All Roads Lead To Murder

by Lynn Bohart

  “I can handle Eva,” Blair said. “C’mon. We don’t have much time.”

  She left the safety of the trash cans, forcing me to follow. We crept along the side of the building and toward the backyard.

  We followed a narrow concrete walkway around the back corner of the house, ducking down as we passed the windows. We got to the back door, which opened onto a small patio scattered with folding chairs and a glass-topped patio table.

  The outdoor light above the back door was off, but the blinds on the small window had been angled partially open, allowing the inside light to shine through. The lock on the door had clearly been broken.

  We positioned ourselves on either side of the door and slowly rose up to peek through the blinds.

  Inside was a small den, decorated with big, soft furniture. Framed photos of the lake hung on walls painted a forest green. To the right was a kitchen with a butcher block island and a silly black and white wall clock designed to look like a cat’s face.

  Eva sat in a big leather recliner angled toward the corner to our left. She was watching TV, using the remote to change channels, completely oblivious to our presence.

  Slumped on the sofa on the far wall behind her was Amy. Dressed only in a pair of shorts, tennis shoes, and a tank top, her hands and feet were tied, and she had a gag in her mouth. Her head had dropped forward, and the wig had been removed, allowing her dark hair to tumble around her shoulders.

  As we surveyed the scene, panic welled within my chest. I knew Blair. She was fearless. And I could tell she was assessing the situation. I remembered Rudy’s comment that Blair shouldn’t “go all commando.” Apparently her warning had fallen on deaf ears.

  Blair pushed me behind her and then turned to whisper, “I’m going to get Eva’s attention. When she opens the door, I’ll grab her and pull her out. You get in there and use that knife of yours to free Amy.”

  I nodded with a big lump in my throat. As she turned away, I reached into my pocket and brought out the small knife Amelia had given me and opened it, my heart thumping. We pressed ourselves into some bushes under the window, and then Blair lightly tapped on the window.

  It seemed like an eternity before the door knob turned, and the door cracked open. Eva’s head appeared, her eyes searching the darkness outside.

  “Monty?” she said.

  Blair sprang into motion.

  She grabbed Eva’s wrist with lightning speed and yanked her forward. As the small woman stumbled out the door, Blair whirled around in front of her and gave her a quick jab to the face. She crumpled to the pavement, blood oozing from her nose.

  Damn!

  “Go!” Blair ordered.

  I gingerly stepped over the stunned woman and headed for Amy.

  The sharp knife quickly cut the ties at her feet and wrists, releasing her. I turned to get Blair’s help, but she was dragging Eva across the patio.

  I poked my head outside. Blair had just pulled the handcuffs Rudy had given her out of her pocket. She handcuffed Eva to a pipe extending from the lower part of the building and then rushed back inside with me.

  “Okay, let’s get out of here,” she demanded.

  Together we pulled an unconscious Amy off the sofa and each took one of her arms. I snatched Eva’s hoodie off the recliner and slipped Amy’s arms into it. She was small–not much bigger than me–but limp and awkward to move. I put my arm around her waist, while Blair slipped her arm under Amy’s shoulder.

  I looked over at Blair. She nodded once, and the three of us stumbled toward the open back door.

  We staggered into the cooling night air and made it to the back patio before the walkie-talkie crackled. We stopped. Blair balanced Amy on her hip and reached into her pocket to extract the device.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Blair!” Rudy’s harsh whisper called out. “Get out of there. They’re on their way back.”

  “Shit!” Blair exclaimed, shoving the walkie-talkie back in her pocket. She looked around. “C’mon!”

  We began hauling Amy toward the backyard and the forest beyond, her limp feet dragging along the ground.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, struggling to keep up.

  “We can’t go back the way we came,” she said.

  We reached the end of the lawn and stepped into a dense copse of trees and bushes. Branches scratched, prodded and probed us, and berry bushes snagged our clothing as we pushed through. It was difficult to hold onto Amy, and just when I thought we’d lose our hold on her, we broke free of the foliage. Good thing, because we were practically dragging her behind us by this point.

