Stain of Guilt

by Brandilyn Collins

  “Yes.”

  “Tell her to turn the alarm back on after you leave. She knows I’m still outside here. She can call me anytime.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  They said good-bye. Hung up.

  He clicked off the line.

  Darell Fleck would croon. A second moment of weakness in one night.

  He calculated. How long for the sister to drive to Redding, get the kid, and return?

  Thirty minutes. Maybe forty.

  Was that enough time to convince Annie Kingston?

  He smiled.

  Chapter 27

  “Now turn the alarm back on as soon as I close this door.” Jenna’s last words before she disappeared into the garage. “And remember, Chetterling’s out front.”

  My sister was beginning to hover like a mother hen. “Okay, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  She nodded, gave me a grim smile, and left.

  I walked to the keypad on the kitchen wall and punched in our code. The alarm light turned from green to yellow.

  Fatigue washed through me. I leaned against the kitchen table, procrastinating. I couldn’t seem to drag myself back to work. As soon as I got myself in gear, Jenna and Stephen would be back, and I’d have to deal with him.

  I didn’t want to deal with him.

  Maybe I should wait until tomorrow to talk to Stephen. Besides, what was there to say? Why should I expect him to listen?

  Sighing, I sank into a chair, then pushed back to my feet to make some tea. I dumped a bag into a mug and stuck it under the boiling hot water faucet. I turned the handle, listening to the hiss of water hitting porcelain . . . then frowned.

  Was that a sound? Coming from the great room?

  I turned off the water. Cocked my head, standing very still. Kelly. All the commotion had finally awakened her.

  Silence.

  My mug made a faint click as I set it on the tile. I turned, crossed the kitchen on cat feet, looking up a floor over the banister toward my daughter’s room. Before me, the great room was dimly lit by two floor lamps turned to their lowest wattage.

  The corner of my eye caught movement to my right. I swiveled to look.

  A camouflage-clothed figure emerged from the TV-room threshold.

  Every muscle in my body froze. My blood congealed. My brain flashed a brilliant white, then buzzed in crazed reaction.

  An alien.

  A soldier.

  SWAT team member.

  A man. Some weird gadget on his head, its lenses flipped up. A long-barreled gun in his right hand. He moved toward me saying things I couldn’t comprehend. The words rolled through my ears, disjointed, garbled, as if I heard them underwater.

  Bill Bland.

  The features leapt at me. Everything I’d imagined, each one I’d drawn, right down to the look of arrogance—except he’s not wearing glasses—come to life, in the flesh, advancing on me, right here, right now.

  My doors were locked, the alarm turned on. Had he risen from the drawing I created?

  “Annie Kingston.”

  My name, uttered low. I fastened my eyes upon him and couldn’t breathe.

  He fixed an intense stare upon me. “You know who I am?”

  No response formed.

  “I can see that you do.”

  His voice had a chilling quality. Steeled. Utterly cold.

  My lips opened. “Wh–what—?”

  Kelly.

  Upstairs, safe in bed. My young teenage daughter, whom this murderous man had watched at school.

  My heart frosted over. Nothing mattered but my daughter’s safety. Nothing. Whatever this man wanted from me, he could have.

  God, if You’ve ever been there, don’t let her wake up!

  The gun pointed at my chest. “I must talk to you. You must listen.”

  What? I flailed to understand him. To connect fragmented thoughts. My eyes flicked toward Kelly’s room. Immediately I pulled my focus back, but it was too late. Bland turned his chin a few inches, sliding a look up to the second floor, then back to me.

  “Your son is gone. But you have a daughter at home.”

  I could feel my heart slamming through my shirt.

  “And your sister’s gone.”

  Could I run upstairs to Kelly’s room and lock the door? Would he shoot me in the back? Then kill Kelly too?

  “I am also a parent.” His voice remained hard, controlled. “My family comes first. Understand?”

  What should I do? God, help! Here I am, facing death again!

  Bland checked his watch. “I have little time. You will listen carefully.”

