All The Deadly Secrets

by Carol Schaal

  I took a couple wobbly steps toward her, blinking my eyes rapidly. When Kylie reached out a hand to steady me, I tightened my grip on the handle of the heavy ironstone mug and hit her in the face with it. I heard the satisfying sound of her nose breaking. Kylie fell sideways onto the sofa, and I grabbed her right arm and twisted it hard behind her back. Kylie let out a muffled scream and started kicking her legs and twisting her body, trying to dislodge me. I twisted her arm up higher, and Kylie screamed louder.

  I jumped off the sofa, ran to the kitchen, and yanked my cell phone from my purse, my eyes trained on the kitchen doorway. I punched in 911. Nothing. Of course. I’d forgotten about the sketchy service in Sarah’s neighborhood.

  I heard movement in the living room, dropped my cell phone on the kitchen table, and backed up fast as Kylie, blood streaming down her face, her right arm held close to her body, stumbled into the kitchen.

  Kylie staggered forward, and I saw a glint of something in her left hand. Her eyes narrowed, and she moved in close. I grabbed the back of a kitchen chair with my left hand, and the glint caught the kitchen light and slashed through my left forearm. I managed to lift the chair and swing it toward her, walloping her right side. She let out a screech, stumbled, and fell to the floor.

  I stepped closer, looking for the glint I’d seen in her hand but didn’t see it, then jumped over her body and ran for the stairs. In the hallway at the top of the stairs, I opened the door on the right, fearful of what I would find.

  The room was empty. I opened the other upstairs doors onto rooms also empty. I ran down the stairs, slowing down as I neared the bottom, checking for signs of Kylie. She was not in the living room. I edged around to the kitchen. No Kylie, but the outside door was open.

  I knew it could be a trick, she could be hiding inside, but I needed to find Sarah. I picked up the kitchen chair that was lying on the floor and turned to my left. Holding the chair in front of me, I took small steps toward Bernice’s bedroom, my eyes darting back and forth.

  The bedroom door was closed. I stood to the side, chair in one hand, and reached over, turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  I peeked in the room and saw Sarah lying crookedly on the bed. I pushed the door harder, so it slammed against the wall, making sure Kylie wasn’t behind it. I walked backward to the bed, my eyes on the closet door, set the chair down and reached over to touch Sarah. She was breathing evenly, and I shook her gently. “Sarah, wake up. Sarah, it’s Lauren. You have to wake up.” In the distance, I heard a car door slam and an engine starting.

  Huddled on my knees, I put my right arm under Sarah’s shoulders, carefully cradling her head, and saw red drops falling from my left arm onto the white tufted bedspread. I kept calling Sarah’s name. In what seemed like a lifetime, she finally wiggled a bit and moaned.

  “Sarah, please, you have to wake up. Now. We have to go.”

  Sarah turned and looked at me. “Lauren? Is that you?”

  I hugged her tightly and pulled her body to a sitting position.

  “What, what, why are you here? What happened?”

  “You’re hurt,” I told her. “We need to drive to a neighbor’s house and call for help.”

  It took several minutes for me to maneuver Sarah to her feet. She laughed when I put my right arm around her waist and nudged her forward.

  My left arm was throbbing, and blood was still seeping through my hoodie. I saw nothing amusing about the situation, but Sarah took a different view.

  “Whoopsie!” she said. “Am I drunk?”

  I was finally able to get Sarah to the kitchen, where I leaned her against the table, draped my new jacket over her, and grabbed my purse. Several awkward moves later, I got her out the door and into my car. The other car was gone. Eliot bumped against my leg, and I scooped him up and put him back in the house, closing the door on his plaintive pleas.

  Full dark had arrived, and an icy wind whistled through the trees. When I got in the car, Sarah appeared to be asleep. I jostled her, and she shook her head and grinned at me.

  “Whatever Kylie gave you,” I told her, “looks like fun.”

  A half mile down the road, I pulled into her closest neighbor’s driveway, laying on the horn to get someone’s attention. When an older gentleman eventually hobbled out the door, waving his hands, I stopped honking and rolled down my window.

