It's Just a Little Crush

by Caroline Fardig

  “Whatever I want, huh?” Sarah growls, standing over me. “What I want is for you to disappear, you little slut.”

  She takes the ice pick tool and stabs me with it in my good shoulder. Much worse than the pain from my fall, this new pain runs sharp and hot through my shoulder, and I begin to feel my warm, wet blood bubbling out of the wound and onto my chest. I try to scream, but it only comes out as a painful gasp. Now I’m really becoming increasingly terrified that Sarah is not going to stop until she kills me.

  She spits, “You’re just like the rest of them—whining like a little bitch.”

  The rest of who? The gears in my overloaded brain begin to turn, and I’m slowly seeing some pieces come together. Mine would be the third murder in two weeks, and in a town that hasn’t seen a murder in longer than I can remember, it would seem to be a no-brainer for the three to be somehow related. And, Sarah just said ‘you’re just like the rest of them’ to me. Who? The other two women she’s killed lately? Panic engulfs me, and I begin shaking all over as the truth dawns on me. This is it. Sarah killed Audra and Hannah, and now she’s going to kill me, and there’s little I can do about it.

  I have to find a way to stall her so I can think of a way to defend myself. If I could wiggle over to the workbench, I might be able to find something I could use to hit her. Here goes. “So,” I croak defiantly at Sarah, “you’re going to kill me just like you killed Audra and Hannah.”

  “You put all that together, did you?” Sarah sounds amused.

  “What I don’t get is why them?”

  “They were standing in my way as well.”

  “They weren’t dating Blake…at least, not last week.” I cough. Eww. I think I can taste blood in my mouth. I slide ever so slightly toward the tools. At this pace, I’ll get there next week.

  “You think this is about Blake?” She leans her head back and laughs. “He’s just a means to an end.”

  “What end?” Another inch closer. I look down and grimace at the bloody stain forming on my shirt. The pain in my stabbed shoulder is a searing one, but now that the ice pick thingy is out, it’s not so bad because I can still actually move that portion of my body, unlike the broken parts.

  “Jed, you idiot,” she snaps.

  No way! Sarah is sleeping with Jed, too? Who in this town isn’t sleeping with him?!?

  She continues, “That little skank Audra was going to sue him for firing her after their little…fling ended.”

  Sarah looks a little ruffled, I assume at having to verbalize the fact that Jed was seeing someone other than her. I take this opportunity to make a giant scoot toward the workbench, noting that it shouldn’t take much more scooting to get there.

  She doesn’t seem to notice, continuing, “I couldn’t let that happen to my man—it would ruin him. So, I decided to pay Audra a visit to try to talk some sense into her. She wouldn’t listen. So…” She shrugs.

  “But why Hannah? They were getting a divorce, and she’d be out of Jed’s hair anyway.”

  “Oh, I didn’t kill Hannah.”

  “Then who did?”

  “That one was an accident.”

  “How do you figure that?” Another inch.

  “I never touched her.”

  “Riiiight,” I snark. “So how did she end up dead in the puddle?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because the crazy, psychopathic killer always reveals everything before she…” I swallow. “…kills her last victim.”

  Sarah eyes me strangely. “I think you’ve seen one too many cop shows.”

  True that. What she doesn’t know is that I’m using a technique I’ve learned by watching too many cop shows—stalling. I need more time to get to the workbench. I smile and say, “Humor me.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Fine. I went to the fair to talk to Hannah away from work. I saw her arguing with Blake, so I waited until they were done. I’d known for a while that she and Blake had hooked up—”

  Shocked, I ask, “You did? How?”

  “I know everything that goes on at the office,” she snaps. “Just like I know about you and Blake hooking up.”

  Don’t I wish. I need to make sure the conversation doesn’t derail before Sarah tells me the whole story, so I choose to ignore her last comment and focus on scooting myself another inch closer to the tool bench, pretending to reposition myself on the floor. “So what did you and Hannah talk about?”

