by Steve Richer
She didn’t understand why the stairs had given way. They were new! Had Vialli fitted them wrong?
She felt around the hole. Either side of her leg, the edges of the hole were straight, as if cut by a saw.
She reached down into the hole, feeling her leg and wincing at the pain.
Wet heat. Blood.
She caught her hand on something sharp.
Nails. Hammered through the riser from the outside so the points jutted out into the gap. Put there deliberately to shred the leg of anyone whose foot landed in this trap.
Booby-trapped.
How many other traps were there? Removed floorboards. Tripwires. She didn’t know. All she knew was she’d found this one.
Rusty? Had he known about this? Of course not…
He’d passed on the message to her to come here, but he’d never said how Tom had given him the message. She’d assumed face to face, but it could easily have been a text message, something anonymous. Something that could have come from just about anyone.
And that note at the foot of the stairs: it could have been written by anyone too. The use of a hand-drawn arrow and a winky face to minimize the amount of actual identifiable writing. The use of upper-case letters in the SWEETIE, to make the writing harder to recognize.
She didn’t believe Tom had left that note.
She felt around to the front of her shin. The pain was excruciating. She found more blood, more shredded clothing. Felt a jagged ridge across the bone, a disjoint. She’d broken her leg. That dull crack she’d heard before blacking out had been bone snapping.
Briefly, she felt as if she might black out again.
She clamped her jaw tight, forced herself to breathe deep. She had to ride out the shock and pain. Had to deal with this.
That was when she heard a sound above the roar of the storm and the flapping of the roof.
The slam of a car door, and then moments later the rattle of a door opening before slamming closed.
Someone was here. In the house with her.
And she couldn’t move.
~ ~ ~ ~
He drove hard, despite the treacherous conditions.
Don’t you think you’d better go save your darling wife? Go on, Tom. Go save her, sweetie.
The look in her eye…
She knew she had him.
All thoughts of somehow detaining Libbie Cottrill for the cops were abandoned.
All thoughts of salvaging those scrapbooks as some kind of evidence: gone.
All he knew was that Libbie had done something to Alice and he had to get to her.
Libbie, a woman he now knew for certain was capable of murder.
Tony Capaldi. Simon Woodforde. Andy Krabbe.
Walter’s blood, still fresh on their path.
“Where?” he’d demanded, gripping her wrists tighter, twisting them. Trying not to feel too repelled by the rush of satisfaction he felt when he saw pain flash across the woman’s evil features.
He twisted harder and she gasped.
He could hurt her. Disable her until the cops arrived.
“Whitetail Lane,” she said through gritted teeth. “But you’d better hurry.”
He let her go. That last comment was enough to remove any thoughts of anything but rushing across town to the investment property to find Alice.
He pushed her away from him, letting go of her wrists at the last minute so she stumbled and fell, sprawling face down on the apartment floor. And when he’d glanced back before leaving, he saw her lying there, rubbing her wrists and smiling. Winking.
“Run, Tom. You don’t have any time to spare.”
Now, he pulled up at the curb. Rain flooded down the windshield and he could hear the wind whistling and howling.
He didn’t hesitate, almost tumbling out onto the sidewalk in his haste.
The rain was cold, the wind colder.
He ran through the front yard to the house, wet vegetation lashing at his legs.
He stumbled against the door and it flew open, banging against the wall.
He saw her straight away, his surge of relief tempered as he registered the pain and fear etched onto her features.
And the awkward way she stood on the stairs. It took a moment to work out the geometry, then he saw that her right leg had plunged through a gap in the steps. Her torso was twisted as she clung to the handrail for support.
He rushed to her, stopping with his knees resting on the step below her. He took her in his arms to support some of her weight as her body slumped against him.
“Oh, Alice!”
She was crying now. Great sobs of relief and pain intermingled.
“What happened, Alice? What’s wrong?”
“My… my leg. I think it’s broken. She sabotaged the house, Tom. Be careful, there could be more traps.”
He took his phone and aimed the light. It was easy to see where the wood of the step had been cut. He saw the blood, too, dark on Alice’s shredded jogging pants.
“There are nails in there. I don’t know what else.”
He reached down, exploring the cavity by touch.
“This is going to hurt,” he said, and he sensed her nodding more than saw it.
Cradling her leg in his hand as well as he could, he started to ease it free. Alice’s body tensed and he stopped.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but I have to get you out of here.”
He pulled gently again. He felt her tensing from the agony, but this time kept going until she managed to half-sit on the stairs. Her damaged leg stretched out before her.
“I’m going to carry you, sweetie, all right?”
“Okay.”
“Just like when we were newlyweds, carrying you over the threshold.” She forced a smile. “Put your arms around my neck and I’ll support you as best I can, but it’s going to hurt again. I have the car outside. Okay? On the count of three. One. Two—”
“How sweet. You really think she can count that high? You know how good she is with figures.”
He turned his head. Libbie was silhouetted in the open doorway.
And she was aiming a handgun right at them.
