Mr. Sugar: A disturbing psychological thriller with a twist of dark romance

by L. D. Fox

  “Bryce, please, don’t.”

  “Jesus,” Bryce muttered, his arm dropping an inch. “Kelly, don’t—”

  “Stand up.”

  “Kelly, he—”

  “Get up. Please, Bryce.”

  Bryce obeyed, but with a reluctance that made his legs stutter. He lifted his hands, tossing his head to get his hair from his eyes.

  More rain fell now. Still big drops, but more. The sound of them hitting the boat and the water slowly grew louder. There was barely any light left in the day — the clouds had ripped twilight from its bed more than two hours earlier and were ushering in an early night.

  “Thanks, Kelly.” He spat out blood, grabbed the railing, and hoisted himself to his feet. “You know, I think he’s gone mental. I mean, here I am—”

  “Shut up, Drew.”

  His eyes flew back to Kelly. Her face was still unnaturally pale; her lips pinched, her eyes narrowed.

  “Kelly…”

  “You’re both going to stop talking.” She cocked her head. “And sit. Both of you. Opposite sides.”

  When none of them moved, she gestured with the gun.

  When they still didn’t move, she shot a round into the coaming.

  “Jesus!” Bryce was on his knees, hands over his head, a split second before he was.

  They both peeked out at Kelly from under the umbrellas of their arms, Bryce looking as shocked as he felt.

  “Got your attention, did I?” Kelly yelled, her voice breaking. “Get. Get!”

  She gestured wildly with the gun, making him flinch. Bryce scrambled into the closest seat, hands gripping the sides.

  He could feel his brother’s eyes on him as he made his way to the opposite side of the boat. Taking his seat with as much decorum as he could muster — what with a strung out chick like Kelly holding a gun on him — he turned and glared at Bryce.

  “Good.” Kelly dropped the gun, and then lifted it toward Drew. “Put on the belt.”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart,” he muttered, clipping himself in.

  “You too,” she said, the gun swinging to Bryce.

  He did as she said, eyes never leaving her face. Drew looked at them, a frown growing between his eyebrows. For someone who’d slept with him twice, Kelly sure wasn’t very trusting of his brother.

  The woman gave them each a nod and lowered the gun to her side. “Now…” she took a breath, glanced up at the sky like she’d just realized it had started to rain, and shivered. “None of you move.”

  She fumbled in her pocket and took out her cellphone. Her face melted with relief when she glanced down at the screen. Her head dipped as she began tapping out a number. The gun dangled from limp fingers at her side, forgotten.

  “That’s how you did it, isn’t it?”

  Drew looked up at the sound of Bryce’s voice. He shrugged. “Sounds like a lot of work. Would’ve been easier just to divorce her.”

  Bryce threw back his head and snorted. “You?”

  “Why’d I spend so much time and effort on someone who didn’t love me anymore? Where’s the logic in that?”

  Bryce sobered immediately. He dropped his head, eyes burning through Drew as his lips curled into a sneer. “It wasn’t about her. It never was.” The man sat forward, making Kelly look up from the phone. “It was about me.”

  “Hey, sit still.” Kelly put the phone to her ear, pointing the gun at Bryce. “And shut up, both of you.”

  Drew ran his tongue over his teeth. It hurt like a bitch, but at least it had stopped bleeding. He gathered spit in his mouth and sent that pink blob splashing to the floor between his feet.

  “Hello? Yes! Please, you have to send help. There’s been a fight. Uh…” Kelly’s voice trailed off.

  When he lifted his head, Bryce’s face had lost all expression. “It was all about me,” he repeated quietly. “You did it to get back at me.”

  Drew cocked his head to the side. “You know what, Bryce? Yeah. It was all about you. But that’s the way it’s always been, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. No, I’m not in danger.”

  Drew looked up at Kelly. Her lips began trembling as she swung the gun to him. “Please, hurry. It’s lot 15A, Pine Drive, Blackwater Lake…”

  He dismissed her, turning his attention back to Bryce. The man tugged his hands guiltily away from the seatbelt, dropping his eyes. It was undone now. But was he planning on going for Kelly, or him?

