by West, CJ
If Oliver destroyed Bill’s life for denying his parents a loan, there might be no limit to what he’d do to repay the man who sabotaged his family’s business and drove his parents to suicide.
Oliver had killed two people already. Charlie feared his father was next.
Chapter Forty-two
Charles took a nearly full bottle of sparkling from the dining table and returned a few minutes later with a steaming pot of coffee. “We’re going to have to keep our wits about us if we’re going to come through this better than Bill did.”
Charlie felt no ill effects from his single glass of wine, but he poured himself a cup and lifted it eagerly, welcoming the caffeine to clear his head and keep him alert. He knew the group arrayed around the table would mount a pitiful defense without him. Deirdre had been shocked nearly helpless by the snakes. Elizabeth, though tall and fit for a woman of fifty-two, was no match for Oliver’s strength. Charles had never spent time in a gym and his flabby, fifty-four-year-old body was in no shape for combat. It was Charlie’s fault Oliver wandered in their midst for weeks; defending them would fall to him and he owed them his best.
Outside, thunderheads blotted out the setting sun, leaving the yard in an eerie premature darkness. A cool wind whipped in through the window, fluttered the drapes, and flapped up napkins around the table. The swirling gusts brought a few fat raindrops, tiny heralds of a violent storm to come.
Deirdre finally noticed the wary eyes on the single pane of glass behind her. She’d sat with her back to the window throughout dinner and the newfound vulnerability sent a shudder through her.
Charles closed the window, locked it then turned to face the group. “Any idea how he’s getting in?”
Deirdre scooted her chair toward Elizabeth. “How could he get in?”
Elizabeth placed a hand over Deirdre’s. “He’s been inside, Dear. He took every scrap of food from the kitchen and he left me a note. He knew I was coming.”
Charles approached the table. “I found a note on the coffee table when I got back. I’m sure it wasn’t there when we arrived. He’s out there watching and he’s coming in and out as he pleases.”
The news set Deirdre squirming in her seat. She flashed a look at each door and window and then the floor, as if he might burrow up from underneath. “What if he’s still inside?” she asked.
Hiding within earshot of his terrorized victims would make Oliver tingle with adventure. Hearing their footsteps and panicked voices would be a thrill he’d pay for. He could be in a closet or a bedroom upstairs. But he was plotting more than snakes and threatening letters. He’d be close by. He probably heard every word they said, but he wouldn’t risk getting caught. This was a game Oliver had to win.
Charlie peered out into the gloomy shadows and listened as his father closed and locked the windows they had opened earlier.
Unsatisfied with the alarm panel’s assurance that the house was secure, they set the alarm to “chime” and went around the house to be sure Oliver hadn’t bypassed the wiring and created a safe entrance for himself. They opened every door and window and each time they did, the alarm sounded three high pitched beeps.
When they were done, they began searching for the chance, however slim, that Oliver was hiding inside. Charlie led the way with the bat that had served him so well against the snakes. Charles stayed close by his side and the women followed a bit further behind, lingering at the entrance to each room, afraid to follow them in and afraid to let them drift too far away. Their vigilance in the doorways, their eyes constantly shifting ahead and behind, would spot Oliver if he moved anywhere in the small house. The group covered every square foot of living space, opening closets, poking behind doors, checking every place a man could hide.
They found no sign of Oliver or how he might be getting in. He’d known the alarm code at the Caulfield’s and that was enough to get him in through the garage. There was no such entry here, but Oliver had lived in this house. Charlie faced the basement door, sure the alarm would keep them safe, but safety was a dangerous illusion. Oliver knew this house as well as they did. He might still have a key.
How else might he get in? The basement, the attic, the garage.
Charlie opened the basement door and the alarm was silent. His pulse quickened as he descended with his father five steps behind. The women kept to the bright light from the hall. They crouched low on the third step and watched the men ease through aisles of old clothes and neglected amusements. There Charlie found what he was looking for.
