by Diane Moody
She turned into the corporate office parking lot. Brad’s car, parked close to the back entrance, was the only vehicle in the lot. She pulled up beside it and turned off the ignition. She started to get out then stopped, pausing to pray for Matt, and asking God to give her strength for whatever Brad had uncovered that involved her. A moment later, she locked Gevin’s car and headed toward the door. She slid her office ID through the door’s security pad and went inside.
Moments later, as she stepped off the elevator into the corporate office suite, Julie looked toward the area of cubicles to her far left. Soft lamplight dotted the room in contrast to the usual fluorescent lighting overhead. Still, she felt a millisecond of unease. “Brad?”
She assumed he’d be at his desk, so she made her way down the center aisle between the partitioned desk areas. “Hey, Brad? It’s Julie. Where are you?”
Nothing.
Well, great. I’ve come all this way for—”
“Hey, Julie.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice directly behind her. “Brad! You scared me half to death! What are you doing?”
As she turned to face him, something flickered through her mind at warp speed. Cigarettes? He smells like cigarette smoke. Oh God . . .
He didn’t move. “I was in the break room when I heard your voice. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He seemed utterly relaxed. In fact, more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. Or maybe it was just the low lighting. Her heart still thundered. “No, it’s okay. I’m probably just a little edgy.”
“Edgy? How come?”
“No reason,” she lied, as she started down the hall. “Can you give me just a minute? I need to go to the restroom.”
“You’re kidding, right?” he said, following on her heels. “You just got here.”
“So? Can’t a girl go if she’s gotta go?” She stopped before opening the door, aggravated when he continued to follow. “Do you mind?”
“No. Go ahead. I’ll be waiting right here.” He leaned against the wall just outside the door.
Julie stared at him a second more before pushing open the door, the light inside automatically coming on. “Suit yourself.”
As she slowly washed her hands to stall for time, she felt the cell phone in her pocket vibrate. She quickly dried her hands and dug out her phone, thankful to find Matt’s number on the screen. Knowing Brad was just outside the door, she stepped into the handicap stall at the far end and shut the door, leaning against it. “Matt!” she whispered.
“Julie? Where are you?”
“I’m at the office. Brad asked me to—”
“Brad’s there? Julie, get out of there! Now! It’s him! He’s the one!”
“What? How did you—”
“There’s not time for that now. You just have to trust me. Get OUT of there!”
“But he’s right outside the door!” she croaked in a whisper. “I’m in the bathroom—”
Suddenly, the outer bathroom door was kicked open. Julie screamed. “Brad! What are you doing?!”
He kicked open the stall door, sending her sprawling on the floor. “Give it to me, Julie!” he shouted with a string of expletives. “NOW!”
She could hear Matt yelling through the receiver clutched in her fist. “Brad! Stop it! You’re scaring me!”
“Oh, I haven’t even begun to scare you.” He wrestled the cell from her hand and tossed it in the toilet, then grabbed her wrist and shoved it high against her back, lifting her from the floor.
“STOP it, Brad! What are you DOING?!”
He shoved her out into the hall and kept pressure on her arm as he pushed her toward the boardroom. “I should have known better than to trust you.”
“Look, Brad, whatever it is—if you’ll just stop a minute and talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong? Why are you so upset?”
He shoved her against the wall, jamming her shoulder hard against it.
“Give me your other hand.”
“Please don’t do this, Brad! Please! Just talk to me.”
With one hand still gripping her fist, he pulled a roll of duct tape out of his pocket, bit the loose end, and pulled a long strip before tearing it off. In a matter of seconds, he used the tape to bind Julie’s wrists together behind her back.
“Now sit down.” He shoved her into a chair mid-way down the far side of the long conference table, then swiveled it to face the table. “Take a look.”
Old newspaper clippings were scattered in disarray on the table in front of her.
“What is all this?” Her heart drummed against her chest.
She’d never seen Brad like this, so agitated as he paced around the table. What happened to the awkward, lanky coworker she saw every day at the office? She swallowed hard, realizing she didn’t want to know the answer to her own question. She inhaled a long cleansing breath and recognized for the second time the smell of cigarettes.
Chapter 31
Brad stopped and reversed direction. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone? What difference did it make to you? Huh? It was NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!”
“What was none of my business? I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Oh, wait—that’s right. You’re the famous actress! Our own little prima donna playing the part of the innocent damsel in distress. But here’s the thing. You suck at acting! You’re PATHETIC. You think you can charm the world with your stupid smile and fake laugh. Maybe my uncle fell for that, but you never fooled me. NOT ONCE.”
Julie willed herself to remain calm. As he continued his rant, still pacing the room like a caged animal, she focused on the fact that Matt knew where she was and knew the danger she was in. If only he gets here before it’s too late.
“I asked you a question! ANSWER ME!”
“Stop yelling at me, Brad!”
His eyes narrowed, his breath noisy. “I asked you why you couldn’t leave it alone. Why did you have to keep sticking your nose where it didn’t belong?”
“Please, Brad, I’m begging you. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Leave what alone?”
