Killer Insight

by Victoria Laurie

  “Is that the bracelet Ellie gave you?” I asked.

  Kelly turned up the heat and said, “Yep. I love it. Ellie gave it to me,” she said as she toyed with the bracelet. I noticed it also had a heart on the chain. “She’s always thinking of me.”

  “I know,” I agreed. “She gave me one too,” I said, holding mine up for Kelly to see.

  “Ooooh,” she said. “Yours is gorgeous. She made each heart a little different, something unique for all of us.”

  I pulled my wrist back after Kelly had inspected it, and another silence passed between us. Searching for topics of conversation I asked, “What do you do for a living, Kelly?”

  She giggled and said, “I’m a hairstylist. I was supposed to do Ellie’s hair for the wedding. It’s so sad that it looks like it’s not going to happen now.”

  “Yes, it really is,” I said. “At least, not until Eddie gets out of jail.”

  Kelly opened her mouth to comment, but just then there was an explosion of sound over the radio and she and I turned as an excited voice said, “Over here! I got him! He’s over here!”

  “Whoa,” I said as I leaned closer to the front seat to listen. “I think they found Biggins!”

  Kelly and I strained to understand the excited chatter lighting up the airwaves as police codes spoken in excited tones sparked from the radio. After a little while we heard Duffy’s voice say, “Abby and Kelly, if you’re listening, we’ve found Biggins. We’ve got some cleanup to do, but sit tight and we’ll be on our way back soon.”

  “Phew!” Kelly said, sitting back in her seat. “I am so relieved they caught that son of a bitch!”

  I gave a small look of shock as the expletive came out of her mouth. She just didn’t seem the type to swear. Still, I watched the field intently, waiting for Duffy to reappear with his team and Biggins in cuffs. “Hey, is that your sketch?” Kelly asked, eyeing the piece of paper still clutched in my hand.

  “Yeah,” I said absently, watching for movement. Even though Duffy claimed to have caught Biggins, the unease in my stomach hadn’t lessened.

  “Mind if I take a look?” she asked.

  “Here,” I said, and handed it to her. While she looked at my sketch I reached into my purse and pulled out my cell and earphone. I needed to call Dave and let him know I wasn’t going to make my plane.

  As I was about to put on the earphone, Kelly gave a gasp and said, “Ohmigod! I know where this is!”

  I looked up to see her pointing to the stones laid out in a cross that I had drawn at the top left corner of the page. “You do?” I asked, the feeling of disquiet becoming a little stronger as she tapped the page.

  “Yes! Why haven’t you shown this to Duffy?”

  “I did show it to him. I drew it the day we knew Sara had been killed.”

  Kelly sucked in a breath. She stared at me wide-eyed for a split second before she was out the car door and running as if her life depended on it down the embankment and across the field.

  “Kelly!” I shouted as I rushed out of the car. “Kelly! Come back!” To my amazement she ignored me and just kept running. After a moment of indecision during which I considered picking up Duffy’s microphone and telling him that Kelly had run out of the car, I figured that by the time he got back here, she’d be long gone. With a growl I pushed open the car door and ran after her as fast as I could, resigning to call Duffy on my cell when I caught up with her.

  Kelly had a really good lead on me already, and for someone so tiny, she could run like the devil. As I chased after her, I managed to clip the earpiece to my ear and I flipped open the phone, searching with stolen glances through my speed-dial directory for Duffy’s number. I couldn’t remember which digit I’d assigned to him, and the more I tried to run, look at my phone and keep from losing sight of Kelly, the dizzier I became.

  I had no idea what had gotten into her, but if she beat me to the woods, Duffy wouldn’t know what had happened to us if I didn’t call him. Aggravated, I raised the phone in front of me, hoping to get a longer look at my directory, but tripped on a stick and went down with a thud. Swearing like a sailor I picked myself up and looked to see Kelly’s coat already fading into the forest.

  I was panting heavily as I got up and charged after Kelly again. Holding tight to my cell, I decided to wait until I caught up with her to call Duffy. Trying to look for his number and running pell-mell across a field just didn’t work with my already challenged coordination.

