Shade Me

by Jennifer Brown

  The red deepened, mixed with the gray and black, and shot up in gold-tinged fireworks. This was all about sibling rivalry? Peyton was dying because her sister was jealous?

  She took a step toward me, and then another. Her hands gripped the gun more tightly. I could see the whites of her knuckles.

  “Nobody would believe you. Chris Martinez would not believe you.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t he, though?” Her face grew hard again. “I had it all taken care of. All of it. But here you come along, a new sister, who thinks she suddenly knows everything there is to know about darling Peyton. Fucking Dru. Trying to be a Hollis. I don’t care whose mommy and daddy are whose. You are not one of us, no matter how much you pretend.”

  “You’re not a Hollis, either,” I pointed out. I found that my free hand was rising, palm out, surrender-style, as she continued to walk toward me. I didn’t intend to surrender. I needed a plan. My mind raced for one, but all I could come up with was keep her talking.

  “I went through hell to be reunited with my mom. And Peyton tried to screw it up. And now, when it looks like things are going to be resolved, here you come to screw it up. I am not going to lose my place here because of you. Do you understand?” Her controlled voice had gone shrieky. “You will be just another stain on the carpet. Carpet that we will have replaced before your sad daddy puts you in the ground. That’s right. We. My parents are fully aware that you need to disappear, just like Peyton, and they have just the resources to make that happen.”

  “Dru will turn you in,” I said. She was so close now I could see her arms trembling. The gun was heavy and she was slight. She couldn’t hold it out in front of her like that forever. If I could just get it away from her . . .

  “Lover Boy Dru has too much to lose,” Luna said. “You think I set him up? He set us up. We all met. All of us, right here in this very pool house. We agreed.”

  I shook my head, confused. “Agreed on what?”

  She swung the gun down in short jabs as if pounding on an invisible table. I jumped every time, convinced she would accidentally pull the trigger. She was just feet away from me now. “You know exactly what. To get rid of Peyton. She wouldn’t let anyone come with the money but one of us. Guess who?”

  “Dru,” I said. I knew it because I’d heard it on the recording. She’d asked Dru because she trusted him.

  Luna was nodding, looking thrilled that I finally got it. “And we all agreed, Dru would take his good friend Rigo.”

  “Arrigo Basile?” I asked through numb lips.

  She nodded again. “Ding, ding, ding! Rigo was going to kill her. The five mil was for him all along. Hit money. Dru knew it, we all knew it. We all agreed.”

  “But she didn’t die.”

  Luna’s triumphant look turned sour. “No, she didn’t. Dru said Rigo got soft, took the money, and ran away. But if you ask me what happened, Dru turned on Rigo, beat the crap out of him, and gave Rigo the money to run. My parents think so, too, but what can we really do about it? If we made Dru disappear, it would start to look really fishy to the cops, now, wouldn’t it?”

  I thought back to the bruises I’d seen on Dru at the hospital, and the ones I found later at the apartment. He’d said he’d gotten them playing basketball. He’d said something about Hollises leaving it all on the court. “Uh-oh,” Luna said, bending slightly to look in my face. “Looks like I touched a nerve. Are you starting to lose faith in your innocent little boyfriend? You should. He wanted her murdered just as much as the rest of us.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, but the words were weak. What had I missed? I didn’t hurt her, Dru had exclaimed when Chris Martinez showed up to arrest him. I didn’t touch her. But that was really a technicality, wasn’t it? Dru didn’t touch her—he simply hired Arrigo to do it—so he was innocent? “I don’t . . .” But I couldn’t finish the sentence. My hands shook. My knees wanted to buckle.

  Luna actually had the guts to look gleeful. “Aw, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Not only is your boyfriend one of us, he actually screwed up the one job he had.” She giggled. “He’s not even a successful murderer.”