He waded over to the concrete wall and took hold of one of the small windows that peeked up just above ground level. Metal grated metal as the window slid open. Silence. No alarm wires were ever connected down here. Worse, the windows didn’t lock. They opened from inside or outside leaving room for someone as thin as Oliver to slither through. The men didn’t bother checking the rest of the basement. If Oliver wasn’t inside already, he could be within seconds.
They returned to the foot of the stairs and looked up at the wooden door with no alarm, no lock, nothing to keep Oliver out. The house next door was built the same way. Oliver could enter either house at will, but Charlie doubted he’d hide next door with the snakes and the mice. Oliver wanted them here, in this house. He’d be lurking in the shadows ready to strike.
The women read their panicked faces and backed nervously up the stairs.
Charles yanked and twisted the two-by-four legs off his homemade workbench and barked at Charlie to grab a hammer and a handful of sixteen-penny nails. Charlie followed him up the basement steps and positioned the first two-by-four horizontally across the door casing. Charles drove the first nail home. Two more nails followed before Elizabeth protested.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as the nails bored into the trim.
“Keeping unwanted guests out.”
“If he’s that dangerous, why stay?” Elizabeth asked.
The simplicity of the solution struck Junior and Senior dumb. Neither wanted to involve the police, but why hadn’t they thought to just leave and come back in daylight? They finished attaching the second two-by-four and abandoned the hammer and nails at the threshold.
Charles retrieved his new briefcase and the little group made their way to the garage without packing anything else. The light glared off the clean concrete and the white-plastered walls. Charles went to the BMW, checked the backseat and signaled it was safe for everyone to get in. As Charles inserted the key, Charlie panicked. He clutched his head and ducked, remembering Oliver’s game with the motion sensors and the wires to the attic. Charles had quite predictably gotten everyone into his own car. Oliver was a whiz with electronics, capable of modifying the car’s ignition. Charlie imagined the car exploding when Charles turned the key. It seemed a fitting end to Oliver’s game: Charles, his money, and his family incinerated.
The key turned. Something clicked and Charles lifted his hands from the steering column as if it were electrified. “What?” he asked.
“Mom, Deirdre, get away from the car. Dad, pop the hood.”
Charles looked incredulously at his son as he tugged on the hood release.
Charlie lifted the hood to hunt for wires that didn’t belong, but his search was brief. The oil cap lay upside-down atop the engine and the crankcase overflowed with sand. A single sheet of paper rested on top of the ruined motor, held there by a small green circuit board that had been snapped in two.
Don’t bother trying to flush it.
It’ll never run again.
Mrs. Marston’s Mercedes received the same treatment, although Oliver left no note as if to send the subtle message that he knew Charles would go to his own car first even though the Mercedes was larger and closer to the door. Charlie had the same puppet-like feeling he’d had just before he discovered the mice in his attic and stupidly set them free. Oliver was controlling their every move. The escape attempt was over and they had no choice but to go back inside.
Thunder cracked in the distance, wind
rattled the flimsy garage doors, and a hard rain pelted the shingles.
Charlie hurried past the women, down the hall and started up the stairs.
Deirdre rushed after him. “Where are you going?”
The house went dark before he could reply, leaving the family strung out from the garage to the stairway. Charlie couldn’t see anything. Footsteps shuffled in the kitchen and something soft hit the floor. The rain and wind grew even louder.
Deirdre shrieked from the bottom of the stairs with all the force her lungs could manage, “Oh my God, he’s going to kill us!”
Charlie groped his way down and found her clinging to the railing at the third step. He held her until she quieted. “It’s ok. He’s just scaring us, that’s all.” He rocked her against his shoulder as he soothed, “He doesn’t want to hurt you. It’s me and my father he’s after.”
“That’s not what he said at the farm. He said if he ever saw me again, he’d grind me up and feed me to the coyotes.”
Charlie could almost feel Oliver laughing at him.