  He walked over to the car, glanced at me, then peered past me at Sarah, who was snoozing gently in the passenger seat. “Sarah, is that you? What’s wrong?”

  “Help me,” I said. He started to walk around my car, and I jumped out and joined him outside on the passenger side. I opened the door, joggled Sarah, who lifted her head and moaned. Her neighbor and I managed to get her out of the car and into the house, where we guided her to a sofa.

  It took much longer than I wanted it to, but I convinced the gentleman to call an ambulance because Sarah had been drugged. I told him to call the police, too.

  “I have to go,” I said. “The woman who did this took off. I need to find her. She’s a murderer, and I’m afraid she’s going to hurt someone else.”

  I stepped outside.

  “But you’re bleeding,” he called to me from the front door as I got back in the car.

  “Get help for Sarah. I’ll let the police know what I’m doing as soon as I’m in cell phone range.”

  I gunned the engine and took off into the swirl of snow. A few miles down the road, I decided I might finally be able to get phone service. I could call the police from the car and continue my trip toward Alleton. Just before I reached in my purse, I pictured that moment at Sarah’s when Kylie staggered into the kitchen and I’d dropped the phone. It was still on Sarah’s kitchen table. I saw the lights of the roadside diner ahead on my right. Should I stop there?

  My car slid on the icy road, and I clutched the wheel harder, wincing at the pain where Kiley had sliced my left arm. Kylie had already killed two people. I had no idea what she planned to do next, but I feared the worst and wasn’t about to let her escape. I passed the diner and hunched forward in the seat, peering at the side of the road as I pressed hard on the gas pedal, fighting to stay on the slippery pavement.

  38

  About a quarter mile from Christie and Tom’s house, I pulled my car into the woods, hiding it behind a small stand of trees. A sliver of moon turned the night ghostly. I walked toward the mansion, not getting too close, until I could see from peering behind a tree that its windows were dark.

  I made my way to Kylie’s cottage, which also was dark, and in the pale moonlight I found a well-worn path leading through the woods. I followed it until I stood several yards from the giant oak in whose lower branches Kylie had built a tree fort. It was Evie’s “secret place,” the one I had seen on the map I had found on the shelves by her toddler table at Kylie’s.

  I heard what sounded like singing and moved a bit closer, still staying out of sight. The low crooning and rushing wind covered the sound of my advance. The cover of trees began to thin, and I dropped down and crawled to a thicket of bushes.

  Cold seeped through the knees of my jeans as I raised my upper body and peeked through the bushes. I stifled a gasp of dismay when I saw Kylie, blood smeared on her face, sitting on the ground under the oak tree, a blanket-wrapped Evie cradled in her left arm. I knew Kylie could reach Evie’s bedroom from a side door but hadn’t thought she would risk taking her niece out into the cold. I was wrong.

  Knowing I might also be wrong about what I was going to try, I still had to take a chance. Evie might be in danger from the cold, but she could be in even more danger from her aunt, a stone-cold killer.

  I picked up a small, thick stick and lobbed it over the bushes. It landed to Kylie’s right. She started and looked around the clearing, although the darkness kept her from seeing me.

  “I know someone’s out there,” she called. “Is it you, Lauren? Go ahead, show yourself. I can’t hurt you.”

  She might still have the knife, but I didn’t
think she would let go of Evie to come after me. I stood up, parted the bushes, and walked into the clearing, careful to stay out of her reach.

  “You’re quite the fighter,” she said, pulling Evie closer to her body. “Another one of your secrets?”

  “No,” I said, sitting on the frozen ground several feet from her. “I took a self-defense class after Drew died.” I hesitated, then held out my arms, blood dribbling down my left hand. “Do you want me to hold Evie? I could take her back to your cottage, get her warmed up.”

  Kylie let out a strangled cry. “You’re like everyone else,” she said. “Always taking things away, never giving me what I want.”

  “No. I just want to give Evie some hot chocolate. You could come with me.” The cold was seeping through my flimsy hoodie and jeans, and I was feeling faint. I had to get Evie and myself inside before I passed out.

