Hot Off the Press (A Hailey Webb Mystery, Volume 1)

by Deany Ray

  Pete Galligan. Intern Boy. I felt a seizing in my chest. My mind raced as my heart rate picked up. Did this mean what I thought it meant?

  That’s when I heard footsteps.

  “Well, well, what do we have here?”

  I gulped and turned around.

  It was Intern Boy.

  It was not the overeager, people-pleasing guy I met; this was an evil version with a coldness in his eyes.

  I dropped the photo to the ground as I sank, trembling, to my knees.

  Chapter Twenty

  Terror mixed with shock. Intern Boy. It was Intern Boy all along. He glanced at the pictures and smirked. “So you found out.”

  “I . . . I . . .” That was all that came out, my mind going to a million places at once.

  But there was no time to ponder. In a second, he was lunging for me. Glancing around wildly, I saw an open door behind me and backed in. Helplessly, I watched as my new phone slipped out of my pocket and slid across the room toward the trendy pair of sneakers on my captor’s feet. Crap. There was no time to save it; all I could do was try to stay alive.

  I quickly slammed the door shut, and thankfully there was a lock, which I bolted shut. I leaned back hard against the door, registering then that I was in a tiny bathroom. Against my back, I could feel him pushing on the door from the other side. Well, at least the thing looked sturdy, so there was that at least. Could it withstand an angry, bizarre version of this man I thought I knew? After a few minutes, he began to flail desperately against the door, throwing his whole body up against it and jarring me on the other side.

  Didn’t anyone hear him? With so many people milling about the pier, perhaps someone would notice all of that loud banging.

  I gazed around the small, plain room, which only had a sink, a tiny cabinet, a commode, and a thin dingy towel. Weak sunlight came in from a tiny, grungy window just above the sink.

  Outside, someone called out. I couldn’t understand the words. Then some kids—a lot of them, it seemed—burst into raucous laughter. They were not that far away; they were right outside the boat!

  “Help!” I called, then tried again. “Help me! Help me, please!”

  “Shut up,” Intern Boy growled. “Shut your trap right now and open up the door.”

  No one, apparently, could hear me. So many people close by, and no way for me to get a signal to them: Trapped with a lunatic, come quick.

  I felt almost dizzy and was numbed with fear. I couldn’t believe my life would end this way. So many things had just begun. I had gotten to the point where I turned my life around and started enjoying it, and soon I could be as cold and still as those other bodies—whose images I never had been able to get out of my head. I felt something sour roil up into my stomach. Well, if I had to throw up, there was the toilet right beside me, pressing into my leg.

  Intern Boy pounded harder on the door now, and the room almost shook. “You might as well come out now and save me the time,” he yelled. His voice was laced with venom. It was like a bouncy cartoon puppy had morphed into Freddy Krueger. A silence fell over the boat, and that almost scared me more than his ranting had. What was he about to do? Put explosives to the door?

  “Just as well.” His voice had now turned cunning. “I’m not going to leave a body behind this time.”

  Goosebumps ran up and down my body—the same body that this maniac apparently had plans to make disappear. The reality of Intern Boy being a killer started to set in and puzzle pieces fell into place.

  “You killed O’Connell, didn’t you? And Craven too.” I paused to catch my breath. “Craven figured out what you did to O’Connell, right? Then he tried to use what he knew to get you to pay him money. That’s why you stabbed him at the auction. It was you.”

  I thought about that night I found the second body. In my mind, I saw the scene: Kat reaching out to give me comfort as I tried to deal with the horror of it all. Around me were the “friends” who had been with me at the auction: Kat and Mike . . . and Pete. “Intern Boy” somehow no longer seemed to fit. “Slasher Man,” perhaps?

  “Craven was a greedy bastard,” Pete said. “He was so stupid, I’ve never met anyone as stupid as him. Where did he think a guy like me would come up with that kind of money? If he’d been a little smarter, we could have had a deal.”

  “How did he find out?” I asked. I planned to stall for time for as long as I could. Maybe I’d get an idea how to get out of that bathroom and off that boat. I sank down to the dirty floor, keeping my back hard against the door, as if that would really stave him off if the lock wouldn’t hold.

