Last Girl Standing

by Lisa Jackson

  “You can kiss me,” she whispered, heart thudding.

  His mouth opened to spout objections, she thought. She placed a finger over his lips, not wanting to hear them.

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, she thought, he cupped the back of her neck and brought her lips to his. She felt the hard warmth of his mouth and responded to the kiss, wrapping her arms around his waist. The kiss became more urgent. Full of desire. She would have lain down right there on the kitchen table if Fido hadn’t squeezed between them, yipping and trying to jump.

  They broke apart, each breathing hard.

  McCrae said, “I . . . I didn’t . . .”

  “Mean for that to happen?” Delta finished, hearing the breathless sound of her own voice.

  His mouth quirked. “Want that to stop.”

  They looked at each other.

  “You have to go,” he said.

  “I have to go,” she agreed.

  He nodded, finally breaking eye contact. This time, Delta walked ahead of him out the door, and he followed her to her car, seeing the way the breeze teased her blouse, pressing it against her back, messing with the long, lustrous tresses of her dark hair. He watched as she backed out of his drive, lifting a hand in good-bye.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered.

  * * *

  “Holy shit,” he muttered as he walked back in the house, running his hands through his hair. Not what was supposed to happen. Way off what was supposed to happen.

  Fido cocked his head to and fro. McCrae realized it was time to feed him and poured kibbles into his bowl. Fido scarfed them down as if he was starving. Typical behavior.

  But kissing Delta was not typical behavior for McCrae.

  He purposely worked on shutting down his mind on her. Tried to remember all Quin’s warnings.

  To hell with it. That wasn’t going to work. Instead, he concentrated on what she’d said that had sparked a negative feeling in him. Nothing to do with her. Something in what she’d said.

  The black SUV. Suburban-like, she’d said. Zora and Brian had been run off the road . . . although preliminary reports suggested that maybe they’d already been dead, or unconscious, and that a block of concrete had been wedged against the accelerator, propelling them off the cliff.

  Was someone following her? The more she’d dismissed it, the more concerned he’d become, even though he’d sought to hide his feelings.

  He thought about Woody. He hadn’t seen his old classmate since the reunion. They’d never been fast friends. Woody was just naturally too much of an anarchist, while McCrae leaned toward law and order . . . Delta notwithstanding.

  Stay away from the station, Quin had said. Hurston was hovering like a dark cloud. Why? Why was he going after Delta so hard?

  There was a new lead into proving Bailey’s and Penske’s deaths were not a murder/suicide. Hurston would fight to prove they were. Not for justice’s sake. Just not to be wrong. But Delta . . . what the hell was with Hurston’s interest in the Stahd case?

  He called Quin, who answered formally, “Robert Quin,” even though he had to know it was McCrae. Someone must be around. Hurston? Was he still at the station? Or maybe it was Corinne, listening with big ears.

  “Meet me at the county jail. Let’s talk to Gale Crassley about that car,” McCrae said. “He’s the ringleader of that clan.”

  “Uh huh. Sure, I’ll look into it.”

  “Can you make it in half an hour?”

  “Likely.”

  “Okay. See you there . . .”

  * * *

  “I don’t want to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s. I want to go home and be with you,” Owen said.

  Now he wanted to be with her?

  “I have one appointment. I’ll pick you up as soon as I’m done,” Delta told him.

  “I want my blanket,” he said stubbornly.

  She understood the reversion. She should have seen this coming. And Owen was adroit at picking up feelings. When she wanted to be with him, he pulled away. When she had something to do, he sometimes clung to her. Not as often now that he was older, but they were in uncharted emotional territory. It was gratifying in a way, that he was turning to her.

  She said, “Okay, we’ll go home and get it, but then over to Grandma and Grandpa’s.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  It took her forty minutes, twenty minutes to the house from the school, another twenty over to her parents’ house, to make the full trip. By the time she was back, it was nearly 7:00.