  “Do you know what Bernice said to me when I asked if she would sell me her shop?” I shook my head, but Kylie wasn’t paying attention to me, she was staring off into the distance. “She laughed, said she wasn’t about to sell to a drug dealer.”

  I was right about the explanation for Kylie’s deep pockets, her ability to buy expensive clothes and furniture.

  “When I went to her house that Sunday, I asked if she would teach me what I would need to know. I told her I was done selling drugs, I knew it was wrong. And I could run the store and not have to run around so much looking for web clients.”

  “She still said no,” I guessed. “And you made nice, handed her one of your poisoned cookies, and you ate one of the safe ones.”

  “We each had two. The Dragon Lady even made me tea. But when I left, that cat somehow got out the back door, maybe because I threw a cookie out onto the yard. I convinced Bernice we had to find him.” Kylie laughed, an eerie sound, and Evie stirred in her arms. I wondered if Kylie had given her something to help her sleep. “Bye-bye Bernice.”

  I scooted closer, getting a better look at Kylie’s face but still unable to see if she had a weapon somewhere. Kylie turned and looked directly at me.

  “Don’t get too close,” she said, and I shivered at the malevolent sound of her voice. “You don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Just checking on Evie.”

  “You think I would hurt her? I love her. I was the one who paid for that bloodmobile. You don’t think I’m good enough? Be careful. That’s what ugly Dennis thought, too.”

  “What about Dennis?” I asked. If I could keep her talking, immersed in her own anger and memories, I might be able to get even closer. “What did he take away from you?”

  It was hard to tell in the dark, but I thought she was crying. “D.J.,” she said, “he took D.J. My soulmate, the one I could build a future with, the one who would help me raise Evie once I took care of my always-busy sister and her money-hungry husband.”

  I couldn’t stifle my gasp. For the first time, I realized that trying to talk sensibly to Kylie had little chance of success. But Kylie was back in her own world and didn’t react to my exhalation of horror.

  “Dennis saw me when I was outside the toy store a few times, supposedly waiting for D.J., but noticed that sometimes I’d hand a small package to a person walking by. That stupid jerk figured out I was dealing and said if I didn’t break up with D.J., he’d tell my sister, and she would never let me take care of Evie again.”

  While Kylie talked, I dug my heels into the cold ground and dragged my body forward, moving closer by inches. I trembled with cold or fright, it was hard to tell which. The left arm of my hoodie was soaked with blood.

  Kylie hugged Evie even closer. “I thought D.J. would be thankful that I tried to save his dad’s life. It was so cool when Dennis died. Then I could be with D.J.”

  She turned and looked at me, chin up, eyes narrowed. “You,” she said, spitting out the word. “You acted like my friend, and then you introduced D.J. to that Tiffany and …” she slowly shook her head. “I was hoping you’d be tired of this place and leave once I burned your shop down. But no. You wouldn’t go away. That’s when I decided to burn you and Sarah up in her house. I would have laughed and laughed. And then I could buy Bathing Beauty.”

  She suddenly seemed to realize I was sitting right beside her.

  “Kylie,” I said, reaching out my right hand to touch her shoulder, “you’re shaking. You don’t have any more body heat to share with Evie. Let’s go to your place, get warmed up.”

  I was shaking too, and so dizzy I wasn’t sure I could stand up even if Kylie let me take Evie. She looked down at Evie and then looked away.

  “They’ll take me to jail. No one understands me. No one knows what I would do to keep her safe. They’ll just take me away.”

  Kylie’s eyes widened, as the reality of her words hit her.

  “It’s over for me, isn’t it?” she said.

  Before I could answer, she pulled Evie close and kissed her cheek, leaving behind a smear of blood. Evie, eyes closed, sighed softly. Kylie put her right arm under Evie’s legs, grunting at the pain the movement cost her, then held her out to me. I reached out and accepted the gift.

  Kylie stood up, her left hand holding her right arm close to her body. She looked down at me.

  “You’ll take good care of her, won’t you?” she asked.