  Ten yards from the woods, I lost sight of Kelly altogether. Cursing in between puffs I entered the woods and immediately tripped again. “Goddamn it!” I yelled as I picked myself up and glanced down at what I had tripped over. A woman’s stylish high-heeled shoe lay under my leg, and while my frenzied brain tried to figure that one out I got up again and headed in the direction I thought Kelly had run toward.

  The brush was thick here, and the woods were dark and menacing. “Kelly!” I managed as I slowed my pace a little. My lungs couldn’t take this. “Kelly! Stop this! Come on! Come out and stop running!” Ahead, I heard a bloodcurdling scream. “Jesus!” I said, and ran toward the noise as branches scratched at my face and hands. “Kelllly!” I yelled again. No one answered.

  Puffing and panting, I crashed through the brush, deeper into the woods toward the sound of Kelly’s scream. My heart was pounding so loudly in my chest I thought it would permanently push out my rib cage. My eyes darted wildly about as I searched for any sign of her black coat or brunette head. Finally I had to stop. I just couldn’t go forward another foot until I caught a little breath. Wheezing with effort, I doubled over and held my hand to the stitch in my side. I managed one hoarse “Kelly!” in between breaths, but that took so much effort that I decided to give it a break until I had leveled my breathing again.

  While I was doubled over, something shiny caught a small ray of sunlight and reflected in my eye only two feet in front of me. Reaching forward I picked up the object and noticed immediately that it was one of the hearts off the Tiffany bracelets that Ellie had given out.

  “Oh, no,” I whined as I panted and tried to stand up straight. I did so with effort; my side was killing me. I blinked a few times as stars swam in front of my eyes, but regained my balance and looked closely at the heart. I knew Kelly’s name would be there. Her scream had been that panicked. She’d been taken by the same person who’d taken all the other girls, and was probably, even now, fighting for her life, if not dead.

  I was utterly wrong. The elegant name on the bracelet read, Christina.

  “You know, for a psychic, you sure suck,” a voice said behind me at the same instant something metallic went click. I knew that noise. I’d been around Dutch on the practice range enough times to know the sound of the safety being pulled back from a big, bad gun.

  “No,” I said breathlessly. “Not you!”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll fill you in, but first drop the heart.” I did, and a second later felt the barrel of a gun in my back as I heard the killer bend slightly to retrieve it. “I’ve been looking for this; thanks for finding it.” A second later the pressure of the barrel left my back and then the voice said, “Now move.”

  My back was ramrod straight, the stitch in my side completely forgotten as I obeyed orders, knowing there was a gun pointed at my back, and no help in sight this far into the woods.

  “Which way should I go?” I asked.

  “A little left, then straight ahead. And don’t try anything,” the voice said as I felt the metal poke me hard in the middle of my back again.

  My mind began racing. How to get out of this? I clenched my fists and realized I still held my phone in my hand. As discreetly as I could, and using my body as a block, I felt the keys with my thumb and went for 911. Pretending to trip a little, I managed to click on the SEND button and waited for the line to be picked up in my ear.

  My heart beat even faster, and adrenaline coursed through my legs, leaving them wobbly and shaken as I
heard the line ring once, twice, and in the next instant a deep baritone said, “Rivers.”

  I grabbed a tree branch for support at the sound of the voice, a flood of emotions shooting up and down my nerves. “Rivers,” Dutch said again, growing impatient when his first announcement was met with silence. I had two choices: I could discreetly hang up and go for 911 again, or I could try to alert him to what was going on. I opted for the latter.

  “Where are we going, exactly?” I said loudly. “I mean, you have a gun to my back; I think I deserve to know where we’re going.”

  “Edgar?” Dutch asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  “So why did you kill them?” I asked. “Why did you kill your friends, Kelly?”

  “Abby, this isn’t funny,” Dutch said. “Come on, what gives?”

  “They weren’t my friends,” Kelly said.