  Smiling, Drew sat back in the chair, hooking his thumbs over the seatbelt like a cowboy. “You know, I thought the impact would have killed her.”

  Bryce’s eyes snapped up to his. His fingers flexed before curling into two tight fists.

  “But it didn’t.” He put his head to the side, studying Bryce. “She was hanging upside down from her seatbelt—” he twanged his own seatbelt “—moaning and groaning.” He swayed from side to side, his smile inching up.

  Bryce’s lips began trembling. “You fuck,” he hissed.

  “Want to know what she said to me, bro?” He let the word trail from his mouth, slow and deliberate.

  Bryce shook his head. For a moment, he thought a raindrop had gotten caught in those long lashes, but then the man blinked once — hard — and set free a pair of tears.

  “She thought I was you,” Drew whispered, sitting forward in his seat.

  Now, with Bryce so intense on his face, on his words, his brother wasn’t paying attention to his hands. Wasn’t watching them move slowly closer to that latch.

  Kelly neither. He could see her from the corner of his eye. Could see the phone lowering. How it dangled at her side. The gun was still on him, but it would take a miracle for her to shoot anything higher than his ankle at the angle she pointed it.

  She seemed as rapt as Bryce, at that moment. Perhaps it was the unraveling of the story, or the drugs pumping through her system, but she was as lost as his brother.

  “When I came down the embankment? When she saw me?” Drew shrugged. “She called out your name.”

  He shifted forward, lacing his fingers and resting his chin on them. The belt was loose now, but neither Bryce or Kelly seemed to have noticed.

  “See, the windshield, the windows — they were all gone. Shattered. ‘Cos the car had rolled so many times. So I could hear her just fine. And she called for you. Said it hurt. That she couldn’t get out. And you want to know what I told her, Bryce? Want to know what I said to her, right before she died?”

  Bryce was shivering now. His mouth was in a grim line, a deep crease between his eyebrows. He shook his head, black eyes imploring for mercy.

  A mercy he would never receive.

  “I told her I didn’t love her. That I never had. I told her I was using her to get back at Drew.” He pointed to himself with his thumb. “Back at me.”

  Bryce’s eyes squeezed shut. He shook, his head swaying from side to side as his body fought against the revelation.

  “She died thinking you used her.” He sat back then, grinning as his brother shook. “Now isn’t that fucking ironic?”

  57

  Kelly, Kelly, Kelly

  Kelly ended the call with a decisive stab of her thumb; the last thing she needed right now was someone telling her to calm down. The gun was heavy, slick with rain. She knew a little about them. Enough to know how to shoot someone so they wouldn’t get up. Enough to know that Bryce had had the safety on the whole time.

  But God, how she wanted to shoot him. Not Bryce; the man had been reduced to a trembling wreckage.

  No, she wanted to shoot Drew.

  She wanted it so much that she knew she couldn’t do it. Because, if she shot him, he wouldn’t get up again.

  Ever.

  It might have been his story, the one he’d just laid on Bryce like a meat tenderizer. But she had a feeling it was more than that. Because that one story… Drew didn’t sound terribly proud of himself. And not because of guilt, but because of how hum-drum it was to him.

  Sure, he’d set up his wife’s
accident, in effect murdering her. And sure, he’d done it without anyone finding out. But what about before that? Because the man sure as shit wasn’t shaken up by it. Not the confession, not reliving the memory.

  Was it because so much time had passed? Would she able to speak about killing someone as if was a thing of the past… even if it had happened less than a year ago?

  Or was it because it wasn’t the first time? Had there been other times that Drew had set the world right — at least in his own perspective?

  The thought made her fingers tighten over the grip of the gun. She kept it trained on Drew.

  “Enough talking.”

  Drew gave her a quick frown as if he’d forgotten she was still standing there. Then he shrugged. “Sure thing.”

  “The police are on their way.” Rain was beginning to work its way down her back and through her clothing. She shivered, wrapping her other hand around the gun for extra support.

