Bitter Reckoning

by Heather Graham

  Her mind raced, again focusing on Colleen. No. She couldn’t believe in friend’s guilt, but she knew, she had to consider any possible suspect. Collen had been out in the area often, she had been in New Orleans. She had gotten to know Trent Anderson. She had access to everything about her own dating site.

  No…

  There would be no way she would have had the strength to ram the scarecrow poles into the ground; she could not have managed this on her own.

  Maybe no one had managed this on their own; it was, at the least, a two-person effort.

  She closed her eyes briefly, wincing. No.

  Colleen was wearing another fleur-de-lis. A copy. There were dozens of them, so she said. What if Colleen had really befriended Trent Anderson herself, or…

  Someone else.

  But…

  Trent. Trent Anderson. He had property right next to the graveyard.

  But even assuming Colleen had an accomplice, would it have to be Trent?

  She had to get out carefully. Find John Appleby—and Colleen. Easy enough; she knew to crawl out slowly and silently and use the tangle of foliage just outside to hide.

  She got to her feet and swayed for a moment. She blinked hard and concentrated.

  She had to move—had to!—if she wanted to survive and find Colleen and John Appleby.

  Determined, she made her way past bones, coffins, tombs, and the dust and ash of the ages to the narrow, shrouded entrance to the tomb.

  Carefully, she climbed out, staying low, keeping her body almost completely flat and one with the ground.

  She immediately ducked behind the weeds and brush that all but covered the opening.

  She almost gasped out loud but stopped herself by clamping a hand over her mouth.

  There were three poles set up, one in front of each of the grass-covered vaults.

  Piles of straw were set up by them, along with lengths of rope.

  Three…

  Ready for three flesh and blood bodies.

  And she’d found John Appleby. He was lain right before the first of pole. She didn’t know if he was dead or alive; she had to reach him and get help.

  But before she could move, she heard it.

  An eerie laughter, echoing through the graveyard, as if an evil witch from an old fairy tale had made an appearance.

  It was no evil witch who had arrived, Danni knew.

  It was the killer.

  Chapter 12

  “We’re not there yet, Quinn,” Larue said, puzzled when Quinn drew the car to a halt in front of the forested land that bordered the cemetery—and belonged to Trent Anderson.

  “I don’t want to get there,” Quinn said. “Larue—I see a cop car in front—but I don’t see a cop. I think we should move carefully. I want to get to Danni…”

  His voice trailed. “Larue.”

  “What?”

  “Look.”

  He pointed toward the woods right before them. A car—mangled like a tin can—had been pushed into the brush, and almost covered over with broken branches and high grasses.

  “What the hell?” Larue said.

  “That’s Colleen’s rental,” Quinn said, his heart suddenly thundering at a frantic beat. “Something is happening now,” he said, fighting for control.

  He had to stay in control. His life could depend on it—and more importantly, Danni’s life.

  Danni is smart and strong. He knew it; he believed in her.

  Wolf let out something between a bark and a howl.

  Quinn opened his door and turned to the dog. “You’ve got to stay here right now; this is a quiet mission. Okay, stay, Wolf.”

  The dog looked at him unhappily, but obediently lay down, putting his nose between his paws as he stretched over the back seat and whined again quietly.

  “Good boy,” Quinn said. He turned to Larue. “Let’s enter in a sideways motion and be ready.”

  “Quinn, we should call in—the girls might have been struck by a hit and run driver, or not a hit or run. Someone might have called an ambulance. They could be—”

  “They’re in the cemetery, Larue.”

  “There’s a parish cop car—”

  “And no cop,” Quinn said. “Hey, please. I’m asking you to let me call this one my way.”

  Larue nodded.

  They both exited the car quietly, slipping into the woods and moving through the trees, skirting the area of the broken stone wall.

  They’d just reached a knotted high hammock area thick with cypress when Quinn paused, lifting a hand to Larue and pointing.

  They’d found the cop. Looking past a one-winged angel, they could see him.

  He’d been stretched out on top of a tomb.

