Three For A Girl (Isabel Fielding Book 3)

by Sarah A. Denzil

  The axe finds its target with a crunch. I hear Owen Fielding let out a cry and I’m able to breathe again. But I can barely see into the lodge and I don’t know how badly I’ve injured him.

  I yank the door to the cabin closed. Then I lift Seb’s bulk and hook his arm over my shoulders.

  “We need to go!” I yell.

  “My brother,” Seb gasps.

  I glance at the bullet wound in Seb’s shoulder, the way the blood spews from it, like a person coughing up water after almost drowning.

  “He’s not here,” I say.

  I could be wrong, but instinct tells me I’m not. We begin to move through the snow together, Seb staggering with the pain. I hear his breath gulping next to my ear, every movement agony for him. We hurry towards the truck, barely ten feet away when a third crack echoes through the snowy air, Instinctively, I duck, almost dropping Seb. But this time, the bullet wasn’t aimed at us, it was aimed at the car, shattering the windscreen. I swear under my breath and quickly redirect us.

  “You need to move faster!” I say to Seb, whose skin is as white as the snow. I look behind us and notice a trail of blood and footprints left behind. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It’ll lead Owen straight to us.

  “Faster, Seb, or we’re dead.”

  I find myself almost half-dragging Seb away from the car, but he finally begins to speed up slightly.

  “Good,” I say.

  “You should… leave me,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I grunt back. “I probably should.”

  I cast a quick look back at the lodge but I can’t see Owen. The one advantage we have is that I hurt him with the axe. I don’t know where I hit him, or how badly, but I know that it was bad enough for him to cry out. Perhaps that makes us evenly matched now.

  The only place we can go, is into the woods, which is probably what Owen, and maybe even Isabel, planned all along. If there wasn’t a chase, it wouldn’t be fun. Would it?

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Leah

  “You couldn’t have brought me a seat?” I ask, nodding towards the fold-out camping stool. Neal’s chair is the same style, and for a moment I get a strange mental image of Isabel and Cassie walking to the farmhouse with their camping gear like two girls going on a picnic.

  “You’re right. I’m so sorry. And you’ve had such a long day as well.” Isabel smiles sweetly, like we’re over-polite acquaintances arguing over who should have the last slice of cake.

  She stands and moves closer to me, reaching out to touch my face like a child petting an animal in a zoo. As her fingers graze my skin, I try not to flinch. I try not to feel anything, but instead my face burns with shame.

  “It’s been too long,” she says. “Have you missed me?”

  “Do people miss their tumours when they’re removed?”

  She breaks the electricity in the air by performing an exaggerated wail, her hands moving underneath her eyes like a cartoon character in mid sob. And then she stops and smiles again.

  “Why didn’t you stay away?” I say. “You were free! You even left the country.”

  I notice Cassie moving out of the corner of my eye, tiptoeing around to Neal. A few snowflakes are beginning to come in through the gaps in the roof, some settling on his body. He begins a terrible, fearful moaning through his gag which Cassie ignores. Instead, she sits on his knee, tossing an arm around his shoulder. This must be what it was like to be in the Manson family, to be surrounded by this aggressive, female energy mixed with so much rage and hatred. Rage pretending to be love. Pretending to be a case worth killing for.

  Isabel saunters back to her stool and crosses one leg over the other. She has the appearance of a primary school teacher settling into her chair to tell the children a story.

  “Impulse control,” Isabel says at last. “Neither me or Owen seem to be able to spend more than five minutes with other family members. We have a bad habit of murdering them, you see.”

  “I know,” I reply. “You murdered your own mother.”

  Isabel shakes her head. “Don’t believe everything you read. I didn’t kill her at all.” She opens her palms and spreads her fingers. “My mother was strangled. Do you think these small things can strangle a human being?”

  “Perhaps you used a rope. A wire.”

  “That’s called asphyxiation. And it’s quite different.” She balls her hands back into fists. “No, it was Owen. And he was not supposed to. Naughty boy.”

