The Final Kill

by Meg O'Brien

  It shouldn’t take long, she thought, squatting and easing her back against a tree opposite the barn wall. Five or ten minutes of absolute silence, and if he was in there, he’d get impatient and wonder where she was. He’d come out—and that’s when she’d get him. Frank Frett wasn’t the type to sit around, and several minutes without any kind of movement from her would drive him nuts.

  While she waited, she imagined the things she would do to the lilac killer, once he was good and dead. She’d get something from the gardening shed…lye, perhaps. Yes, lye. That should do it. She’d dig a grave just deep enough to dump him in it. Then she’d pour the lye over his entire body. It would eat away at his skin and other mucous membranes in no time. His eyes would go first, but whether it would eat through his bones, she didn’t know. It really didn’t matter. The pain is what mattered. The same kind of pain her lilacs had felt when they were burned by poison at the hands of Frank Frett.

  Lye, she recalled, was what they used when they buried people in the old days to prevent diseases from spreading. She remembered, too, a story about St. Margaret Mary, who claimed to have had visions of the Blessed Mother and was told by her to begin a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She did, and it was said that when they dug her up years later, her heart was still red and fresh, that the lye hadn’t touched it. It was God’s grace that her heart was preserved, the Church said, because of her love for the Blessed Mother. It was one of the miracles, Abby thought she recalled, that was used to prove her a saint.

  Well, Frank Frett’s heart would never be touched by God’s grace. If they ever dug him up, they’d find it was cold, black and hard as a rock. Even lye couldn’t eat through a heart that hated lilacs.

  A too-sweet smell of hay filtered through the wall of the stable, along with the sweaty odor of horses in their warmed stalls. Abby’s nose began to itch, and she pressed a finger under it to keep herself from sneezing. That did nothing for the smell of manure, which was faint but enough to make her empty stomach clutch. She hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, and she was hungry suddenly, though not in a good, healthy way. Instead, she really thought she was about to vomit. Covering her mouth with both hands, she gulped back the bile that rose in her throat, telling herself over and over, It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Just don’t make a sound, not a sound.

  It was Frett himself who saved her. Just when she thought she couldn’t hold it back any longer, she heard movement at the rear of the barn. She forgot all about throwing up and crouched, moving that way, listening for a direction. Then she saw him. He was crouching, too, and then running from the barn toward the little chapel, his body nothing more than a black form about fifty feet ahead of her.

  She brought her gun up and pointed it at his back. “Stop!”

  He twisted around, his own weapon raised. But she’d taken him by surprise, and she shot first. He went down.

  Abby ran over to him, touching his leg with her foot. He didn’t move, and the splattered red blotch on his chest told her she’d hit her mark.

  “Gotcha,” she said softly. “Your days of poisoning lilacs are over, Frank Frett.”

  “You think so?” he taunted, grabbing her pant leg and yanking at it. She was so surprised, she lost her footing and fell, dropping her gun. Stumbling to her feet, she picked it up, but he was already running again. Reaching a live oak tree, he stood behind it for cover, and she ran in a zigzag pattern until she was close enough to shoot again.

  It didn’t work, and she saw it coming before she felt it. He stepped out from behind the tree and aimed his Shocktech 2003 at her. The thrust went straight to her heart, and she went down with an enormous rush of breath and a moan.

  She wasn’t faking it the way he had. The pain was sharp and stinging, and for a few seconds everything went black. Then, her vision clearing, she saw “Frank Frett” kneeling over her in the person of Ben Schaeffer, her lover, his face twisted in anger.

  “Dammit all to hell, Abby! Why aren’t you wearing your protective gear? A face mask, at least! Paintballs can blind you, you know.”

  3

  Considering Abby’s “injury,” Ben wasn’t all that gentle as he dumped her from his shoulder onto her bed.

  “If you’d worn the damned chest protector I bought for you, this never would have happened!”

  “Don’t swear,” she said, laughing facedown into her pillow. “The nuns might hear.”

  “I don’t give—” He checked himself and lowered his voice. “And why the hell didn’t you wear your face mask?”