  “He lied to me about everything,” I said, my voice flat, numb. For the first time, it was really sinking in how stupid I had been when it came to Dru. I’d gone from curious about why Peyton had called me to jumping in the sack with her brother, thinking blissful violet thoughts, without knowing much of anything about him. And the one thing that I did know about him for sure was that he was closed off. Angry. Mysterious. Yet even after I’d found the camera card in his apartment, even after I’d found the bruises on his ribs, I’d continued to trust him.

  Why?

  I didn’t trust anyone. That was what I’d told myself back when I was eight years old and tucking myself into bed at night because my mother was gone. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t fall in love. Love and trust get you hurt. They get you killed.

  Suddenly, I was washed over by a deep indigo wave, standing under the foaming crest, in front of me an endless nighttime on the sea. I’d never contemplated betrayal before—not on any real level—but I knew instantly that this was what I was seeing. Deep indigo, deep betrayal.

  God, I was the biggest idiot in the world. I felt like a failure. I’d failed Peyton. She’d given me all these hints and clues, and I’d been literally sleeping with the person who’d tried to kill her.

  Chris Martinez had been right.

  Luna had been right.

  I was the only one who was wrong.

  “He lied,” I repeated.

  “Oh, please,” Luna’s voice cut in. “Spare me the drama. You knew what you were getting into the first time you stepped foot into Peyton’s room at the hospital.” Had I? I specifically recalled seeing the crimson and getting the hell out of there with my heart in my damn throat. I remembered feeling faint, sitting in a rolling chair, Chris Martinez getting me some water. And . . . yes, I also remembered thinking this was a mess I didn’t want to get into. Peyton Hollis was not my problem, I had thought. I didn’t need this shit.

  Luna was right. A part of me knew this from the very beginning. A part of me ignored the trouble that was surely coming my way.

  I fell into bed with Dru Hollis despite my own misgivings.

  “Anyway, I think we’re done here. Say good-bye, Nikki,” Luna said, leveling the gun right at my chest. I aimed the light at her again. Even though she was only a few feet away, seeing where the gun was pointing made me relax a little. A confident shooter would have aimed at my head. She was a bad shot and she knew it.

  I squeezed my free fist together, pushing away the indigo, fixed my eyes on her hand, and settled back on one foot, ready to roll at the slightest movement of her finger.

  There was a noise outside the door at my back. A shuffling noise. Footsteps. Both Luna and I glanced at the door. And then everything seemed to go in slow motion.

  The doorknob turned. Luna and I locked eyes. Her lips curled into a smile that looked more like a snarl, and I swear to God I could see her palm flex as her finger began to put pressure on the trigger.

  “What—” was all Dru got out before I turned and bolted right through him, knocking him backward onto the pool deck and tumbling on top of him just as the boom of Luna’s gun deafened me. I felt wind, and then splinters, caress my right cheek, and a blanket of warmth sluice down the side of my face. I didn’t even pause to check the damage.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I heard Dru yell, his voice bubbly and foggy and faraway, as if he were talking from the bottom of the pool.

  “Don’t let her . . . ,” Luna screamed back.

  I scrambled to my feet, droplets of blood making the deck slippery under my shoes, and hurried around the lawn chairs. There was nothing but open space between me and the fence. I would be target practice, and Luna had proven that she wasn’t afraid to shoot. And that maybe she wasn’t as bad a shot as I’d originally taken her for.

  Panicked, I whipped my head left and right fo
r an escape. To go back the way I’d come in, I would have to traverse my way around the pool again, which meant I would have to run past Luna. I gulped in air, trying to slow my breathing, trying to calm myself. I couldn’t fight if I was too frightened to move.

  I thought about Gunner, who’d said the best offense was a good defense. Be safe, Nikki, I could hear him say. Gunner wouldn’t stay out here like a sitting duck any more than he would go back inside that pool house. He would find a safe place to be, where he could see and hear his threat, and then he would deal with it.