  “Pick her up,” Blair snapped.

  We yanked her to her feet and then kept going. We’d only made it a few more yards before we heard the soft rumble of the kidnapper’s motorhome’s engine behind us.

  That spurred us on.

  Since Blair was much taller than me, she was able to lift Amy higher, pulling her feet off the ground. Together we propelled her forward.

  Although we’d left the thick foliage behind, we still had to weave between trees and bushes. We stumbled over strands of ivy and broken tree limbs, and were slapped a couple of times by branches. Amy moaned and seemed to come half awake at one point and tried to pull away from us.

  “No!” Blair whispered. “Amy, we’re here to help you.”

  When we heard shouts from the house behind us, we picked up the pace, veering left to avoid a thick patch of bushes studded with large rocks. We circled around them and then…I stepped off into thin air, pulling the other two with me.

  We fell, tumbling and rolling down a steep hill. I slammed into a big rock and then rolled over it, knocking the air out of my lungs. When it was all over, I lay on my back, staring at the stars trying desperately to catch my breath. I rolled onto my right side with a groan.

  Amy was about four feet away on her stomach, head toward the bottom of the hill. She wasn’t moving. I could just barely make out Blair below her.

  Faint voices got us moving quickly. Blair rose and scrambled back up the hill to Amy. I sat up and shook my head, then stood holding my ribs to help Blair get Amy back to her feet.

  “C’mon. We have to hurry,” Blair said in a hoarse whisper, glancing to the top of the hill. “They’re coming.”

  We stumbled to the bottom of the hill and waded through a shallow stream, silencing a chorus of frogs. We pushed to the other side as the voices grew stronger above us. Once across, we struggled up a small rise and dropped down behind a large boulder.

  Both of us were breathing hard, which brought tears to my eyes because of the pain in my ribcage. Amy was slumped against the rock, groaning. I put my hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. The voices remained at a distance for a few seconds, and then they were gone.

  We waited a good minute, and then Blair tried the walkie-talkie.

  It didn’t work. It had been smashed when she rolled down the hill. She tossed it into some bushes, sighed with frustration and leaned back against the rock, breathing hard. “Now what?”

  I pulled out my cell phone and swiped it on. No bars.

  I gave the same despondent sigh. “Why don’t we try to get back to that store?”

  She turned toward me. “How? I have no idea where we are.”

  “The police should be coming soon,” I said.

  “Or not,” Blair said. “We’re out in the country. Who knows which law enforcement agency covers this area?”

  “We could stay here for the night. Go back the way we came in the morning.”

  “No. Amy can identify them, and so can we. They’ll come after us.”

  A muffled “pop” startled both of us. It was a gunshot, and we stared at each other in the dark.

  “Eva,” I said with some remorse.

  My phone suddenly lit up and began to play, “Rock Around the Clock.” An uninvited chill ran the length of my spine.

  I quickly swiped on my phone and put it to my ear. “Mom?”

  “Get out of th
ere! Someone’s coming for you.”

  “I know, Mom. I…we don’t know where to go.”

  “I hear water. Follow the water. Now!” she snapped, and then the phone went dead.

  “C’mon,” Blair said, jumping up. “We need to get as far away from here as we can.”

  I struggled to my feet and then we each took one of Amy’s arms.

  “Okay, on three. One. Two. Three.”

  We pulled Amy up and left the relative safety of the boulder. I couldn’t help but glance to the top of the hill behind us. A shaft of moonlight illuminated a rocky, steep slope that seemed to extend forever in the opposite direction. Somehow, we’d missed running into the few trees on the hill. We were lucky to be alive. The flash of a wavering light several hundred feet away made me grab Blair’s arm and point in that direction.

  “Time to go. What’d your mother say?”

  “Follow the stream.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  The stream curved in and out of a gulley with steep hillsides rising on either side. The light behind us quickly disappeared as we turned the first bend. Ash and oak trees spread their canopy of branches above us, while the trickle of water serenaded us as we stumbled forward. We traveled a good quarter mile up-stream before stopping to rest.

