Spackled and Spooked

by Jennie Bentley

  At this point in my cogitations, Derek came sidling around the corner again and crouched next to me.

  “There’s no sign of Brandon,” he whispered, his mouth so close to my ear that his breath tickled, “although Lionel’s mom’s in the kitchen, cleaning up. There are no curtains anywhere, just blinds, and I was able to look into pretty much every room. I even peered into the bathroom, just in case. I don’t think Brandon ’s in the house.”

  “Damn.”

  He nodded. “This is interesting, though: Lionel’s room looks like a shrine to Holly. There are several pictures of the two of them, from school plays and field trips and such.”

  “You’re kidding? That’s creepy.”

  “Totally,” Derek nodded, with a faint grin. I opened my mouth to say something else, but before I could, Derek’s cell phone chirped. He slapped a hand to it, but it was too late: Lionel looked up and at the window, alertly. We both ducked out of sight.

  “Damn,” Derek breathed. He glanced at the display. “It’s Wayne. Maybe he’s found Brandon.”

  I nodded. “You need to take it. Run. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Right.” Derek scooted away from the window and faded into the darkness, up toward our house. I did the same, but before I could clear the yard, the front door opened and light flooded out onto the stoop and grass.

  Lionel’s small frame stood outlined in the light. I threw myself flat on the ground and held my breath.

  He looked around, suspiciously. I concentrated on not moving and on not making a sound. Lionel did the same. After a moment, his head turned. Away from me, up the street. Derek had opened the door to the truck, and the light inside had come on. I could see him standing there, cell phone to his ear, but of course he was too far away for me to hear what he was saying. Lionel watched for a moment, then ducked back inside the house.

  He left the door open, so I figured he’d be coming back out, and I thought I might not get a better chance to move. So I got up into a crouch and made for the driveway, where I planned to duck behind the van. It was only a few yards from where I was; I didn’t think I’d have any problems getting there.

  And I didn’t. The problem came when I arrived. I was slinking along the back of the van, preparatory to darting into the next yard and behind some bushes, when I heard a faint banging noise from inside.

  Electrical tools don’t move around on their own, so obviously someone-or something-was inside Lionel’s paneled van. It wasn’t Derek, who I could see farther up the street. And it wasn’t Wayne, who was on the phone with Derek. And I couldn’t imagine Denise or Irina or Linda White scrambling around in the back of Lionel’s van. But Brandon was missing, and this was somewhere we hadn’t looked for him.

  In retrospect, it might not have been the smartest thing to do. What I should have done was go get Derek and then make him check the inside of the van. But in addition to the banging, there were weird, muffled moaning or keening sounds coming from the van, and I was worried. What if Brandon was hurt? Or choking? What if he couldn’t wait another minute? I pulled open the back door and crawled in, pulling the door shut behind me. Gently, so it wouldn’t make a noise.

  No sooner was I inside and had located the dark bundle that was Brandon, than Lionel came back out of the house and headed for the van. I looked around the dark interior. It was too late to get out, but was there somewhere I could hide so he wouldn’t see me?

  Lionel decided to come to the back door, and I just barely had time to throw myself into the corner closest to the doors and make myself as small as possible. I closed my eyes, in the age-old belief that if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me. As it turned out, I was right. He didn’t see me. I was squished as far into the corner as I could get, and he looked right past me, seemingly concerned only with making sure that Brandon was still there. The beam of his flashlight illuminated a long bundle, the top of a fair head, and a pair of blue eyes blinking woozily. Every other part of Brandon seemed to be rolled in a tarp and a couple of blankets, and judging from the muffled sounds he was making, Lionel had gagged him, as well.

  After a second, Lionel closed the door again. As his steps continued up the side of the van, I moved, as quietly and noiselessly as possible, to crouch next to Brandon. Hopefully any noises I made would be attributed to Brandon ’s thrashings. When Lionel went back inside, I’d get us both out.