  I raced for the kitchen door that I’d scrambled out of, half drugged, just yesterday. The house was dark, empty—I’d noticed it when I arrived—and at least I knew what was on the other side of that door. I’d beaten Luna once inside that house; I could do it again.

  The door was locked. Damn it. I whipped my head around, searching for an open window or a secluded path out of here or . . . anything. But there was nothing, and I could hear, through the dull ringing in my ears, Luna’s and Dru’s voices coming from the pool house.

  Without thinking, I grabbed a paving stone from the landscaping. With two hands, I hoisted it above my head, and then brought it down with all my might on the doorknob. It made what sounded like a monstrous noise, and when I glanced back over my shoulder, Dru and Luna were coming. I hefted it over my head and brought it down again. This time the monstrous noise was accompanied by the sound of metal clanging on the porch. The doorknob. The door sprang open and I ran inside.

  If the blackout shades had made the kitchen shadowy when I’d been in here last, it was downright cave-like now, the clock on the microwave glowing in gold, giving off little bursts of color. I saw shapes hulking tidily on the counters—coffeemaker, blender, toaster, knife block—and started toward them, working my way around a small oak kitchen table, hoping I could get to a weapon before Luna got to me. But I had only just rounded the table when I heard footsteps.

  “What the hell? Luna!” Bill Hollis’s voice.

  I wanted to freeze. All the bones and muscles in my body wanted to turn to jelly. I wanted to put my palms up, surrender. But something inside of me told me there would be no surrendering here. Bill Hollis was not a man who liked to lose. I had to act.

  I could just see the silhouette of him rounding the corner into the kitchen, and I slipped through the other doorway to the living room. I found myself at the foot of the spiral staircase I’d been up before. I couldn’t see the steps very well, which was almost a relief, given how they’d danced under me last time.

  Bill Hollis lumbered to the back door, assessing the damage to the doorknob. “Luna!” he called again.

  “Nikki Kill! She’s in the house!” I heard her call back, and my spine turned cold. Bill Hollis got very quiet. I could hear the light shuffle of his feet, but even that was so soft it was hard to tell where it was coming from. I tried not to breathe.

  “Stay outside, Luna,” I heard him say, quietly, calmly. “I’ll take care of her in here.”

  I could see his form come from the den doorway across the room and stop. He seemed to be looking right at me, but it was impossible to tell for sure. He didn’t move; I didn’t move.

  “I see you,” he finally said, in a regular talking voice, but it sounded like a sonic boom in the silence. “You aren’t getting out of here, you understand? You’re an intruder. I have every right to protect my family from an intruder.”

  I swallowed, feeling his words all the way to my toes. My breath sounded incredibly loud to my own ears. I could sense, more than see, asphalt-like fear rolling under my feet.

  “All you had to do was stay out of our business,” he said. “I might have even made it worth your while. Gotten you and your pathetic father a real house. One on the beach.”

  I licked my lips. Tried to keep my footing on the roiling gray and black.

  “But you just couldn’t stay away, could you? Sleeping with my son, hanging out at Peyton’s bedside all the time. Messing with Luna. With our house. I could have had you arrested ten times over. But now I’m glad I didn’t, because I get to deal with you myself. Tell me, Nikki, was it worth it?”

  Immediately, I thought of Peyton turning her head and smiling at me in her hospital bed. Her face faded into Mom’s face, turning her head and gazing at me from the pool of blood. The crimson surrounded both of them, and the memory nearly bowled me over. But I got to look into the eyes of my mother and my sister as they faced the reality of leaving this world. I got to see that they loved me. “Yes,” I said. “It was worth it. Peyton is my sister.”

  “She is Luna’s sister,” Bill snapped. I jumped. “She is Dru’s sister. She is my child. A Hollis. Being a Hollis is a privilege. Peyton didn’t appreciate the privilege, but she’s learned her lesson. I’ve worked my ass off my whole life to have what I have. I can’t let some snotty teenager take it all away from me, turn me into a laughingstock no better than some working-class family. You can bet Peyton won’t be looking into your tramp mother again.”

