Hard Fall

by Pascal Scott

  “Yes,” Zoe answered.

  Zoe tried to make eye contact, to say something through her expression. Beautiful looked completely uninterested. She returned to reading her magazine.

  “Let’s go,” Elizabeth said quietly.

  Elizabeth had Zoe pump the gas, warning, “Don’t even think about it. I will shoot you.”

  Zoe did think about it, but how would that go down? She’d spray Elizabeth with gasoline and then what? Run before Elizabeth had the chance to shoot her? And wouldn’t the discharge of the gun set them both on fire? She could hear Rich’s voice in her head. Bad idea, Martinelli. Instead, she pumped the gas into the Corolla and returned the nozzle to the sleeve.

  “Get back in the driver’s seat,” Elizabeth ordered.

  She did. Elizabeth got into the backseat.

  “Start it up.”

  “Wait,” Zoe said.

  “What do you mean, wait?”

  “I’ve got to pee.”

  The same pained expression swept over Elizabeth’s face that Zoe had witnessed earlier.

  “Too bad,” she said.

  “Really?” Zoe replied. “You want me to pee all over the driver’s seat?”

  Now Elizabeth just looked irritated. “All right. Pull over to the side. See there? The restroom is around back.”

  Zoe started the engine and pulled around and parked. She began to open the car door.

  “Hold on. I’m coming with you.”

  “Where’s my handbag?” Zoe demanded.

  “The one with the Smith and Wesson in it? I’ve got it.”

  “I need it.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you do.”

  “No, I’m on my period. I’ve got a tampon in my handbag. I need it.”

  “Shit,” Elizabeth muttered.

  Zoe watched in the rearview as Elizabeth ducked to the floor and came up with the bag. She searched quickly and found the tampon. Reaching across the seat, her gun still trained on Zoe’s head, she gave her the tampon.

  Inside the two-stall restroom, Zoe entered the first stall and began to close the door.

  “Leave it open,” Elizabeth said.

  “Seriously? You want to watch me pee and put in a fresh tampon?”

  “All right. Close it. But don’t try anything.”

  “What do you think I’m going to do?” Zoe shut the door and locked it.

  She looked around the stall desperately. For a gas station in the middle of nowhere, the restroom was surprisingly clean. The walls were stark white and free of graffiti. Zoe checked the pockets of her khaki shorts, but of course, there was nothing in them. Everything went into her purse. If only she had a knife or a pen or something, anything. She did the only thing she could think of.

  “What’s taking so long?”

  “Just a sec.”

  Zoe pulled out the used tampon. It was the first day of her menstrual cycle, the time of her heaviest flow. The tampon was soaked. She used it like a marker and wrote on the clean white tile.

  “HELP! Zoe Mart…”

  The tampon went dry. Zoe wrapped it in toilet paper and dumped it in the container attached to the side of the stall. Then she dipped a finger into her vagina and finished the message on the wall.

  “…inelli.”

  “Hurry up.”

  She urinated, inserted the clean tampon, and opened the door, shutting it quickly behind her. She washed her hands in the basin and dried them on a paper towel pulled from the dispenser. Elizabeth watched her with steady eyes that never blinked.

  “Let’s go,” Elizabeth said.

  Zoe opened the door and went out. Elizabeth followed her to the car. A few minutes later, they were back on I-75.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  “How much farther?”

  “You don’t need to know that.”

  They drove for another forty minutes before either one spoke again.

  “That’s it, coming up,” Elizabeth said then. “Sycamore Road. Take that exit.”

  “Right or left?” Zoe asked when they had left the interstate and come to a stop sign.

  Elizabeth hesitated before answering. “Left.”

  They turned left and went a few miles down a dark, rural road.

  “This isn’t right,” Elizabeth said.

  Zoe glanced in the rearview. Elizabeth looked lost.

  “Turn around. We need to go back. It’s the other way.”

  Zoe pulled off to the side of the road.

