by Erin Huss
Yeah, there’s that, too.
After another scan of the bathroom, we determine there is nothing more that we can break nor are there any clues that will lead us to Connie’s killer.
Which begs the question: why was the restroom key by the dumpster?
The man with the walker is still waiting outside the bathroom, and I hold the door open for him. I can see he’s questioning what in the Sam Hill we two kids were doing in the bathroom together for so long.
“Have a good day.” I flash him a smile and close the door behind him.
“Dude, we have three hours until sundown and no more leads.”
“That’s not true. We have Russell and Charleyhorse.”
“We have no name for Charleyhorse.”
There’s a ping in my pocket. I pull out the three cellphones and determine Russell has received a text message from someone named Tiff.
I’ll be there in a few minutes. :)
“Who the hell is Tiff?”
“His lover?” Mike suggests.
“Brian overheard Russell say that he had an appointment at four thirty. So at least we know that he’s home with Tiff—whoever that is.”
“I’m not excited to confront Russell.”
Me, neither. In my experience, people don’t like to be accused of murder. And as I see it, he’s our number one suspect. Even if he didn’t storm into Connie’s office with a yellow bandana tied around his face, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved in her death. Who is to say this yellow bandana man even killed Connie? Maybe he brought her to a second location where someone else—like Russell or Charleyhorse or even this Tiff person—did the deed.
I sneak a glance down the hall at the door to Connie’s office. It’s bizarre to me that she didn’t show up for work and no one has called the police. If my boss went MIA, you better believe I’d contact the authorities, not just the security guard.
We decide on the stairs instead of the elevator and walk past Connie’s office. I stop at her door and wiggle the handle. It’s unlocked, which means Rose or someone else is there, even if Connie is not.
There is something telling me to go inside the office. It’s obviously not common sense since last time I was here Rose called security. It’s certainly not Mike who is telling me to stop. It’s not Connie or another spirit either.
There is something inside of me—intuition, the need to self-sabotage, stupidity—directing me to enter the office.
So I do.
As soon as I open that door, I realize the answer was stupidity. Stupidity has taken over the wheel and steered me right into the lion’s den.
Standing in the stark white waiting room is Don. He’s wearing all black with a backpack big enough to belong to a middle schooler on his back, and a knife big enough to belong to Rambo in his hand. The tip of the sharp, serrated blade is pressed against Rose’s neck.
This is the moment, I realize, when Mike or I, or both, will die.
Fourteen
“You two!” Don spits out the words.
Don is a wee bit paranoid. I can feel that. What I cannot do is see his thoughts. They are a manic medley of memories shadowed by anxiety and fear, almost impossible to make sense of, which means I’ll have to figure out what he’s thinking the old-fashioned way—with words.
“Why are you here, Don?” I ask. “Rose didn’t do anything to you. Dr. Batch cared for you as a patient, but you were not forthcoming with information. She can’t properly diagnose you if she doesn’t have the full picture.”
“I knew you worked for Dr. Batch. I knew she sent you to break into my apartment to steal my evidence!” Don tosses a crumbled-up piece of paper over the counter. “Dr. Batch knows that if I cash that check, I can’t sue her.”
This is going so badly I feel like I might pass out, or scream, or cry, or all of the above. But I have to remain calm, which is really hard to do because I am now about 97% positive that the female spirit Mike sees in his vision is Rose.
Poor Rose looks as if she might scream, or cry, or pass out as well. A trickle of sweat runs down the length of her face, and I can see in her thoughts she’s planning the right moment to attack.
“Don’t move,” I say to Rose. “Don’t try anything.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I can hear how they can be taken as a threat. So I follow up with, “You will lose your life if you fight right now.”
Not sure that makes anything better, actually.
“Drop the knife,” Mike says. “We don’t work for Dr. Batch. We … uh … we … are detectives!”
Detectives?
What in the world?
“Go with it,” he mutters under his breath. Except the last time he told me to “go with it” was this morning when he convinced Connie she was dreaming, and now she’s gone, we have no killer, and I am about to die … unless Mike knows something that I don’t.
I decide to go with it. “We’re investigating the death of Connie Batch,” I say.
Don’s mouth drops open, and his hand falls to his side. The knife hits the floor with a clink. Rose also drops to the floor and struggles to catch her breath.
I may not be able to make sense of all of Don’s thoughts, but I can feel his shock.
“Dr. Batch is dead?” he asks, his voice hoarse.
“Yes.” I pause and attempt to collect myself. I’m shaking like a leaf. “She was killed earlier this morning.”
Rose staggers to her feet, using the counter as a crutch and turns around, her chest pumping, her hair stuck to her forehead, and her eyes narrowed. She lifts her right hand and points a small pistol at Don.
Well, there’s a plot twist.
“Don’t move.” She grabs hold of the pistol with two shaky hands. “This is exactly why I conceal carry, because of wackos like you!”
Mike and I instinctually raise our palms.
Don swings his backpack around so it’s on his chest and unzips the front pocket.
“I said don’t move!” Rose waves the pistol around. “Stop it! I’ll shoot.”
