by Quinn, Lucy
Leo would have come in the door, turned on the lights, clomped those stupid, wonderful, oversized feet.
If it wasn’t Leo at three o’clock in the morning, who the crack was it?
I tried to relax my muscles, but they were still locked in three-hundred-episodes-of-binge-watched-serial-killers mode. I couldn’t speak or turn my head, which made the scary soundtrack speed up inside.
If I acknowledged someone was there, would they attack me faster? Or run away?
I looked around the counter for a weapon. Bowl: too small. Mixer: too heavy. Spatula: no leverage. Flour, sugar, eggs, desperation.
Nothing.
A shadow slipped toward me from near the coffee bar, and my breath caught so quick and shallow, my throat had skidmarks. The hammer of a gun clicked back to ready.
“Don’t move.” The shadow spoke. Firm. Resolute.
Feminine.
I knew that voice.
Nikki Krantz stepped inside the kitchen, pointing a gun at me. My mouth still wouldn’t work. My hands went up like a jack-in-the-box.
“I said, don’t move.” She wore all black, and her hair was tied up in a severe bun that made her cheekbones stick out like weather-beaten rocks on a cliff face. I barely got a good look at her before she flicked off a light and dropped the whole front side of the room into darkness. The lights for my prep station were behind me. She’d either have to cross in front of me, or let me move closer to the knives in order to get those off.
Lights were tricky when you didn’t want to be seen.
“Nikki,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”
“You have interfered for the last time, Vangie Vale.” Her voice was so calm, so eerie, it gave me chill bumps. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
“I don’t want to cause trouble for you, Nikki. You can just walk away, and we’ll pretend this never happened. I won’t even tell Malcolm.”
Her laugh cut the air with a slick, crazy arpeggio. “You think Malcolm will believe anything you say about me? But it won’t matter, anyway. Derek is dead by now, and you’ll die in a tragic robbery, and everything will go back to the way it was before Henry Savage ever came back to town.”
I opened my mouth to tell her that Derek was still alive, but thought better of it. I didn’t want to risk upsetting her when she had a cocked and loaded gun pointed directly at me.
“Who’s going to rob this place? You do my deposits. You know I don’t make that much cash money every day. Most of my business comes from credit card transactions, and—”
“Stop!” she squealed. “Just stop talking. There will be no negotiation. It’s your own fault for leaving your building unsecured. We’ll break in next door, too, just to make it look legitimate.”
“I have to hand it to you,” I said. “You had me fooled, Nikki. I never would have pinned this on you. The straight-laced war widow raising her sister’s son as her own.”
Her eyes went wild, and in the half-dark, she looked like something out of a horror movie, all craggy faced and shadowed. “How did you know that?”
“Math,” I said, shrugging, trying to sound as conversational as I could manage. “Austin was born more than thirty days too late for Auggie to have been his father, and then I saw the pictures of you in Europe. You should have been pregnant, but your bikini showed abs a supermodel would envy.”
A look of pure agony flashed across her face and tears slid onto her cheeks. “Austin is my son. Mine.” But the break in her voice told me even she didn’t believe that statement.
“Of course he is,” I said, sweetly. Always agree with the psychopath.
Nikki wiped at her cheeks, using the gun like a finger, pointing to the counter just out of my line of sight. “Move over here, by the cash register. Right now.”
I complied, moving forward as she backed into the real darkness of the dining room. The trash bag window was still flapping in the wind, and on one of its outward flaps, I saw a hand pull it open. Another figure stepped inside and hope bloomed in my chest.
Someone was here to save me. Please, God, don’t let it be Leo.
I couldn’t bear it if he got hurt.
“Nikki?” another woman’s voice came from the front of the dining room, and the hope in my chest deflated. It wasn’t salvation at all.
“Mom?” Nikki turned, the tiny amount of light outlining her sharp features. “Hurry and help me. I need you to hold the gun while I—”
“We have a problem, honey,” said Frances Barnett, stepping all the way inside. “Derek Hobson is still alive.”
