articles about the siblings may have drawn their attention to her. If she hadn’t started writing about them, it was likely they would never have remembered her at all. “Where is Laurel?” Olivia asked, needing to know that her friend was safe.
“Sitting in my car. She’s both shaken and plenty mad over having to stay behind while we charged in, but she’ll get over it.”
Olivia gave Rawlings a grateful smile. “I’m relieved she didn’t witness how this played out. By the time she comes back into the house, the Donalds will be gone and I’ll have this mess cleaned up.” She briefly gestured at the bloodsplattered floor and countertop.
She and Rawlings watched as one of Rawlings’ brawny officers fastened Ellen’s limp wrists together in front of her body using a plastic restraint and then the officer sat down beside her to wait for the paramedics to arrive.
“I like Ellen much better when she’s unconscious.” Olivia stood and wrestled with the child lock of the cabinet beneath the sink, searching for cleaning supplies.
“Get back in that chair. The only thing you’re doing is going to the hospital,” Rawlings commanded and waited until she was seated again. “This place is about to be invaded by EMTs and an army of cops. The scene must be thoroughly documented.”
“Then let Laurel take me to get stitched up,” Olivia said. “You know how slow emergency rooms are. By the time I’m finished, your team should be done here.”
Rawlings got down on his knees and put his hands on her shoulders. “Only if you promise to go straight there. No stopping to purchase a pound of raw liver for Haviland, though God knows the dog deserves it.” He glanced over at the poodle. “Well done, sir. You could show our K-9 unit a thing or two. Our department might need to look into those advanced canine training classes you took.”
Olivia was overwhelmed by the urge to kiss Sawyer Rawlings. She raised her good arm and put her palm flat against his rough cheek. “Haviland’s not my only hero,” she whispered and pulled his head toward hers. Closing her eyes, she pressed her lips against his lips and felt his hand slide up the skin of her neck. It came to rest at the nape but his fingertips stretched a bit higher, gently grabbing her hair and sending a ripple of heat through her body. She responded by opening her mouth more fully, inviting him to kiss her more deeply and with more urgency.
The tread of heavy footsteps reentering the house ruined the moment. They hastily broke apart, flushed and glassy-eyed with desire.
“Put your arm around my waist,” Rawlings directed huskily.
“I am perfectly capable of walking outside without assistance, thank you,” she answered stiffly, noting that the officers were watching their chief with interest.
Rawlings frowned. “Do as I say or I will carry you out.”
Feigning reluctance, Olivia allowed Rawlings to support her, but in truth she wanted to feel his touch, no matter what the circumstances were. She leaned into him, smelling coffee and soap and the sandalwood of his aftershave, and Haviland brought up the rear, looking as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Outside, Laurel was pacing back and forth on the lawn. The cruisers bearing the Donald siblings were already gone.
“Oh, Olivia! Thank God!” Laurel ran to them, her eyes puffy from crying. She stared at the bloody dishtowels Rawlings held against Olivia’s upper arm. “What happened?”
“She has a deep laceration and needs to be taken to the hospital,” Rawlings said with perfect calm. “Can you drive her? I need to stay on site until the other officers arrive.”
Laurel nodded vigorously. “Of course!” Taking Olivia’s purse from the chief, she sprinted to the Range Rover and hopped into the driver’s seat.
As Rawlings opened the passenger door, Olivia leaned toward him and whispered, “Please make sure everything looks normal before she comes home. I know that’s not exactly your job, but I’m asking as a favor to me.”
With Laurel busy digging through Olivia’s purse for her keys, Rawlings felt free to brush Olivia’s neck
with his lips. “Since you asked so nicely . . .” He then eased her into the car and opened the back door for Haviland.
“No stopping,” he told Laurel firmly. “No matter what she says.”
Laurel squared her shoulders. “Yes, Chief. I promise.”
Olivia had no intention of avoiding the hospital, but she asked Laurel to drop her off at the emergency room and take Haviland to the park.
“He’s not allowed inside anyway,” she reminded Laurel when her friend began to argue. She insisted on waiting until Olivia had registered and moved back to the triage area before driving off with Haviland.
The entire ordeal took over two hours. Olivia’s cut was deep enough to merit a layer of dissolvable stitches to help the rent tissue mend, followed by fifty-some sutures to knit her layers of skin back together. She received a tetanus shot, instructions on how to clean her wound, and an appointment for suture removal in ten days’ time.
During the ride back to Laurel’s house, Olivia’s arm throbbed mercilessly. She’d been given plenty of shots to kill the pain while the doctor cleaned and repaired her wound, but now there was a steady ache and her entire arm felt heavy and swollen. The nurse had given Olivia a sling, and though she hated to wear it, she couldn’t imagine letting her limb hang on its own.
Not only had Laurel let Haviland dash after the park’s squirrels to his heart’s content, but per Olivia’s request she’d taken him to the vet to ensure he had no injuries. As soon as Diane declared the poodle healthy as usual, Laurel called The Boot Top and asked Michel to prepare something special for the canine champion.
“My mother-in-law is picking up the twins so we can go straight to the restaurant,” Laurel said. “I’m in no rush to go home.”
Olivia leaned back against the headrest. “Good. I could use a drink.”
Being that it was past lunchtime, The Boot Top’s bar was empty and the lights were set to their daytime setting. Olivia immediately adjusted the dimmer slide until the room was plunged into semidarkness.