  “I needed to know her intentions toward Jed and Blake. I had to be certain she wasn’t going to go running back to one of them and ruin my plan. I admit I may have come off as a teeny bit belligerent toward her, but she was the idiot who kicked the radio into the puddle as she was trying to get away from me. Granted, I might have been backing her into a corner, but there’s no crime in that.” Sarah smiles serenely.

  “Yes, there is too a crime in that—when someone dies! Wait. Did Jed ask you to get rid of Audra and Hannah?” Maybe Blake was right after all about Jed.

  “No, it was all my idea. I did it for him,” she admits proudly. “When Jed sees all the trouble I’ve gone to for him, he’ll want me back. Plus, after I use Blake to make him jealous, he won’t be able to resist me.”

  Hold up. If Sarah is so in love with Jed, then who bombed his office…and my car? I might as well accuse her of it and see what she says—it’s not like she’s gonna get any more mad at me. “So if you want Jed back so badly, why did you try to blow him up last night?”

  “That…was unfortunate. I thought his new slut was there alone. His car wasn’t there.”

  So it was Sarah. “You owe me a new car, you know.”

  “You won’t need a car when you’re dead.” Not what I wanted to hear. Her face turns cold again. “All right, you’ve asked enough questions, now shut up. You’re the only thing left in the way of me getting back my Jed.”

  “Seriously? You’re really going to kill me over that cheating bastard? Oh, hell no.”

  I heave myself as hard as I can in the direction of the workbench. With my (relatively) good hand I quickly swipe the only thing I can reach on the bottom shelf, and it happens to be a crowbar. Yes! Now to figure out how to hit her in the head with it without being able to get off the floor. I hold the crowbar down at my side, hoping she won’t notice.

  She notices. She comes at me, screaming, “No, you don’t!”

  I swing the crowbar as hard as I can and make contact with her shin. She shrieks and stumbles back, then drops her saw and ice pick and jerks the crowbar out of my hand before I can get in another shot. I let out a slow breath. That’s it. I blew it.

  “You fought back, I’ll give you that,” she says, throwing the crowbar across the room and limping over to pick up the saw again. “I’ll make sure it goes in your obituary. Who would you rather have write it? Your best friend or your lover?” She laughs cruelly, swinging the saw back and forth as she hobbles toward me.

  Sarah’s eyes are so wild, so deranged now. She’s not going to change her mind about killing me. At this thought, a sickening feeling of terror envelops me, causing my heart to pound violently and leaving me gasping for breath.

  Near delirium by now, I think I hear my name being called, faintly at first, then louder. “Lizzie? Lizzie, where are you?” It sounds like Blake. I must be hearing things—either that or going nuts. There’s no way Blake could have made it back here already. My head is still throbbing, which is causing a rushing noise in my ears that’s making it difficult to hear clearly.

  Maybe it is for real after all, because it seems like Sarah heard something, too. She cocks her ear in the direction of the stairs and gets a panicky look in her eyes. Before I know what’s happening, she descends on me, scooping up my hair and yanking me into a sitting position, then setting that rusty, jagged saw blade across my throat. I struggle against her, and she responds by digging the blade farther into my throat and pulling my hair harder, causing my already bludgeoned head to feel like it’s going to rip in half.

  �
��Blake!” I yelp, with all of the strength I have left.

  “Shut up!” hisses Sarah.

  I can just make out some movement in the doorway, then I hear footsteps thundering down the stairs. “Lizzie!” Blake’s calling me Lizzie again. I sigh. I just love the way he says my name.

  Surveying the scene down here with an expression of complete horror, Blake demands, “What the hell is going on? Lizzie?” He takes a look at me, terror and misery written across his face, and then zeroes in on Sarah. “So it’s you,” he says, disgusted.

  “Blake,” Sarah purrs. She’s regained her composure. “Lizzie was just telling me she’d rather die than come between us.”

  Blake starts coming toward us.

  “Ah, ah, ah, stay back,” she chides, pulling me backward by my hair. I let out a moan and try to struggle, but I’m rapidly getting weaker and weaker. “I promised her I’d help her out with that.”

