by S. E. Harmon
“You don’t have to do this.” I winced. There I went again. I’d like to think whatever she’d laced my tea with was making me stupid, but I wasn’t 100 percent sure. Going there alone was stupid, in and of itself. I tried again. “You don’t think they’ll check here first?”
“I’ll be long gone by then.”
“They will find you. There’s only so long and so far you can run.” Jesus. At least if I made it out alive, I’d have a job in Hollywood.
When she didn’t respond, I risked another glance behind me. She looked… disconnected from reality. Like it would be nothing to splatter my brains all over her pristine floor. She never wavered, never looked away, and the opening I was looking for never appeared.
She took me to the back of the house, to a room that looked like an office. I glanced at the window. Maybe an avenue of escape. She pointed at the chair. “Sit.”
Maybe not.
She rummaged in the desk drawer, one-handed, eyes and gun trained on me. She dug out something and tossed it in my lap. I looked down at a black strip of material, briefly uncomprehending. “Put that on,” she commanded.
A woman of few words. She clearly hadn’t read the guide for supervillains. Shouldn’t she brag about her crimes and give me an opportunity to escape? She didn’t even monologue, for crying out loud.
I shook my head, more than a little irritated. What kind of villain didn’t fucking monologue? Better question. What kind of person had plastic cuffs at the ready?
The kind who was prepared to kill someone.
No. No. I was not about to cuff myself to be shot execution style. “Look, they’re going to know where I went.”
“Shut up.”
“I have a partner, you know. I told him where I was going. If I don’t come back, he’s going to come looking for me, and—”
“I said shut up!” She took a few calming breaths. “Now put these on or I shoot you where you stand.”
“I’m sitting,” I snapped.
My smart mouth clearly didn’t give a damn if I caught a bullet between the teeth. I looked down as I looped my hands with short, jerky moments, and pulled the strap tight with my teeth. I wondered if that was one of those moments they would wonder about when they found my body. Whether my fellow investigators would go on about what they would have done differently, had someone had the temerity to take them hostage. Well, I had a message for them.
Fuck you. Fuck you hard. Until you had a gun to your head and no options in your pocket, you didn’t know what you’d do.
She walked behind me, and I had a moment of panic. Oh God, she’s really going to kill me. I wished I’d taken my shot outside. I’d rather die fighting than tied to a fucking chair. “Margaret, please. Don’t do—”
Instead of a gunshot, I felt a pinprick to the back of my neck. “Just a little something to keep you compliant,” she said as she finally lowered the gun.
“What… what the hell did you give me?”
“You’re going to be very sorry you tried to take her from me.” Her voice was soft.
“Who?” I slurred. I blinked slowly—slowly enough that I could see my own eyelashes as they lifted.
“No one takes Jenna from me.”
One last blink and the darkness was coming for me… coming… and then there was nothing.
Chapter 33
I CAME to suddenly, but didn’t open my eyes. Not yet. I tried to get my bearings first and licked my lips. Dry. My mouth was just so dry. My head also hurt, and no wonder—I’d had the most awful dream. I went over to a suspect’s house, drank her poisoned tea, and she took me hostage. What a nightmare. Thank God I wasn’t that stupid and impulsive.
I tried to move my hands and came up short against my bonds. Oh, that’s right. I was.
My head throbbed, and my recollection of the events that led me to my predicament was fuzzy at best. I had no idea of what time it was, but I knew I was in the same place. I could hear her soft footfalls in the room, back and forth. Back and forth. Pacing. Waiting for me to wake up? Wondering what to do with my body? Unfortunately for me those situations had a nasty little habit of getting exponentially worse.
I tried to control my thoughts. I tried to think about Danny’s solid presence, that expression that he got that said, “No matter what it is, we’ll deal with it.” Thinking of him only made me more agitated and my chest even tighter, and eventually I had to force him out of my thoughts too.
Instead I listened to Margaret as she paced in front of me. Every now and again, she would mutter to herself. She finally paused, and the air filled with suspicion as she eyed me. Finally she kicked at my leg with her shoe. “I know you’re awake.”
Apparently Danny was right—I was the worst fake sleeper in history. I gave up the ruse and opened my eyes.
“How’re you feeling?” she asked.
I laughed. The sound was rough and not at all pleasant. “Seriously?”
Her expression darkened. “You’re acting like this was my plan.”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t mine. Do you even have a plan?” I asked. “Do you honestly think they’re not going to notice me missing?”
She paced some more, not answering. I couldn’t tell if she was ignoring me or just lost in her own thoughts. “I just wanted to know,” she muttered. “Know what you knew. Know what she said to you.”
“Nothing,” I said firmly. “That article was a bunch of crap.”
“Then how did you find her body?”
“It’s not too late,” I said as I watched her pace. “You can still undo this.”
She looked at me then and bit her lip. Hope began to unfurl in my gut, and I continued on, my voice steady. “No one knows where I am.” It was a risk, but I had to take it. Eventually she would see that no one was coming to my rescue. Fuck rescue. No one was coming, period. “You can just go now, and no one will know.”
