Opening the door, she was relieved to see that it was as she had suspected: no Lexus.
But there was a rolled up tarp on the floor.
Oh, God. Was that a
body
?
Had he
killed
someone?
Lucky tiptoed across the floor and stared down at the tarp a long moment before placing her hands on it and slowly unrolling it. It was a body. She could tell by the feel.
Mouth dry, she unfurled it until a woman’s body lolled out, eyes open to a vacant view. Her frosted hair drenched in blood.
She had to fight a scream. He’d killed the roommate.
With extreme care, she rolled the woman back into the tarp, hoping it looked undisturbed. Ugh had grown even more bold, more dangerous. Carefully relocking the garage and returning to the house, she glanced around the kitchen, her eye falling on the coffee maker. He liked strong coffee. He’d told her that.
Flipping open the top, she saw it was already set to make another pot. With determination she pulled out the stainless steel carafe and slipped the contents of one of her plastic bags inside.
Then, grabbing up her backpack, she looked around for a good hiding place, settling on the second bedroom closet.
At three o’clock, September grabbed her coat and messenger bag and said she was on her way to Twin Oaks.
“You should send Maharis or another uniform,” George said.
“Seems she wants me. Besides, Maharis is out canvassing bars, looking for someone who remembers the older man who hit on Jilly. I’m good with it.”
Actually, she was frustrated that they weren’t getting any further traction on the investigation. The phone calls she and Wes had returned didn’t seem to be going anywhere. To a one the call-ins had been people looking for more information than offering it. She already felt like she’d dropped the ball with Maharis. She wasn’t going to fob some new task off on him.
As she pulled into the Twin Oaks parking lot she ran into a blockade of parents picking up their kids. A line of cars snaked around the building. She sensed this was not the norm. With everything that had gone on the last week, the parents were being proactive in transporting their children safely back and forth to school.
Amy Lazenby was already standing in the hall outside the front offices when September walked in. “Thank you for coming, Detective. We’re meeting in the gym. There are a lot of people with a lot of questions.”
“Lead the way.”
As they entered the room, September noted that only a smattering of chairs were taken, but within ten minutes it was standing room only. She looked out at the faces and waited as Lazenby addressed them all, introduced her, and then went straight to a Q & A. Parents peppered September with questions, most of which she couldn’t answer. They already knew most of what she did from the news: Stefan had been killed by a gunshot wound. A woman was involved. The same woman who they believed had tied him to the pole days before. The same woman suspected in the murder of Christopher Ballonni.
About Claudia Livesay, she had even less information. “We’ve been gathering evidence on her disappearance, talking to family, friends, neighbors, anyone who might offer up a clue,” she assured them.
“But you think it’s foul play?” one earnest man asked.
“It’s too early to say.”
A woman raised her hand. “I’m a friend of Claudia’s. I spoke to an officer and told him that she would never just leave Molly. Never.”
There was a murmur of agreement. September really wished she had more solid information, but it was too soon. The tech team had gone through Claudia’s house but the results weren’t in yet.
After another twenty minutes the meeting broke up. September was introduced personally to some of the faculty and staff. One woman came up to her and said, “I’m Bette Pearce. I teach sixth grade. I’ve talked to Claudia many times as her daughter, Molly, is in my home room. Graham knows her, too. . . .” She indicated a man who was hanging back, talking to another teacher who’d introduced himself to September earlier as Evan Tarker. “He has Molly for sixth period. No one’s interviewed any of us yet.”
“The investigation is just getting started,” she assured her. In truth, she and others in the department had hoped Claudia Livesay might turn up on her own, which often happened, but as time elapsed that scenario was looking less and less likely.
Fifteen minutes later, September was saying her good-byes to Lazenby and the front office staff when the raised voices of a man and a woman could be heard coming from one of the back offices.
Lazenby looked over with an annoyed glare. When a man and a woman appeared, she said, “Dave?” sounding surprised. The man moved ahead of the woman and came from behind the counter to shake September’s hand.
“David DeForest,” he introduced himself. “Vice principal. We appreciate everything you’re doing, Detective.”
The woman followed him out, her face flushed, her mouth determined. She shot him a baleful look, then also turned to September. “I’m Patti DeForest.”
Lazenby clearly wanted to ask them what had been going on, but stayed her tongue, probably not wanting to air dirty laundry in front of September, whom she ushered toward the door. “If you learn anything, please tell us. We all need answers.”
“I will,” she assured her.
As she was heading down the steps, she heard behind her: “Detective Rafferty!”
Turning, she saw it was Patti DeForest. Her husband burst through the doors after her, perturbed and flushed, but Patti was bent on getting to September.
“Dave doesn’t want me to say things I shouldn’t,” she said with a bite as she hurried down the steps. “But I have to go with my conscience.”
“What is it?” September asked her.
“That picture you had on television. The woman you’re looking for? She was here at Twin Oaks. Said her name was Alicia Trent and she was checking out the school to see if it was right for her son.”
“Patti.” David DeForest’s voice was soft and disappointed, but he looked like he was about to blow a gasket.
“It was her, Dave,” she insisted, rounding on her husband.