  It was a fine plan, as far as it went. It was even successful, to a degree. Lionel didn’t realize that I was there. He did not, however, go back inside. Instead, he opened the driver’s side door. I threw myself sideways, into the space directly behind the driver’s seat, praying that once again, he’d look right past me. Jumping up into the seat, Lionel chuckled, a highly unpleasant sound, made all the worse for the words that accompanied it. “Ready to go for a ride, Brandon, old buddy?”

  And that’s where the brilliance of my plan blew up in my face. I’d expected Lionel to go back inside after reassuring himself that everything was okeydokey out here. He didn’t. Instead, he cranked the key over in the ignition. The van hiccupped, and we bumped backward out of the driveway onto Becklea and, with a grinding noise, barreled down the street toward the corner.

  22

  It was a supremely unpleasant ride, one of the worst I’ve ever had to endure, and that includes the 350-mile trip from New York City to Waterfield that I took with my mother at age five, when we had to pull over every twenty minutes so I could throw up.

  I didn’t get carsick this time, in spite of driving with my back to traffic. It was probably because I was too worried about where we were going and what would happen when we got there to have time to think about anything else. Not to mention that I was worried about Brandon. I couldn’t risk examining him, for fear that Lionel would notice me. And he couldn’t talk, but every time the car went over a bump in the road, he groaned. I hated to think what the drive was doing to him; maybe he had internal injuries, maybe Lionel had shot him and he was slowly bleeding to death. Whatever was wrong with him, it didn’t sound good.

  And where was Derek? Hopefully he had realized I was inside the van and was following us. Hopefully he had called Wayne to report what had happened. Hopefully the police were closing in on us even now. Hopefully they’d reach us before Lionel murdered us both. He didn’t have much to lose at this point, if indeed he had killed Holly and Venetia, as I thought he must have. There was no doubt that he’d abducted Brandon, and I didn’t think it was so he could bring him to a surprise party. If he planned to kill Brandon, and I thought he’d have to, he likely wouldn’t have any qualms about killing me.

  I had no idea where we were going, and I couldn’t raise my head up high enough to look out the front window, for fear that Lionel would notice me. The back of the paneled van had no windows. The road we drove on felt smooth, paved, but beyond that, I had no idea whether we were going east or west, north or south. Toward the coast or away from it. Occasionally I’d hear the humming of another car passing by, coming closer then fading, but other than that, I didn’t hear a thing.

  I also couldn’t tell how much time had passed. I’m not good at telling time without a clock. A couple of months ago, I’d been locked in an underground tunnel with a rotting corpse for fifteen hours, and it had felt like days had passed before I finally got out.

  After a while the van slowed, and the surface under the wheels changed. Now it felt more like we were bumping over a rutted track of some sort, or at least a less-trafficked road. Eventually the van rolled to a stop, and Lionel cut the lights and the engine. He sat for a second in the dark, maybe bracing himself for the task to come, then took the key out of the ignition and got out.

  As soon as the driver’s side door closed behind him, I was on the move, slithering between the seats into the front compartment, squeezing myself into the space under the dashboard on the passenger side. If he remembered something he’d forgotten, and opened the front door again, I didn’t have a hope of remaining undetected, but chances wer
e good he was on his way to the back doors, and I didn’t want to sit there in plain view when he opened them.

  No sooner had I curled up, than the double back doors opened, and I heard Lionel root around among the tools. He removed something-I could hear the slide of metal, something long, against other metal and plastic objects, and another groan from Brandon.

  “Sorry, old buddy,” Lionel said, without sounding like he meant it. “Don’t go anywhere, OK?”

  He laughed merrily at his own wit before closing the door again. I could hear his steps walking away and then the rhythmic sound of digging. Grasping the edge of the door, I levered my head up high enough to peer out.

  Yep, that was what he was doing, all right. Digging. A grave, most likely. If he saw me, he’d probably make it big enough for two.