“Or I could shoot you,” she reasoned.
Potato, potahtoe. “There is that,” I admitted. “But what about Jenna? Are you thinking about what this might do to Jenna?”
She shook her head. “Shut up.”
“I’m sure she’s going to—”
“I said shut up and let me think.”
Guess there wouldn’t be any help from the Jenna front. My mouth firmed. Well, if I was going to die, I was going to get some fucking answers first. “You shouldn’t have killed her.”
“Her who?” she snapped, clearly irritated that I’d disturbed her yet again.
“Amy, of course.”
“She was trying to take Jenna away from me.”
“So that gave you the right to take her life?”
Amy trailed in just then, her face pale and drawn with worry. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’m starting to get that.”
Margaret whirled. “Get what?”
“I’m not talking to you,” I snapped. “I’m talking to her.”
She stared at me, eyes wide and apprehensive, and I had to shrug at the irony. Of all the people I wanted to believe me, Margaret was nowhere on the list.
“So what does she say to you?”
Nothing helpful. I hesitated, mostly because I didn’t think she deserved to know.
“Please.” Margaret’s eyes were wide and wet. “Just tell me what she says.”
I sighed. “She asks for Jenna a lot.”
She resumed her pacing. “What else does she say?”
“Well, mostly she just seems really confused. Confused as to why someone would kill her.”
“Confused?” She laughed bitterly. She completed another short, angry circuit around the room’s perimeter. “She wasn’t confused that night. When she told me that Jenna was only staying with me out of guilt. That if she didn’t feel so guilty, she’d have left a long time ago. That a real mother would let her go.”
“So what did you do?”
“We argued. I told her that she was never to see Jenna again. She laughed at me. Told
me that Jenna loved her more than she’d ever love me and they were going to start a new life together. They were going to be together. And there was nothing I could do about it. I….” Margaret faltered and came to a standstill. “I was just so… angry. This girl, this young girl with her whole life ahead of her was in my face, telling me what I was going to do, and we struggled. I… I don’t know how she fell, but she did. I heard this sick crack, and I just knew. I knew,” she whispered again. “It was an accident.”
“That’s not true,” Amy said, and I jumped. I’d forgotten she was even there, as she was standing slightly behind me. But she moved forward, eyes locked on Margaret. “She pushed me. I was turning to get back in my car. Leaving. She hit me hard.”
“I would never have killed someone else’s child,” Margaret swore vehemently. “And that’s the truth.”
“She’s a liar.” Amy’s fists balled at her sides. “She called me a bitch. Told me she’d rather see me dead than lose Jenna.”
“Not now,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.
Margaret’s eyes sharpened and narrowed. “What is she telling you? What is she saying?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. I sighed. “She said that you hit her. You told her that she would never see Jenna again. She laughed and turned to go. She was leaving,” I said, and Margaret’s face completely drained of color. “She was leaving and you hit her.”
“No. That’s not true—”
“You dragged her to the trunk and stuffed her in. And then you drove her car to the Everglades. You walked the few miles back to Old Canyon Road, where you left your car, and drove home.”
“My God.” She looked at me wildly and then pointed the weapon at various corners of the room. “Where is she? Where is she?”
My eyes widened as I took in those shaking hands. “Maybe you should put that down.”
The lights in the house had begun to flicker wildly, on and off. The filaments in the bulbs overhead grew brighter and hotter, buzzed like angry bees, and then exploded in a shower of Tiffany glass.
The shaking gun suddenly swung back in my direction. “Call her off,” she demanded.
“I don’t control the ghosts.” I yanked at my tightly bound wrists. “You’re the one pissing her off, not me.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes went dark and angry as she glared at me. Her chest suddenly glowed… red?
I blinked to clear my vision.
The laser dot didn’t disappear, and my heart thudded in my chest. I knew exactly what that was. “You’ve got something….” I nodded my chin and my chest. “Right there.”
She looked down at the dot and moved to the left. The dot followed, dead center. She brushed at her blouse and moved to the right. Same thing. My phone rang on her desk. It sounded shrill in the charged silence, and we looked at one another.
I broke the silence first. “If I had to guess, I’d say that’s probably for you.”
She grabbed the phone and eyed the display. “Who is Danno?”
Even I realized there was no time for a Hawaii Five-O joke. “Detective McKenna,” I said. “You met him, remember?”
She looked at me blankly. “I don’t want to speak to him.”
The phone stopped ringing and then started up again. “You don’t have to,” I said quickly. “But they’re probably calling to negotiate. If you don’t answer, things are going to get much worse, very fast.”
She stared at me for a moment. I could almost see the wheels spinning in her head. After a brief moment of apparent indecision, she stalked over to me and shoved the phone in my face. “Then you answer it.”
She didn’t have to ask me twice. I fumbled the phone with my tied hands and answered. I almost closed my eyes in relief as I heard Danny’s voice. Even if he didn’t sound particularly friendly.
“Put me on speaker,” he commanded.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I said. I did as he asked/ordered, and my eyes burned with exhaustion as the stress of the situation threatened to overwhelm me.