While the two women were looking at each other, I felt for my purse with my toe and slid it past the opening of the kitchen, moving it into a shadow. If I could just get to the Febreeze, maybe I could spray them in the eyes, maybe…ugh… my phone was back in the kitchen, on the counter, still blasting The Cost of Discipleship into my headphones.
“That’s far enough, right there,” Nikki ordered, waving the gun at me. “Don’t move another muscle, or I’ll shoot you.”
“Honey, we have to go. Right now. Derek survived the explosion.”
Nikki’s frustrated sigh gave me the tiniest breath of relief. Not everything was going according to their plan. There was still a chance. I could still feel my purse with my foot, just barely out of reach. I was at a disadvantage; if I tried to move it again, with my body backlit, she would see me for sure, but I could barely see the two of them.
“We can’t go anywhere, Mom. I have to take care of her. She knows about Austin.”
“But she doesn’t know anything else right now,” Frances said. Her tone was condescending, like she was talking to a toddler.
“You don’t have to do anything to me, Frances,” I said, pleading with her better judgment. “I’m not going to tell anyone about Austin.”
“Shut up,” Frances hissed.
“Don’t you see, mother,” Nikki said, taking a step toward me, raising the gun. “Claire was right. If even one person knows the truth about Austin, everything we’ve worked so hard for is going to unravel. It was hard enough when she told Henry. And Stefan. But Mike was the last straw! Everything is coming apart.”
“No, it’s not.” Frances took a step toward her daughter with her hands raised.
“Yes.” Nikki pressed her free hand to her forehead. “All the lies are eating at me. I can’t keep track of who thinks what anymore, and I just want everyone to stop talking about this so we can go back to the way things were.” Her voice had ratcheted up with every word. “I need my life back!”
“Shhhhh,” Frances cooed. “Let me take care of this, honey. Give me that gun. You go home to your son, and when you wake up in the morning, everything will be all right again.”
The older woman reached for the gun, but Nikki kept shaking her head and backing up. I edged toward my purse at exactly the wrong time, and both of them looked up at me.
“We don’t have a choice now, Mother.” Nikki sniffed and wiped at her face. “We have to kill her and make it look like a robbery.”
“Let me do this, honey.” Frances touched her daughter’s arm. “You need to be far away from here when she dies.”
“No.” Nikki advanced farther. “I’m going to do this. A mother has to protect her family. This is what happens when people meddle in things that are none of their business.”
“I wasn’t meddling.” I raised my hands higher. “I was trying to help you.”
“You were meddling,” Frances said. “Running around with Henry Savage and coming by my house to try to talk to Austin about his Aunt Claire, thinking I wouldn’t know exactly what you were up to.”
“I came there to talk to you,” I said, wondering why it was so important, in that exact moment, to correct the psychopath’s mother about how exactly I had meddled in their plans to knock off two—no, make that four—people.
“And to ask questions that were none of your business, the way I hear it,” Nikki said, coming another step closer. “I saw your car at my
house this afternoon, after Austin picked a fight with me.”
“Taking off work in the middle of your shift.” I clucked my tongue at her. “Was that how you happened to be on a break after Claire stopped by the bank? And you, what, followed her while she followed Henry?”
“You don’t know anything about it,” Nikki said, hissing at me like a viper. “She was the one who started collecting all this money from Henry, when she had some crisis of conscience after a stint in rehab and she wanted to take care of Austin.”
“Why would he get money from Henry?” I asked. “I thought he was Stefan Van Andel’s son.”
Nikki’s chuckle was chilling and it made my stomach lurch. “Yes, well, blackmail is handy when your sister is such a whore, she doesn’t even know who knocked her up after she slept with half the high school at a party one night and the men are all afraid of being outed to their wives after all these years.”
“I thought she was assaulted.”