  Dead or alive, Quinn didn’t know.

  He moved silently, hopping over the broken wall, Larue behind him, as he hurried to the tomb, looking around.

  They reached it.

  Blood trickled from the cop’s forehead as he lay, arms crossed over his chest, silent as death.

  Quinn touched his throat.

  He was still alive.

  But is Danni still alive? And if so…

  I sure as hell have to find her, fast.

  ***

  The sound of the laughter came closer. Hunched down in the brush before the entrance to the first of the mound vaults, Danni kept as silent, barely breathing.

  She felt torn and twisted.

  John Appleby was on the ground in front of one of the scarecrow poles.

  It was obviously meant for him, and there were two more.

  Something twisted in her gut.

  It just couldn’t be Colleen—she simply couldn’t be involved in this.

  She had been in the car; she had been the driver. She had been coming out here, with or without Danni. She had known Danni, and long before Danni had taken over the Cheshire Cat and become a collector, she had believed a friend had to be helped, no matter what.

  Colleen knew that about her.

  Had she taken off like a bat out of hell, knowing that Danni would follow her? Had she somehow braced before the collision, and avoided being knocked unconscious?

  John Appleby needed help, but Danni could hear the soft sound of laughter coming closer and closer.

  Then the killer walked toward John Appleby, and paused by his side hunkering down.

  “Ah, my dear wreck of a man!” she said. “You were wonderful. You served my purpose so very well. I am delighted I got to know you! But you must realize, really, that…you’re not much of a man. You’re barely surviving. Tonight…well, for you, tonight will surely be a mercy!” She stood, surveying the three scarecrow poles. “Don’t worry, my friend. You won’t be up on a pole. You’ll be here, right down here on the ground, the bloody knife in your hand! You have to prove Trent Anderson is innocent, you see.”

  She stood straight and looked around, staring at the entrance to the tomb.

  For a moment, Danni thought she’d been seen.

  But the killer smiled, hunkering down again. “She’ll be up there, though. Little Miss Perfect, with her flashing eyes and auburn hair and perfectly charming house and…Quinn. Mr. Perfect! Maybe he won’t be so perfect when she isn’t around, but he’ll learn to live with it. Now, don’t worry. I don’t think anyone anywhere would believe you had gotten Quinn up on a pole. He’s off in New Orleans. And the cop…ah, well, the cop…you already bashed him hard in the head. You disillusioned old man.”

  She was fingering something around her neck as she spoke.

  The medallion, Danni thought. The real medallion.

  “It’s almost over,” she said, rising again. “He’ll be here soon. I never start without him. Together…well, soon enough, they’ll know the man I want is innocent…and this whole thing was about love and happily-ever-after, right. You really never had a life. I doubt anyone will have a problem believing you killed yourself—after what you’d done! Disillusioned creepy old dude—it will all be over soon! He just needs time to get here…because I ca
n’t do it all on my own.”

  He needed time to get there. Who? Trent Anderson? Who else?

  Danni weighed her position carefully; she didn’t have anything on her. Not mace, not pepper spray…nothing. She also didn’t have much time. If she could take down this half of the duo…

  She was about five-ten and fairly muscular and active. She wasn’t fond of fights, but Appleby and the cop who was lying somewhere might not have much time.

  John Appleby hadn’t moved—was he still alive?

  She had to take a chance; she had to stop what was happening and reach Quinn or Larue or Ellsworth.

  She tore out of her hiding place like a torpedo, and thankfully she did have the element of surprise.

  And her surprise worked. She slammed into Tracy Willard hard, sending her flying down to the ground. Instinct must have been with her because she found a good-sized portion of a broken tombstone and cracked it down on Tracy’s head, not trying to kill her, just immobilize her.

  Tracy screamed, but with Danni straddled over her, she gave up the fight. She blinked furiously, trying to remain conscious.

  They’d been quick to think of the killer as one man. A man—because of the strength needed for the poles, and to hike bodies up on them, and, of course, a man was involved.