  “But you killed them,” I insisted, my voice shrill and shaking. “You killed them for no reason. In cold blood. And then you tried to frame Eddie. Why?”

  Dutch was silent in my ear as we marched forward. I could feel him trying to decide if I was playing some joke or if I was serious. “Ellie is my best friend!” Kelly said. “She and I are so much closer than any of you! She understands me! She needs me! She doesn’t need any of you! So I got rid of all the distractions in her life. I simplified things. Now she and I can focus on each other. We’re sisters, or we will be once I marry Duffy.”

  “So it was you who lured Gina out of her apartment that night.”

  Kelly laughed, delighted that I was putting the pieces together. “And you and Duffy couldn’t figure it out. I instant-messaged her to call me, because I knew that Duffy would search her phone records. It worked brilliantly. She calls, I tell her that Ellie is planning on fleeing the country because she doesn’t want to marry Eddie, and Gina bolts for the airport, where I meet up with her in the parking lot.”

  “You killed her there?”

  “Nope, just planted a little evidence. I’d hung out at Ellie’s that weekend. While Ellie was out on an errand, Eddie came home, got out of his scrubs and asked me if I could cut his hair. While I was cleaning up he hit the shower. I snagged his scrubs and a little hair, and only after I got home did I realize he’d left his wallet in the pants pocket. He made it way too easy for me.”

  “So you lured her out of her apartment; then what?”

  “I got her in my car and managed to get her all the way out here without much effort—of course, I did have my trusty gun here to help me.”

  “But she wouldn’t go into the woods with you,” I said. “She knew you were going to kill her.”

  “Yep. That bitch tried to make a run for it, so I shot her in front of the shack and hid her in it. I wanted to make it look like Eddie had tried to cover up the evidence, so I thought of burning down the shack, but it was too wet that night. I settled for dropping Eddie’s wallet close by, rubbing the scrubs with her blood, then headed back to the airport to leave them in her car.”

  “And somehow you found out that Sara was on her way to the bridal shop and lured her away too,” I said.

  “She actually called me on the way over. Said she was meeting you guys. That stupid redhead.”

  “And Christina?” I asked, thinking about the heart I’d just found.

  “I made it back to Christina’s house after Biggins had kidnapped me. She let me in and was all, ‘You poor thing! You’ve been through so much trauma!’ Dumb bitch. She goes into her room to get me a warm sweater, and when she comes back I’ve got my gun out. I’m thinking she’ll go as easy as Sara, but that cow decides to tackle me. Maybe she didn’t think I’d shoot her. She was dead wrong,” Kelly said with a little chuckle.

  “That’s how you got beat up,” I said with a gasp. “It wasn’t Biggins who attacked you; it was Christina!”

  “Yep. I shot her a couple of extra times for that.”

  “And the night you took me to Duffy’s,” I said, thinking back as another realization slammed into place. “You weren’t taking me to Viv’s! You were taking me here, weren’t you? That’s why you were so annoyed when I called Duffy and told him I was with you. You would have had too much explaining to do if I didn’t show up at his house, and why we were so late getting there!”

  “You’re not as dumb as you look.” She snickered. “Now stop!”

  I halted. Dutch had remained silent in my ear the whole time we were walking. My eyes watered as I wondered if he had hung up on me. “So now you’re going to kill me too,” I said dumbly as I looked ahead at a small stone structure, old and crumbling. It was the remnants of a tiny abbey. And now I knew why, in my dreams, the mailbox in front of the stones formed into a cross had had my name on it. In the middle of the crumbling ruin I saw two legs lying on the stone floor. One foot was covered with a stylish shoe. The other was barefoot, and I trembled as I realized that I was looking at Christina’s final resting place.

  “Ellie doesn’t need any more distractions. And neither does Duffy,” Kelly said simply.

  “Kelly,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “He’s out here with a dozen law enforcement agents! He’s bound to find us! He’ll know it was you!”

  Kelly laughed. “Oh, I doubt that. Right now that group is half a mile away dealing with Biggins. They aren’t even within earshot. Now turn around,” she ordered, and I knew my time was up.