  His last words hit me like red—ragemonster—arrows to the chest. I felt my breathing get faster, my fists clench harder. “Don’t talk about my mother,” I said.

  “Truth hurts, doesn’t it?” he said, and I could see his teeth flashing white from across the room. And then his voice went into a low growl. “Don’t worry. You won’t be in pain for very long.” His shadow shifted as he began to advance toward me.

  I had to do something, but he was between me and the front door. Luna was outside the back door. Dru was God-knew-where. I wished more than anything that I’d called Detective Martinez before coming over here. The image of him finding my body, thinking that he’d repeatedly warned me and if only I’d listened, having to tell my father that the only other person in this world who he loved had been murdered, too, was what finally loosened my feet.

  I turned and bolted up the stairs, unsure what I would do once I was up there, but certain it was safer than where I was at the moment.

  Or so I thought.

  Waiting at the top of the stairs, her face peeled back in a snarl, was Vanessa Hollis.

  “We tried to warn you,” she said, planting her hands on my shoulders. Letting out a roar, she shoved forward, with far more might than I would have ever expected out of someone so tiny, and I went reeling. My arms windmilled as I tried to regain my footing, but she’d pushed too far.

  I fell backward, my legs snapping over my head and turning me into a backward somersault, and then another, and another. I was distantly aware of pain as my ribs cracked against the edge of a step, my head and shoulders and hips and legs bouncing off hard wood and wrought iron, neon green flashing behind my eyelids.

  And then my head came down on the floor at the bottom, and everything went black.

  29

  AT FIRST I wasn’t sure where I was. I was only distantly aware that I was moving. Or being moved, that was more like it. I could feel a burning wetness on my cheek, and my limbs throbbed. Colors wiggled and hopped inside my head, a shifting kaleidoscope of confusion. My side split with fire every time I breathed in. I pressed my arm into my ribs and nearly shrieked as they thunked and crunched together in an unnatural way. My other arm found its way to my head, which was foggy and disoriented.

  “Get your things,” I heard. A command, but I wasn’t sure what things I was supposed to get. “I’ll take care of this and then we’ll go.”

  I opened my eyes, and that was when everything started coming together again. I was being pulled by my feet, the back of my head sliding on tile. A stainless steel refrigerator hummed by my ear. When I turned my head to look at it, the surface was a shifting checkerboard of neon green and orange, the squares trading places over and over again. I closed my eyes and opened them again. The person dragging me had silver hair and was wearing a ring that glinted in the shadows.

  “Okay,” a female voice said. “I’ll be ready. Make it fast.”

  All at once I understood what was going on. Bill Hollis wasn’t co
mmanding me to get ready. I was what he was going to take care of first.

  He was going to kill me.

  Come on, Nikki, move. Gunner’s voice in my head. Defend. Get to where you can fight.

  That meant I had to get up.

  Summoning all the strength I had, I pulled my right foot free of his grasp and kicked at his knees, one, two, three times. On the third, I connected, eliciting a growl. He let go of my other foot and stumbled backward. My opportunity.

  Clumsily, I pulled myself to standing, still pressing my arm into my ribs. My head ached and my eyes swam, and I could only take shallow breaths. I couldn’t focus on anything other than what I was doing, except I was aware that Bill Hollis was coming toward me again. I backed up until the small of my back hit the kitchen counter, and then I turned and scrambled for a weapon, blearily peering through my out-of-control colors. My hands landed on the knife block I’d seen when I’d first come in. I grabbed the first one I could get to and held it up in front of me.

  “Get away from me,” I said, my voice coming out breathy and scratchy.

  I saw a flash of teeth. The man was actually smiling. “You’re an intruder,” he said. “A stalker. You had a weapon. I was scared for my life.”

  He lunged toward me and I swung the knife at him. He dropped back, just barely missing the blade, and then came at me again, his hands outstretched to grab me.