  “You know I will,” I said. “But you need to call an ambulance. Please, you need to keep Evie safe.”

  Kylie sniffled and pointed at Evie. “Tell her I love her. I always will.”

  She turned and walked away, not toward her cottage but farther into the woods.

  I opened my hoodie and tucked Evie inside. I held her tiny body close to mine as I rolled onto on my right side, protecting her from the wind as the world turned dark.

  39

  The mid-March grand re-opening of Bathing Beauty was not an unqualified success. It was still too early in the season for a rush of customers to show up. But we did okay, and my new business partner, Sarah, was pleased. She was already booking slots for the new tanning booth.

  After the close of business that day, several Alleton merchants stopped by to join Sarah and me. We each raised a glass of champagne and feasted on appetizers supplied by Frank, who gifted me with a “Never be afraid to take a whisk” apron. Justin gave me a quick hug and whispered that he had just earned a recovery button from Narcotics Anonymous. Even Tami showed up. We were still not best pals, but thanks to D.J. speaking on my behalf, the door had a crack in it.

  The big surprise was the appearance of Detective Maccini, doing his friendly community cop bit. I was happy to see him. When I came to in the hospital after the horrendous events, he had been my first visitor.

  “What happened?” I asked him. “You said Evie is okay? Is that true? How long have I been here?”

  Maccini pressed a button, raising the level of the bed. “Yes, Evie really is okay. She’s already home and doing great. The doctors think she was given some cold medicine to make her sleepy, but at least she stayed warm. And you’ve been here about 10 hours, stitched up, warmed up, rehydrated. Docs say you are doing fine,”

  The details of that sad, frightful evening with Kylie had slowly come back to me. “And Sarah? How’s Sarah?”

  “Good. Doctors pumped her stomach, no fun, but she came through with no ill effects.”

  There was one person he hadn’t mentioned. “And what about …” I couldn’t say her name.

  “We got a 911 call, that’s how we found you and Evie in the woods.”

  I recalled my last minutes with Kylie. She must have made the emergency call.

  “Where is she?”

  He looked down. “Some cross-country skiers found her body curled up next to a tree in the state park. The coroner thinks she took some drugs and just started walking until she couldn’t walk anymore. Huh.”

  A nurse entered the room and checked the level in a bag hanging by the bed. “We’re just hydrating you. An aide will bring you some food in a little bit.” She tu
rned and left, her shoes squeaking on the tile floor.

  Maccini said he needed to hear from me what had happened while it was still fresh in my mind. For the next several minutes, I related the tragic events as he ran a recorder.

  “Need to talk more later, but for now, you have visitors waiting to see you. And Lauren,” he hesitated, then gave me a rueful smile, “I had two murders to solve, and nobody gets a pass on my watch when it comes to finding the perpetrator. I was keeping an eye on Kylie, too. We were pretty sure she was dealing.”

  I took a deep breath. “Part of that was my fault,” I said. “I shouldn’t have kept my past a secret. I’m sorry.”

  The counselor was back. “Huh. Apology accepted. But from now on, Victoria Lauren,” he added, “call the police when bad things happen.”

  40

  A couple weeks before Bathing Beauty’s grand re-opening, I flew to Florida. My visit to Tampa included a barbecue at Raelynn and Garrett’s house. It was seventy-eight degrees, a late winter heat wave for Tampa, and I felt like a butterfly in my shorts, flowered sleeveless top, and slingback sandals, released from my Michigan-winter chrysalis of a dark coat and sturdy snow boots.

  Self-proclaimed “King of the Grill” Garrett cooked ribs, burgers, and chicken; Mom and Dad shared stories of their volunteer work in Haiti, but only after my mom, always Wanda the Worrier, finished lecturing me on the chances I took when I went after Kylie; and Aunt Raelynn, Greg, Carmen, and I applauded Roberto’s attempts to do a cartwheel.

  “I have an announcement,” I said when the meal ended, wiping away the sauce on my hands and getting up to stand at the head of the picnic table.

  Everyone stopped talking, and Raelynn shot me a concerned look.