“That’s sure what she told Henry Savage after he broke up with her, when she wanted to ruin his life.” Nikki shrugged, taking a step toward me. “It wasn’t true, though. Even before Austin was born, Claire told me more than one man might be his father and she didn’t want to be with any of them. And I…” A short, quick sob stopped her voice. “I couldn’t have a baby with Auggie. With the man I actually loved.”
“I’m so sorry, Nikki.” I felt actual compassion for her, and I let it come through my voice. To be so trapped by circumstances…it turned even the best people into desperate crazy people.
“Yes, well. Claire solved all that. And when she finally cleaned herself up and wanted to be a part of Austin’s life, we worked out a little arrangement. She would ask for money from the fathers and we would keep the checks in an account in her name, for Austin when he turned eighteen, when she would get half of it. Then, when he was an adult, we’d let her back in his life. It would have worked, too, if Henry hadn’t—”
“Stop it, Nikki.” Frances tugged on her daughter’s arm. “We need to get out of here.”
“The police are all tied up on the other side of town.” Nikki pointed to the cash register, then at me. “Empty that out.”
“The key is in my purse,” I said, but Nikki reached over the register and turned the key so that the machine burbled to life.
“Don’t lie to me.” She tapped the top with the barrel of the gun. “Now, unload it.”
“You’re not going to be able to get away.” I pushed the button to open it and started unloading all the cash. “There are houses a hundred yards from here. Someone is going to hear the gunshots and see you driving away.”
“Stop talking,” Nikki ordered, gritting her teeth and pointing the barrel right at my head.
I swallowed the rest of the words I’d been about to say and opened the last slot, where all the ones were kept. “This is just the float, y’know. When I don’t have time to go the bank, I put all of the real money in the safe overnight.”
“Shut up.” Nikki looked at her mother. “Let me think.”
“You don’t have to do this.” I rested against the counter, feeling around for anything I could use to strike out and hit her. Nikki was less than ten feet away from me, and if I could get within arm’s reach, I might be able to wound her. Maybe even get the gun away.
I’d never disarmed someone before.
Frances Barnett advanced on the counter and reached across it, slapping me hard on the face. “She told you to stop talking to her. You listen when she tells you something.”
I let myself fall to the floor, hoping I could use the time while Nikki came around the bake case for me to find a weapon.
My father had been right. There should be a gun in the bakery. My father was always right.
“Get up,” Nikki said, running toward me. She was bathed by the backlight from the kitchen, and I rolled over, feeling along the ground, looking for anything I could use.
Nothing.
“Miss Vee?” came a young man’s voice. Nikki swung around toward the door and fired off a shot. While she had the gun pointing away from me, I lunged at her, knocking her to the ground.
The gun flew out of her hands and I heard Frances scrambling for it.
“Miss Vee, where are you?” Leo called out.
“Go, Leo,” I yelled, wrapping my hands around Nikki’s neck. “Run!”
Another shot rang out, and pain ripped through my shoulder. A third shot. I didn’t feel that one land, but my hands released from Nikki’s neck. I collapsed forward, the burning pain spreading through my left side. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I tried to call out for Leo, to tell him to run again, but I couldn’t speak either.
Everything went dark.
Chapter 30
When I woke up, everything was light. I reached around, trying to find Leo, calling out his name. Had he been shot? Was he all right?
Someone’s hand grabbed mine. Big, warm, solid. Like a cloud blocking out the sun, someone’s head moved in front of a light. A moment later, I could finally make out some features.
Leo.
I squeezed his hand. He was alive.
“Don’t move, Miss Vee,” he said. “You’re fine. You’re going to be fine.”
My eyes adjusted to the light and I looked around the room. It wasn’t the bakery. It was…a hospital room. White walls, machines, and people hovering. Leo wasn’t the one who had ahold of my hand. I looked down, past him. Derek had my other hand.
Thank God. He was safe, too.
My head throbbed, and I pointed to the door. “Can someone turn these lights off?”