  “It makes me sweat,” she said.

  “So you’d rather lose an eye? Turn over.”

  “No.”

  “Turn over!”

  She pressed her belly into the sheets rather than give in.

  He tugged at her shoulder. “C’mon, Abby. I want to see how bad you’re hurt. If you don’t turn over, I’ll turn you myself.”

  She knew he could do it, so she rolled over, grinning. “You think that silly little paintball did me in? No way.”

  “It got you square on the chest,” he argued. “For God’s sake, it almost knocked you out.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic! All it did was smart and knock the wind out of me. A little. Besides, I got you first.”

  “So you did. But I, at least, was wearing my chest protector,” he pointed out.

  Pulling her jersey up over her chest, he swore again. His fingers carefully wiped the crimson glop from the flesh over her heart—where, despite her brilliant plan to one-up his character of “Frank Frett, the evil lilac killer,” he’d managed to get her with a big red splat of paint. The spot where the paintball had hit was badly inflamed. Ben stroked it gently. “Abby, this is final. If you don’t start wearing protective gear, I’m not—” He sighed.

  “Not what?”

  “Playing anymore.” The tone of his voice told her he knew the words sounded ridiculous, but his eyes were dead serious.

  She pulled him down on the bed beside her and nuzzled his neck, while at the same time pressing herself seductively against him. “You’re not playing anymore? You sure about that?”

  “I’m serious,” he said sternly. “This game is getting out of hand.”

  She planted her lips against his ear. “And whose idea was it in the first place?” she murmured. “Who left me that scenario about some crazy gardener named Frank Frett killing off somebody’s lilacs? And where the hell did you get that scenario, anyway?”

  He rubbed noses with her. “From watching you with your rose garden, of course. You almost leveled poor Sister Binny that day you caught her with a spray gun.”

  She touched his lips with hers. “Only because I didn’t know she was using organic spray. And I made it up to her by letting her have all the lavender she wanted.”

  “How kind of you. To be nice to a nun, of all people.”

  “Not as kind as you, leaving that barn door open for me so I’d walk right into your snare, Frank Frett. I can’t believe you thought I’d fall for that.”

  “Ah, but you did believe my fake death.”

  “Okay, so I’m easy to fool where you’re concerned.”

  Ben turned serious. “Easy to fool? What exactly does that mean?”

  The way he said it made her think there was something she was missing. But she already regretted her choice of words. If there was something she was being a fool about, and lately her instincts had been telling her there was, she honestly didn’t want to know it. Not yet. Life was complicated enough, as her mother would say, without looking for dust balls under the bed.

  “I didn’t mean a thing,” she said. “And by the way, don’t forget you promised to help us finish the remodel on the old friar’s chapel out back.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject, Abby. Dammit, this is it. It’s the second time you’ve been hurt during one of our paintball capers, and that wasn’t what the game started out to be.”

  She grinned. “I know. But don’t pretend you don’t enjoy it. It’
s our best sexual fantasy. If you hadn’t knocked me off my feet tonight, just imagine what might have happened.”

  “I don’t even want to think about what could have happened to you.” He frowned. “Abby, ever since—Never mind. The point is, you’re way too reckless. What if you’d lost an eye?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ben. People play paintball all the time.”

  “They get hurt all the time, too. There are thousands of cases every year of people being blinded by a paint-ball—and worse.” He swore. “I never should have taken you to survivor camp with me last fall. You’ve got to let this go, Abby.”

  “But you agreed I needed to get my self-confidence back. And my experience there made a great article for Action Pursuit Games.”

  “An article that barely paid you anything, and you already have more money than you know what to do with.”

  “Not true. There’s the little chapel, and the Women’s Center for Learning needs expanding, and the old horse barn could use a ton of work—”

  He groaned. “Look, I admire the fact that you decided to buy the Prayer House from Lydia and help the nuns out. But why do you have to live here?”

  And now we’re getting to the real meat of things, Abby thought. What he means is, Why weren’t you happy enough living with me?