Don produces a giant pair of scissors from his backpack.
I’m not sure if he’s ever played rock, paper, scissors, but paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, and a gun beats everything!
What else does he have in that backpack?
“Rose,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “I’m going to reach into my pocket and get my phone so I can call nine-one-one.”
“Don’t move!” She puts her finger on the trigger. Oh, hell. “You say you’re a detective. You say you’re a medium. I think you’re all liars. What did you do to Dr. Batch?”
“We didn’t touch her.” Mike steps in front of me. “We are mediums, and we’re investigating Dr. Batch’s death.”
“He’s right.” I step in front of Mike. “I have been conversing with Connie. She was here when someone broke in and took her.”
Mike steps in front of me. “That is why we were here this morning. We’re trying to find out what happened to her.”
We’re throwing so much information at Rose I fear her head will implode.
Don drops the scissors and makes a run for it. Rose fires a shot and hits the picture hung on the opposite wall from where Don is.
Good to know that she has terrible aim. Not sure if that will work in our favor or not.
Don is out the door. I can only hope he calls the authorities since Rose now has her pistol aimed at Mike’s chest. I fight to get in front of him, but he’s bigger and stronger and possibly more stubborn than I am. So I kick and thrash and shove my knee into the back of his knee. He doesn’t budge.
“I’m not letting you die.” I push against his back with all my might to no avail. Ugh! He’s too strong. Stupid Goalmouth training.
“I’m not killing anyone!” Rose shrieks. “I’m calling the police! Now, tell me what you did to Dr. Batch!”
“Why didn’t you call the police when she didn’t come in?” I say over Mike’s shoulder.
“I found her note on my desk sayin
g the meeting with Elijah went badly and she needed time to herself to think. I had a feeling that it wasn’t her handwriting!” Rose lowers a shaky hand from the pistol and reaches over the counter for the phone.
“We don’t die.” Mike spins around and wraps his hand around my arm.
“Stop right there, or I’ll shoot!” Rose warns.
Mike swings open the door and shoves me into the hallway. A shot is fired, and I can hear sirens fast approaching the building.
“We have to get out of here.” Mike pushes open the emergency exit and pulls me along. “Go. Go. Go.”
“I’m moving as fast as my legs will go!”
“Shhhh!”
Ahhh. My heart feels as if it’s going to thump out of my chest this is so freaking stressful. “If we aren’t going to die, then why are we in such a rush? We should talk to the cops.”
“Because my last name is Handhoff.”
Aha. Got it. As soon as the cops learn his last name, he’ll instantly be a suspect. Mike can’t help find Connie’s killer if he’s detained.
We burst out into the dumpster area, jump over the wall, and duck down while we rush across the parking lot. Cop, after cop, after cop, after cop, after SWAT screech to a halt in front of the building.
Holy hell! I’m sure someone heard the first gun shot and called 9-1-1.
Mike and I zigzag between cars until we reach mine. Mike takes the wheel while I clamber into the passenger seat and shove my head between my knees.
We’re off and down the road before I feel like I’m able to form words.
“We no longer die,” I confirm.
“No.” Mike turns right.
“Where are you going?”
“No idea.”
“Let’s go talk to Russell before the cops get to him.”
“Better idea.” He makes a hasty U-turn.
I hold tight to the grab handle. “Do you see anything new in the future?”
“There’s still the house with the boat, but it’s super fuzzy. You and I are both there, and we’re alive, and there are no spirits with us.”
I pull out Russell’s phone to check on Elijah. He’s still at the same house as he was before on White Street. Thank goodness. I check Connie’s phone, and Elijah sent her a text message fifteen minutes ago.
I’m srly not a bully. Don’t be mad at me. Oki?
Are you picking me up or is Dad?
“What does o-k-i mean?” I ask.
“If you say OK without the I it means you’re mad.”
“I use OK all the time.”
“You’re not a teenager.”
“Neither are you.”
“Yeah, but I’m full of useless information.” Mike turns onto the frontage road toward Lakeshore Estates.
Russell’s phone rings. I feel a flicker of terror when I see who is calling. Home. Home is calling. Home!
Since Russell is undoubtedly home, being that it’s 4:45 PM, he’s either calling his phone to:
Listen for the ringer, thinking the phone is hiding somewhere in his house.
Use the Find My Phone app from a different device, and he sees that it’s currently driving around town.
My guess is the latter since the call ends and a text message appears.
Who are you? Why do you have my phone?
Fifteen
I stare down at the phone in horror.
Who are you? Why do you have my phone?
“Do I respond? Say my name is Zoe Lane, and I have your phone because I suspect that you either killed your wife, or you had something to do with her murder?”
“Please don’t say that.”
“What do I say?”
Mike swerves off the road and onto the shoulder. I clutch the grab handle and slam on the imaginary brake while screaming, “Stop!” The high-performance tires crunch over the gravel and kick up a gust of pebbles that screech across the paint on the hood of my car.
I glance out the window at the side-view mirror to see if we’re being chased. There are no cars behind us, only a cloud of dust.