  We gently lowered Amy onto the ground, and then I plopped down onto a large boulder holding my ribs. “Do you think we’re safe yet?” I asked between gulps of air.

  “No,” Blair said, slumping onto a big rock. She was holding her right wrist. “We’re a loose end they’ll need to tie up. We need to keep going.”

  “I need to catch my breath,” I said. “Give me a second. What’s wrong with your wrist?”

  “It’s bleeding pretty badly,” she said. She quickly stripped off her jacket and then removed her tank top. She wrapped the tank top around her wrist, tucking it in to secure it. She started to put her jacket back on, but struggled. I got up and helped her get her arms in and then button it up.

  An owl hooted above us just as a bat whipped past my head, making me duck. As I lifted my head again, a small, floating light behind us made me freeze.

  “They’re here!”

  Blair spun around as she buttoned the last button on her jacket and stared into the darkness.

  “No, that’s only a glow bug. Look,” she said, pointing to several more tiny lights flitting around a bush that extended over the water.

  I stared with fascination as the small fireflies bobbed back and forth like disembodied ghost lights. But when a grunt echoed down the valley, my heart nearly stopped.

  “Was that a human or an animal?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Let’s go,” she replied.

  We grabbed Amy again and continued to struggle forward. I was groaning with pain when we finally broke out of the gully and into a large glen some ten minutes later. An old barn stood to our left, with a broken-down cabin behind it in the dark. A shattered down fence ran along one side of the two buildings, and two tall electrical poles stood at the front and back corners of the property. Although there was a large scoop light mounted above the double doors of the barn, everything remained ominously dark.

  I looked around with alarm. “This reminds me of April’s dream. Do you think it’s safe?”

  “Who knows? But we’re not safe out here in the open, and we might find something in there we can use as a weapon.”

  As she began to move in that direction, the sound of a splash some distance behind us startled me. Someone was coming up along the stream.

  “Go ahead of me!” Blair said. “I’ve got Amy.”

  I ran ahead while she put her arm around Amy’s waist and practically lifted her off the ground, hauling her forward.

  I made it to the barn without tripping. One big barn door was open. I ducked inside. Blair was only a few steps behind. I tried to close the door behind her, but it wouldn’t budge, so we veered to the left, away from the opening.

  The stale odor of old hay and rotting wood washed over me as my eyes adjusted to the dim light. We were in one big room with a vaulted ceiling. Windows on either side allowed rays of moonlight to cut through the darkness and frame the interior. Farm equipment, hay bales, and old wooden barrels loomed in the shadows.

  Blair pulled Amy over to an old bale of hay and dropped her gently behind it. She pulled out the flashlight and began scanning the area around us. She spied an old wagon wheel propped up against the wall with several spokes missing and sprinted over to it to pick up one of the spokes from the floor. She slapped it against a hay bale to make sure it was solid.

  “Aren’t we sitting ducks in here?” I whispered with trepidation, glancing toward the big double doors.

  “Probably. But we don’t have the energy to go much further, and we can’t out run them. We’ll have to make a stand.” She handed me the spoke. “You take this one. I’ll find another one, and we’ll split up.”

  She hurried back to the wagon wheel and found a second spoke. I waited, feeling numb with fear at the thought we would have to engage with these killers. I was having trouble breathing, and didn’t know how much good I’d be, anyway.

  And then an image appeared that gave me hope.

  A hazy glow appeared behind the bale of hay, near Amy. It was the image of a woman dressed in a long, white nightgown, a dark braid of hair draped over her see-through shoulder. She had her hand gently resting on Amy’s head.

  Elizabeth!

  Elizabeth was Chloe’s mother and had died in the same fire that had killed her daughter and one of her sons. Chloe had made herself known on this trip several times, but I hadn’t been sure Elizabeth’s ghost had accompanied us. But like any mother, she probably wouldn’t have let Chloe go alone. The thought almost made me smile.