  “I love your apartment in town,” she said. “But, Ben, you were out most of the time chasing criminals around Carmel, and I was alone. I wanted to be around people more.”

  “You could walk around Carmel Village anytime and be up to your knees in tourists from every hemisphere.”

  “But I can think better out here. It’s quiet. Besides, I can still drive to the village whenever I want to.”

  The truth was, she didn’t want to all that often. Windhaven, the multimillion-dollar Ocean Drive house that she’d lived in with her husband, still held too many bad memories. Just driving by it gave her the willies.

  “And as for chasing criminals around in quaint little old Carmel,” Ben said, “it’s not exactly the way I thought it would be when I moved down here from San Francisco. I thought having a chance to be chief one day would be the perfect job.”

  “It’s not?” Abby was surprised. They had never talked about this before.

  “It could be,” he said, “for the right person. But don’t you ever get the feeling that living in Carmel is like living in a bubble? We’re so isolated here. A two-hour drive to San Francisco, no direct flights out of Monterey to most cities…”

  “Sweetie,” Abby murmured, leaning over to kiss his cheek, “you’re not old enough to be having a midlife crisis.”

  “Ha. I’m over forty.”

  “No!” she said mockingly. “You’re that old? Good grief, what’s a young thirty-eight-year-old like me doing with the likes of you?”

  “Growing old,” he said, grinning, “and way too fast, if you’re not careful.”

  She punched him on the shoulder. “Okay, so how about this? You get a hobby.”

  He snorted. “Like what?”

  “Painting, maybe. Or golf.”

  “Great. Then there would be three million and one painters in Monterey County. And four million and one golfers.”

  She sighed. “You won’t let me make you feel any better, will you?”

  “Depends on how you’re feeling now,” he said, pulling her close and nuzzling her ear. “Hey, ya know what? I just figured out my new hobby.”

  She was about to agree that his new hobby was a fine one when the intercom next to her bed buzzed softly. Sister Helen, who acted as keeper of the front door at night, would never interrupt her when Ben was there unless it was important.

  She pressed the button for two-way conversation. “What’s up, Helen?”

  The nun’s voice was so raspy from allergies, Abby could hardly make it out. Turning up the volume, she put a finger over her lips to quiet Ben, who was still trying to nuzzle.

  “There are two women here,” Helen said. “Rather, a woman and a teenage girl who looks old enough to be Hades.”

  “Hades?”

  “God of the dead. For heaven’s sake, girl, don’t you remember anything I taught you in high school? Anyway, the older one says they’re seeking sanctuary.”

  “I haven’t had a call from anyone setting that up,” Abby said, looking at the clock. It read 2:38 a.m.

  “I didn’t think so,” Helen said. “Do you think it’s safe to let them in?”

  “Keep them in the reception room. I’ll be right there.”

  Yet one more abused family, she thought wearily, sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing her eyes. God, there were so many more than a year ago. And the little she did for them never felt like enough. Food, clothes, a bed for the night…then off they went in the morning to the next way station. It really wasn’t much.

  “Abby?” Sister Helen’s voice came over the intercom at the same time that Ben nudged her, calling her back from a suddenly overwhelming depression.

  “Sorry, Helen,” she said. “Tell them I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “Of course.”

  Abby pressed the off button. She knew Helen would also call Sister Benicia, who would be glad to get up and go to the kitchen to heat leftover soup from dinner for the two women.

  Abby bent over to plant a quick kiss on Ben, but he’d have none of it. Rolling her under him, he covered her from head to toe and pressed himself hard against her. “Just remember, I won this time.”

  “Hell, you can win all the time,” she said, wiggling beneath him until it was clear he was aroused. “But I really must go,” she added, laughing. “Duty calls.”

  He groaned and let her up. “Vixen. Okay, I’ll go back to town and check in at the station.”

  “I thought you weren’t working tonight,” she said, tugging on clean jeans and a sweatshirt.

  “I’m not. I just feel antsy after all that exercise.”

  “It’s not the exercise that got you antsy,” she said, tossing a pillow at him.

