The Ex Who Wouldn't Die

by Sally Berneathy

  "You have a bad habit of running your mouth when you shouldn't, and we don't need anyone at this meeting but you and me."

  He wasn't going to tell her. "Fine," she replied. "If you're that terrified of my friends, I'll humor you." She hung up, determined to have the last word, even if that word was ineffectual.

  She looked up to see Irene and Herbert sitting on the edge of the sofa. His arm was around her shoulders, holding her close. They were both watching Amanda intently. She forced a smile to her lips. "Game on."

  "Where are you meeting him?" Irene asked.

  "He wouldn't say. I'm to go downtown, then call him, and he'll tell me where."

  "I don't like this," Herbert said.

  "It's a minor concession."

  "No, it's not minor. If we don't know where you are, we can't get there to help you."

  "I'll call you as soon as I find out. In the meantime, don't worry. Remember, I have a loaded gun, and I know how to use it." She lifted her cell phone. "And a recorder. I'll get his confession, you'll get to see him on trial, sentenced to death and then given the shot."

  Herbert and Irene exchanged worried glances.

  "Let's go!" Charley said. He seemed delighted with the evening's prospect of adventure.

  No need to fear for your life if you're already dead. Amanda, however, was still alive.

  So far.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Amanda brought her Harley to a stop in front of the Silver Creek courthouse. The moon had not yet risen. Only the faint light of the stars and a few street lights relieved the total darkness. Familiar trees and buildings lurked as mysterious shadows. The streets and sidewalks were deserted. Only Billy Earl's Roadhouse showed signs of life with its neon words flashing, lending eerie colors to the white columns and steps of the courthouse.

  And things were only going to get more eerie, Amanda thought as she pulled off her helmet and gloves then reached into her inside jacket pocket for her cell phone. Her fingers passed over the small rectangle and continued, searching for and finding the hard metal of the gun and a hammer in another pocket. She'd added the hammer at the last minute. Maybe it wasn't as effective as a gun, but it made her feel more secure. Couldn't hurt to have a backup weapon.

  Reassured by touching the objects, knowing they were still there, she took out her phone and turned on the display. In the darkness, the screen glowed like a spotlight. If Kimball had lured her here to kill her, this should make her an easy target. Not that a woman on a motorcycle, even in this low light, presented a difficult target.

  "Do it, Babe," Charley encouraged, moving close. "Call him. You've got a gun, a hammer and me. We're ready for His Honor, The Murderer."

  Amanda refrained from pointing out that it was easy for him to be ready. What could Kimball do to a ghost?

  She drew in a deep breath, straightened and sat erect on her bike. Locating Kimball's incoming call on her phone, she hit the icon to return that call.

  His phone rang five times. Was he not going to answer? Had this all been a sick head game? Was he even now sighting in on her, preparing to shoot her?

  She looked around the square, half expecting to see Kimball lurking in the shadows. Billy Earl's sign flashed, splashing red light over her, and for a moment, she imagined a red spot on her chest, a laser sight from a gun.

  "Amanda, how good of you to call."

  The sound of his oily voice made her sit even straighter, turned her anxiety to resolution. Her jaw clenched. "Roland, you're so irresistible, I simply couldn't wait to see you."

  Kimball ignored the sarcasm. Actually, he was probably just ignoring her completely, treating her as the unimportant peon he considered her to be. "When you see a black Cadillac turn the corner, follow me."

  "I'll be right on your tail."

  "Turn off your cell phone."

  "Why? Are you afraid the signal will interfere with your navigation equipment in that hearse you drive?"

  "We don't want to take the chance that anybody's tracking you."

  "Don't do it!" Charley advised.

  "No problem," Amanda replied to Kimball. "I wouldn't want anybody to know I'm hanging out with a guy like you, anyway. It would ruin my reputation."

  She disconnected the call.

  Charley looked at her in alarm. "If you turn off your phone, you won't be able to record his confession!"

  Amanda gave him a withering glance. "Of course I didn't turn it off. Have you forgotten all the times you ordered me to do something, and I let you think I was going to do it just to shut you up?"

  Charley considered that, his forehead wrinkling. Before he could respond, Kimball's Cadillac rounded the corner.

  Amanda shoved her helmet onto her head and her hands into her gloves. The bike roared to life, and she took off after Kimball.

  He drove slowly, twisting and turning through the streets of Silver Creek, residential as well as downtown. Trying to be sure they weren't being followed?

  It was a pleasant night, but Amanda failed to enjoy the leisurely ride. She wanted to get to wherever they were going, wanted to confront this evil man, wanted to get this over with. She was tired of living in fear, checking her bike every morning before she dared to ride it, looking over her shoulder and out her bedroom window for prying eyes. Much as she liked staying with the Randolphs, she wanted to be able to go home without worrying about being arrested. And she wanted to know that Irene and Herbert weren't in danger from dirt bag Kimball.