  “Blair,” I whispered, pointing as my body flooded with relief.

  Blair turned around and stopped short. Elizabeth looked at us, her image illuminating the space around Amy in a halo of light. She nodded once, just as a gravelly voice rang out from outside the barn.

  “Amy! If you’re in there, you’d better come out. We won’t hurt you.”

  My heart leapt into my throat. It was Monty. I’d recognize that growl anywhere.

  I pulled my phone out and stared at it, willing my mother to call. “Please, Mom,” I whispered. Seconds passed. And then suddenly, the phone lit up. I swiped it on before it could play her signature song.

  “Mom! We need help,” I whispered into it before she could speak.

  “I know, Button. What’s happening?”

  “We’re in a barn in the mountains. We rescued a young girl, and there are two men outside who want to kill us.” I was nearly in tears, and choked on my final sentence. “Can you do anything? Please.”

  “Amy!” Monty yelled again.

  I whirled toward the voice, my body now humming. Blair rushed over to my side.

  “He doesn’t know we’re in here with her,” she whispered. “He thinks Amy escaped alone.”

  “Amy!” he yelled again. “You won’t get away.”

  I still had the phone to my ear. “Julia,” my mom said quietly. “Is Elizabeth there with you?”

  My head swiveled in the direction of our resident ghost, who still hovered protectively behind Amy.

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “Really, Julia? We’re both dead. We have the same address. Just give her a chance. She knows what to do.”

  “I’m only going to count to three, Amy, and then we’re coming in,” Monty yelled.

  There was a gun crack, and a bullet crashed through the window above me. I let out a short scream as glass shards rained down around me. My cry won me an angry slap from Blair. I clasped my hand over my mouth.

  “You got her!” Roy said from outside.

  “I hope I killed her,” Monty replied in a low voice.

  Blair moved to the side of the barn doors, holding the wagon wheel spoke firmly in her hand, ready for battle. I froze, my heart banging in my chest. I wasn
’t sure what to do until a low hum brought me to attention.

  It was coming from the scoop light above the barn doors. I wondered if Mom had come through for me after all. Affecting all things electrical seemed to be her single biggest talent from the other side. The low-level hum became a loud buzz, and then the light suddenly sprang to life, bathing the area in front of the barn in a glaring, yellow glow. We could hear mumblings of alarm from the two men.

  “Careful, Amy,” Monty warned. “Don’t do anything rash.”

  Monty mumbled something to his partner. I stretched my neck to peek out the now broken window and saw the two men standing about sixty feet in front of the barn, squinting into the light.

  “C’mon, Amy. Don’t make us come in there.”

  There was a moment of near silence. Then the scoop light above the doors exploded, sending sparks and shards of glass several feet into the air. The men cried out and jumped back.

  “Shit!” Roy said.

  “Okay, Amy, I guess we’ll have to come in,” Monty yelled.

  I saw Blair tense, and my heart jumped into my throat.

  And then a sizzling, spitting sound made me look up toward the electrical pole, which I could just barely see through the window. The cord running from the scoop light to the pole had split away from the lamp and had begun to rotate in the air, sending hissing sparks flying in several directions. There were more cries of alarm from the two men, who backed away from the hot wire as it waved back and forth in the air right in front of them.

  “Shit! What the hell is going on?” Roy yelled, stumbling away from it.

  “Let’s rush the place and finish this!” Monty yelled.

  He didn’t have a chance, because the cavalry arrived!

  Elizabeth skyrocketed through the open door to hover in front of the barn in all her eerie glory. And I do mean eerie.

  Her nightgown billowed in the air around her, and her bare feet were several inches off the ground. A ghost’s face and extremities naturally appear blotchy, because the body isn’t solid. So Elizabeth didn’t look very friendly hovering above them like that.

  “Damn! What the hell?” Monty yelled. He backed up so fast he fell on his butt.

  “It’s got to be some kind of trick,” Roy said, also backing up, but staring wild-eyed at the apparition.