  Abby reached for her boots, and Ben swatted her on the backside on his way to the bathroom. “I didn’t say what kind of exercise. See you in the morning, Annie Oakley.”

  Abby looked briefly into the little mirror on the door that led into the convent, and brushed her shoulder-length brown hair back behind her ears with her fingers. No time for makeup. A clean flannel shirt to cover the paint splatters on her tee would have to do.

  Downstairs, she entered the large old reception room with its antique furnishings and expensive rugs that Lydia Greyson had brought here from her own Carmel home when she owned the Prayer House. It was cold in here and, shivering, Abby noted both women were standing, warming their backs at the fireplace. She drew closer, then stopped midway, surprised to see that she knew both the older woman and the teenager with her: Alicia Gerard, one of her oldest friends, and Jancy, her daughter.

  “Allie!” she said, crossing over to her and holding out both hands. “What on earth? I haven’t seen you in, geez, what is it—two years?”

  Alicia’s smile was tight, her eyes distraught. Her pale blond hair, ordinarily smooth and shiny, was tangled, as if she’d been nervously running her fingers through it.

  As for Jancy? Abby remembered her as a cute kid with a brown ponytail, dressed in Catholic school plaids. Now Allie’s child was dressed all in black, had a short, spiked hairdo with orange and purple streaks, and a strange, staring expression in her eyes, which were so heavily made up Abby wondered how she could hold them open.

  Still, Helen’s reference to Hades, whether god of the dead or hell, had been a bit strong. Little Jancy had simply become a teenager.

  Alicia grabbed Abby’s hands and held on as if they were her only lifeline. “You’ve got to help us,” she said, her voice shaking. “Please, Abby. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”

  Looking into Alicia’s familiar green eyes, Abby knew she should be happy to see her old friend. Not only that, but she owed her so much. If Alicia hadn’t hel
ped her, back when her own world was falling apart…

  But something was very, very wrong. And some instinct—the kind that raises hairs on the back of one’s neck—told Abby that Trouble with a capital T had just walked through her door.

  4

  Alicia Gerard was forty-one, yet close up Abby could see that there were new stress lines in her forehead and around her mouth that made her look closer to fifty. Allie had always been beautiful, and still was. But her face now was more like a photograph that had blurred because life had moved slightly and unexpectedly, causing a distortion.

  Abby had known Alicia Gerard since she was a reporter in Los Angeles, years ago. At that time, Allie’s husband was just beginning as a legal aid attorney. In a short amount of time he became a legislator, and finally progressed to what he was now—a mover and shaker in the business world. Abby had followed the growth of his career, from a real estate developer to a Donald Trump-like mogul whose face had been on the cover of every important magazine in the world. More recently, H. Palmer Gerard, better known to friends and family as Gerry, had spoken in Washington before a committee on illegal immigration. As one of the top developers in the world, he shocked the committee by taking the position that restrictions on immigration from Mexico were unrealistic and should be eased, and that pay for illegal Mexican laborers should be raised.

  Paying illegal aliens a decent wage wasn’t a popular position, especially when the economy was in trouble and jobs were hard to come by. In an attempt to dilute Gerry’s argument, politicians came down on him in the media, calling him an “elitist who had so much money he no longer felt any loyalty to hardworking Americans who were struggling to make a living for themselves and their families.”

  In response, Gerry then challenged the administration to create more jobs for U.S. citizens by cutting back on outsourcing—the hiring by U.S. companies of cheap labor in other countries at much lower pay than American employees commanded.

  After his appearances on Capitol Hill, a storm of controversy began. Thanks to Gerry Gerard, the administration now had its hands full. If Gerry had been a politician, his career would almost certainly have gone downhill from there. But because of his powerful business ties, no one had dared to take an open stand against H. P. Gerard. Alicia’s husband was feared by senators and presidents alike—not because he played dirty, but because he refused to. Some said he could run for and win the next presidential election on the votes of the poor alone. There were impressive leaders of blacks and Hispanics who swore they could get out the vote if he ran.