The hallway lit up, then the light swiveled around the corner and came to rest at Charlie’s feet on the carpeted stairs. He felt Deirdre’s shoulders relax as Charles and Elizabeth appeared in the circle of light.
“Think he’s down by the panel?” Charles asked.
Charlie gestured with one empty hand. “That or outside along the line somewhere. Wherever he is, he’s ready for us to come looking.”
Both men sensed a trap and Charlie realized he’d left his bat next to the basement window.
Elizabeth waved a cordless phone in the light. “The phones are dead.”
Charles ignored her. “Why were you going upstairs, Charlie?”
“The rain. Oliver drilled holes in the Caulfields’ roof. That’s what drove them out so he could burn it down.”
Deirdre clung to Charlie as if she might drown without him to support her.
“Let me get another light,” Charles said. He handed his light to Charlie and disappeared toward the kitchen.
“He’s going to kill us,” Deirdre whispered.
Charlie rubbed his fingertips back and forth across her back like windshield wipers soothing her nervousness away. “Remember, there are four of us. We’ll get through this if we stay together.”
Deirdre squeezed Charlie’s sore ribs and he stood it without complaint, shining the light against the wall and gently kissing the top of her head.
Charles returned with a brighter light, which he handed to Elizabeth. Charlie pried himself from Deirdre’s grip, left her with his mother and headed to the attic.
Unlike the attic in Charlie’s house, this room was crammed. Boxes were stacked head high with only a four-foot walkway down the center. The windows on each end were intact and there was no sign of sawdust either on the floor or on top of the rafter-high piles of clutter. Charlie took the light and climbed up on an old end table to inspect the peak. There were no holes in the exposed plywood and the ridge vent was secure. The rain was pouring down now and what they could see of the storage area was dry. They could hear a steady flow of water rolling off the roof and into the gutters with a tinny drumming. It wasn’t coming in the attic.
As the men came downstairs, Charlie took a detour into the dining room. He slipped open a window, but the alarm didn’t sound. The system was supposed to run on batteries for twenty-four hours, but the batteries and most of the system circuitry were locked in the cellar with the man they needed protection from. No phone, no power, no alarm, no way out. They were on their own until morning.
Chapter Forty-three
Charlie hunkered down in front of the stove on the dark kitchen floor. The women pressed their backs to the cabinets taking comfort in the extra two feet of cushion between them and the outside wall, even if the cleaning supplies within offered little real protection. Charles wedged himself in the space between the far wall and the island. With a turn of his head, he could see across the house into the living room. Every ten minutes or so, he rose to his feet and checked the window above the kitchen sink. A Belgian Browning with its distinctive hump lay across his lap. The only shells in the house were seven-and-a-halves he’d used for pheasant hunting. The load would be devastating if Oliver came indoors, but useless if he kept sixty yards away. Charlie had never seen his father shoot anything other than clay pigeons and he wondered how effectively he’d wield the gun in combat.
The constantly drumming rain droned over the whispers between the women, but Charlie heard enough to understand their plan. Neither believed Oliver would wait outside in the drenching rain. They wanted to slip outside under cover of rain and darkness and follow the stone wall to the road. Charles was warming to their idea, too. The nearest house was a little over a half mile away, but the stone wall would provide cover until they were safe. In the dark, Oliver could do little to stop them without coming in range of the shotgun.
As Charlie shifted closer, his cell phone poked him just above the belt. Holding back a surge of hope, he wordlessly stepped over the women’s legs and scooted to the end of the island to give it a try. He dialed 911 by the blue glow of the message pad and pressed Send. Two tones oscillated back at him and the phone displayed Call Failed. Odd. The phone had always worked here before. The raging storm could shorten his cell range, but more likely Oliver had planned for this. If it was possible to jam the signal, Oliver had the time and money to do it. Charlie tried 911 two more times with the same result before slinking back next to Deirdre.