  * * *

  Ellie was exhausted. Sitting in her car, not moving, watching Delta’s house . . . a terrible job. Her whole body felt shut down. Luckily, she’d peed before she came here; otherwise, she’d have to leave and take care of business. Where was Delta? What the hell was taking her so long?

  She was half-afraid she’d fall asleep and this whole endeavor would be a bust. But luckily enough, her brain just wouldn’t relax, and while her body cried for sleep, her mind wouldn’t abide.

  She thought of all the people who’d wronged her. Oliver, her stepfather. Mom, who’d married the fucker. Joey and Michael for just being the miscreants they were, though she would still do anything for them. Morons. If Nia were actually pregnant . . . no. She wouldn’t go there. She’d figure it out later. Alton and Coco . . . and Niedermeyer, the bastard, and Andy, that squirmy little rat fink.

  And McCrae.

  She wasn’t as clear on his transgressions as the others, but she always felt angry with him. He withheld from her, and he loved Delta. Maybe love was too strong a word. He cared about Delta in a way he would never care about her.

  And she wanted him to care about her. Love her. Come in on a white steed and carry her away to a castle.

  She snorted. Okay, he’d saved her today, although she was pretty sure she could have saved herself, if she could have gotten the gun away from Crassley, so she wasn’t going to give him too much credit.

  Still . . .

  She wanted Delta to be Tanner’s killer. That would get her out of the picture.

  But is she? Really? Do you really think so, Ellie?

  She wrestled with her conscience. She wanted it to be Delta so badly it was almost like she could will it to be true.

  But it wasn’t.

  “Damn it,” she whispered, feeling tears of frustration gather in her eyes.

  She had hated them all, the Five Firsts, but especially Delta. Amanda was the meanest, but Delta was the best. Carmen didn’t count. She’d been gone so long and was so gaga over Tanner, she just never felt like a rival. And Bailey, she’d been small and wiry and tough in her way, but there hadn’t been the least bit of sexual energy coming off her that Ellie had felt competitive about. Zora, the same. She never challenged Ellie in the same way Amanda and Delta did. Still, she’d hated them for being in the clique and purposely keeping her out.

  But now it was just down to Amanda and Delta, and truthfully, she didn’t actively hate Amanda anymore. Not at the same level as she had, anyway. Amanda was such a cold bitch and always had been, and everyone knew it.

  Ellie thought about what Andy had said about her and pressed her lips together. Well, you had to be a bitch sometimes in her profession and Amanda’s. You had to prove you were “man enough” for the job.

  But Delta . . . Mrs. Delta Stahd, married to Dr. Tanner Stahd, the teenage god. Wow. Tanner’d sure proved that moniker wrong. A cheater. A liar. An over-and-under bad guy. And Delta had married him. Ellie had been so jealous of her at the time.

  You still are. She’s got McCrae . . .

  Her brain shied away from thoughts of him. She could get herself so riled up when it came to him. Sometimes she hated him most of all. A lot of sometimes. Was that love masquerading as hate?

  She refused to think about him anymore. Think of something else. Like what’s your next job going to be? How’re you going to pay the rent? Buy food? And gas? What if this dearth of employment goes on a while?

  She was calcula
ting the number of months she had before her meager savings gave out when she saw Delta’s car come along and pull into the garage. Finally. She checked her watch and was surprised to see that her excruciating wait had been an hour and ten minutes.

  She was just getting herself psyched to charge up to Delta’s front door and rap loudly—it was past time Delta gave her that interview—when Delta’s car whipped back out of the garage, and she took off.

  Where are you going in such a hurry? Is your kid in the car?

  Questions, questions, questions.

  Ellie reached for the key to turn on her ignition but stopped in the process as a large black Tahoe pulled away from the curb, turned on its blinker, then slipped around the curb after Delta’s car.

  “Who’re you?” she asked aloud, then started her car and slid onto the road after them.

  * * *

  Amanda put down Bailey’s journal, having read it cover to cover. She was hungry. She’d made a trip to see Thom, but she hadn’t stayed through dinner. He’d been more interested in being with others at the care facility, which had been the slow trend, a good one, since the accident. The less he needed her, the better, for both of them.