  “Don’t try to run us into the ditch,” Elizabeth warned.

  Zoe turned the Corolla around and started back in the other direction. They passed the interstate on ramp.

  “This is right,” Elizabeth confirmed. She sat back. “It’s not far now.”

  They drove for what seemed to Zoe like a long time. There were no streetlights here, only the lights of the Corolla and the moon and the occasional porch light of a house off in the distance. Sometimes there seemed to be car lights far back on the road. A trucker maybe. Or a local going home from a night shift. The road wound slowly upward to the top of a hill. Zoe slowed the car to a crawl. They had left blacktop and were crunching gravel.

  “Stop!”

  Zoe slammed on the brakes.

  “This is it.”

  Elizabeth looked around, then set her gaze back on Zoe.

  “Turn off the engine. Leave the lights on. Roll down the window. Leave the keys in the ignition. We’re going for a walk.”

  Elizabeth opened her door and stepped out onto a vacant, gravel lot. “Get out,” she told Zoe.

  Zoe got out. “I should tell you something.”

  Elizabeth motioned with the gun, down and up, indicating the path ahead, illuminated only by moonlight and the headlamps of the car.

  “Turn around. Start walking.”

  “I met with a detective. In Atlanta. Detective James Washington. The police know I’m investigating you. I told Detective Washington if anything happens to me to look at you.”

  “Keep walking.”

  “You won’t get away with it this time.”

  “This time?”

  “I know you killed Emily Bryson. Killing me won’t help you. Elizabeth, listen to me. You’re going to get caught. You’re not a serial killer. And you’re not a psychopath. I’m sure you didn’t mean to kill Emily. You could plead temporary insanity. Or self-defense. A good public defender could get you manslaughter and you’d be out of prison in a decade. You’d still be young. You could go on with your education. You could study and write and publish. You could write a memoir. Let the world hear your story. I did a year in the public defender’s office. I know how the system works. If you let me help you—”

  Zoe felt the force of hard metal connect painfully with the back of her head. The darkness filled with stars. “Fuck,” she swore.

  Zoe stopped walking. Bending her head, she touched her hair. Her fingers came away wet with blood. From where she stood, looking down, she could see a pit of some sort on their left, deep and glimmering in the moonlight. There seemed to be water at its bottom.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Deadwood Quarry. Used to be big in Atlanta during the Civil War, but it’s been abandoned for years. Or at least that’s what Foxx told me.”

  “Foxx, the bouncer at the Doll Crib.”

  “Yeah, Foxx.”

  “Guess he’d know. I’m guessing there may be some bodies dumped down there.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How deep is it?”

  “Four hundred feet.”

  Zoe held her head. It seemed to have stopped bleeding.

  “Let me ask you something. Why’d you do it? Why Emily Bryson? Why her?”

  Elizabeth took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Emily Bryson,” she said. “You and Emily are two of a kind. Girls like you don’t know what it’s like. You can’t imagine what it’s like.”

  “Try me,” Zoe encouraged.

  Elizabeth looked up at the moon for a moment and then back at Zoe
.

  “Girls like you are given everything. Families. Money. Love. You have no idea what it’s like to be an unwanted kid. A charity case. It’s like being thrown out with the trash. You’re unloved, unwelcome; you’re made to feel like you’re unworthy of the air in your lungs. Like you’re here on this planet taking up space that was meant for somebody better than you. That’s how you’re treated. Unless they want you for something, like a fuck.”

  “That’s terrible,” Zoe said, and she meant it.

  “I had to struggle for every fucking thing in my life. Not like Emily. Not like you. But I did it. And everything was going just fine for me in San Francisco until Emily showed up. She was going to ruin it for me, that’s why I had to kill her. Like you, that’s why I have to kill you. I could have had my PhD before I was thirty. I could have done something with my life. I could have mattered. My life could have meant something. Now what am I going to do? You know I can’t go back to Candler now. You screwed that up for me. It would have been only a matter of time before somebody connected the dots. You just had to bring up Emily to Laura, didn’t you? Damn you.”