  After driving in circles for fifteen minutes, Kimball turned into the woods surrounding the lake. Ice crystals stabbed through Amanda's veins as she followed the demonic black Cadillac along a single lane dirt road. Judging from the amount of grass and weeds growing in the middle, few people came this way.

  Maybe she wasn't in such a hurry for this meeting after all.

  Finally the car stopped.

  No cabin. Nothing around them except trees.

  Amanda braked to a halt several feet back from the Cadillac. When she turned off her bike and the headlight went out, the darkness was complete. She could barely see the outline of the black car. Her burgundy red bike was black, the chrome dull with no light to reflect. Silence reigned around them. No creature of the night rustled through the leaves or called from the trees. She was alone with a killer.

  "Wonder why he brought us out here?" Charley said, his voice loud in the silence. "This is kind of creepy."

  "I'm sure he brought us here so we can have a nice, quiet, uninterrupted talk," she said sarcastically. "Or a nice, quiet, uninterrupted murder." That last part wasn't sarcasm.

  The driver's side door of the Cadillac opened, spilling bright light into the darkness, illuminating the interior of the car, silhouetting the man inside. Kimball, wearing black slacks and a black knit shirt, slid out, stood and closed the door behind him, returning the world to darkness.

  He smiled, his thin lips pressed together tightly as he came toward her. His dark eyes were empty holes in his shadowed face. Amanda pressed her hand against her jacket, feeling the reassuring outlines of the hammer and gun.

  "We walk from here," Kimball said, turned away from her and started through the trees.

  Amanda put down her bike's quick stand. When she removed her helmet and gloves, the night air on her skin reminded her of how vulnerable and exposed she was.

  "Charley?" she whispered.

  "Right here, Babe. I got your back."

  "You'll pass right through my back," she muttered. Nevertheless, having him there was irrationally reassuring.

  Forcing her feet to move, one in front of the other, she followed a few yards behind Kimball. Only when she had taken several steps through the underbrush did she realize they were on a path, albeit an overgrown path that had not seen much use in a lot of years.

  "I don't think this is the way to a rich man's hunting cabin," Charley said, echoing Amanda's fears. "Surely he'd have had a better road to get there."

  "Where are we going?" Amanda asked, speaking l
oud enough for Kimball to hear her.

  "Some place private."

  "Really? I thought maybe you were taking me to a five-star restaurant where I'd get to meet all your friends."

  Charley laughed.

  Kimball didn't.

  For several minutes they walked in silence, the only sound the crunching of leaves under their feet and the rapid pounding of Amanda's heart. At one point when Kimball went round a twist in the path and disappeared, Amanda pulled her cell phone from her pocket. No signal. That explained why Kimball hadn't checked to be sure she'd turned off her phone. He'd known they were going somewhere it would be useless.

  But he hadn't counted on all those apps Dawson had downloaded to her new smart phone, those apps she'd insisted she'd never have occasion to use. She set the phone to record and put it back in her pocket. She could only hope they got wherever they were going and had a meaningful conversation before her battery died or her memory card filled up.

  Finally they reached a clearing with the remains of what had once been a small, badly-constructed cabin. Even in its heyday, Amanda couldn't imagine Catherine Montgomery Kimball's grandfather hanging out here. Certainly he wouldn't have brought his friends to this place for a weekend of drinking and shooting.

  Large cracks separated the rough-hewn boards that looked as if they'd never seen paint. One small window gaped wide with its wooden cover hanging askew beneath the opening. Glass had never been a part of this structure. What remained of the roof was flat. It looked like an attempt by someone with limited funds and no experience in construction to create a rudimentary shelter.

  Kimball continued to the front door, grasped the short rope attached to one side, and pulled on it. A hinge was broken, and the door sagged when opened.

  "Who does this place belong to?" Amanda asked.

  "I have no idea, but I don't think the owner is going to complain," Kimball said. "I'd say he doesn't use it often."

  So her meticulous recitation of the legal description of the Montgomery family property to Detective Daggett had been to no avail. If Kimball killed her here, Daggett would never find her body.

  Only one solution to that. She wasn't going to let Kimball kill her.

  She followed him inside, stepping across the rotting boards, around the holes in the floor. A spider darted across a web hanging directly in front of Amanda's face. She gasped and turned her head away in time to see a mouse skitter through a hole in the wall.

  "Nice place," she said, compelled to speak in order to release some of the stress. "Come here often?"

  Kimball crossed the room, picked up an ancient kerosene lantern and lit it. That told her he'd been there recently enough to keep the lantern fueled.

  The small flame cast flickering, ominous shadows over his face as he turned to her. Not that he needed the lantern to look ominous.

  "I believe you have something you want to give me."

  Amanda unzipped her jacket halfway, reached into her pocket and pulled out the gun, holding it tightly in both hands lest he try to take it from her by force. "If you mean the gun you used to kill Dianne Carter, yes, I have it right here."