  “He saw me leaving Derek’s boat. Then when he found out someone offed Derek that same day, he was onto me.” He sighed. “I guess it took what little brains he had to put all of that together.”

  “And instead of going to the cops, he saw it as a way to make some cash. People really suck, present company included.”

  “I could say the same,” he growled, “you interfering broad.”

  As the boat began to rock a little, I thought back to all the things Kat had told me about the guy, his background, and everything. Then a knot formed in my chest at the thought of Kat. She dated a malicious killer. And I was worried about Connor. Life could be funny, couldn’t it? Something could happen that put everything in perspective. I couldn’t imagine, and I most likely wouldn’t be there to help soothe her pain. My stomach roiled again as I wondered where I would be. Would they find my body—ever?

  To distract myself, I focused on the story of Pete’s past, trying to find the point at which his life took such a turn that he became a half-crazed killer. He’d grown up outside of Seattle with a single mother. She died two years ago. Although his mom never talked about his father, Kat had gotten the impression that his dad had left when the couple found out baby Pete was on the way. Okay, that was bad, but people overcome those things without stabbing other people and staging horror shows.

  “Why did you do it, Pete?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Why did you kill your father?”

  His voice took on a different tone: softer, laced with pain. “Because he killed my mother, that’s why.”

  “What?”

  “My mother died of sadness,” he said. “He killed her.”

  “How did he do that?” I asked.

  “My mother was a wonderful human being. She raised me all by herself. She was worn down from working all those jobs for so many years with no help from him.” I felt him shuffle against the door to get more comfortable. “I was so torn up when she died. Cancer. For all of my life it had just been me and her. She deserved a lot, my mother. My mother was an angel, and he just threw her away. Derek killed my mother as sure as if he’d shot her.” He paused. “So when she died, I became determined, if it was the last thing that I did, to look him in the eye and let him know how much he hurt his family. I wanted him to know how hard her life had been because of him. So I did a search, which led me to Derek.”

  Wow. That was wicked.

  “Is that why you took the internship at Pearlrover?” I asked.

  “Well, what do you think, Sherlock? That I wanted to spend my time dealing with some fools that like to haul rusty junk out of the sea?”

  “What did he say when you told him?” I was glad he was chatty.

  “I found him on the boat and told him who I was—his son, and do you know what he did? He had the nerve to act all surprised, like he had no idea he was a father. Then he was all like, ‘Hey, we can be a family now,” pretending he was thrilled, but I knew the score.” He sighed. “So, yeah, we talked awhile. He claimed to have loved my mother, but he said they parted ways when he moved to Palm Shores to get this job. What kind of man, I ask you, leaves a woman and an unborn child to go play hide and seek in the deep blue sea?”

  “He didn’t keep in touch with Moira?” I tried to keep my breathing steady. If I kept him talking long enough and got him all worked up, maybe he’d forget that he planned to kill me too.

  “No, he ne
ver wrote or called. He claimed he had no idea she was ever pregnant, but I knew better. I can recognize a lie.” He spat out the words, then his anger seemed to turn to irritation. “He told me he had pictures of my mother he still kept on the boat. That’s one more thing he did to complicate my life. So thanks for finding them for me.”

  Ugh. Stupid stupid stupid. I found the evidence connecting Derek to Intern Boy and I just handed it to him on a silver platter.

  “Well, sooner or later, don’t you think somebody will realize that both you and he came from the same town?”

  “People can be stupid. There are all kinds of things they fail to notice every day. Plus, if they do, I’ll be long gone. By that time, I’ll have moved to some other state that’s nowhere close to here, and my name won’t be Pete Galligan; you can count on that.”

  “Did you plan to kill him all along?” I asked.

  “At first I only wanted to look him in the eye and let him know about the lives he ruined, and that there were consequences to the selfish choices he made. Then all of those damn lies came pouring out of him!” Pete was breathing hard, probably reliving the whole scene in his imagination. “There was a spear right there, and I shoved it into him. I got so angry and didn’t want to hear those lies anymore.” He paused, and both of us were silent, lost in our own thoughts.