  “Guess that’s only fair,” Drew said. “After all, wouldn’t want anyone else suffering at Bryce’s hands.”

  His brother glanced up, frowning as he wiped furiously at his eyes.

  “At Bryce—?” She cut off, waving the gun toward Drew’s twin. “He’s done nothing.”

  “Sure the cops will see it that way,” Drew said quietly, tipping his head down and studying his hands where he’d laced them between his legs. “After all, it’s his gun. You’re both high. And I have absolutely no reason to hurt my brother.”

  “Like hell you don’t!”

  She jerked, swinging the gun toward Bryce. The man had his hands on his knees, fingers white. He sat forward as if about to lunge at Drew.

  “Hey!” She took a quick step closer. “Put your seatbelt back on.”

  Bryce’s face twitched with irritation. He turned his head to study her, fastening his belt with exaggerated care.

  “Now we’re all just going to sit tight until—”

  There was movement at the corner of her eye. Bryce’s eyes flashed away from her, toward Drew. She spun, the gun arcing through the air.

  But she was too late.

  Drew’s elbow drove the wind from her lungs and sent her crashing down the short flight of steps leading inside the boat. White lightning sparked across her eyes. The jolting pain from her head shot down her spine, to her legs. They caved under her, sending her sprawling to the rain-slick deck.

  The gun spun away across the deck. Drew’s foot slammed down.

  Bryce let out a yell, already loose and surging forward from his seat.

  But he was also too late.

  Kelly grabbed hold of a railing, hoisting herself up in time to see Bryce trying to wheel back from Drew. The man had both hands raised, face slack with terror.

  Drew advanced a single step. Spread his legs. Aimed.

  She screamed when the shot rang out.

  The sound snapped through her like a physical force. She cracked her head against the door behind her, reeling forward with both hands on the back of her head as pain whipped her.

  Something gripped her hair. Yanked her up the stair. Turned her to face the slowly expanding pool of diluted blood staining the deck.

  “Can you see it now?” Drew hissed in her ear. “Hey, Kelly, baby? Can you see how different we are, now?”

  “Drew, please, I—”

  “Don’t bother,” he said, tossing the gun aside as if it had lost its use. He wrenched his shirt up, wadding it up against his nose and flinching. “If I was going to shoot you, you’d already be dead.”

  He released her, and she fell to her knees with a cry. Scrambling forward, she grabbed Bryce’s jacket and tried turning him over. But he was too heavy. Too unresponsive.

  She pressed her fingers to his neck, not even knowing if she was doing it right. Not even knowing what to feel for.

  “You’re not going to get away with this,” she mumbled. She spun around, glaring at Drew through the rain as the man stood a few feet away, watching her. “You’re going to jail. You’re going to rot there. I saw everything! I heard what you did…”

  Drew lifted a finger. Then he smiled and slowly pulled open the door leading inside the boat. He dropped his shirt, wiped at the blood oozing from his nose with the back of his hand, and gestured inside. “Shall we get out of the rain?”

  She shook her head hard, spraying rain from the tips of her hair.

  Drew cocked his head, and then tipped his chin to where the gun still lay, dull and dark under the heavy rainclouds.

  “You’ve called the cops. And I can’t hurt you now. At least let’s wait out of the rain.”

  She turned back to Bryce, shaking his shoulder. “Bryce. Bryce!”

  “I doubt he can hear you with that bullet in his head.”

  She plucked her hand away, cradling it to her chest with the other and got unsteadily to her feet. When she twisted to the front of the boat, Drew was holding the door open for her. She glanced past him, blinked hard, and then slowly walked forward.

  “I won’t bite,” he said, grinning through blood-stained teeth. He spread his arm wide she wouldn’t have to touch him walking by.

  She was on the first step when his fingers touched her hair. “Duck — don’t want you knocking your head.”

  Shuddering at that touch, Kelly ducked her head and stepped down into the galley. It was tiny, that room. Her hip was right against a sink, and less than a pace away there was a padded berth, the middle folded up to form a seat. Scuba gear lay everywhere; several air cylinders had been stacked in the space between the seat, three suits lay discarded across the pale leather like deflated dummies.