  “I was just doing my job,” Zoe said. “You can understand that, can’t you, Elizabeth? I’m just a worker like you are.”

  “Shut up. Step to the edge.”

  “It’s not too late,” she pleaded.

  “Take a few steps up, that way. I want to make sure you hit water and not rock.”

  “Even if you do kill me, they’ll find my body. Somebody will find it.”

  “True,” Elizabeth said. “But by the time they do, I’ll be sitting on a beach in the south of France. And you know how the French feel about Americans. They don’t extradite people like me, people suspected of murder when there are no witnesses and no proof. No, I should be just fine. I may even adopt a new identity and start my career over again. As soon as I learn the language, of course. But that shouldn’t be a problem for me. I’m smart. That’s why I’m going to get away with this.”

  Elizabeth moved behind Zoe and stood with the muzzle of the pistol aimed at the back of her head.

  “Don’t do it, Elizabeth.”

  “Goodbye, Zoe,” Elizabeth said.

  She took aim.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  “Hold it right there!” a female voice ordered.

  Reflexively, Elizabeth froze in place. She heard the crunch of footsteps coming up the trail they had followed. Turning her head slowly, she saw a shadow approaching.

  “Freeze!” the voice commanded. “Don’t move a muscle.”

  The shadow came nearer. It was a middle-aged white woman in mom jeans and a loose-fitting blouse holding a semi-automatic pistol in the two-handed, ready-to-fire grip of a trained shooter.

  “Listen carefully, Elizabeth. I need you to do two things for me right now. First, I need you to raise your left hand in the air where I can see it.”

  Cautiously, Elizabeth’s left hand went up into the warm night air.

  “Good. And now I need you to slowly bend and put your weapon on the ground. Go slow now. Don’t make me shoot you.”

  Elizabeth bent, set the gun on the dirt, and stood again, letting her right arm join its companion in the air.

  “Now take five steps that way, away from the gun. And don’t try anything. I will shoot you if I have to.”

  Elizabeth did as she was told. She didn’t try anything. The woman stepped forward and retrieved the gun on the ground, tucking it into her jeans.

  “Good. Zoe, come over here by me. Get behind me.”

  Zoe stepped behind the woman with the gun.

  “Thank God you’re here,” she said. “I thought I was going to die.”

  “And you might have if I’d been a few minutes later. You almost lost me back there when y’all pulled that U-ie.”

  Elizabeth was still standing with her hands in the air, listening to their conversation. Now she heard something else. From the distance came the unmistakable sound of a siren drawing closer. Elizabeth made a quick movement with her shoulders, bringing them forward as if she were considering a run for it.

  “Nah, nah. Don’t think about it, girlfriend,” the woman told her. “I’m a sharpshooter. You don’t wanna test my skill level.”

  Elizabeth lowered her shoulders. She looked toward the edge of the cliff and the water four hundred feet below. The woman followed her line of sight.

  “Now don’t be like that. You don’t wanna go out that way, do you?”

  Elizabeth decided she didn’t. A moment later, a squad car came blazing into the lot at the bottom of the hill. The dark night lit up with flashes of red and blue.

  “This is the police!” a male voice shouted from below.

  “James, honey,” the woman called. “We’re up here.”

  “Who are you?” Zoe asked.

  The woman laughed. “Oh, excuse me. Melissa Washington. I’m James’s wife. Speak of the devil.”

  “You all right, baby?” Detective Washington asked breathlessly.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I told you not to get involved in this.”

  “Oh, James honey, when did I ever listen to you? Now if I hadn’t followed Ms. Martinelli here, you’d be investigating a body in the pit, and that wouldn’t have been good for anybody. So we’ll just let this dog lie.”

  A uniformed police officer pulled Elizabeth’s arms behind her back and snapped the cuffs on her wrists.