  I crawled back to where Brandon was and went to work on unwrapping him. Lionel had stuffed a dirty rag in his mouth, and as soon as I’d removed that, Brandon started breathing a little easier. He still seemed pretty weak, though. His eyes stayed closed, once he’d ascertained who I was, and he didn’t talk, either. And getting him free of tarps, blankets, and the electrical tape Lionel had used to tie his hands and feet together was no easy task.

  Five or ten breathless minutes might have passed when we heard a sound at the back door, and froze. I could still hear the rhythmic sounds of the spade cutting into the ground, though, so unless Lionel had an accomplice, it wasn’t him.

  The door opened soundlessly, and I lowered the wrench I had just picked up.

  “Whoa!” Derek whispered.

  “You took your time,” I answered, although my voice wasn’t near as brave as my words.

  “I had to park somewhere else, so he wouldn’t see me. Wayne is on his way. C’mon.” He reached out.

  “Look at Brandon first. I can’t tell how badly hurt he is. He’s wrapped in blankets, and he’s not speaking, just groaning. But he’s breathing, anyway.”

  “C’mon out.” Derek held out a hand to me. “Keep an eye on Lionel. We don’t all want to be stuck in the van if he comes back.”

  Decidedly not. I slid out of the car and looked around. “Where are we?”

  “Don’t you recognize it?” Derek said. “There’s Melissa.”

  He pointed to a big, white rectangle floating above ground some yards away. I stared at it in incomprehension for several seconds before I realized what I was looking at. It was the back of Melissa’s billboard, welcoming visitors to Devon Highlands. Lionel had driven to the construction site.

  Derek crawled into the back of the van and got busy. I located Lionel and watched him. “How’s Brandon?”

  “He’ll live,” Derek said, “if we can get him outta here before Lionel finishes burying him. That wouldn’t be good for him.”

  “He’s still digging. No, wait.” Thirty feet away, Lionel planted his shovel in the ground and straightened his back. He must have picked a spot where less digging was necessary to achieve a nice, deep grave. Working here, of course he’d know where that’d be.

  “Move!” Derek hissed. I slipped around the corner of the van just as Lionel turned around. And although I couldn’t see him, I could feel his reaction when he saw the open van door. He hesitated for a second, then I heard him pull the shovel back out of the ground and bring it with him.

  “Hello?” he called. His footsteps were slow and careful as he walked back toward the van. Just as deliberately, I slipped around the front. After a second I heard the shovel bite the dust again as Lionel apparently decided that he must have just neglected to shut the door tightly enough, and it had opened on his own. I sidled back down toward the rear of the van. If I could just get my hands on that shovel…

  “C’mon, buddy,” I heard Lionel say, “it’s time to move. I made a nice, comfy, quiet spot just for you. Nobody’ll bother you here. Not for a long, long time.” He chuckled and reached in. I went for the shovel at the same time as Derek went for Lionel, and I had to scurry out of the way, still clutching the shovel, as the two of them exploded from the rear of the van.

  Under normal circumstances, there wouldn’t be a question in my mind about which of these two would win a fistfight. Derek was several inches taller and probably twenty pounds heavier. He was also considerably more muscled than the scrawny Lionel. And a childhood spent being picked on and tormented by the much larger Stenham twins had taught him to fight dirty when he had to. But Lionel had nothing to lose at this point. He had killed two people and was preparing to bury a third; what was another murder now? So he fought like a madman, lashing out with fists and feet and teeth, as well as any other kind of weapon he could lay his hands on.

  I waited until they’d been at it for a minute or two and were circling one another warily, catching their breath while looking for another opening to close in again. Both of them were breathing hard, moving in a crouch with fists clenched. Derek was bleeding from a split lip, but he didn’t look like he was ready to give up anytime soon. Lionel’s hair was standing straight up and one of his eyes was swelling shut, but he gave no indication that he was ready to throw in the towel, either. I waited until he had his back to me, and then I jumped out from behind the van and whacked him on the back of the head with the flat part of the spade. Using the edge was tempting, I’ll admit, but I didn’t want to decapitate him, and I figured I’d best use some self-control.