  “Why have you brought me here?” I gesture to the crumbling walls around us. I feel strangely calm, like I know the rules of the game, which I suppose I do, because I’ve played this game before. “Where are your special knives?”

  She glances at the floor and Neal begins to make frantic, muffled sounds through his gag. He sees the pouch and he knows what’s inside. Isabel’s scalpels.

  “You can’t use those on me,” I say simply. “I won’t let you this time.” No, I’m fighting for my baby’s life. I’ve been face to face with this killer before. I’ve fought her before, and I can do it again. My only hope is that Tom and Seb are safe, wherever they are. The fact that Owen isn’t here frightens me. What if Tom and Seb are facing off with Owen right now? Cassie mentioned the fact that the police discovered an address, and that Seb got the same address from his private investigator. Surely that means that Seb is in the same location as the police? But what about Tom?

  “What makes you think that you have a choice?” Isabel says, leaning forward in her chair. She laughs once. A humourless bark. “I know what it is, Leah. It’s that hopeful part of you again. We had this chat the last time we met, didn’t we? We talked about how much you always hope. How you never lose that faith.”

  “I remember that chat,” I say, trying to engage with her. “You wanted to die then. You were at peace with it. So why didn’t you kill yourself?”

  “Maybe, I was inspired by you,” she says. “Wouldn’t that be funny? If I would have happily killed myself, but I lived because of the way you’ve inspired me to live.”

  I don’t say a word. Slowly, I begin to angle my body so that I can see both Cassie and Isabel without having to move my head. Neal’s panicked eyes meet mine. I didn’t notice before, but there is blood around his mouth. Someone has already begun to cut him.

  Cassie notices me looking at him and smiles. “We thought we’d give him a beak.” She hops off Neal’s lap and bends over him. “Nod for me if you’ll be good.” He nods once. Cassie pulls the gag from his mouth and Neal begins to scream, out of pain more than any attempt to get attention. Cassie shushes him and he eventually manages to quieten.

  What I see is so disgusting that I have to look away. The two of them have cut deep lines from his nose to mouth. In some places, his lips are completely torn.

  My reaction riles Isabel. She leaps onto her feet and gets in my face. One hand clamps my shoulder.

  “Stop it!” she shouts. “Stop pretending that this disgusts you.” She moves her hand up to my neck and digs her nails deep into the flesh, gripping and tearing, and as she does this, she moves me closer and closer to Neal, so that my face is a few inches from his. “Do not close your eyes.” Her other hand comes over my face to prise open the lids. “Look!”

  The deep, guttural noises coming from me, are almost completely drowned out by the sound of Neal’s pitiful cries.

  “Don’t feel sorry for him,” Cassie says. “He was going to defile your name. He was going to make money from your tragedy. He slipped drugs into my champagne, and he did the same to my friend Jess. A few weeks after my eighteenth birthday, he insisted that I do a nude scene in his latest film, just because he wanted to look at me naked. He’s a creep. A fucking, dirty, perverted creep. He hid it behind his neatly trimmed stubble and fancy shoes, and now we’ve made it so everyone will see. They’ll never stop looking at you, Neal. You’ll like that.”

  I can’t stand it. Isabel’s nails in my skin, her fingers on my face. I wrestle out of her grip and back away, towards the exit. She do
esn’t seem particularly concerned; she barely moves, and I keep backing away, and then turn to make a run for it. Behind me I hear a whistle, like a dog whistle. A body collides with mine. It almost topples me over but not quite. But it grips onto my back, clinging there. I try to shake the lump from my back, but it refuses to move. A moment later, I feel the blade at my throat. I feel the trickle of blood. The more I move, the more the blood trickles. Finally, I’m still.

  “Bring her back, Cassie.”

  The weight slides from my back, and she removes the knife before shoving me back into the centre of the room. Cassie slips her hand in mine. We stand there, hand in hand, in some perversion of intimacy. Isabel glances down at my hands with a frown. This makes her jealous, I note.

