What wasn’t hard to determine was the nature of her weapon tonight. The nine-millimeter Ruger looked small and her grip was awkward, but the red dot of the Crimson Trace laser sight sat true right above his heart.
He lifted his hand away from his pistol. There was no way she would miss with the laser at this distance, no way he could draw and get off his own shot before she killed him. “Your mother, your daughter and I were all very sorry to find out you were still alive. We liked the world much better without you in it.”
She barked a laugh. “You’re one twitch away from certain death, and yet you still make insults. I’d want to kill you even if you weren’t her boyfriend.”
The odds of an officer passing on routine patrol, or a neighbor going out or coming home, were slim. Sam would give a lot for any kind of distraction that would give him a chance with her. He would settle for keeping her talking. “We know your real name, and Joshua’s. What was her real name? She doesn’t remember.”
Lindy made a gesture that might have been a shrug, or the closest she could get to it now. “Who the hell cares? She’s had a hundred names. My mother can tell you. She always did love the stupid brat more than me.” The next gesture was a farce of a smile. “But not Joshua. He loved me, and I loved him. We were one.”
“Yeah. You were so devoted to him that when you knew he was going to die, you jumped out of the car and saved your own life.”
“That’s not true! It wasn’t like that at all!” Tremors rocketed through her, making the red dot on his chest dance.
If he made her angry enough, maybe he would get the opportunity to charge her and get the gun from her. Or maybe she would shoot him at point-blank range. The Ruger might be small, but it was powerful. Who knew he should have worn a bulletproof vest to walk home from work?
“Then what was it like?”
“She killed him, as surely as if she’d shot him with this gun. He was the only reason she was alive—he wasn’t done with her yet—and she killed him. Ungrateful little brat. I was damned if I would let her kill me, too. She had to be punished, once and for all.”
Though he’d skipped lunch and barely touched his dinner, nausea rose in Sam’s gut. Had he said he was proud of Mila before? Proud didn’t even begin to cover it. It was nothing less than a miracle that she wasn’t locked in a psych hospital somewhere, totally incapable of dealing with life.
Milagro, Jessica had told him the first time they met, was Spanish for miracle. They’d chosen the perfect name for her.
Sweat trickled down his back. Fifteen minutes ago, he’d thought he would come home, shower and hopefully sleep a few hours in a cold room, then get up too soon to restart the hunt for this woman. She’d moved his schedule ahead a few hours.
“How many people have you and Joshua killed?”
“Killed? We didn’t kill anyone. We freed them.”
Great. Not just evil but crazy, too. “From what?”
“Existence in our world.” She made that odd attempt at a smile again. “We didn’t want them here.”
Not just evil and crazy but mean. God help them.
She shifted toward the porch railing, keeping the laser sighted on his chest. “We didn’t count. It was enough to keep us happy. When we got unhappy, we killed someone else.” Abruptly, she jerked her left hand, enclosed in a dark glove, toward the door. “I know you’re trying to distract me, Chief, but it won’t work. The brat’s inside. You need to go join her so I can finish this.”
Sam’s heart stuttered to a stop before bursting into a full gallop. “Mila—” He twisted the knob. It turned easily, the door swinging in without a sound, releasing the powerful stench of gasoline. Green light fell in a narrow wedge through the opening and showed his living room, everything in its place except the wooden dining chair that stood where the coffee table should be. Mila was sitting on the chair, wide strips of duct tape over her mouth, her wrists, her ankles. And five one-gallon gas cans were strewn on their sides around the room.
Of all the ways Lindy could kill them, she’d picked the absolute worst Sam could imagine. How the hell were they going to get out of this?
* * *
Mila should be frantic, in a panic, desperately trying to find a way to get out of this nightmare that she’d found herself back in. She should be trying to work her hands free, tearing through the tape, praying to God, but her brain had shut down the instant she’d awakened to find the one person she feared most leaning over her bed. Where was Gramma? Poppy? What had Lindy done to Ben? What about the officer keeping watch in the lobby? Were they hurt? Dying? Dear God, please not dead.