Charles tapped the money-filled case with his fingertips. He lowered his head and gazed at his knees as if he struggled to capture an idea that was dancing at the fringes of his consciousness. His head popped upright when he finally grasped it.
“Deirdre.” He paused for her to look up. “How did you know Randy was really Oliver Joyet?”
“What?”
“At dinner you said Randy’s real name was Oliver Joyet. How’d you know?”
“I hired an investigator. He knew in two days.”
Charles leaned around the corner for a clearer view of Deirdre’s face.
Charlie didn’t hear his father ask what the investigator had told her. Astonished, he stared at Deirdre. How wrong he’d been. She hadn’t come unhinged when Henri died. She hadn’t been enraptured by him these last weeks. It was Oliver she was after! The horrors next door and two hours sitting on the cold tiles had wiped away her seductiveness. The alluring smile had been replaced by a fearful blankness as she cowered on the floor. Looking at her now, Charlie realized he’d been the fool. He was the one enraptured. Not only had he been a conduit for Oliver’s revenge, he’d been a conduit for her retaliation as well.
Charlie half-heard Deirdre rambling on to his father.
“He gave me his name, address, and a page or two of background, finances, stuff like that. He also said Oliver spent three or four hours here while Charlie was in Piolenc.”
“We know what he was doing, don’t we?” Elizabeth said.
A silence fell on the group as they collectively pondered this new information.
Elizabeth leaned into the center and whispered. “Where’s your investigator now? Can he help us?”
“I don’t know where he is.” Deirdre hesitated then relaxed and fell silent.
Charles reached over and tapped her shoe to get her attention. “Can you remember where he lives?”
Deirdre could only offer that the house was a large white-brick colonial.
“Think, think. You saw the address. Try to remember.”
Deirdre couldn’t recall, but told him the answer was in TJ’s file, tucked in the case by her bedside. Even in the dark, Charlie could see that her eyes were filled with horror at the prospect of going back there.
Charles patted her shoe in thanks, raised himself to a crouch, and wobbled across the room toting the shotgun a foot above the floor. The outline of his head popped up in the window. He peered into the darkness between the houses then crawled into the dining room. A
moment later, he waddled down the hall in a low crouch and sat back, panting, in his original position beside the island.
“It’s absolutely pouring out there. We’ll get drenched, but he’ll never see us sneak over and back.”
Elizabeth grabbed her husband’s arm. “You’re not going out there!”
“We have to. He’s hunting us for Christ’s sake. Look what he did to Bill and Deirdre’s husband. If we don’t stop him, we’re next. We’re getting out of here, but we need those papers first. The money in this case will buy plenty of help.”
“You know he’s out there somewhere.”
“He’s waiting for the rain to stop just like we are. He knows we’re scared. He won’t expect us to go outside.”
“I’ll go,” Charlie said.
“Good.” Charles handed the shotgun to Elizabeth. “Shoot anything that comes inside unless it’s me or Charlie.”
He pointed to the safety, but before he could speak, Deirdre latched on to Charlie’s arm in a panic. “You can’t both go!”
“She’s right,” Charlie said, “If Oliver catches them alone it won’t be pretty. I know the house best. I’ll be over and back in five minutes.”
Deirdre stood up. “If you go, I’m going with you.”
Charlie couldn’t believe her. He wondered if she might be hoping to see Charlie and Oliver square off. “I’ll go alone. One scream and we’re sunk.”
“I know where the folder is and you need someone to hold the light. And what if you run into him?”
Having Deirdre along was riskier than going alone, but her grip on his bicep told him she wouldn’t feel safe unless he was in sight. He agreed to let her come and began groping around the first floor for a weapon. The flashlights would have made the job much easier, but Oliver would have known they were up to something. Eventually, he bumped into his father’s golf bag by the garage door. He passed over woods and graphite-shafted irons and settled on a steel-shafted sand wedge. The loft was perfect for scooping up snakes and the steel shaft would stand severe punishment without breaking.