  Trent Anderson…

  Obviously, he and Tracy could provide alibis for one another.

  “Hey!” she heard a cry and while keeping a hand solidly on Tracy’s chest to make sure she was in power, she turned.

  She was stunned to see the man walking toward her at a leisurely pace.

  Bearing a gun. A Sig Hauer, she thought.

  What difference did it make?

  “Nice job,” he told Danni. “But if you will…get off her, please.”

  She stared at him, stunned. From his expression—pleased and superior—she knew instantly she had been wrong, so wrong.

  Trent Anderson wasn’t the killer.

  Beneath her, Tracy began to laugh. “Oh, you thought Trent. Of course, you thought Trent! You silly, silly woman. Old John Appleby will be blamed—I could have Trent blamed. He’s so rich and really, quite good in bed. I’m going to marry him, you see. Then I’ll be so, so rich. There was no way I could allow him to see Belinda Cardigan again—or Ally! Ally didn’t even want him, but she was getting in my way, and was seriously such a bitch. Now, this will be perfect. Our three of three. You, Colleen, and…” She paused, frowning, looking at her accomplice.

  “Don’t worry; I have it planned,” he said.

  “Get the hell off me! Lady,” she shouted to Danni, “your time has come!” As she spoke, pushing Danni away, she flipped a pendant out from beneath her blouse and shoved it beneath Danni’s nose.

  “This, Miss Cafferty, this…it’s the real deal! Just like magic—helping us get everything done! Helping us make the final sacrifice. Oh, that will be you, of course! I think I’ll let you watch Colleen die. We do have a dug-up corpse?” she asked her accomplice.

  “Don’t worry—I have it planned,” he said.

  ***

  Quinn as flush to the ground as he could get was coming around small family mausoleums, tombstones, cherubs and weeping angels. Larue was heading toward the front, calling for help for the downed officer, and for major reinforcement.

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted dozens of cars coming with sirens blazing—the killer or killers might begin to feel desperate. Midnight, the witching hour, seemed to be the customary time for them to kill, but if he or they feared the law was closing in, desperation might alter the time frame.

  When it came, the night came quickly. There were no lights in the cemetery that night; but as the night claimed the sky, a sliver of a moon began to rise casting a meager token of light.

  He thought he heard something; a scream.

  It was coming from just behind the three little tomb hills—where straw had replaced discarded bones in coffins.

  He moved around the first of the hills as quietly as he could, staying low to the ground, and then going flat down upon it. He could hear someone at work there. It sounded like a hammering.

  He crept closer.

  There were three poles staked into the ground. In the weak moonlight, he could barely make them out—or the victims being strung up on then.

  There was a body crumpled on the ground by the first—John Appleby, he thought—and there were three bodies on the poles. Living, as of this moment.

  The first was Colleen Rankin who was either dead or knocked out. The second—alive and well and kicking—was Tracy Willard.

  The last, where a man stood upon a small step ladder creating an elaborate tie on one of her arms while she kicked and squirmed, was Danni.

  Fighting away, yes, that’s my Danni.

  But she wasn’t the only one fighting.

  Tracy Willard, strung up on the second pole, was shouting every manner of vitriol at the man.

  It wasn’t Trent Anderson, but it was the last man he had expected.

  Though quite possibly, the first he should have.

  “You slime! You are nothing without me. You are worthless—a computer nerd, no not even a nerd, a slob, an ugly slob. You need me, you have nothing without me, nothing!” Tracy shouted, her voice a cross between terror and tears.

  Larry Blythe paused in his administrations to Danni and her pole, turning to Tracy. “You are a whore, selling out to the highest bidder. Who did everything—everything? All you wanted to do was kill. Who learned about the three scarecrows and sacrifices? Who had the straw delivered to Trent Anderson’s without him ever knowing? All so we could get away with this, and all the while I thought you meant for Trent Anderson to take the blame. But…all that. And you still treated me like—what was that you said? A computer slob. I did it for you, I did it all for you, and all you wanted was to snare that poor man, take him for everything, and move on. I wouldn’t have gotten so much as a thank you. But—”

  “I’m the one who has the medallion, the magic…our way to freedom!” Tracy cried.