  It’s a strange thing that happens when you know you’re about to die. There is this feeling of time stopping, and sound being muted. It is a feeling not so much of peace, but acceptance. I turned slowly around, and while the sound of Dutch’s voice burst forth loudly in my ear again, I didn’t register any of what he said next. I was too intent on looking Kelly in the eye.

  When I did, I wondered at it. I wondered why I hadn’t known about her earlier. I wondered why my guides hadn’t warned me and prevented me from coming here in Duffy’s car. True, I’d felt a sense of unease, but nothing like the major alarm bells that should have gone off.

  I looked hard at Kelly. I took in her small, petite stature. Her girlish face. The way she still looked so fragile, even holding that monster gun in her tiny hand, and I realized I’d been swayed by the look of her. Still, that didn’t account for why I hadn’t known on some intuitive level how evil she really was. After all, I was a professional. I should have known it was her.

  And that was when Kelly pulled the trigger, and before I could really register what was happening I was flying backward through the air. The bullet punched me with a force that boggled the mind. I felt my breath expel from my mouth with a heavy “Uhn!”

  The world spun as fire erupted in my chest, the pain unlike anything I’d ever felt in my life. My hand came up protectively to the wound in my chest as a crimson stain spread through my fingers and I writhed in agony.

  Dutch was yelling now, his voice loud with panic, but my mind was too consumed with my own pain to reach out to him. It was too late anyway. Kelly stood over me, pointing that gun straight at my heart. Our eyes met, and she hesitated for a split second as I nodded. I knew it was over, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Kelly smiled evilly at how quickly I caved. “You’re just like Biggins,” she said. “After I rolled away from him, I snuck back around for an ambush. He begged and begged me not to shoot him, but when I shot his balls off, he was singing a different tune a few octaves higher.” Then her eyes narrowed and she took aim. I felt my limbs go numb, a paralysis of sorts stopped my writhing, and suddenly the pain was gone. I seemed to lift off the ground and float upward a few inches, and the last sound I heard was a second explosion as it echoed through the woods.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Floating up and up I saw the branches, then the tops of the trees, then the blue sky, when finally a tunnel formed around me. As I traveled into the tunnel I viewed the last week of my life as if I were in a darkened theater, and when that stopped, I became aware of the tunnel and the light again. It was an eerie feeling, drifting through
space in a hollow tube that felt alive with energy. At the end was a bright white light, and it was so blinding that I had to shield my eyes.

  I blinked several times, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and when they did I noticed that I was no longer in the tunnel but in a huge open garden. My mouth dropped a little at the sudden change in scenery while I ogled the beauty of the place. The grass was the most brilliant green I’d ever seen. It felt light and ticklish under my feet, which I noticed were bare. I pulled my head back up and looked around the garden. There were exotic-looking flowers I was sure I’d never seen before in the most gorgeous and vivid colors that seemed to glow with an inner light.

  In the background I saw a waterfall so blue it looked aqua as it ran over its rocky edge and into a large crystal-clear pool. “Wow!” I said as my eyes tried to take in the sounds, sights and smells of the place.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice beside me said.

  I jumped, both at the suddenness of the voice appearing beside me and the fact that I recognized to whom it belonged. “Grams!” I said when I’d recovered myself, and threw my arms around my grandmother.

  After squeezing her tightly, I pulled back to look at her, drinking in the sight of my favorite grandparent. I sucked in a breath; she was so radiant and beautiful, and looking like she wasn’t a day over thirty. The last time I’d seen her was when I was six years old, and she had been so frail then at the end of her battle with cancer.

  Here she looked amazing. Her face was young and fresh, her hair a beautiful chestnut color instead of the gray I remembered. Her dress was gorgeous, a white-and-pink concoction of flowers and silk. “I can’t believe it’s you!” I said as I squeezed her in a tight embrace again.

  She laughed in my ear and held me tight, and I felt a love so intense it filled me from head to toe.

  “Hello, Abby-gabby, my dear, sweet, wonderful girl!” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”