  “It was dumb of me not to get rid of the body,” Pete continued. “I wasn’t thinking straight. And the same with Craven too. I didn’t make a plan to kill them. It just happened. I was just a guy who got screwed over, and my temper finally blew. I don’t like to be messed with.”

  No, Pete, you do not. “What happened with Craven at the auction?”

  I heard some rattling and some movement, and I surmised my captor had decided to sit down, with his back, like mine, pressed against the door. “I went after him in the men’s room,” he explained. “I wanted to explain how the situation was. Without so much as a hello, he started in on me, making noises about me paying up. ‘You’re running out of time,’ he said, but I didn’t have the money. Who did he think I was? Bill Gates? Hardly anybody has the kind of money he was demanding. I grabbed a kitchen knife from the buffet before going in, just thinking I would scare him, but . . . well, that’s not the way it worked out in the end.”

  This guy had a temper like I’d never seen—which did not bode well for me. I wished I had a plan. If I could keep him talking, a plan would come to me, some way to save myself. Tears flowed down my cheek, and I didn’t bother to wipe them away. “Derek and your mother seem happy in those pictures. Happy and in love. Maybe you were wrong about your father.”

  I heard an intake of breath from the other side of the door. “No, I wasn’t. He got what he deserved.” His voice turned to ugliness again. “At least you were useful for something. Now there are two things I need to get rid of: the photographs and you.”

  My heart seized up in my chest, but I forced myself to keep him talking. I needed time to think. My thoughts turned to him and Kat, and I felt a flash of fury. “What about Kat? How could you . . .” My voice broke. “How could you lead her on that way?” She had been so thrilled, so happy, so deserving of a great guy to treat her like the treasure that she was.

  “Oh, her.” His tone was dismissive. “I figured I wouldn’t be in Palm Shores very long, but I could have some fun with her while it lasted.”

  “You let her hope for more.” How dare he? “What will you tell her now?” It felt sobering and surreal, to look ahead to a time when I could well be gone.

  “Why tell her anything? She’ll figure it out for herself. When a guy moves out of state, most girls get the message: Sayonara, arrivederci, all of that.”

  I wished I could respond with, “Asshole!” in Japanese or Italian, but that probably would get me killed. I seriously doubted that politeness could really save my life, but why poke sticks at a monster? I would stay alive for now.

  “Why the act?” I asked him. “Why did you pretend to . . . be that other person? Why so eager and polite?”

  “Because it gets you internships and hot nights with babes like Kat. Everybody plays the game.” He paused. “Well, thank you for the talk, but we need to get a move on. I’ve got a mess to fix.” The door between us rattled as I heard him get up from the floor. “It felt good to get it all out, so thanks for that at least,” he said. “A girl who’s as good as dead can be nice to have around when one needs to talk. You can tell her anything at all—because dead girls tell no tales.” The laugh that came out of this monster was the most chilling thing I had ever heard.

  I heard him walk away, then I heard a smashing sound and a string of curse words. My beautiful new phone.

  I held my ear to the door. What was he doing? Then I heard him coming back. I thought this was it. The doorknob jiggled, and I braced myself—but he walked away again.

  I heard him start the boat, and it began to move. So. I was about to die somewhere in the vastness of the waters, far out from the pier. By intended murder number three, Pete had grown more calculated. I felt the blood in my veins getting cold. This is not the way I wanted to die. The sounds of families outside reminded me that soon we’d be way out with no land in sight, where a body could be thrown overboard with no one ever knowing.

  This was it. The beginning of the end. It was then I understood what he’d been up to at the door. I tried opening it, but it didn’t budge. He must have somehow secured the handle so I couldn’t get out while he steered the boat. There was nothing in the world that I wanted more than to prove him wrong. I looked desperately around the tiny bathroom. If I was ever going to make a plan, right now would be the time. I pushed at the tiny window, but the thing was stuck. No way to call for help, and with several layers of old dirt, no one would ever see me if I tried to wave frantically for help. I could really use that phone.