  Quinn knew he needed to make a move; he could see Larry Blythe’s weapon was something like a large bowie knife, and it was sheathed in a leather case at his side. It must have been very sharp—he had slashed throats almost to the bone already.

  He pulled his Glock, rising. Whether the medallion truly wielded a safety net for a killer or if instinct had kicked in for Larry, he swung around instantly sliding the knife from its sheath and placing it towards Danni’s throat.

  “Come out, come out now!” Larry cried.

  Quinn stood and stepped forward, his Glock trained on Larry.

  Larry just smiled.

  “You know, you could shoot me, but this is a great blade. You’d never believe it, but I bought it from a honky-tonk place out here. Cleans up real nice, too. So throw that gun down now. Or watch her bleed.”

  “Shoot him! Shoot him!” Tracy screamed. “He’s insane. He’s the one who did all this. He’s going to kill Danni, and Colleen…and me! It’s him, he did this. Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him…”

  The knife edged closer to Danni’s throat.

  Larue burst out of the bushes from the other side of the hill tombs, shouting.

  “Drop it, Larry Blythe, do you hear me? Drop it!”

  Quinn had maintained his Glock so far; he lifted a hand to Larue meeting Danni’s eyes.

  He almost smiled. She didn’t appear to be afraid; she was looking at him with steadfast eyes.

  “Quinn!”

  She didn’t cry out in fear or begging he drop the gun. She sounded almost as if they had met up at a mall, and she just needed to know what was going on.

  “Your ankle…I thought you were limping. Does your ankle hurt?” Danni asked.

  He knew, of course, what she was asking.

  “My ankle is just fine,” he said.

  “Who give a rat’s ass about his ankle?” Tracy demanded. “This maniac is going to kill everybody.”

  “Don’t believe her! She kn
ocked out the cop. She killed Belinda and Ally,” Larry said, “but seriously, drop your weapons.”

  “Larue! Let’s do as he asks!” Quinn said.

  Larue hesitated. Quinn couldn’t really see his friend’s face in the minimal light of the pale moon. He had to hope he would trust him.

  “Okay, get the knife away from Danni. I’m going to drop my gun down on the ground. See, I’m doing it right now.”

  “Push it far away from you, You, too, cop!” Larry called to Quinn and then Larue.

  Larry gave them a huge smile as they did so, shaking his head.

  “Stupid cops, they’ll do it every time!”

  He turned to Danni, smiling pleasantly, eyeing his knife with pleasure. “You know I got the gun, too. But if they try to rush me…oh, wait! I’m going to kill you now anyway!”

  He should have taken greater care with Danni.

  He hadn’t secured her feet.

  She gripped her “scarecrow’s” wooden arms, using them for leverage, and she kicked him. Hard. Swearing and screaming, he went tumbling down backwards from his step stool, waving his knife continuing to spew his hatred at her he rose up, plunging back toward her.

  By then Quinn had drawn his weapon from his ankle holster.

  “Stop; I’ll shoot!” he warned.

  Larry didn’t stop, he spun around, dropping the knife, reaching into his waistband for the gun he had there. He swung toward Danni again.

  Quinn took aim, but he never got off his shot.

  At that moment, it sounded as if a hound from hell had suddenly sent an echo through every tomb in the decaying cemetery.

  Larry Blythe screamed, and even Tracy Willard, strung up to die, betrayed by her accomplice, let out a scream.

  Wolf bounded over the last of a series of broken stones and took aim himself.

  Larry Blythe never even got his gun up. The giant hybrid dog leaped atop him, dragging him down, a death grip on the hand that held the gun.

  Quinn ran over and kicked the gun far from the man. Larue rushed forward then, securing the weapon, hurrying to check Colleen’s condition, and bring her down from the pole.

  For just a few seconds, Quinn stood over Larry.

  He wasn’t worried; Wolf had the man secure.