  Pink, green, dark blue. Those colors scorched her retinas and left afterimages in their wake.

  Drew’s footsteps followed her, only slightly muffled by the drumming rain.

  When she glanced at him over her shoulder, he gave her a sneering, lopsided grin.

  “Oh, Kelly. Kelly, Kelly, Kelly.” He put his head to the side. “How naive can one person be?”

  There was something in his hand when he drew back his arms. An air cylinder?

  Whatever it was, it drove pins and needles and an all-encompassing blackness through her when it connected with the side of her head.

  58

  Catch, Never Release

  Angel watched Bryce climb onto the boat. He was the size of an ant, from here. The boat, a large crumb. When the jet ski bobbed away from the side of the boat, her fingers tightened on her cellphone until it creaked.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered, pressing the phone against her chest.

  A sullen, hard thumping started up in her chest.

  Angel hurried down the steps and let herself into the lakehouse. She closed the door behind her, glancing around for keys or something to latch it with. She found nothing, and the urge to find out what Bryce was doing was too intense for keep looking.

  She pushed through to the deck and shoved her phone into her pocket. Bryce’s shed left on the table in front of the fireplace. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she stared out over the rain-pocked lake.

  The boat was still there. But she could see only blobs of light and shadow on the deck.

  Did Drew keep binoculars in the lakehouse? If she knew where they were, she could find—

  Her phone rang. She yelled, forcing her hands to unfurl from their fists so she could wrestle her cellphone from her pocket.

  “Angel?”

  “Penny? Penny!”

  “Angel? What’s wrong?”

  “Oh my God, I—” she gulped a breath, spinning away from the sight of the boat and whatever was happening on its deck. “Penny, I don’t…”

  And she didn’t. She had no fucking clue how to tell this girl that her father was a killer. That his twin brother and their next-door neighbor were on a boat in the middle of the lake with a gun and fuck-knew what was happening.

  “What’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you okay? Say something, Angel!”

  “It’s… it’s your dad,”
she whispered.

  “My… dad? Angel, what—”

  “He’s… something’s happened, Penny.”

  “Shit, is he okay? What’s going on?” There was panic in Penny’s voice. A thick, trembling dread bordering on fear.

  “No, he’s not. He’s really, really not.”

  “Jesus, Angel, you’re scaring me. Please, just tell me—”

  “I’m sorry, Penny.”

  “Sorry? About what? What the—”

  “Everything.” Angel slid with her back down the deck’s railing, clamping a hand over her eyes to try and push back the tears threatening to fall. Rain dashed against the back of her head, stinging her scalp.

  “What’s wrong with my dad? Is he okay?”

  “Bryce said he’s going to kill us,” Angel murmured. “He… he had a gun, Penny.”

  “Bryce? A gun? What…” Penny gave a loud sob. “What are you saying?”

  “They’ve been fighting.” Angel pressed her fingertips to her chest, shaking her head and squeezing her eyes shut. It didn’t help — the tears found a way through, regardless. “Over me. It’s my fault, Penny. Everything. If I hadn’t—”

  “Angel, you’re not making any sense! Did you call the police? An ambulance? Who’s there? Is Bryce there? Did he—”

  “I’m sorry, Penny.” She pressed her hand over her mouth, feeling her lips quivering under her fingers. “I didn’t mean—”

  A gunshot echoed across the lake.

  Angel spun around, eyes flashing open. The movement was so sudden that she slammed the back of her hand against the railing. Her phone jarred from nerveless fingers.

  “No!”

  She lunged at it, but it struck the railing, twisted, and slipped through the slats while she was still trying to get a grip on it.

  It fell into the lake with a plop.

  Exactly like a bright pink, diamond-encrusted fish.

  59

  Young, Impressionable Women

  A heavy thump woke her. Kelly’s eyes flickered, fell shut again. For a moment, she caught sight of something big and black moving past her.