“Margaret, it’s time for you to end this.” Danny’s voice was commanding and firm as his voice filled the room. “Whatever happened, we can talk about it together at the station.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said shakily. “Her ghost told him the truth. He knows what I did.”
There was a pause as Danny digested that. But then he went on, undeterred. “We are not your enemies. And whatever happened between you and Amy is something we can hash out later. But right now you’ve got your gun on a federal agent. If you shoot him, that can’t be undone.” She hesitated, and Danny pressed his point. “There’ll be nothing I can do for you. You will die, right here, right now, no questions asked.”
She firmed her grip on the gun. “If I go, then he goes too.”
On a list of dumbass things to say, that was probably in the top three. The cajoling tone disappeared, and Danny’s voice went glacier cold and hard. “That’s really not a good idea.” The laser dot moved up her body, flirted across the planes of her face and up to her forehead, and stopped dead center.
She squinted in the glare. “You don’t understand.”
“You don’t seem to understand. You have about five seconds to decide whether you want to live or die.”
My breath hammered in my chest. Negotiations had frayed pretty fucking quickly. “Margaret, please,” I said. “They’re serious, and they will take you out. Think about your daughter. Think about Jenna.”
“I think she knows,” Margaret whispered. “She’s always known I had something to do with it. She’s never been the same with me. So in the end, I guess Amy was right. She took her from me anyway.”
“Took from you?” Amy’s voice reached a pitch that was almost a high scream. “What about what she fucking took from me?”
Danny’s voice boomed from the speaker. “Last chance, Margaret.”
“You won’t be able to hit me before I kill him.”
“It’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
She gave me a little smile, and my stomach lurched. She’d clearly made her decision. “As far as final acts go, it’s not half bad.”
She raised the gun, and I instinctively rocked my chair to the ground. My head made a sick thunk as it connected with the hard back. I blinked, dazed, and watched Margaret’s body jerk back as the shot hit her dead center. Her shot went wild. A pause—a lifetime of heartbeats in a few brief seconds—and the second shot came. Brought her down. Her eyes locked with mine as she fell to the ground.
Her frozen face was a mask of complete calm.
“Sorry,” I managed to slur out. I’d hit my head harder than I thought. But from the looks of the smoking bullet hole in the wall where my chair had been, I’d made the right choice. We stared at one another—her frozen expression to my dazed one—until her eyes went glazed and lifeless.
I closed mine to avoid the sight.
And then the house was awash with noise. Lights everywhere. I squinted to see Danny rush in and Kevin a few paces behind. The room suddenly seemed too full as other officers came in, and I crossly wondered how many people they needed to check a corpse.
And then Danny knelt beside me, and I didn’t care anymore. He looked all kinds of hot in his black gear, and I just wanted everyone else to go away. His eyes were dark with concern as he checked me over thoroughly. A little too thoroughly. I made a noise suspiciously like a squeak toy as he ran his hands over my ticklish sides and searched for injuries. I shook myself. I was drifting, and Danny was freaking out. One black-gloved hand finally cupped my chin gently.
“You all right?”
“Peachy,” I managed.
He chuckled with relief. “Yeah. He’s definitely all right.” He turned to Kevin. “Can we get EMS in here?”
“I’m not going to the hospital,” I said, even as Kevin left.
“Rain. Baby. You’ve been shot.” Danny’s voice was probably more patient than I deserved. “You are most definitely going t
o the hospital if I have to stuff you in the ambulance myself.”
“Oh.” I glanced down at my arm. So that’s what that was. Fuck. Looks like I’d quit my job a touch too early. Did mediums have insurance or what? I sighed and held up my bound hands. “Fine. Take me.”
Danny’s mouth twitched. “Not in front of company, baby. Let’s see what the doctor says.”
Chapter 34
SOMETHING ANNOYING beeped by my ear. Lots of talking and chattering somewhere nearby. My nose twitched. The smell of disinfectant was strong and unpleasant. God. Heaven sucked already. I wondered if Saint Peter had the complaint forms or what.
I opened one bleary eye and surveyed the room to piece things together. The last thing I remembered was snapping “I’m fine” at a paramedic before I passed out in the ambulance. My injury wasn’t that bad, but blood loss was a motherfucker. I sighed. Danny would never let me hear the end of that.
When my roving eye landed on Ethan, I groaned and shut it again. “Aw, man. I knew it. I fucked it up, didn’t I? I’m dead.”
“No,” Ethan said cheerfully. “I guess this is one of those good news/bad news situations. You’re not dead, but you still see ghosts.”
My eyes fluttered open again as I took in my surroundings. Well, I was alive. Even though every muscle in my body ached, things could be worse. My gaze softened as they landed on Danny, who sat beside me in an uncomfortable-looking chair, arms folded on the edge of my bed, face buried in his arms. Things could definitely be worse.
Ethan brushed chilly fingers across my forehead, and I shivered and sent him a quick glare. “What are you still doing here? Didn’t I flush my career down the toilet to get you some peace?”
“Thought I’d see if you and Mr. Muscles would put on another show. Something freaky in the hospital this time.”