  Sudden righteous anger rattled through my veins. How dare this man expect me to listen to him? After he’d broken into my house? Stalked my children, threatened me?

  Somehow I found my voice. “They’re looking for you. They know you’re here. What makes you think stopping me will keep the TV show from airing? They’ll only want you all the more.”

  His chin jerked up—the movement I’d heard about so many times. He narrowed his eyes. “You speak nonsense.”

  Panic sizzled up my spine. Think, Annie!

  What if I fled out the front door? Chetterling would spot me in an instant. But I’d be on the outside of my own home, and Bland would be on the inside—with my daughter. What if he locked me out? He could use Kelly as a hostage.

  Annie, come to your senses. He has a gun.

  “Sit down.” Bland pointed behind me, toward the kitchen table.

  Did he know Jenna would be returning soon? How could he?

  I backed up, not taking my eyes off him. Groping for a chair, I lowered myself into it. Bland followed, pulling out a seat. He set the gun beside him on the table, well out of my reach, then took off his backpack and placed it on the floor. He sat with legs spread, hands on his thighs. The goggles remained on his head. I faced him, floating in a netherworld of disbelief.

  “I know you’re drawing me for American Fugitive.” He spoke rapidly. “I’d been watching the news online. Expecting it. The show is too successful. It forces me into action.”

  Just wait until Chetterling and his men are forced into action. You’re going to pay.

  “I know all about you. I know what you can do.” He pierced me with a stare. “Say something, let me know you’re listening.”

  Jenna, hurry! “I’m listening.”

  “I didn’t kill Tarell and Dessinger.”

  I won’t have to finish my drawing. He’ll be caught tonight. This will all be over.

  “I’ve brought the proof to you.”

  I gaped at him.

  His face hardened. “I suggest you not look at me like that. You will believe me by the time I’m through with you.”

  I managed a nod. Could I keep him talking until help came? “You didn’t kill the men. I hear you. And you didn’t steal from Tarell’s company?”

  Bland jabbed a glance at the clock, then sprang to his feet. I flinched, but he strode past me to the door leading to the garage and locked it. Then resumed his seat in front of me.

  My arms trembled. Chetterling was so close. What if I threw open the door Bland just locked and set off the alarm?

  No. I’d still be a hostage. So would Kelly.

  “Yes, I stole company funds. Edwin discovered it. The man was greedy, in debt. His brother had been killed in a car accident, which left him the only heir to the family fortune. He wanted it all—now. And he did what was necessary to get it.”

  My eyes pulled toward the front kitchen window. I resisted the urge to check outside.

  “Edwin let me hang in the wind until he made his plans. Then he told his father about the funds. I was summoned to the house for a confrontation. Only later did I realize this was Edwin’s idea, not Don’s.”

  Bland leaned forward, his body rigid, eyes narrowed.

  “Listen closely, because I’m going to tell you what happened that night—the night Edwin killed his own father.”

  Chapter 28

  Bland�
�s words rapid-fired as he kept an eagle eye on the clock. He was lying, of course. But as long as he kept talking, as long as I humored him, he wasn’t hurting me. If I could just find a way to get to Chetterling.

  “Edwin came to my office around noon that day.Told me Don wanted to fire me for taking the funds. But good old Edwin had convinced his father to hear my side of the story. I was to be at the Tarell house at eight.” Bland stared at me, almost through me, a coldness settling in his eyes, as if he pictured himself in the scene he was creating.

  “‘It’s your lucky day, Bland,’ Edwin says. He has a deal for me. He’s ‘a little short on cash.’ He tells me to go to the bank, withdraw all the money, take fifty thousand for myself, and give him the rest. I’m to tell Don at the meeting that all the money has been spent. ‘Then I’ll go to bat for you,’ Edwin says. ‘Convince my father to keep you on.’”

  Bland’s voice hardened as he mimicked the words he attributed to Edwin. But he didn’t fool me. Twenty years. He’s had twenty years to make this up.

  “‘And if I don’t do all that?’ I say.” Bland curled his lip. “I hated Edwin. Since the day I met him, I saw him for what he was. ‘Then you’ll get nothing,’ Edwin tells me. ‘And you’ll be fired.’”