We come to an abrupt stop. Mike pulls the emergency brake and gets out of the car. I have no idea what just happened, but Russell’s phone pings again with Who are you? Why do you have my phone?
I get out and join Mike who is hunched over a bush as if he’s about to be sick. Must have been the Famous Star from Carl’s Jr. mixed with the adrenaline rush of our near-death experience.
“You okay?” I place a hand on his back, and he tenses.
“It’s your mom.” He rolls upright. There’s a pained look to his eyes, and now I feel sick.
“What did you see?” I ask.
Mike takes in a deep breath and closes his eyes.
“What happens?” I demand. “Tell me!”
Mike pulls me closer until our foreheads touch. I can see his vision. We’re no longer at the house with the boat. The two of us are at Willie’s mansion. It’s just after sundown, and we are running up the circular driveway, following a path of—what looks like—business cards.
They’re too small to belong to my parents. They use 3x5-inch matte cardstock with bright neon font on one side and their picture on the other. Never mind the oversized card doesn’t fit easily into a pocket or a wallet or in a standard business card holder. “It’s memorable,” my mom had once said.
She had me there.
In the vision we bypass the front door and follow the card path to the side of the house, where my mother is lying on her back, unconscious, with a bleeding wound on her left shoulder.
In the vision, I scream.
In reality, I do the same.
“Is she dead?” I can barely get the words out.
“I don’t think so,” Mike says.
“You don’t think?” Yes, I’m near hysterics, but that’s only because I’ve somehow gone from saving my life to taking my mother's—and in turn—that of my unborn sibling.
“What about the house with the boat? Is that completely gone now?”
“No, there’s still something there with that house. It’s not clear at all, but this is a separate vision.”
“Since when did you start getting two visions at once?”
“Since right now.”
It feels as if someone has wrapped my head in cellophane, and I can’t quite see or breathe or make sense of the world around me. Suddenly, I’m in my car, tossing out cellphone after cellphone after cellphone, until I find mine. It’s a struggle, but I force my fingers to call my mom.
She doesn’t answer.
The problem with Mike’s vision is that we find my mother. We have no idea how long she’s been lying there. She could not be answering her phone because she’s hurt or because she’s still avoiding me.
Please, please, please let it be the latter.
“We have to go to Willie’s house.” I climb over the center console and into the drivers seat. I press the start button and take off.
I’m down the road when I realize that I’ve left Mike on the shoulder. It’s probably not a great idea to be driving when you can barely breathe.
I shove the car into reverse and find Mike standing on the side of the road, holding three cellphones.
With the tap of a button, the door lifts, and Mike jumps in. He places the now cracked iPhones into the cup holder and pulls on his seat belt without another word.
Willie MacIntosh’s mansion has a stone facade with more windows than I can count. Each window is adorned with dark blue shutters. The door is red, and the landscaping isn’t as pristine as it was when Willie was alive, but that’s only because he’s not there all day every day to bark orders at the landscapers.
My mom’s van is parked in the driveway, along with Arturo's truck and the minivan we saw at his house.
“Arturo is here!” I stop in front of the house and turn off the car.
“Hold on there, Lane,” Mike says before I can leave the vehicle. “You look like you’re about to kill someone.”
I stare up
at him in disbelief. “Did you not see your vision? My mother is attacked by a business card-dropping killer, and now Arturo is here. He could have business cards!”
“Yes, but before we go accusing him of anything, let’s take a breath.”
“Yeah, no.” I fall out of the car and run up the drive and to the side of the house, where we’re supposed to find her unconscious all while screaming, “Mom!”
When I round the corner to the backyard, there is my mother in all her 1980s-inspired glory standing next to Arturo and another woman who I barely register because I’m so overcome with relief all I can do is wrap my mother in a hug.
“Goodness, Zoe. What are you doing here?” She pats my back in an I-love-you-but-you-are-embarrassing-me kind of way.
I don’t care. I squeeze her tight until she says, “I can’t breathe, dear.”
I release her and point my finger at Arturo’s nose. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here about the painting job.”
Right. That does make sense. Perfect sense, actually.
“Who are you?” I point to the woman at his side. She’s tall and lean and wearing a trucker hat with Surfer Girl printed in swirly lettering.
“I’m Charlotte,” she says, giving me the most pitiful look. “I’m his wife.” She cocks a thumb to Arturo. “I’m here to help with color selection.” Charlotte looks like she just got home from the beach and speaks like she’s from “the Valley.”
“You’re his wife!” I have no idea why I feel the need to yell this. I’m still a wee bit freaked out.
Mike runs up. For someone who is training for a Goalmouth, it sure took him a long time to get here.
“You forgot to put the parking brake on,” he says. “I stopped the car before it backed all the way down the street.”
Oops.
“What are you two doing here?” Mom asks. “I thought you were going to Los Angeles.”
“We had a change of plans.” I put my hands on my knees and wait for the blood to return to my head.
While I’m in my recovery pose, I catch a hint of remorse in the air. Someone here is feeling guilty. I snap upright and scan the faces staring at me.