He kicked the chair at the head of the table, toppling it out of his way. “You know exactly what I’m talking about! UNCLE PETER! You couldn’t accept the fact that he jumped off that tower. You kept asking all your stupid questions, always playing me for the fool, when all the while you and that Agent Bryson were together. Do you know how CRAZY that made me?”
“I don’t understand. What’s that got to do with this?”
“I saw you up on the tower. Geez, Julie, you’d hadn’t even known him a day yet! I saw you KISSING HIM! I always figured you’d slept with Uncle Peter, but—”
“I never slept with anyone! How dare you!”
“Yeah, right. You think I don’t know?” He walked behind her, tracing his finger along the back of her neck as he passed by. An involuntary chill quaked through her.
She swallowed hard. “Brad, please . . . I don’t understand why you’re so angry with me. I never slept with your uncle—I’ve never slept with anyone, for that matter. Not that it’s any of your business. Where did you get all these ideas? Can’t you just sit down and talk to me without all these accusations? Help me understand what all this is about.”
“Don’t you dare play the dumb blonde with me! You know exactly what I’m talking about. All those times I asked you out. All those times you brushed me off like I was nothing more than a repulsive piece of lint. I’ve watched you, Julie. You’re always nice to everyone. Everyone! Everyone but ME. No, you couldn’t be bothered to be nice to me, could you?” He stopped in his tracks and turned toward her, sarcasm drenching his rant. “Oh, but wait. There was that one time. You were so eager to learn how to play tennis, weren’t you? The little actress wanted to improve her game. But that was just a ploy, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t under—”
“Go ahead. Look.” He dropped into the chair next to her, then plopped his foot up on the table in front of her. “LOOK!
” When she didn’t, he grabbed her jaw and turned her face. “See? Reeboks. Yeah, Sherlock. Those were my prints out by the tower.”
Seeing the filthy shoe, she suddenly regretted all her silly attempts at sleuthing. “Brad, look, I just—”
“Don’t waste your breath. Why couldn’t you just’ve died when your car went in the river? Huh?”
“Are you—”
“Am I the one who cut your brake lines? Gee, I don’t know. What do you think?”
His sarcasm candy-coated the truth as it knocked the wind from her lungs.
He caught a strand of her hair and twirled it in his fingers. “Yeah, that was totally me. I followed you home after you blew me off on the tennis court. I waited ‘til you went inside then I crawled under your car and severed your brake line. I even followed you from a distance when you left again and watched you fly off that embankment.” He threw his head back laughing. “It was AWESOME watching your car sail through the air! I only wish I’d thought to videotape it on my phone. What a beautiful sight that was.”
“Brad, please—”
The smile faded from his face as he pulled his leg off the table. Only then did she notice that he was wearing camouflage pants with a large hunting knife sheathed against his calf. Julie dropped her head. Oh, God, please help me. Get Matt here in time.
“Nothing you could possibly say can change things now,” he growled, his breath hot against her ear. “You have mocked me, and played with my feelings, and used me for the last time.” He grabbed her hair at the crown of her head, forcing her head back. “I’ll tell you one more time. Look at the newspaper clippings.”
A tear tracked down her cheek as she tried to compose herself and make sense of what she was looking at. “Okay. They’re newspaper clippings. What am I supposed to—”
“Read them.” He shoved her head closer to the table. “READ THEM!”
“All right! All right! ‘Franklin Teen Found Dead.’”
“Another one.”
“‘Wendell Autopsy Reveals Suspicious Death.’”
He jabbed his finger on the clipping. “Read what it says.”
She didn’t dare look at him; instead, she tried to focus her teary eyes on the article. “It says, ‘Williamson County coroners found blunt force trauma injuries on the body of Billy Wendell, suggesting the victim could have been attacked or injured prior to his death . . . the victim’s pelvis and hip bones were crushed, and his skull cracked. The injuries are indicative of those found in vehicular accidents or homicides.’”
“That’s because they ran over him.”
“Who ran over him?”
“Uncle Peter and my mom. They ran over that kid and killed him.”
“What? How could—”
“How could someone as successful and handsome and famous as Peter Lanham kill someone and get away with it? Come on, Julie. It’s not that complicated. They were just kids themselves, barely old enough to drive. He coerced my mother to keep her mouth shut; made her swear she’d never tell a soul. Meanwhile, he inherited the family business and lived the good life.
“Mom? She wasn’t so lucky. See, she had a conscience. She married young to get away from home, but she never got over what they’d done. She drank her life away, especially after she had me. Mom was too depressed and too drunk to take care of a kid, so my dad packed his bags and left both of us. Left his own son in the care of a passed-out drunk. Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it?”
“I’m sorry, Brad. I had no idea you had such a sad childhood.”
“Shut up. I don’t want your sympathy.”
She looked away; her bound hands and arms aching behind her.
He grabbed her chair and swiveled it to face him, their knees touching. “Look at me.”
She closed her eyes.
“I said LOOK AT ME!” He grabbed her shoulders in a vise grip.
Her chin trembled as she forced her eyes on his.