In that rusty voice, Lindy had whispered, “The cops might survive. Your stupid dog...she remembered me from before and let me walk right past. Your precious gramma...she’ll definitely survive. That’ll be her punishment. Living without you. Knowing that in the end, when it mattered most, she didn’t help you. She’ll hear your screams for the rest of her life, just like I hear Joshua’s.”
Her choice of weapon had surprised Mila. Her father had always used knives. He’d liked the feel of the warm, rich blood as it ran over his hands. In the latest killings, her mother had used blades, too, but tonight she held a gun. Of course, she’d had to face police officers and her own mother, who would claw her eyes out to keep Mila safe.
She’d let Mila put on flip-flops, then taken her from the apartment with the gun barrel nestled in her rib cage. Muffled sobs had come from Gramma’s room; Ben had lain motionless and bleeding on the couch. The officer in the lobby was toppled onto the floor, his chair upturned beside him. Mila couldn’t see what Lindy had done to him.
She would have known this house they’d come to was Sam’s even without being told. It felt like him. Smelled like him. A cowboy hat rested on the fireplace mantel. A pair of familiar running shoes had been kicked off between living and dining rooms. Pictures—him with family, with cop friends, with army friends—hung on the walls.
How wrong it was, seeing it for the first time tainted by her.
Lindy remained in the doorway, the gun now pointed at Mila. She couldn’t see the red dot on her forehead but guessed it was there from the way Sam’s eyes widened with fear. Producing a flashlight, Lindy grappled with it in her gloved hand and shone it on a knife on a sofa cushion. “Cut her loose, then move over by the fireplace.”
Sam hesitated before approaching Mila. His brain must be running a thousand miles a minute trying to find a plan to somehow free them both. She was no expert, but she knew a knife from a distance of twelve feet was no match for a gun her mother didn’t even have to aim. He took extra care loosening her left wrist—the splint was back at Gramma’s—then crouched to get her ankles. “I’m so sorry.” His mouth barely moved. His words barely reached her ears. The next words were even softer. “I love you, Mila.”
Such sweet words that she wanted to hear them again, but he was standing, walking toward the fireplace. Lindy made a sound and pointed with the flashlight again, and he stopped, tossing the knife onto the sofa as she indicated. “Your gun, too.”
He obeyed.
Mila stood, pulled the tape from her mouth with a wince and eyed the two weapons. She had no clue how to use a gun, and she couldn’t imagine herself plunging a knife into a living being’s body. But she could do it to save Sam. To save herself. Even if it did prove that she was her father’s daughter.
“Now you go over there.” Lindy pointed to the opposite side of the room as she stepped all the way inside and closed the door. The odd green tint vanished, along with virtually all the light, but she flipped a switch and a low-watt bulb, not much brighter than Mila’s night-light, came on overhead.
Gasoline squished in the carpet as Mila crossed the room. She scanned for some kind of weapon and found nothing. Of course. Lindy had probably started planning this from her hospital bed. She would have accounted for every possibility.
&
nbsp; “Have a seat, Chief. We’re gonna let you wear the tape for a while.”
It made sense in a Lindy sort of way. She didn’t trust Sam to meekly let her restrain him, knowing it would mean his and Mila’s deaths. This way she could keep the gun on both of them while Mila did the restraining. After all, Mila with hands free was far less dangerous than Sam was.
The smell of the gasoline was turning Mila’s stomach in sour flips, threatening to bring up her dinner any minute now. Her head pounded with an ache, her eyes burned, but she picked up the duct tape her mother had left on the coffee table, along with the knife.
“You look pukey, brat. Bad smells don’t bother me anymore. Thanks to you, my nose was scraped right off my face. I don’t have eyelashes, either. Eyebrows. Hair. I have to wear a damn wig everywhere I go, and people still stare me like I’m a freak. Hell, they’re the freaks. They have no idea who they’re dealing with.”
How much damage had she suffered? They’d thought she wouldn’t survive, Ben said. The question in Mila’s mind was why had she wanted to. She’d known her precious Joshua was dead and Mila was gone and her mother had helped make both happen. Why hadn’t she just given up? Why had she fought so hard to live in such a damaged shell?