  I glanced toward the great room. Please, Kelly, stay asleep. Bland pressed his fingers against the side of my face. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  I recoiled at his touch, then slowly forced my eyes to his. He drew his hand away.

  “First Susan divorced me. I had to find quick money to stay in my own house. Then Edwin wanted to use me. Well, I won’t be manipulated. Not then, not now. I tell him I’ll take whatever money’s left to the meeting and offer it back. Plead for mercy. That I’ll take my chances with his father over him any day. ‘Maybe I’ll even tell your father how you tried to bribe me,’ I say.” Bland scoffed. “Edwin dares me to try. I won’t do it, and he knows it. We both know Don will never see the truth about his own son.

  “So I withdraw the money. Put it in a briefcase in the trunk of my car. Just before Edwin leaves at the end of the day, I inform him he’ll get his share after he’s convinced Don to go easy on me.

  “That night in Don’s study, Edwin sits in a chair facing the fireplace. He’s already placed his suit coat on the arm of that chair, like he’s staked it out. I walk over to the mantel. Don stands near his desk, and Dessinger takes the couch. Don confronts me about the money. I tell him I took it; I had no choice. I look at Edwin, waiting. His forehead beads with sweat. He looks so nervous. I think, Something’s not right.”

  I willed myself not to show disbelief at Bland’s claims. So perfect, how he’d rewritten the scene. He knew about gun trajectory. He knew he’d have to claim Edwin sat in the chair from where the gun was fired. I wanted to yell at Bland to stop it; did he think I was this stupid? But I would do nothing unnecessary to anger this clearly unstable man.

  “Of course, something wasn’t right.” Bland’s voice dripped with disdain. “Edwin reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a gun. Shoots Dessinger. Yells ‘No!’ real loud, I’m guessing so his mother will hear, then kills his father. I freeze in terror.” Bland’s fingers curled. “Before I can pull out of it Edwin leaps at me and hauls me back across the room. We both hit the floor. He’s on top of me, trying to press my fingers against the grip of the gun so it’ll have my prints. I fight him. The gun gets knocked to the floor. Edwin’s mother runs in. Now he has a witness to watch him shoot me in self-defense after I supposedly killed the two men. So now I’m fighting for my life. I grab the gun by the barrel and hit him in the head. He collapses off me, and I run. If he catches me, I know I’m dead.”

  Bland’s voice continued, angry and bitter.

  “I race away, trying to get my head together. I know Edwin will call 911.Tell them his lies. And now that I’ve run, I look guilty. They’ll be searching for my car. Arrest me on sight. But if I can just get some time, I can think everything through. Edwin’s not as smart as I am. He’s missed something, I know it. He will not win.”

  Bland jerked his head, glaring at me from the corner of his eye. I had barely moved during his entire story. My body was so tight my muscles felt like they would crack. Bland lashed out a hand and grabbed my jaw. “Are you listening to me?”

  His fingers dug my flesh into my teeth, squeezing an answer from me. “Y–yes. I’m listening.”

  He stared at me another long moment, then pulled back his hand. “All right. In my garage back then I had an old Chevy I bought before the company funds came my way. I hadn’t even registered it with the DMV. So I ditch my car a few blocks from my house and run for the Chevy. This buys me some time.

  “I drive to the back parking lot of a strip mall. Everything’s dark. I hunker down in the car and think. Nothing can be left to chance. I have the gun. I haven’t touched the grip. Edwin’s prints should still be there. But that’s all I have. It’s his word—and his mother’s—against mine. She heard him yell no. She saw me hit him with the gun. Don Tarell is dead. Tarell—Redding’s finest citizen. Close golf buddy to the chief of police. I’ve been forced to use company money. They’ll say that’s motive. No one is going to believe me. Edwin will come up with some excuse to explain his prints on the gun instead of mine. He’ll claim I wiped mine off, that he must have touched the gun during our struggle. Because of everything else, they’ll buy his story. So I have to find something besides the gun. Some piece of evidence that will save me.”