  I threw the cabinet open, but the medicine bottles that rattled around in that thing could hardly save me now. The same thing for my keys, which, unlike my phone, were still jammed into the pocket of my jeans. Crap and double crap. I peered behind the toilet. You never really knew. Something could be stashed back there behind it, anything at all to help me break out of that room.

  Just as I was thinking it was hopeless to check behind a toilet for something to save my life, I spotted it like some miracle: a screwdriver and some screws. O’Connell must have been in the middle of a project when his monster son stomped onto the boat and ruined everybody’s life.

  Now, how to make this work? I closed the lid on the toilet and sat down, gratefully clutching a screwdriver, which was not the most glamorous way, I supposed, to spend the last day of one’s life—if it was the last day. I’d do everything I could to see that it was not.

  I had never been a tool girl, and I wondered if this object I held in my hand could somehow get that knob to turn. All of those afternoons wasted on rom-coms when I could have watched those fix-it shows hosted by bearded men with saws and nails and hammers.

  I tried to think positive thoughts. I would get out of there into the main cabin, then I’d go for my phone if it had not been smashed to smithereens. Perhaps I had a chance. I grabbed on to the walls when the ride got a little rocky and looked once more at the screwdriver in my hand. If I couldn’t use it to get the heck out of the bathroom, at least I’d have a weapon when Pete came for me.

  But what if nothing worked? My thoughts went to my mother, who would finally have a life event to match the drama she infused into every situation. I thought of Kat and Mike. If Mike had received my message, he’d be at the pier by now—or he’d be on his way. Even so, Pete was moving fast. How would Mike ever find us?

  Now I longed to see those same cops I’d tried so hard to avoid on the pier. Suddenly, some uncomfortable questions about trespassing on a boat didn’t bother me at all. It’s funny the things people get worked up about when they have the luxury of knowing they are not about to die.

  Now, about that door. I stood and worked the screwdriver into the cracks o
n either side and jiggled it around. Angry and desperate, I turned the knob as hard as I could. Nothing. I accomplished nothing. I sank down on the floor and put my head in my hands as my emotions poured out in salty tears.

  After what felt like forever, the boat slowed to a stop. It could have been hours or ten minutes. I’d lost all track of time. The end felt very close, and I had grown numb inside. I looked down at the screwdriver. The useless piece of trash was still clutched in my hand.

  I heard footsteps. I heard some fumbling at the door, and Pete stepped into the bathroom. My heart froze. “Time to sleep with the fishes,” he said. “Nighty night.”

  The drive to save myself came back with a fierceness, and I lunged at the creep. Surprisingly, the boyish-looking monster turned out to be super strong, holding me firmly in his grip. Fueled by adrenaline, I jabbed the screwdriver hard into his right thigh. He screamed and fell across the toilet, giving me the chance—at last—to run. Since the room was teeny-tiny, I had to climb over his crumpled form and was attempting my escape when he grabbed my foot. Oof. I fell out into the area just beyond the door, landing close to my phone. It wasn’t looking good, I was sad to see, after this fateful journey. Smashed into one million bits.

  As hard as I could, I kicked, but he held my ankle tight. With one more mighty effort, I finally freed myself, hoping that my foot would land on his face. As he hobbled after me, I could see his leg was bleeding, the screwdriver still inserted in his thigh.

  I ran out to the deck. Did I still have a chance? Pete would be beside me any minute. We seemed to be far out with no other boats in sight. Trying to weigh my options quickly, I gazed down into the vast and chilly depths. Was I safer here? Or there?

  As I pondered that horrific question, Pete came up behind me. “Just give it up, dead woman,” he growled into my ear. “You know you’ll never win.”

  With him holding both my arms, pinning them against my side, I had to use my foot to get free. I dug that foot hard into his and made a run for it as he clutched at his body, bent over double with the pain. I ran to the other side of the boat, hoping that his bad leg would give me the edge at last. Only the boat was small, and he was beside me once again. Red-faced and panting hard, he yelled out every curse word I had ever heard. Along with some I hadn’t.