  “Call it in,” Detective Washington told him.

  “Copy that, sir,” he replied. “Get going,” he said to Elizabeth, giving her a push to get her started down the trail to the squad car.

  “What about you, Ms. Martinelli? Are you all right?” Detective Washington asked.

  “I’m fine, thanks to your wife.”

  Zoe looked at Melissa. “I’ll bet you drive a Dodge Caravan.”

  “Yup, that would be me. I wondered if you’d spotted me. When James told me what you were doing, I said to him, ‘That girl is gonna get herself in trouble.’ Atlanta’s not like other places. Ya gotta know your way around here. I’ve been following you since day one.”

  “Oh, shit. Excuse my language.”

  “You’re good. I’ve heard worse. Dory said you’re a member of Girls with Guns, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet a sister shooter. Us girls have got to stick together.”

  “Come on, ladies,” Detective Washington said. “I’ll need to take your statements back at the station.”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  “Stone, ten months ago, you came to me because you couldn’t sleep. You were mourning the death of your lover who you suspected was murdered. You were drinking hard and crying uncontrollably. How are you now?”

  “Better,” Stone answered in the monosyllabic way that Maggie had grown used to.

  “How are things going with Zoe?”

  “They’re going.”

  Maggie smiled. “Do you care to say more?”

  “Not really,” Stone said, and then reconsidered. “Except that sometimes it’s hard to get our schedules together. She’s working on her PI license, and I’m taking the prep class I need to apply to the graduate program in public administration.”

  “That’s right,” Maggie said. “You’re going after your graduate degree. Good for you, Stone. But you’re making time for each other? You and Zoe?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And how is the drinking?”

  “I’m still drinking. But not as much. I’m too busy, really.”

  Maggie nodded. “And you’re sure you want to stop therapy? That this is a good time for you to stop?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  Maggie stood. Stone rose awkwardly from the saggy bamboo couch. When Stone had passed out on that couch in July, she had taken down the water feature with her, both of them crashing onto the floor. It had broken into pieces. Stone, it turned out, was just fine, anxious but not broken. In its place, Maggie had set a
wooden Buddha that she said could not be shattered, no matter how many anxious clients knocked it over.

  “Well,” Maggie said. “May I hug you?”

  “You may.”

  Maggie put her arms around Stone’s shoulders and hugged her affectionately. When she pulled back, she looked a little sad, Stone thought.

  “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Ms. McStone. I hope things go well for you.”

  “You too.”

  “I’m here if you ever need me,” Maggie assured her.

  “I’ll remember that.”

  There was one last thing Stone had to do.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  “You look good, Stone.”

  Stone stared at the woman behind the glass in disbelief, this stranger in the orange jumpsuit. The state of Georgia had extradited Elizabeth to California where she was awaiting trial in the death of Emily Bryson. She was being held without bail in the San Francisco County Jail on Seventh Street.

  “Aren’t you going to talk to me?” Elizabeth asked, leaning forward, the phone in her hand. “Why did you come if you weren’t going to say anything?”

  “What exactly is there to say, Emily? Elizabeth. Whatever the hell your name is today.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. They were still the same shade of blue-gray that Stone had loved, the color of the sky before a storm rolls in. But there was something else in those eyes today, something Stone had never noticed before. El ojo maligno, her mother would have called it.

  “I don’t blame you for being angry with me,” Elizabeth said. “I can understand why you would be. But I can explain everything. And I want you to know something. I really did love you. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, but I did. You’ve got to believe that.”

  Elizabeth reached forward and pressed her palm against the glass, inviting Stone to do the same. Stone gave her a look of utter disgust.

  “You never quit, do you?”

  Elizabeth removed her hand. “It’s the truth,” she insisted with an uncharacteristically meek tone.

  Stone opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it and said something else instead. “Why me?” she asked. “That’s all I want to know. Just answer that one question. Why me?”