  Blake’s grimace changes into a smile, but his eyes tell me he’s anything but happy. “Sarah, you don’t have to waste your time with her.” Did he just say…? Wait. I think he’s playing her. I hope he’s playing her. On second thought, I could care less as long as he can get her to let go of my hair. He reaches his hand out to Sarah. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Just the two of us.”

  I feel Sarah’s grip loosening just a bit. Come on, Blake, I know you can do better than that! Swagger over here and sweep her off her feet like you do to me!

  I think I hear sirens faintly outside. Please let them be coming here! My house is near the hospital, so I hear sirens screaming past all the time, but now it’s beginning to sound like every emergency vehicle in town is outside. Yes! Blake must have called 911, but how did he know? I’ll have to remember to ask him later, now that I think I may actually live through this nightmare.

  “I need to get out of here,” Sarah breathes, her voice shaky.

  “Come on,” Blake says soothingly, beckoning her to him. “We’d better go now.”

  Sarah releases her grip on me, and, unable to hold myself up, I slump back down onto the floor. A wave of relief washes over me. All I can do at this point is lie on the floor and watch Sarah and Blake leave. Surely someone will come down here and get me at some point.

  Sarah hurries over to take Blake’s hand, smiling at him like she thinks they’re going on a date or something. Maybe they are. I don’t care. My head hurts.

  He turns to her and says, “I’ve been wanting to do this for a while.”

  Hey! That’s the line he uses on me. I don’t think I can hold in the vomit if he kisses her. He reaches his hand up toward her face, then forms a fist and decks her square in the jaw! She reels back, stumbling to the floor.

  “Blake!” I squeak. “You hit a girl?”

  He looks down at me and grins. “She was messing with my girl.”

  A voice shouts from upstairs, “This is LPD! We’re coming in!”

  Blake yells up the stairs, “Down in the basement, officer!”

  Sarah is slowly trying to get up, rubbing her jaw. William appears at the bottom of the stairs and quickly scans the room. I’ve never been so happy to see a cop before in my life.

  When he sees me, his eyes bulge out. “Lizzie! Are you okay?”

  I cough. “Does it look like I’m okay?”

  Blake turns to William and chuckles, “She’s okay.” He gestures at Sarah. “Sarah here was just telling me how she was going to kill our Lizzie.”

  William strides toward Sarah and yanks her the rest of the way up off the floor. Keeping a tight grip on her, he turns to me and asks, “Is that right, Lizzie?”

  “Yes,” I reply faintly. “She threw me down the stairs then stabbed me in the shoulder and…I think…I need an…ambulance…” I let my head drop back down onto the floor. I feel hot and cold at the same time, my entire body is drenched in sweat, and my head is spinning. I have a feeling I won’t be conscious for much longer. Blake rushes over to me as William cuffs Sarah and drags her up the stairs.

  Blake kneels down on the floor next to me and strokes my cheek. I can see tears welling up in his eyes as he chokes out, “I thought she was going to…” He swallows hard. “I’m so sorry I left you.”

  “Why did you come back so soon? Is your grandfather okay?” I ask dazedly.

  “He’s fine. The call was bogus. That’s why I called the police on my way back. Sarah must have called me away so she could get to you. I tried to call you to warn you not to let anyone in, but you didn’t pick up,” he explains, his voice thick with emotion.

  My voice is only a whisper now. “I heard the phone ring as I was getting shoved down the stairs. Sorry I couldn’t get there to answer it.”

  Blake is watching me worriedly. “I should check on that ambulance.”

  “No,” I plead, reaching for his hand. “Don’t leave me.”

  Blake looks at me more intensely than I have ever seen him. He vows fiercely, “I will never leave your side. Ever.”

