“I wasn’t going to, not at first,” Chelsea admitted. “I was only going to kill Malcolm. When the police were all over the insurance agency, though, I knew I had to point them in another direction. I was worried that Melanie would tell the cops what I told her about the rape and then they’d focus in on me. I thought, if there were other victims, they would just assume it was a random freeway shooter and pull their focus away from the agency.”
“Didn’t it bother you? Killing a mother? Killing a student?”
“I wasn’t aiming at a student,” Chelsea said. “I thought it was your car.”
Even though Eliot had suspected it, even though I had expected it, the confirmation was like a bullet ripping through my heart. “God, Chelsea, he was just a kid.”
“I thought it was you!”
“Why did you even care about me?”
“Brick told me that you were looking into the freeway shootings,” Chelsea said. “I had no idea who you were the first time I met you. I didn’t put two and two together then. That was my fault, I know. I told him about you coming by the office that night, though, and he told me to be careful about you.”
“He told you about me?”
“He told me you were a snake in the grass,” Chelsea said. “He told me that you were one of those women that didn’t know her place, that you thought you should be in charge like a man. I wanted to think it was just a coincidence, but then I did a little bit of research on you and realized that you weren’t going to give up on the story. I knew you would be back.”
“So that’s why you targeted me? Was I going to be your last?”
“I don’t know,” Chelsea shrugged. “I hadn’t decided yet. I just knew I had to shut you up. When I hit the kid, though, I decided to back off. I figured that would be enough of a warning to you. If I went after you again, then it would tip the cops off that you were on to something. I thought hitting the kid was divine intervention; that God was looking out for me. That he’d led me in the right direction and now you would just give up.”
God, she really was crazy.
“It didn’t take me long to realize, though, that you weren’t giving up,” Chelsea continued. “That became glaringly apparent when you followed Brick and me that night.”
“I was following Brick, not you,” I corrected her.
“Because you suspected him?”
“I thought there was something weird about him,” I admitted. “He was hardly the only one on my suspect list, though.”
“Really?” Chelsea looked alarmed. “Who else?”
“Well, I thought it had ties to the National Guard base for awhile,” I admitted. “Commander Turner was acting weird. Then there was the new public relations liaison for the sheriff’s department. I saw her buying ammunition one day.”
“Lots of people buy ammunition,” Chelsea pointed out.
“I know,” I said hurriedly. “I just really hated her and it would have made things so much easier if it was her.”
“So you really didn’t suspect me?” Chelsea was flabbergasted.
“Not even a little.”
“Well, this is a little embarrassing then,” Chelsea said sadly. “I’m going to have to kill you because you know now. I really am sorry, though. I know your family is in there and this will probably upset them, but I have to protect myself and Brick. We have a future, and we deserve to be happy.”
“Brick isn’t liable for you stealing his gun,” I said. I was starting to panic. I was running out of time.
“No,” Chelsea agreed. “I’ll be able to put the gun back now and no one will know. The case will just go unsolved. It will be one of those things people talk about after awhile, like Jimmy Hoffa and the Oakland child killings.”
“What about the guy in the Oakland County Jail?” I asked. “How is he tied to you?” I needed to continue stalling.
“I don’t know him,” Chelsea said. “That was just a stroke of luck.”
“How did you get away so quickly?”
“It wasn’t hard. I was up on the footbridge above the street. I fired and ran. I didn’t realize I hadn’t hit you until I saw the news coverage later. Imagine my surprise when I saw they’d made an arrest?”
“Chelsea, they’ll track it back to you,” I said desperately. “When I’m found out here, they’ll eventually track it back to you.”
“How? You said yourself I wasn’t on your suspect list. They’ll never know.”
“Derrick is here. He’ll know.”
“Then maybe I’ll have to kill him, too, after all,” Chelsea mused. “I was originally going to try and make it look like a robbery gone bad. Maybe even use his gun and try to finger him for it.”
“Why would Derrick want to shoot me?”
“Family strife? Your family is notorious for infighting. Your grandfather was just in the news for calling a judge a faggot or something. Would it be that much of a stretch?”
“Chelsea, I don’t think you’ve thought this through,” I started. I had seen a hint of movement from Derrick’s foot. I still couldn’t see him, though. I had no idea if he was awake or not.
“What?”
“The police are going to match the slug in that gun to the freeway shootings,” I said. “If you kill me, maybe they won’t look for the culprit too hard. If you kill a cop, though, there’s nowhere you’ll be able to hide.”
“What if I make it look like a murder suicide? Those happen all the time.”
“Yeah, but we were just inside. People are going to know that Derrick didn’t shoot me and then shoot himself over spaghetti sauce.”
Chelsea glanced over her shoulder nervously. “You’re messing things up,” she said. “I shouldn’t have even stopped to talk to you. You’re just trying to scare me.”
“You should be scared,” I said earnestly. “This isn’t going to end well for anybody if you go through with this.”