  He said nothing, merely extended his hand.

  "Why'd you kill her?"

  "Who?"

  "Dianne. The woman you shot with this gun Charley rescued from the garbage bin where you dumped it. You and she dated. You cared about her at one time. Why kill her?"

  Kimball took a step closer, and Amanda took a step backward. "I didn't come here to talk." His voice was rough, the smooth oil gone. "Give me the gun."

  Amanda held the weapon behind her back.

  "You killed my husband, you've put me through hell, I may even be arrested for murder. I think I at least deserve to know what started all this."

  "Deserve? You deserve nothing. Give me the gun. Now."

  She was doing this all wrong. Suddenly she remembered her reply when Irene had asked how she intended to get Kimball to confess. Amanda had replied that she'd appeal to his arrogance.

  "You wanted her back, didn't you? She dumped you in college, and with all your money and power and country club membership, you couldn't get her back. She loved her husband, a man who couldn't even get into the country club. That made you really mad, didn't it?"

  Fires flamed in Kimball's dark eyes. It was probably just a reflection of the lantern flames. Or maybe not. Whatever the cause, it was pretty freaky. Amanda had to force herself to remain in place, not back away. She was getting to him. Soon he'd be pouring out his guts to her cell phone.

  "Take off your jacket," he ordered.

  "Don't do it!" Charley said. "Don't let him get hold of your phone!"

  "You sick pervert," Amanda replied. "I'm not taking off anything for you. Dianne didn't either, did she?"

  Kimball's thin lips stretched into a semblance of a smile. "You don't know anything about Dianne. She wasn't the saint everybody in town thought she was."

  "Ask him if Dianne enjoyed killing the homeless man," Charley directed.

  That was taking a chance. They had no positive proof that had happened. But she had to bow to Charley's superior knowledge of this sort of situation.

  "Are you saying Dianne enjoyed herself the night you two killed that homeless man?"

  Kimball's eyes darkened, becoming bottomless pits where not even the lantern light reflected.

  "She didn't enjoy it, did she?" Amanda pursued, terrified and encouraged by Kimball's reaction. Dawson had been right. "She refused to take part. She thought you were a sick, evil man. That's when she broke up with you. Never wanted to see a disgusting man like you ever again."

  Kimball moved toward her. "Give me the gun." His words seemed to have a faint echo, as if they'd been dredged up from the depths of hell.

  Amanda stepped away from him, backing into the wall. She couldn't get any farther away. He stood inches from her. His garlicky breath blew hot on her face.

  "Get back," she ordered. "Did nobody ever tell you not to eat garlic or onions before a close encounter?"

  "Give me the gun."

  The situation was getting out of control. She brought the gun from behind her back and pointed it at him, inches from his stomach. "I said, get back. This gun is loaded, and I'm not soft like Dianne. I wouldn't have any problem at all killing you. In fact, I'd enjoy it."

  Her father had impressed on her that she should never point a gun at anyone unless she was ready to kill that person. Tonight was the first time she'd known she could do that, kill a human being. Well, she wasn't sure Kimball qualified as a human being.

  "After all you've done to me," she continued when he said nothing, "I'd take great pleasure in emptying this gun into your gut and then, if you're still breathing, I'll happily pistol whip that smirk off your face and through the back of your skull."

  "Give. Me. The. Gun."

  "I will, if you go stand across the room and get out of my face."

  With surprising speed and dexterity, Kimball grabbed her wrist of the hand that held the gun.

  "Watch out, Amanda!" Charley shouted, a little late.

  Panicked, Amanda squeezed the trigger, but Kimball pushed her hand sideways, and the bullet went harmlessly through the opposite wall.

  "Bitch!" He twisted her wrist with one hand while trying to wrest the gun from her with the other.

  Amanda struggled to keep the gun, clawing at his fingers with her free hand.

  "Leave her alone!" Charley dove between the two of them, pummeling Kimball. At least, Amanda assumed that's what he was trying to do. Instead his hands passed through the man.

  Charley must have made some impact, though, because Kimball looked startled and momentarily loosed his grip on her wrist.

  Amanda yanked her arm free and tried to aim the gun at Kimball again, but he recovered and slammed her against the wall, his body holding her in place. Charley appeared behind him, wrapping an arm around…and through his neck. Again Kimball looked startled, but did not release his grip on Amanda. She squirmed but
was pressed so tightly between him and the wall, she couldn't move. She hung on desperately to the gun, but he twisted her wrist until her fingers loosened their grip. He yanked the gun away from her.

  From the corner of her eye, she could see Charley futilely trying to grab the weapon from Kimball.

  Finally Kimball stepped away, shoved her against the wall and pointed the revolver toward her. "Now," he said. "Take off your jacket and hand it to me."

  "Don't do it!" Charley exclaimed, still grappling for the gun. The only evidence that he had any effect was when Kimball shuddered and brushed that hand with the other as if brushing off a spider.