  I smile up at him. Even though my body is so shattered I can’t even move, my heart is soaring. My head begins to spin faster, and all I can see are bright lights mixed with shadows where Blake’s face should be. I’m struck with a new sensation of nausea and begin to feel a cold sweat breaking out all over my skin. No! Not now! Blake and I are having a moment! I try desperately to focus my mind back to reality, but darkness is beginning to envelop me. I can just make out someone speaking, and Blake saying, “Over here,” and…I can’t…keep my…eyes…

  EPILOGUE

  Don’t worry. I’m not dead. I had just passed out from the pain. And speaking of pain, I’m going to be incapacitated for quite some time with my collection of injuries, including but not limited to: a head injury, a broken shoulder, a broken ankle, cracked ribs—oh, and of course a stab wound. The doctor said I’m looking at about eight weeks of healing time, plus an extra couple of months to get myself totally back to normal. Not how I would have wanted to spend the rest of summer and most of fall, but all things considered, I’m not dead and not a burn victim, so technically everything turned out pretty well for me...at least physically.

  Emotionally...maybe not so much. I have recurring nightmares about bat-shit crazy Sarah torturing me, most likely caused by the painkiller cocktail I’m on mixed with a dash of post-traumatic stress disorder. And, I’m NEVER going to be able to go down into my basement again. My only consolation is that in real life, Sarah is rotting in the county jail, awaiting her trial(s) for murder, attempted murder, arson, and a list of other charges that I, in my vast experience in TV crime drama, have never even heard of. As an added bonus, I was delighted to hear that I whacked her hard enough with my crowbar to fracture one of her shins. Go me!

  I’ll be on paid leave from work for several weeks (yay!), and Mr. Mason surprised the crap out of me by offering to pay my health insurance deductible and any other extra expenses I have as a result of being laid up. This bribe…I mean, “generous gesture,” is of course in exchange for me not suing the Chronicle over the small matter of my boss trying to kill me.

  My relationship with Blake, well, that’s a tough one. While I was unconscious, he apparently decided that he was my boyfriend, but when I woke up, all I could see was pity in his eyes—not love or like, or...whatever. I can’t figure out whether he wants to be with me because he finds me irresistible (which I can’t imagine given my current state) or because he feels guilty about what happened to me. In any case, I’m in no condition to start a new relationship, and when I mentioned that to Blake, he wasn’t exactly happy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still seriously crushing on him, and the only thing keeping me from jumping on him is the fact that I literally can’t jump with all of the various casts, slings, and bandages in my way.

  I don’t know how things are going to work out with Blake. I’ve decided to put off thinking about us until I can kick my morphine habit and quit feeling like I’m in a bad stoner movie. My nurse keeps telling me to quit calling her “dude.”

  The only
thing I do know is that this girl is never going to complain about how boring Liberty is ever again.

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at Lizzie’s next adventure!

  That Old

  Black Magic

  A Lizzie Hart Mystery

  “Blake MORGAN! I swear, if you make me late on my first day back to work, I’m going to beat you with my crutches! We have to be at work in five minutes!” I bellow out the car window.

  Blake smirks at me. “Calm down, woman! I forgot my phone. I’ll only be a minute.” He jogs slowly toward his front door, turning back around to snark, “Besides, you’ve been out for six weeks—what’s another few minutes going to hurt?” before he disappears inside.

  I cross my arms and huff out a disgruntled breath. It’s true, I’ve been on medical leave from work for six weeks now, and a few minutes won’t really matter, but I hate to arrive late on my first day back. I’m having a kind of “first day of school jitters” thing going on, even though I’ve had the same job as copy editor at the Liberty Chronicle for the past few years now. And, technically, I’ve been doing my job for the past couple of weeks, telecommuting from home, so it’s just the difference of physically being in the office with my co-workers again.

  Blake trots out the door, phone in hand, and makes his way back to the car. As I glance at him, my breath catches in my chest and my heart rate starts increasing ever so slightly. The last couple of months I’ve been doing a lot better at controlling my crush on him, but every once in a while it gets the better of me. The man literally gets sexier by the day.

  I snap out of my mini Blake-coma quickly (so he won’t know I’m drooling over him, because he would totally call me on it) and complain, “It took you long enough. It’s now 8:57.”

  “You know I never get to work on time.”

  “But I do. Now, drive!”

  Blake puts his Porsche in gear and zooms down his driveway. There is absolutely no way we can get to the Chronicle office by 9 AM now. I sigh quietly.