Chapter 38
“Get out of here, Libbie. Don’t make things any worse.”
Tom’s voice sounded surprisingly steady to Alice. Had he always had this strength? Maybe. It just seemed to have deserted him in the last year or so.
He had his arm around Alice and she pressed against him, finding comfort and also hoping she was returning some of that comfort to him. She was very aware of how he was taking every second Libbie gave them to edge himself ever farther in front of her, offering himself as a human shield.
She felt powerless. Hell, she couldn’t even move! Her leg was throbbing heavily after the pain of extracting it from the sabotaged stairs.
“The only way I could make things worse at this moment would be if I let you two get out of here alive.”
Strange. It was Libbie’s familiar voice, but the perky eagerness was gone. It was replaced by something far darker. A certainty that was chilling.
“Why?” Tom asked. Alice knew he was playing for time and Libbie must’ve known that too. “Why bring us here?”
“Why not?” Libbie was actually enjoying this! “It’s as good a place as any. And it’s an easy story for those dumbass cops to swallow. Owners killed by drug addicts using their renovation project as a drug den. Don’t worry. I’ve already planted a few needles and other paraphernalia about the place. I am, as the reality crime shows on TV say, a forensically-aware murderer.”
Alice felt as if she was going to black out again. Blood sugar, pain, fear… absolute shock to hear another human being talking this way.
“Let Alice go. This is just between you and me, Libbie.”
No! How could Tom even think she could live on in the knowledge he’d traded her life for his?
And what did he mean, between him and Libbie? What part of all this had Alice missed?
He turned half toward her
now, as if he’d realized she didn’t understand.
“It’s all about summer camp. Long Valley. Libbie was there too. She was bullied. By a bunch of us.”
Us? Was Tom saying he’d been a bully? How could that be true?
“Me. Tony Capaldi. Simon Woodforde. Andy Krabbe. I tried to stop them, but they were older. I hated myself for going along with it all.”
Alice vaguely recognized the names from her own time at Long Valley.
“She killed them. All three of them. Tony, Simon, Andy. That’s why she’s here now. She’s going for the complete set.”
The words made sense as sentences, but bore no relation to Alice’s experience of the world. Of people.
She’d killed them. Murdered them.
And now she was here for Tom…
And she was standing there, still aiming the gun, and smiling.
“Oh no, Tom, darling,” Libbie said with amusement. “You’re right in some of the details, but so terribly, terribly wrong on the most important part.”
She paused, drawing the moment out.
Ultimately, she continued. “Yes, I killed them. And I made sure they understood exactly why they were dying before I finally let them go.”
Again she paused, briefly even closing her eyes as if savoring the recollection.
Alice felt Tom tensing, as if about to make a move, but then Libbie’s eyes snapped open and she twitched the gun at him, as if to remind him who was in control.
“But you, Tom? You flatter yourself. You were just the puny little kid who tagged along for the attention. A weakling. I always knew those three were the real bullies, and Capaldi was the ringleader. I gave him special attention, believe me. He knew why he was dying, and in the end he was begging for it.”
Alice was still struggling to keep up. She understood about the summer camp. They’d said enough to tie in with her already bad memories of the place for it to all make sense.
But now Libbie was saying she didn’t care about Tom. So why was she doing this?
“Those three were just a trial run, though,” said Libbie. “I was saving the best to last.”
Now, with chilling intensity, her eyes focused on Alice.
“You don’t remember, do you, Alice? You don’t remember me. You don’t remember what you did.”
Alice stared.
“It’s you, Alice. You’re the one I’ve come for. You’re the reason for all of this.”
And as she spoke, the muzzle of the gun shifted, coming to point directly at Alice.
“You, Alice. The time has finally come.”
~ ~ ~ ~
“Does my name mean nothing to you? Are you that cold?”
Her name. Libbie Burchett. Libbie Cottrill.
It didn’t.
“Long Valley Summer Camp. The boat.”
Alice stared. Her memories of Long Valley were always cast in shadow. In tragedy. But she didn’t understand how that connected to Libbie.
“The accident,” said Tom. “But I don’t understand…”
“June Cottrill. She was my mother.”
“I… I never knew that was her name. I never knew who she was. My parents… the folks at the camp. They tried to shield me from all that.”
That summer, the summer when—later—she’d met Tom.
The reason she was the loner kid, the one who wouldn’t get involved in anything, and in particular any of the water-based activities. The boat.
The accident.
She’d been kayaking out in the middle of the lake, chasing some of the other kids. It had been a wild, high-spirited thing. They’d all gotten carried away.
Two of the boats had collided and Alice’s had flipped. They all knew how to get out of a turned boat, of course, but Alice had gotten her legs tangled and couldn’t get out.
She remembered it all so vividly, even now. The desperation. The deep ache in her lungs as she desperately held onto what breath hadn’t been knocked out of her.
The panic.
But she’d managed. She’d righted the boat by herself.
She’d felt such a sense of achievement.
And then she’d wondered why everyone was shouting, pointing, screaming.