To kill me.
“Come on. I don’t have all freaking night.”
Mila walked behind the chair, sat on the edge of the couch and pulled Sam’s hands to the back center of the wooden seat. He squeezed her fingers tightly and, she wanted to think, hopefully. She used the knife to cut a strip of tape and used Sam’s broad chest to hide her actions as she wound the tape through the vertical slats of the chair back. She secured just the ends around his wrists, making sure they didn’t overlap.
Cutting the next piece, she grunted in pain from using her left hand. It made her mother laugh. “A sprained wrist, for God’s sake. That’s all you have. You want to hear the injuries you gave me?”
Yes. The longer Lindy fixated on the wrongs done her, the more upset she would get and the less attention she would pay to anything else.
“I left half my skin on the roadway when I jumped from the car. My entire body was a mass of torn, oozing, bleeding scrapes with bones poking out. I broke my collarbone, my upper arm, my elbow, my lower arm, my wrist, my hand and every bone in my fingers.”
Mila wrapped a second piece of tape, again securing most of it to the chair. Sam could easily break free of what touched him.
“Every one of my ribs,” Lindy went on. “My hip, my pelvis, my femur, my lower leg, my ankle and my foot. I didn’t crack open my head, though. Can you believe that? That means I lay there in the weeds, in more red-hot agony than you could ever imagine in your stupid little brain. I lay there, and I listened to his screams, and I watched the flames coming closer, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to save myself while I burned alive.”
Mila continued cutting and wrapping pieces of tape, praying it looked like his hands bore the brunt of it. Done, she moved to the front of chair, tape and knife in her good hand, and spoke for the first time since Sam had arrived. “My wrist hurts too bad. If you want me to tie his ankles, you’re going to have to cut the tape for me.”
Lindy swept a pile of books from the table nearest the door. “It’s a damned sprained wrist!”
“If you wanted me to have two good wrists for tonight, you shouldn’t have tried to kill me Saturday.” Mila knew the mere fact that she’d spoken angered Lindy. She saw it in her eyes, heard it in her gasp, recognized it in the sudden clenching of her fist. Family rules: Mila never spoke to Lindy unless it was necessary, never criticized her, frowned or scowled or rolled her eyes at her and never asked for or expected anything of her.
Lindy stalked across the room, and it took all of Mila’s strength not to cringe or shrink away. It was a small source of wonder that she didn’t want to as badly as she always had before.
“I should have drowned you at birth.” Lindy’s breath was fetid and hot on Mila’s face.
A smile slowly curved her mouth. “Look at the fun we’d be missing if you had.”
She’d never seen Lindy so enraged. Spittle flew from the corners of her mouth, and she gulped shallow breaths through her rebuilt nose, tremors rocketing through her from head to toe. The shaking of her hand was enough to make Mila dizzy from the up-and-down swirls of the pistol’s red dot.
“You’re a coward,” Mila said, her voice drawing strength from someplace else. Behind her, Sam murmured her name, a faint warning. She glanced at him and recognized worry and concern and love and faith. He trusted that she knew how to handle her mother better than he did.
“Bitch!” Lindy staggered forward, switching the gun to her other hand, slapping her open palm against Mila’s face. She had always been so fast before, spinning, circling, landing a second punch before Mila could refocus her eyes after the first. But broken bones and skin contractures from scarring made for slower movement.
Mila’s cheek stung, but she didn’t touch it. “My father knew how to kill. He took his time with it. It was art to him. He made tender slices, delicate cuts and savored the lifeblood he released. You...you sneak up behind people. You stab, butcher, and then you run away like the coward you are.”
“You think this isn’t art?” Lindy spread both arms to indicate the room. “I’ve lain on the grass and smelled my own flesh roasting off my bones. Now I’m going to sit outside and smell your flesh roasting. I’m going to listen to your screams, like the most beautiful music ever played. And I’ll know no one will save you, because your boyfriend will be dying right beside you. It’ll be beautiful.”