“I don’t see where I have a choice,” Chelsea said firmly, raising the gun. “I might not get away with it if I kill you, but I’ll definitely get caught if I don’t. What’s one more murder? We don’t have the death penalty in Michigan and I’m already looking at life.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew what was coming and I didn’t want to see it as it happened. For a second, my mind wandered to Eliot and the anger he would feel when he found Derrick and I – because I knew he would be the one to find us, for some reason – and I felt my heart clench with unexpressed angst at the pain I knew he would feel.
Then something I didn’t expect happened and my whole world tilted anew.
“Avery! Derrick! What are you doing out there? Stop hiding and get back in here! You’re both grounded if you don’t get in here right now!”
Oh, holy crap, my mom was coming out here.
Thirty-Six
“Who is that?” Chelsea hissed, taking a step towards me.
“It’s my mother,” I said, fear gripping my senses. “You can’t shoot her.”
“Then you better get rid of her,” Chelsea warned, moving away from the shed door. “You better get her back in that restaurant. If she sees me, it’s over for you and her.”
Great. Nothing like a little bit of guilt to make a life-and-death situation all the more fraught. My mother would never let me forget it if she got shot – or killed. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but if anyone could come back for some vindictive haunting, it would definitely be my mother.
I stepped around Chelsea carefully, glancing down at Derrick as I did. He looked like he was out cold, but I couldn’t be sure. I was hopeful that he’d regained consciousness and he was just playing possum – but that was probably the abject fear talking.
Once I was in the doorway, my mom stilled her approach halfway between the restaurant and the shed. “What are you doing?”
“We’re still looking for the sauce,” I lied.
“It’s right in the fridge,” my mom said. “I saw it in there the other day.”
“Okay,” I said. “I wa
s just calming Derrick down before we go back in.”
“Well, he should just let it go,” my mom said wistfully. “Can’t we ever just have a nice dinner?”
“Take that up with the rest of the family,” I said briefly. “We’ll just grab the spaghetti sauce and we’ll be right in.”
My mom looked doubtful. I was using all of my Jedi mind tricks to freeze her in place. Unfortunately, just like when I was a little kid, I realized that I didn’t really have control of the Force and nothing was going to stop her from coming into this shed if she made up her mind to do just that.
“Well, hurry up,” my mom said finally, turning back to the restaurant.
I waited until I knew she was safely back inside and then turned back to Chelsea. “They’ll hear the gunshot,” I said. “The kitchen staff will hear it. You won’t be able to get out of here.”
“I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we?” Chelsea’s face had gone from sympathetic to sinister, like a switch had been flipped.
“Just kill me, Chelsea,” I begged. “Don’t kill Derrick. He doesn’t deserve this. He finally got a girlfriend that’s not only real but that sleeps with him on a regular basis.”
“That’s funny,” Chelsea laughed. “I didn’t think you two got along.”
“We don’t get along,” I said honestly. “Family doesn’t get along. We love each other despite the fact that we’re all assholes. We love each other because we know the worst about each other and, yet, we’re still fine with it.”
“And what’s the worst about him?”
“He’s overcompensating for being short, that’s why he became a cop,” I said honestly. “He likes control and being a cop gives him that.”
“And what’s the worst about you?”
“I’m selfish and narcissistic and I’m obsessed with Star Wars,” I admitted. “I sometimes wish I could turn into the Incredible Hulk and pound the crap out of random people – or you right now,” I continued. “I always pretend that I want to be the hero of a movie and yet, right now, I’m really looking forward to Derrick tasing the shit out of you and just sitting back and watching.”
“Huh?” Chelsea looked around confused. She was too late, though. Her focus had been on me. She hadn’t seen Derrick roll to his knees and crawl towards her. She hadn’t seen him pull his police issue taser out of his pants and push it to her ankle. And, when she finally realized what was happening, the only thing she had time to register was the smug look on Derrick’s face when he pulled the trigger.
Chelsea’s body went rigid as the volts rushed through her body. She squeezed the trigger on the gun instinctively, but it was pointed at the wall of the shed and not at me. I dropped to the ground anyway, waiting for her to drop, too. When she finally did, I met Derrick’s eyes in relief. “Took you long enough.”
“I wanted to see what else you could get her to admit,” Derrick said. His eyes were slightly glazed over, making me believe he probably had a concussion. “You got enough to put her away for the rest of her life, though. So, good job, I guess.”
I shakily got to my feet, falling back down immediately as the adrenaline I had been living on for the past fifteen minutes fled my body. I crawled over to Derrick, being careful to avoid Chelsea – even though she wasn’t in a coherent state of mind at the moment. “Are you okay?”
“Are you?”
“I guess.”
“Then kick that gun away from her hand – kick it, don’t touch it -- and get the cuffs out of my belt and cuff her.”
I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You’re letting me cuff her?”
“I think you’ve earned it.”
THINGS got out of control pretty quickly after that. Eliot had rushed to the shed at the sound of the gunfire, panic and fury written all over his face. After the initial relief registered, he was overcome with irate anger, although there was no enemy left standing for him to fight. “I told you not to leave my side!”