  And she had another appointment to keep.

  Rising from her seat at the table, she stretched her back. She had an idea who’d killed Tanner Stahd. Not from Bailey’s notes, which mostly were a series of scenarios explaining Carmen’s death as either accidental or stemming from a lack of caring on the part of the classmates . . . all the way to flat-out murder. No, it was thinking about Zora that had put it in play, so she had some questions. She would show her hand if she was right, but if so, she would head straight to the police. Maybe she was playing with fire. Or maybe she could be completely wrong.

  Delta would be coming over, and Amanda hadn’t had anything to eat since some carrot sticks and hummus after her run.

  Should you tell Delta?

  No, not yet.

  She heard something outside again. In the direction of the garage. She’d thought the noises she’d heard earlier were from whoever had left Bailey’s notebook—her front-door camera picked up a man in a gray hoodie, hunched over, hiding his face—but here they were again.

  It was 7:00. Light and hot and still breezy. In fact, the wind was picking up.

  She heard a banging sound and saw that an upper window of the garage had come open and was swinging back and forth against the building, slamming into the wall, rattling the panes.

  The garage was locked. She kept a key in a drawer just inside the back door. If she was going to fix the window, she was going to have to get the key and go up the stairs that bisected the two bays of the garage. The golf cart was kept in one side. The other side was empty; Amanda preferred to park right outside the back door.

  Grabbing up the key, she headed to the garage. She unlocked the door and stopped in sudden surprise.

  “What the hell?” she asked aloud.

  A black-shrouded figure suddenly rushed from behind the golf cart. Amanda screamed and turned to run. The attacker grabbed her from behind. Swung her around. Crashed her head into the newel post at the bottom of the stairway. She saw stars. A swimming circle of them, just like in the cartoons. She tried to say something, but her tongue was too thick.

  She’d lost a shoe in the fight, and her assailant picked it up and jammed it back on her foot. Then he dragged her out of the door of the garage and bumped her along the tarmac toward the back door of her house.

  * * *

  “Are you okay?” Mom asked, concerned, as Delta dropped Owen and his blanket off at their house.

  “I won’t be long. It’s just a meeting with my lawyer.”

  “But are you okay?”

  “Why? Do I not look okay?”

  “No, it’s just, has something happened? You seem . . . lighter?” she asked hopefully.

  “Really? No. Do you have something for dinner for Owen? I’m sorry. I’m running so late.”

  Her mother flapped a hand at her. “Dad’s still at the store. Owen and I will get something when we pick him up.”

  Owen wouldn’t let go of her hand. Delta waited patiently, even though a part of her wanted to get to Amanda’s right away.

  “Mommy, don’t leave.”

  “Okay. Let me make a phone call.”

  * * *

  Amanda’s phone rang. She heard it through a watery blur. She was on the floor. A wooden floor with a rug. Her dining room.

  She’d left the phone on the table when she’d gone in search of the noise.

  Noise . . . garage . . . attack!

  Her whole body jerked at the memory. She almost opened her eyes but remained still, afraid, aware that she needed to keep feigning unconsciousness or . . . She quivered all over, couldn’t stop herself.

  Faint voices. On the back patio?

  “. . . lure them here,” an unidentified male voice said.

  A female voice answered. Quietly. Too quietly.

  “What do you want me to do with her?” the man asked.

  Again, the female voice was ultra soft. Did she know Amanda was listening?

  The phone. If she could get the phone.

  She tried to lift her head. It felt like it was splitting apart. Her hand reached up. She raised her body as much as she could. Fumbled around atop the table. A page fluttered down, and her pen rolled off and thumped softly on the carpet.

  Amanda’s hand closed around the pen. The paper was nearby. She wrote without looking, painfully writing down a name. Her hand drooped. She wanted to say something more. A message to Delta. An apology . . . in case . . . in case . . .

  She scribbled below the name, but as she reached for the paper, intending to hide it—where? On her person? Under the edge of the carpet?—the paper rrrriiiippped.

  She slid the piece she still grasped under the carpet, searched around and grabbed the other.