September turned to DeForest, who said, “Well, sure. There was a similarity. But the woman you’re looking for is obviously not Alicia Trent.”
“Why ‘obviously’?” she asked.
“Because you’re looking for a killer,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Do you have her address or phone?” September asked him, gratifying Patti and sending his face even redder.
“She hasn’t filled out any forms yet. She came to our Fun Night last Friday. She really wanted to know what the school was about before she committed.”
“And you haven’t seen or heard from her since,” Patti said smugly.
“It hasn’t even been a week!” he sputtered.
“And she didn’t bring her son to Fun Night, and that’s what it’s all about. Bringing your kids. I don’t even think she has one,” Patti declared. “It was her,” she said again to September. “She’s the one you’re looking for. She didn’t kill Mr. Harmak the first time, so she came back looking for him.”
“He wasn’t at Fun Night,” DeForest snapped.
“So she found him at his home later.”
September listened to them fight for a few more moments, then said soothingly, “I’ll look into Mrs. Trent.”
“Don’t tell her I was the one who told you,” Patti said, scared.
“It’s a waste of time!” DeForest declared.
“I’ll be discreet,” September assured him, extricating herself from both of them. At some level, she thought Patti might be on to something, though Ani/Lucky going to Fun Night in search of Stefan seemed unlikely. If Ani had picked him up at Valley Mall, then left him tied up at his place of work, wouldn’t she have already known where he lived, especially since it was so close to the school?
So, if Alicia Trent were truly Ani, what then would be her reason for attending Twin Oaks’ Fun Night?
Her next target?
Was it at all related to Claudia Livesay’s disappearance?
It was nearly five when Lucky heard the sound of an approaching car. She dared to sneak out of her hiding spot long enough to peek through the curtains and see the tail end of the black Lexus slipping into the garage. She’d had all day to come up with a plan to approach Ugh and had failed to think of anything more effective than simply charging him and hitting him with the stun gun. Once he was incapacitated, she would be able to tie him up, get him into the backseat of the Lexus and drive him away. Better to use his girlfriend’s car than her own.
But could she really leave him tied up in front of Twin Oaks like she had Stefan? No. That method had been played out. It was a shame, because she liked the humiliation angle, but she was probably going to have to come up with a secondary plan.
She heard him come in and pressed herself into the closet as he stalked down the hall to the master bedroom. In her mind’s eye, she pictured the room. If he were on the other side of the bed she might not be able to reach him with the stun gun before he could defend himself.
It would be better if she waited until he came back out. Maybe she could follow him down the hall.
Ten minutes later he did just that, but as Lucky started after him, one arm of her backpack got hung up on the closet door. It rattled in its frame, but at the same moment there was a loud
thunk
from Ugh’s direction. “Shit,” he muttered, then picked up whatever he’d apparently dropped and walked out through the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.
She hesitated, then tiptoed to the hallway, peeking out. There was no one there.
Cautiously, she moved toward the kitchen, stun gun in hand.
A flash of color came through the French doors. She pulled back out of sight as she saw he was outside, carrying a shovel toward the raspberry vines, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and a pair of boots.
He was going to bury the girlfriend.
Could she come up behind him?
Maybe.
She waited, holding her breath, until his back was to the house and he was digging, then she racewalked to the kitchen, realizing he’d inadvertently swept a metal vase off the counter when he’d walked by. He’d placed it on the table where it hadn’t been before, a dent in its side. She squatted down behind the counters, in the center of the kitchen’s
U
and sidled toward the back door.
Opening it cautiously, she carefully stepped into the breezeway, looking toward the garage door where the body in the tarp had been positioned just inside the threshold, ready for easy pick up.
“Who the hell are you?” his voice boomed, causing Lucky’s hair to stand on end.
He was standing at the end of the breezeway, shovel in hand, his boots mud caked.
She wanted to charge him. She wanted to take him out. Right here, right now.
As if sensing her thoughts, he lifted the shovel menacingly. “Who are you?” he demanded again, his voice vibrating with tension. Then, “You’re the girl from the bar!”
Lucky broke and ran. Her car was at the end of the driveway. She was in her sneakers and he was in boots. She could beat him.
She got three steps before the shovel hit her in the back like a spear, knocking her down.
He was on her in an instant, wrenching off her backpack, grabbing her hat and hair, slamming his body atop hers.
“What the fuck’s that?”
The stun gun was still gripped tightly in her outstretched right hand. With everything she had, she twisted around and zapped him.
He squealed and flopped around. She threw him off her, scrambling to her feet.
The zip-ties. The backpack.
His hand tangled with her ankle and she tripped. Smacked onto the concrete. The stun gun went flying.
Momentarily dazed, she staggered upward with an effort. He was still recovering. She didn’t have a lot of time. Her fingers found the zipper on the backpack and she pulled it down, agonizingly slowly. Seeing stars, she put her hand to her head just in front of her temple and it came away bloody.
“Bitch . . . bitch . . .”
He had one knee under him.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Her hand was inside the pack when he hit her, knocking her sideways. She scrabbled for the ties, the thermos, anything, but before she could grab onto those items he bowled her over with the weight of his body.