  The back of the shovel connected with the back of Lionel’s head with a satisfying thunk, and Lionel fell forward, right into Derek’s waiting arms.

  “Ooof!” my boyfriend exclaimed, lowering Lionel’s unconscious body to the ground before turning to me. “Hell’s bells, Tink, you took your time about it, didn’t you?” He gave me a wry, if shaken, grin.

  “I was getting you back for earlier,” I answered, dropping the shovel from hands that had suddenly turned useless. A shudder ran through my body. “God, Derek, I thought he was going to kill you. Are you OK?”

  He shook his head, like a dog coming out of the water. “Fine. I used to get beat up worse by Randy and Ray. I think I need to sit down for a minute.”

  He did, hard. “I’m just going to find something to tie him up with,” I said, running for the van. I rummaged around until I found something I thought might work.

  “Electrical tape?” Derek squinted at it. “Ought to work just fine. It’s what he used on Brandon. Here, I’ll do it.” He held out a hand.

  “Just as long as you don’t hurt him,” I said. “Not much, anyway. Remember your Hippocratic oath.”

  “Do no harm? It’s not my oath anymore. I’m not a doctor.”

  “Once a doctor, always a doctor,” I said as I watched Derek secure Lionel’s hands behind his back with lots and lots of electrical tape and haul him to sit upright against one of the van’s tires. “Go check on Brandon again, would you? Untie him. Make sure he doesn’t stop breathing.”

  Derek nodded and walked unsteadily to the back of the van. I squatted in the dirt and watched Lionel until sirens and flashing blue lights heralded the arrival of the ambulance and police.

  ***

  The paramedics treated Derek and then released him. He had some cuts and bruises but nothing that needed hospitalization. Brandon, on the other hand, was loaded into the ambulance and whisked away to the nearest hospital, where he would get the care he needed. He had a concussion, after a severe blow to the back of the head-Lionel seemed to have made it his MO-and because the wrench Lionel had used to hit him had broken the skin, and because scalp wounds bleed terribly, he had also lost some blood. Not enough to require a transfusion, but enough to need to replenish his fluids as soon as possible. So the paramedics had started a drip and then had taken off with their burden. Wayne turned to Derek and me.

  “You two all right?”

  Derek nodded, dabbing at his bottom lip with a paper napkin he had unearthed from inside the van.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “He didn’t touch me. Didn’t even know I was here until I hit him with the shovel.”

>   “A pity you didn’t hit a little harder,” Derek said, contemplating the bloodstained napkin.

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not have his death on my conscience. I’m not sorry I hit him. I’d do it again, but I’m glad I didn’t kill him.”

  “He’ll pay,” Wayne promised. “He’ll spend a long time in prison. And this way, maybe we can get some answers from him before we lock him up.”

  “I wouldn’t mind asking him a few questions,” Derek muttered, his free hand curled into a fist, the knuckles abraded. I took his arm, and after a moment, his muscles relaxed and he smiled sheepishly down at me.

  “Sorry. Thanks for rescuing me, Avery.”

  “Anytime.” I linked my fingers through his.

  We all turned to where Lionel was sitting, still on the damp ground with his back against the wheel of his van.

  He was conscious now and scowling at us as we approached, his boyish face set in a snarl. “I should have killed you when I had the chance,” he told me.

  I put my hands on my hips. “And when exactly did you have the chance to kill me?”

  Lionel grinned. “I spent some time outside your house a couple of days ago, looking in. Nice pajamas.”

  “Yuck,” I said. So that’s who had been outside that night I’d been on the phone with my mom. Not the neighbors’ Weimaraner at all. I should have thought of Lionel as soon as Derek explained that the doohickey I’d found was something electricians use, but of course that was a clue that had gone right over my head.