  “Why is she here?” I keep my eyes focused on Isabel but angle my head towards Cassie. “And why is he here? Shouldn’t this be about the two of us?”

  Isabel walks towards us and removes my hand from Cassie’s. She extracts the knife from Cassie’s fingers and regards it for a few moments, weighing it in her grasp.

  “That’s an interesting question, Leah.”

  Cassie begins to laugh, and Isabel smiles, and it seems that they’re in on the same joke. Gently, Isabel tucks a strand of Cassie’s hair behind her ear. They’re both still smiling.

  When Isabel’s smile fades, she plunges the knife into Cassie’s chest. Horrified, I watch her topple onto the floor. Cassie’s laughter turns into screams. Isabel pounces on the girl, lifting the knife again. Cassie’s hands fly up to protect herself, but Isabel cuts them and forces them away from her chest. Cassie starts to scream, crying no over and over again. Her face is twisted into a mime’s imitation of tragedy, the shock of the betrayal contorting her expression. Isabel ignores it and the knife goes up and down and up and down until her hands are covered in blood, and Cassie is gurgling with it. Neal moans and yelps. I’m frozen for a moment, but then I recognise that this is my opportunity to run.

  A few snowflakes land on my hair as I hurry out of the ruins. The cold air freezes my lungs with each breath. She reaches me, and it’s with a feeling of inevitability that her body collides with mine. I feel the tip of the knife next to my belly and I stop.

  “There you go, Leah. She’s gone now like you asked,” Isabel says. “We can kill the man together.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Tom

  The visibility changes when we head into the woods; snow coming down in huge flakes, hopefully covering our tracks as we continue between the trees. Winter has stripped them bare, and snow even covers the ground beneath the branches. I decide to take a chance, stop, and quickly fashion a bandage for Seb’s wound using the lining of his jacket. It takes a few moments when we don’t have them to spare, but perhaps it will save his life. The change in visibility is good for us, but it’s also good for Owen. He could sneak up on us at any moment. The snow muffles sound, covers tracks, and clouds the air.

  I wrap Seb’s arm over my shoulder and set off, checking behind us as we go. The snow covers our tracks like I thought. Seb’s heavy, exhausted breathing is the only sound in the woods. He shivers next to me. How long before he bleeds out? I don’t think the bullet hit anything vital, but I can’t be sure.

  I can’t find a footpath, which means we could be away from anywhere frequented by people, not that anyone would walk in this weather anyway. The terrain is uneven. Our feet sink into rotten vegetation beneath the snow, but I continue on, half dragging Seb through it.

  “Leave me here,” he grunts. “Go. Get to Leah.”

  That’s my last resort, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’ve already considered it, but I don’t tell him that. Leah means a hell of a lot more to me than the farmer over my shoulder, but at the same time, I don’t want him to die.

  We find a steep slope and limp down it to the edge of a shallow brook. On the other side of the water, there’s a cluster of large boulders up another slope.

  “Come on,” I say, gritting my teeth.

  Seb nods, seeing the path I’ve decided on. His face is turning a pale shade of grey.

  We both gasp when we step into the freezing cold water. It sloshes up our shins, soaking our legs. Up we go on the other side of the stream. I keep turning my head to see if Owen is following. He has to be. The snow is covering our tracks, but he must have picked up on a deep footprint or a drop of blood. None of us are experts at this, but it’s common sense.

  I prop Seb up behind a large, fallen tree trunk lodged between two stones. I peek out again and watch for movement. Without taking my eyes from the woods, I dig my phone out of my pocket and pass it to Seb.

  “Murphy’s mobile number is in there. Phone him, text him. Call 999.”

  I turn the hammer over in my palm. This is all we have left. If I need to defend us, Owen has a sawed-off shotgun and I have a hammer. Bad. He can still shoot the thing, because he shot through the windscreen. Very bad.

  It feels wrong to have stopped. Part of me thinks we should keep moving, but Seb is struggling. I hear him mumble on the phone and his voice is strained.