“I went out to a shed with a cop,” I replied earnestly. “I thought I was safe.”
“Obviously not,” Eliot scoffed.
“We’re still alive,” I countered.
“Only because your mother interrupted,” Eliot said. “You should probably thank her.”
Oh, great, I would never live this one down. She was going to haunt me in flesh and blood instead of spirit.
In short order, the family restaurant was invaded by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department, medical personnel for both Derrick and Chelsea, and Jake Farrell at his uniformed best.
“Are you all okay?” He asked worriedly when he caught sight of me.
“We’re fine,” I said. “I wasn’t even hurt a little this time.”
Jake shook his head. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Derrick was a hero,” I changed my tactic.
“He got hit from behind by an insurance secretary,” Jake said. “The guys at the department are going to give him hell for that.”
“Yeah, but he regained consciousness and saved my life, that’s got to count for something.”
“It does. Dumb luck.”
“It’s not like we knew she was following us,” I said. “How could we know that?”
“No, but we knew you were a target,” Jake said.
My heart pinged at the thought of a dead high school student. I pushed the guilt away, though. I would deal with that later, when I was alone with my Little House on the Prairie DVD sets – so it wouldn’t look as bad when I bawled my eyes out. I had a reputation as a hard ass to uphold, after all.
“She made a full confession,” I said helpfully.
“Derrick told me.”
“I feel a little bad for her,” I admitted.
Jake shook his head. “And that’s why you’re you, I guess.”
“What?”
“You feel bad for the woman that wanted to kill you.”
“Her boss was a dick.”
“But that student and that mother were innocent,” he reminded me. “And she wanted to kill you, too. You’re awful forgiving about that little fact.”
“I didn’t say she was right,” I said. “I said I felt a little bad for her.”
“Well, get over that,” Jake said harshly. “You’re going to have to testify in court and I don’t want the jury to feel bad for her.”
He had a point.
THE NEXT few days were a blur. I had managed to file a first-hand exclusive on the arrest of Chelsea and scoop the rest of my competition handily. Then, while they were playing catch-up the next day, Marvin and I had broken another huge story about the National Guard base: It was expanding, not closing.
Commander Turner had agreed to sit down for a one-on-one interview with me regarding the expansion – even being relatively pleasant during the process – and I managed to lay claim to two big stories in two days. No one could touch my Media Queen title for the foreseeable future. Sure, I knew Turner had only agreed to sit down with me because I was the current media darling, but I wasn’t going to decline a story that I knew would turn the county on its head.
The political reporter, Bill, had tried to raise a stink about Marvin and I stealing the base story from him but his constant litany of complaints had fallen on deaf ears. Fish didn’t care that we had broken it, only that the two exclusives had caused The Monitor’s circulation to soar over the past two days.
“She did the work, she gets the glory,” Fish told Bill. “She was almost killed – again. I think she’s earned all her accolades this time.”
That was enough to constitute a great week at any other time. There was more, though. The best part of my week came when Clara Black, the head of the board of commissioners in Macomb County, took credit for the expansion and effectively cut Tad out of the announcement.
I had heard, through the grapevine, that he was currently plotting my destruction. I would deal with that when it happened, though. I had other things on my mind -- like a wedding – which was finally here.
> Epilogue
“What are you doing?”
I had expected a lot of things when I entered the cry room of the church where Carly was being sequestered until the ceremony. Carly trying to climb out of the small window in the wall wasn’t one of them.
“I can’t do this!” Carly swung on me and I was taken aback by the frantic look in her eyes. “What was I thinking when I agreed to do this? You have to help me get out of here.”
I considered Carly’s request and then shook my head.
“You love Kyle,” I reminded her.
“His mother is the devil, though.”
“You’re not marrying his mother.”
“I think she comes with the package,” Carly said wryly.
Even though Carly had been largely calm over the past two weeks, I had figured she had one last freak out left in her repertoire. I had come prepared. I dug into my purse and pulled the full flask I had thought ahead to pack out of it, taking a swig before I handed it over to Carly. I was a little nervous, too, truth be told.
“What is that?” Carly asked suspiciously.
“Do you care?”
“No,” Carly shook her head and took a guzzle. She started to sputter but I stopped her quickly.
“It’s red, it will stain your dress.”
Carly snapped her mouth shut quickly. The quiet interlude gave me a chance to look her over completely. “You look beautiful.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I nodded. “There’s never been a more beautiful bride.”
“Do you think I can do this?”
“I think you can do anything you set your mind to. The question is, do you want to do this?”
“I love Kyle,” Carly admitted.
“I know.”
“I love him more than anything.”
“Then allow yourself the chance to be happy,” I cajoled her.
“What if Harriet makes me miserable, though?”
“Harriet is going to try to make you miserable,” I replied honestly. “You have the power to make her miserable, though, too. You’ll be the wife. You’ll be more important than her.”
“How do you figure?” Carly looked interested.
4 Shot Off The Presses Page 24