  He straightened, flexing his jaw. “And I do.”

  Bland checked the clock, and my gaze followed. Jenna would be back soon.

  Jenna, please hurry.

  He focused on my face, eyes narrowed. His chin jerked up. “Your time is running out.”

  Chapter 29

  I stared at Bland, mind scrambling for some response. He raked a glance out the front kitchen window.

  “What . . . happens when my time runs out?”

  “We’ll have to leave.”

  We. I shook my head. “Please, no.”

  “That’s the backup plan, you understand. You can avoid it if you pursue justice. If you agree to convince the authorities to test my two pieces of evidence.”

  I licked my lips, desperately trying to follow his logic. Two pieces of evidence? “I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Is one piece of evidence the gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “How could you keep it all this time?”

  “Very carefully.”

  “Is it in your backpack?”

  He scoffed. “It’s in a box in the forest directly behind your house. The box flaps are opened enough to prove it’s not a bomb. The gun barrel’s stuck in Styrofoam to preserve the prints on the grip. They must take utmost care with it.”

  The sheer arrogance of this man. Now he was telling the Sheriff’s Department how to handle evidence? “What makes you think the fingerprints are going to be there after twenty years?”

  A black expression stole over Bland’s features. He leaned forward, chin down, staring at me through the tops of his eyeballs. Searching, laying open my soul. “You don’t believe me. Do you?”

  I couldn’t answer. He would hear the lie in my voice.

  Slowly, he pressed back in his chair, jaw working. “This isn’t the attitude I expected from you.”

  “But . . . it doesn’t matter what I think, does it? As long as I put your evidence in the right hands?”

  “It matters a great deal. You are someone they trust. They’ll listen to you when you tell them, ‘There’s a complication. Bill Bland has evidence that proves his innocence. I insist you test it.’”

  “Okay. I will. I promise. What’s the second piece?”

  For a long time he assessed me. Then he bent toward me until his face practically touched mine. “I don’t believe you.”

  I couldn’t bear to have him so close. My head pulled away as far as it could. “I will, really!”

  “No. I see into your mind.” He straightened, h
ands on his thighs. “You’ve deceived me. You led me to think you were one character, but you are really another. You aren’t Valery Ness, the unwitting pawn. You’re Lee Strait, the masked antagonist.” He rose from the chair, looking down his nose at me. “Get up.”

  My heart fluttered into a mad dance. I couldn’t find the strength to move.

  “Get up!”

  Somehow I rose, holding on to the chair for support.

  He reached for his gun, leveling it at me. “We’re leaving.”

  My muscles turned to water. “N–no. Please.”

  “I have no alternative. We’re out of time, and you aren’t on my side. So you force me to give you more responsibility. Once they see that I’m innocent of murder, you must convince them to drop charges for kidnapping. They’ll do it. They’ll count my twenty years as time enough paid.”

  Kidnapping. “I’ll take your things to the Sheriff’s Department today! You can trust me!”

  “No, I can’t. I’ll have to deal with the evidence myself now.” The hard resolve on his face struck my chest like a cold fist. “I didn’t bring this gun for you. So don’t make me use it.” With one hand he slipped on the backpack.“Go. Downstairs.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Go.”

  My feet moved.

  “Wait.” Bland pressed his fingers into my arm. My mind flashed a gory scene of the gun going off point blank against my skin. He looked at the alarm keypad, where the telltale yellow light glowed. “Turn that off.”

  I froze.

  “Do you want to do this alone, or do I have to wake up your daughter?”

  “No!” Tears bit my eyes. “I thought you said you were a father.”

  “I am.” His answer seethed. “And my family comes first. Now turn off the alarm.”

  I stumbled to the keypad and punched in our code. The light turned from yellow to green.

  “Good.” He pulled me away. “Let’s go.”

  Propelled before him, I searched the corners of my mind for a way out. I knew a victim should never allow herself to be isolated from others. That spelled almost certain death. But what could I do? There was no escape. And even if I could escape, I would never abandon Kelly.