  There’s movement through the snow. A dark, thin figure stumbles out of the woods and I suck in a deep breath to steady the flutter beneath my ribs. This is it. Owen is coming.

  “Murphy didn’t pick up,” Seb whispers.

  “The emergency services?”

  “On their way,” he says.

  I huddle against the cold as I watch Owen limp towards the brook. I think the snow has covered most of our tracks, but I can’t see from my position. There must be some footprints on our side of the brook, but I’m hoping that Owen can’t see that far. One thing I do know, is that I was right about his injury. The axe must have done some damage to his shoulder, because as he walks along, he occasionally touches it with his other hand. However, he’s still carrying the gun. I don’t know enough about guns to know if he needs to steady this one with his shoulder, but I hope so. It could seriously affect his accuracy.

  “He can’t see us,” I say quietly. “And he’s hurt.”

  “A fighting chance, then,” Seb mutters.

  Owen makes his way down the bank to the brook and then walks following the direction of the water. It offers us a small reprieve. He must not be able to see our tracks on the other side of the brook, and he’s assuming that we followed the direction of the water. Owen isn’t a hunter, as far as I know. He’s a spoiled, bratty kid who likes to party, if what Leah told me is true.

  This gives me hope. If he doesn’t come back up onto our side, he’ll walk past us completely. That means we could be quiet and stay where we are. On the other hand, I could attack him from behind as he’s following the brook. With the falling snow covering a lot of sound, it might be possible to sneak up on him. Could I take Owen if it came down to a fight? He has a gun, but he’s nursing an injury.

  I promised myself that I’d finish this.

  If I get to Owen and keep him alive long enough, he could tell me where Isabel is, and what she plans to do to my mother. This was a trap all along, but it was more than a trap, it was a distraction. I continue to watch Owen as he walks next to the brook. He’s walking more briskly, now. He doesn’t even bother looking over here. Is he even trying to find us? Perhaps he’s completed the task his sister asked of him: distracted us for a while to allow her to kidnap Leah. Now Owen’s survival instinct has kicked in and he’s planning to run away. This could be my last chance if I want to remove one more murderer from the world.

  I turn to Seb. “Keep the phone. The police will need it to find you. Stay here and don’t move, unless Owen ends up coming this way.” I remove my jacket and wrap it around him.

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  There’s not enough time to explain. I head away from the hideout, and down towards the brook.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Isabel

  I sit her down on the stool and every part of her body is completely rigid. Her back straightens, her eyes are alert. Ins
ide that mind of hers, anything could be happening. But mostly, I believe it’s fear. Then I turn to the man on the chair. His groans are becoming a nuisance. I yank the gag back over his mouth and he yelps like a kicked puppy.

  “What a squawker you are,” I whisper to him. “Perhaps you’re a magpie. Or a seagull. Something chatty.”

  When he finally shuts up, I move back to Leah and stand over her, which feels nice. Powerful. The longer I stare, the more her rigid body slowly crumples in on itself until her chin almost touches her chest. She goes from terrified to defeated within moments. This is nothing like the Leah I know and love. She used to be a fighter. I lick my thumb and remove a smear of blood from her cheek. Cassie’s no doubt.

  “You wanted it to be just us,” I tell her. “Why do you look so sad?”

  “That wasn’t what I said,” she replies. She lifts her chin and meets my gaze. “All I asked, was why she was here.” There’s some steel in her voice. That’s more like the Leah I know.

  “Good point. I interpreted it somewhat differently than you. Clearly.” I glance across at Cassie’s bloodied body. The girl had outlived her usefulness anyway. Her main job was to act as a distraction for the police, check us into hotels, and bring you to me. She’s done all of those things.

  “I won’t let you kill me,” Leah says. “I have more to live for than you do. We established that in the cove, didn’t we?”

  “People change.” I shrug. “I know I have.”

  “I don’t and you don’t either. Everything you said was true. You have no role in this world. There’s no way for you to live and be who you want to be. You’re a destructive force, and the world will always want you either dead or behind bars.”