  “What sound?” the guy asked.

  Footsteps approaching.

  Amanda closed her fist over the scrap of paper she possessed, crumpling it.

  “The bitch is trying to write a warning note,” the female voice said now, not bothering to hide her voice.

  Amanda kept her eyes closed, silently praying.

  “Thank your husband for the keys,” the voice whispered in Amanda’s ear as her fist was pried open, the crumpled slip of paper removed. Then, “My name, huh. Who’re you trying to tell?”

  “We good here?” the man asked.

  “Finish it,” was the cold answer.

  Bam!

  Amanda had a last moment of sentience and pain as something crashed onto her head, and then she was gone.

  Chapter 28

  Crassley tried to refuse to see them, but Quin prevailed, and he was brought handcuffed into an interview room. “Man, my lawyer’s gonna hear about this. I got nothin’ to say to you.”

  “Who is your lawyer?” asked McCrae.

  “Brennan.” He smiled, showing teeth that really needed the attentions of a dental hygienist.

  “Hal Brennan?” McCrae was surprised. Amanda’s ex?

  “I got friends in high places.” The smile widened.

  “We’ve got you for my daughter’s homicide,” Quin said coldly.

  The grin faltered a teensy bit. “Your . . . what now? Have you lost your idiot mind?”

  Quin was pushing it. They were far from having enough evidence to convict Crassley, but he didn’t have to know that. McCrae played along, adding, “You, or one of your brothers, pulled that trigger.”

  “You got that wrong.”

  Quin went on, “And then you took out Penske. You used him, and then you killed him. You had a grudge against my daughter, and you killed her; then you killed Penske.”

  Gale Crassley lifted his palms. “You are way, way off. I heard that thing was a murder/suicide.”

  “You were seen,” Quin said.

  “No way I was seen, because I wasn’t there.”

  “Your car was,” McCrae said.
“With one of you Crassleys in it.”

  He froze. A telltale moment of tension, before he relaxed. “We got a lot of cars.”

  “Was it you? Or Booker? Or Harry?” McCrae pushed.

  “None of us. You don’t have videotape. Lundeen’s didn’t have no cameras then.”

  “Didn’t have any cameras,” McCrae corrected. “Interesting you know that.”

  “Everybody knows that.”

  “So it was a good place to hide a homicide.” Quin stared him down.

  “You were seen by a witness,” McCrae told him. “And we know about the burner phone Penske was using. You guys were trying to keep it off the grid, but you’ve been found out.”

  “No witness,” he said, but he couldn’t quite hide his apprehension.

  “You got Penske to kill Bailey because you had him for sex with a minor,” McCrae said. “He was a pawn in your game.”

  Crassley’s smile returned. “You think you’re so smart. You don’t know fucking anything.”

  “Why, then?” McCrae pushed.

  Crassley twisted in his seat. “Guard!” he called, then to Quin and McCrae. “I’m not talking to you guys anymore.”

  “Next time, you’ll be talking to a prosecutor. And Hal Brennan, when he hears what we’ve got on you, is gonna have to beg for you not to get life.” Quin rose from the table.

  McCrae added, “Your troubles are just starting. You shouldn’t have messed with Ellie O’Brien today, either.”

  “Couldn’t help myself... that red hair,” he said, wiggling his tongue suggestively.

  “You knew she’d turn you in. You’re too smart to let that happen without a reason, and from what I know of you, you’d throw your whole family under the bus to save your own skin, so why?”

  “I think you have a real sorry opinion of me, and it is inaccurate.”

  “Why?” he pressed.

  He spread his hands. “The devil made me do it,” he said with a cold chuckle as the guard came to the door to escort Crassley back to his cell.

  Once outside the county courthouse, Quin asked, “What do you think?”

  “One of the Crassleys did it,” he said with certainty.

  “But?” Quin asked, hearing something more unspoken than said.

  “Holding sex with a minor over Penske isn’t what they had on him. They don’t consider that all that bad, nor do they pay a lot of attention to Nia. It’s something else.”