His voice shook as he continued. “So Uncle Peter goes traveling the world, spending his fortune, bedding women like you everywhere he went, while his pitiful sister gets moved from one rehab clinic to another, leaving me in foster care most of my life. She finally sobered up enough when I got to high school, so they let me go back home. A real sweet reunion that lasted a solid week before she fell off the wagon. But I was old enough to take care of her by then, so I did. Until a couple of weeks later when I came home and found her dead with an empty bottle of pills beside her.”
Julie felt the hot tears falling down her face but said nothing. He was no longer shouting; instead, he’d grown strangely reflective, as if reliving the sad narrative all over again. His gaze was still on her, his voice hushed now. His hand shook as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Her eyes locked on the glasses he’d always worn.
Silver-framed glasses. The kind that could reflect light . . . was Brad the second person on the water tower in Gevin’s photograph? Oh, Lord.
She shook off the thought and tried to focus on what he was saying.
“After her funeral, when I was going through her things, I found a diary she’d kept hidden in the bottom of a drawer. That’s when I found out about Billy Wendell, the kid they killed on that road in Leiper’s Fork. She’d kept all these news clippings. That’s where I read how my mother wanted to go to the authorities and confess, but Uncle Peter threatened to frame her for it if she did. Never mind that he was the one behind the wheel that night. I mean, who would believe her if the great Peter Lanham said she did it?”
His voice cracked and tears pooled in his eyes. “How could he do that to her? She worshipped the ground he walked on. Her parents never gave her the time of day. It was always Peter, Peter, Peter. She wasn’t smart like him, and he knew it. But he never bothered to appreciate how sensitive and loving she was, how deeply she felt things. What kind of man threatens his own sister?”
The look on his face broke her heart. So much anguish in his eyes. She was blindsided with regret, feeling horrible for the way she’d treated him over the past couple of years.
But it was his own fault. He refused to take no for an answer, forever nagging me to go out with him. Still, if I’d just taken the time to get to know him better—as a friend—maybe I could have helped him. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to.
He was crying so hard, she couldn’t understand the words blubbering from his mouth. His death grip on her shoulders began to burn until he finally dropped his head. At that precise moment, through the windows behind him, she saw red and blue flashing lights in the distance.
Oh, thank God!
She forced herself to remain calm, hoping to buy time for Matt and the police to reach her. She leaned forward, closer to him. “Brad, I’m so sorry,” she whispered quietly. “I had no idea. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you all these years, carrying so much pain.”
With his breath shuddering, he pulled one of his hands free and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Mom didn’t deserve it. He could have helped her, but he never did. He’d throw money at her at Christmas, as if that atoned for whatever guilt he may have had. But that’s just it. I don’t think he ever felt the guilt like Mom did. He was so self-absorbed, his ego didn’t have room for guilt, or anything else for that matter.”
With every breath, Julie prayed. She pleaded for God to help her distract Brad until Matt and his reinforcements could rescue her. She prayed for Brad to relax and lose himself in his grief, oblivious of those making their way toward the boardroom.
Brad shook his head, his eyes back on her. “Don’t you see? Uncle Peter killed her.” He pressed an imaginary gun to her temple. “By threatening her to keep silent all those years, he might as well have pulled the trigger himself.” He mimed a pretend gunshot to her head.
“And I’m still so angry that Mom didn’t fight him. Why was she so weak? Why didn’t she shove it all back at him, and make him pay like she had with her whole miserable life?”
Suddenly, he
sat up straighter and rubbed his nose against his shoulder. “Well, maybe she couldn’t. Maybe Mom was a weakling. But she didn’t raise one. And that’s why—”
“BRAD SAMPSON! YOU ARE SURROUNDED. STAND UP AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR.”
Brad bolted out of his seat, yanking Julie up with him and unsheathing his knife.
“What the—”
“STOP!” she screamed.
He pulled her in front of him, hooking his arm tightly around her neck, pressing hard against her windpipe.
“Brad, please! You’re hurting me!”
The tip of his knife pierced the skin of her throat. “No, Brad, please don’t do this!” she cried.
“SHUT UP!”
“LET HER GO, BRAD.”
She recognized Berkowitz’ voice and spotted him through her tears. Policemen flanked him on both sides, all pointing their weapons at them from behind the glass window that banked the entire boardroom. When she noticed Gevin and Matt in the line-up, she gasped.
“STAY BACK! I’ll cut her head off! I’ll do it!”
“Take it easy, Brad—”
“And drop those guns or I’ll slice her throat right now! DROP THEM!”
“Gentlemen, stand down!” Berkowitz ordered, raising his own gun so Brad could watch him drop it. The others followed suit. “Okay, we’re standing down. Don’t hurt her. You don’t want to do that, Brad.”
She felt the sharp tip of the knife dig slightly deeper, sending a trail of warm blood trickling down her neck. “Please, Brad . . . I’m begging you,” she whispered. “This won’t bring your mother back. It will only make things—”
“SHUT UP!” He tightened his arm against her throat making her cough.
“Brad, this is Agent Bryson. Listen to me—”
“Matt!” Julie croaked, tears filling her eyes as she found him again.
“Brad, let her go. Just let her go and give yourself up. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison. Don’t do this.”