“You’ve been in surgery,” said a woman’s voice. I could make out a blonde ponytail and a pink set of scrubs. There was a clipboard in her hands. “You might be woozy for a little bit, yet.”
“My head hurts,” I said, releasing Derek’s hand and touching my temple. “Why does my head hurt?”
When my fingers didn’t touch skin, I moved around a little more, and I could feel cloth. More cloth.
“One of the shots grazed the side of your head,” Malcolm said, stepping toward the other side of the bed, opposite Derek. “Another two inches and it would have killed you.”
A grave, heavy feeling settled onto my limbs, and I laid my head back. “But Leo’s okay,” I said, reaching for him.
He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Not even a scratch.”
“Nikki and Frances escaped after Leo came in,” Malcolm said, almost clinically. “But we caught them before they got across the county line.”
“I called 9-1-1 and sat with you until the medics got there.” Leo’s voice shook, just the slightest bit, and his grip tightened on mine. “You said some weird stuff, Miss Vee. But I was just glad you were alive.”
“You’re a good kid.” I smiled and closed my eyes, too exhausted to keep looking around at all the people. “Thank you.”
“Nikki confessed to everything when I caught up with her,” Malcolm said, his words halting and tight. “I…” He cleared his throat. “Can we have the room, please?”
I opened my eyes as everyone left. Leo gave my hand one last squeeze and walked out into the hall. Derek mouthed that he would be right outside and I nodded. The doctor remained until the last person left, and she reminded me to press the button if I needed anything.
I had no idea where the button was, but I didn’t ask. I was too desperate for answers.
Malcolm’s face looked gray and shadowed as he sat in Leo’s chair. He was a wreck. Uncombed hair, rumpled uniform. I realized that I had no idea what time or even day it was.
“Tell me what happened, Malcolm,” I said.
“I don’t know what you managed to get out of Nikki, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she told you the whole story, or at least most of it. She was ready to break by the time I found her.” He looked at his hands and I noticed for the first time that he didn’t have his hat on. I was so used to the John Wayne look, I’d missed the fact that he was just a man.
“Well, she confessed to killing Claire. And Henry—or rather, both of them killed Henry, and Stefan Van Andel helped them cover it up.” He shook his head.
I sat back, sighing. I knew it.
“I’m sorry about all this, Evangeline.” For an excruciating moment, his tone was achingly soft. But nothing could be done. He hadn’t believed me, and it had gotten Henry killed. And almost Derek. And almost me. While the apology went a long way, I wasn’t in the mood to be self-righteous. I just wanted to know what had happened.
“What about Mike and Jenna?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the door and hoping Leo wouldn’t hear.
“What about them?”
“They were involved in this somehow.”
“What?”
“Jenna tried to plant evidence on Derek, and do not ask how I know that.”
Malcolm swore, rising to his feet. He started pacing and launched into an I-told-you-not-to-get-involved lecture for a few seconds before stopping. This wasn’t the time for lectures, and he seemed to realize that.
“Fine. I won’t ask how you know,” he said. He paced to the door, but he paused before leaving, and I finally looked at him. Malcolm wouldn’t meet my eyes as he whispered, “I really am sorry.”
Then he was gone.
Derek came inside and told me all about his adventure with the fire department. They were able to preserve part of his house, mostly his bedroom, and he’d managed to save his bike. Because the owner of the house had insurance, everything was going to get handled through them. Derek had checked into Scarlet’s old room at the Mockingbird, and we chuckled over that for a long moment.
Leo came back with two cups of coffee and when I turned him down, Derek took the other one. There were comments about the quality of the brew and it felt good to laugh, even though I knew it would be fleeting. The drugs would wear off soon and I would be in pain.
But I would recover.
All pain ends, eventually.
I drifted off to sleep to Derek making jokes about Scarlet’s white sweater coat, and Leo laughing at the idea of me on the back of a Harley. It was as close as I could come to feeling surrounded by family, and it made the coming pain a little more bearable.