“I was out there too,” said Libbie. “Out in a boat with my mom. She’d only come visiting because I was having such a bad time with the bullying. She was the only one who’d ever cared about me.”
Alice understood now and it made her forget the pain in her leg. “Libbie…”
“My mother saw what had happened to you and she didn’t hesitate. She jumped in, but she didn’t realize how uneven the lake was at that point, rocks just below the surface. She hit her head. She drowned, Alice. Right in front of me. Just like Tony, Simon, and Andy hit their heads. Just like Walter did. I’ve discovered I like hitting heads. Bringing things full circle.”
Tom and Alice didn’t dare glance at each other, although they didn’t need to. Everything was becoming clear.
Libbie shrugged. “They had to die. The three of them. Not because they bullied me, but because the only reason Mom was there that day was because of what they did. They brought her there. And you stopped her from leaving. Do you understand that, Alice? It’s important you do, before you die. You need to see you brought this on yourself.”
“It was a tragedy,” Alice said. “An awful tragedy. But it was nobody’s fault. Can’t you see that? She saw me in distress and her first instinct was to help, because she was the kind of person who cared, just as she went to visit you because she cared. She was a good person. What would she think of what you’re doing, Libbie? How sad would she be?”
For a moment, she thought her plea to Libbie’s conscience—or at least to her attachment to her mother—might work. But then Libbie shrugged, gave that evil, cold smile again, and said, “We’ll never know, will we? She’s dead. And all because of you.”
As she’d spoken she’d allowed the gun to sag a little in her hands, but now she straightened her aim. Alice knew it was all over.
Tom jumped.
He threw himself forward, straight at Libbie.
Alice saw his hands reaching for the gun, swinging to knock it clear. And then there was a flash, the deafening explosion of the gunshot ringing in her ears.
She heard a man’s cry, a grunt.
She felt the look of shock on her husband’s face.
Saw him clutching at his midriff, and only then saw the blood as he tumbled to the ground on top of Libbie.
Chapter 39
Everything froze.
Tom lay there, not moving. It was hard to see in the building’s low light, but that dark patch on the floor was spreading, and it was his blood.
She’d killed him. He’d tried to save Alice and Libbie had shot him.
“No!” Alice cried.
Libbie lay there too, but she was moving, her chest heaving for air.
And inches from her hand sat the dark shape of the handgun.
Alice hurled herself forward, putting her weight on her left leg and trying to ignore the pain from her right.
She fell full stretch, reaching for the gun.
She couldn’t get a grip, but she managed to push at it, flipping it away into the shadows.
And then Libbie closed on her, rising and twisting, swinging down on the back of Alice’s head with a two-fisted blow.
Alice’s skull rang and her face mashed against the floor. She twisted in the dirt, trying to find purchase.
Libbie came down on top of her again, fists and elbows landing simultaneously in her torso. Bolts of pain stabbed through her body from impacts on belly and breasts.
She tried to get a hold and pushed, muscle-memory from those long-ago college self-defense classes kicking in.
Libbie went sprawling away into the shadows.
Alice tried to stand, but couldn’t. Tried to crawl, dragging her ruined leg.
She thought she’d made it. She was almost at the front door.
Then she felt hands close around h
er trailing ankle, and suddenly the full weight of Libbie’s body hauling her back by her broken leg.
“Not so fast, bitch.”
Alice screamed. She felt bones shifting and crunching. Dislocating. Death was beginning to look like an acceptable prospect. She tried to turn so she could at least face her foe, but the pain was too intense.
She braced herself, preparing to fight with all she had left.
But it never came.
She saw Libbie, a dark shape poised over her, ready to strike.
And then…
Another shape. A swift movement. A thud of impact and a female grunt and cry.
Libbie fell sideways, as if she’d just melted into a heap on the floor.
And the other big shape stopped, spinning toward Alice, and said, “Mrs. Granger? Are you okay, Mrs. Granger?”
Rusty!
She’d never been so pleased to see someone as she was to see Rusty now.
He reached down for her, but she snatched her hand away.
“No. No, Rusty, don’t try to help me up. I think my leg’s broken.”
Think. She knew. She would remember the grinding of broken bones as Libbie had pulled on that leg for the rest of her life.
Then reality sank in just a little more.
“Tom,” she gasped. “She shot him.”
Rusty turned, trying to locate Tom’s fallen form.
She watched him move, merge with the shadows.
Then…
“Mr. Granger? Are you okay, Mr. Granger?”
And another voice. Tom. A grunt, and then, “No. I don’t know. I think…”
“Tom?”
“I’m okay, sweetie. Just a nick.”
It was more than just a nick. She knew that. But he was alive. He was talking. He was trying to make one of his stupid jokes.
He was alive!
“I know you said not to come with you, Mrs. Granger.” Rusty sounded hesitant, as if even now he feared he was going to get in trouble for disobeying her instructions. “I know you said that if I liked you, I should do what you say and let you go on your own. But I figured I liked you enough that sometimes it’s right not to have to do exactly what you say.”