Mila scoffed. “That’s not saying much, given how amateurish the rest of them were. My father would be embarrassed.”
Lindy lunged again, her fingers curved into claws, her rage too great to control. Mila stepped back too late. Her mother slammed into her, and they fell to the floor. Vaguely Mila heard scuffling—Sam freeing himself, please, God—but it was lost in the furious wounded-animal screams coming from Lindy’s mouth.
When Lindy charged, she’d dropped the pistol, but Mila still held the knife. Lindy grabbed it with her fingers, the blade slipping and slicing, cutting deep into her skin. Blood flowed down the hilt and onto Mila’s hand, drained farther onto her arm. The smell, so terrifyingly familiar, made her want to join Lindy in her mindless screaming rage, to drop the knife, but her fingers were locked around the handle. If she let go, she would die, so no matter the revulsion gathering inside her, she held tight, but she was losing her grip one slick, wet blood drop at a time.
Lindy jerked the knife from her hand, flipped it around and pressed the blade to Mila’s throat before, suddenly, thankfully, she was gone, lifted into the air by the strongest, angriest man Mila had ever seen: her protector. The man she loved. Sam.
He hefted Lindy three feet off the floor, one hand gripping her waistband, the other her neck, then threw her aside. Mila didn’t care where she landed or how hard or whether she was hurt. She didn’t care about a thing except they were alive.
As easily as he’d picked up Lindy, he lifted Mila, too, cradling her in his arms, staring intently at her face. “Oh, my God, Mila.” That was all he could say. That was all right. It was enough for her.
Her clothes and hair were soaked with gasoline, and giving in to the fumes, she rolled away and vomited. As she straightened, Lindy stirred near the fireplace, rolling to one side, digging her ungloved hand into her pocket. Light glinted dully off the item she pulled out, then a tall slender flame flared.
Mila stared in horror, unable to form even the slightest of sounds, but Sam turned, following her gaze. Tightening his grip on her, he lunged toward the door as Lindy dropped her hand and the cigarette lighter to the carpet and flames whooshed to life. Heat scorched their backs as he leaped down the steps and hit the sidewalk, then the street, at a hard run.
The last thing Mila saw before the world exploded
was a figure standing in the doorway of Sam’s house, arms raised to the sky, as flames consumed it.
Epilogue
Dawn that morning was all delicate pinks and lavenders, breathtaking in their beauty, such a contrast to the ugliness where Sam’s house had stood. The blaze had been out for an hour or more, but firefighters still lingered, spraying the ashes, watching for hot spots.
I sat in a yard across the street, Sam at my side. Within minutes of escaping the house, we’d been hustled back to Gramma’s to shower off the gasoline and change into clean clothes. I scrubbed and scrubbed but was pretty sure the smell would linger in my imagination for a long time.
Ben Little Bear and the officer on duty in the lobby were both taken to the hospital, both in good condition. Gramma was taken, too, hysterical from her run-in with Lindy, from banging on her bedroom door screaming for help while she thought Sam and I were dying. Despite the hour, Lois Gideon went to the hospital to sit with her after they sedated her.
Without discussion, Sam and I went from the hospital back to his block. We watched the last of the flames, the curious people gathered around, the eerie flashes of red-and-blue lights. We didn’t talk. Sam held my hand, and I clung tightly to his. We just...were. Together. The way we were meant to be.
As the sky lightened, I gave the burned-out remains of his house one last look, then leaned my head against his shoulder. I’d always believed it would come to this: my life or my mother’s. Except for those lovely fifteen years when I’d believed her dead, I’d always thought she would kill me. I’d sometimes dreamed I would kill her instead.
There was no doubt of her death this time. We had watched her as she burned, doing a macabre little dance—Sam and I, the arriving firefighters, a neighbor who’d been roused from his bed.
And she had laughed. At least, I thought it was a laugh. With her damaged throat, it was hard to be sure, but it seemed she would find her kind of sick, twisted humor in the situation.
Killer Secrets Page 23