His hand was around her throat. “Who are you?” he rasped, glaring down at her. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Lucky,” she said, then was choked unconscious.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“. . . so I don’t know if she’s Ani, or if she’s legit,” September finished telling her story to Jake. She’d pulled a chair up close to his bed, as ever, and had laid out all she knew about the vigilante who called herself Lucky.
“How long ago was it that she did this before?” Jake asked. His arm was wrapped from shoulder to wrist. The blood that had drained beneath his skin along the side of his face from his head wound had turned his skin brown, green, and yellow, making him look like an extra from a horror movie. September decided to keep that observation to herself.
“About four years.”
“And you think she might be this Alicia Trent?”
“I put Wes on it before I came here. He said he’d call if he learned anything.”
“So far no call,” Jake said.
“So far no call.”
He thought that over, appearing more sober than he had the last time she’d seen him. Catching her concerned look, he said, “I was just thinking about Marilyn . . . and Loni.”
“Ah.”
They were both silent a moment, then he reached out his good hand and recaptured her hand, threading his fingers through hers. “I’m glad you moved in,” he said.
She smiled. “I had to rewash the sheets because they were a wrinkled mess. I haven’t got the last of my stuff yet, but it’s at the top of my list.”
“I’ll try to stop worrying about you,” he said. “I know you don’t want me to. And anyway, I’m the one who got in harm’s way, not you.”
“Well, I don’t mind a little worrying,” she said softly.
“Okay.” He smiled.
Lucky awoke slowly and realized she was strapped in to the passenger seat of the Lexus. Ugh was driving. Her hands were zip-tied in front of her and the car was barreling through a dark night to some destination of his choice.
He had her stun gun mark under the right side of his jaw and he looked kind of wrung out. Good. Her throat was on fire from where he’d half strangled her.
“Okay, who the fuck are you?” he demanded again.
She wondered where the backpack was. Had he left it on the ground? If he’d looked in it, he might not be asking that question. “I told you,” she rasped out. “Lucky.”
“Cut the bullshit. You’re the one who tied Harmak and that mailman to poles and made them write out those messages.”
So, that answered the backpack question. She’d had a lot of time to come up with various stories while she’d waited for him, so now she put one in play. “They treated me badly and I wanted payback.”
He threw her a wary look. “People were saying they were . . . sexual abusers of children.”
“I know, but I’m telling you the truth. I had a stepdaddy once who showed me love . . . that way.”
“You’re lying.”
“No,” Lucky said truthfully. She didn’t have to tell him that her memories of the abuse were what drove her to stop men like him.
“What were you doing in my house? How’d you find me?”
“I followed you last night.”
“Jesus.”
“I would’ve come in last night, but I didn’t know enough. I didn’t know if you lived with someone, and there was that station wagon in front. I decided to wait and see if I could catch up to you today.”
“You broke in to my house.”
“The door was unlocked.”
“That’s a
fucking
lie.”
“The lock wasn’t caught. I jiggled it and it opened, I swear.”
“I tested it! It was locked.”
She shook her head. “I was going to wait for you outside, but when I could get in, I just did.”
They drove in silence for a while, west on Highway 26. She didn’t know exactly where he was headed, but he was going toward the coast, toward the area she was most familiar with.
But right now they were passing by the town of Quarry, which always gave Lucky the heebie-jeebies. When he suddenly turned onto a road on the western edge of Quarry, her nerves jumped to attention. People knew her in Quarry, people knew her sister. She couldn’t be seen here at any cost.
“Where are we going?” she demanded, the words wrenched from her.
“My dad’s place,” he said, and the smile on his lips boded of bad things to come.
They drove past farmhouses until they came to a narrow driveway that wound through rows of hazelnut trees. “Not Dad’s,” Ugh said, his mouth turning downward. “The stupid bastard sold off all the property that mattered. Lost it all . . . in a Ponzi scheme.”
Lucky wasn’t sure what that was, but she could feel the anger and injustice inside him. His “scent” was damn near overpowering her and she had to struggle to keep up with the conversation, keep him talking.
He cut the lights as they drew close to the house. “We don’t want him to know we’re here, so if you make a sound, I’ll kill you.”
“I’ll be good.”
He shot her a look and she managed a faint smile.
“Maybe I’ll try some of your stuff on you,” he said, inclining his head toward the rear seat. She glanced behind them and saw her opened backpack with a number of items spilled over the backseat. There was a black smear in the middle of the seat. Blood?
“Why’d you kill them?” he asked suddenly. “Harmak and the mailman.”
“I told you. I wanted payback. I didn’t mean to kill Chris. I was just trying to teach him a lesson. So he would be nicer to me.”
“You killed Harmak with a gun,” he reminded her.
“He shot himself. Yes, I had the gun. He’d hurt me, too, and I was angry. But he grabbed it from me and must’ve pulled the trigger. I heard the shot and just ran.”
“I don’t believe a word out of your mouth.”
She shrugged and said bitterly, “You and everyone else. I’ve spent my whole life kicking around in the shadows. I’ve grown accustomed to living on the edge. And when someone hurts me, I hurt them back. But if they’re good to me, I’m really, really good to them.”
He’d switched off the ignition and now he stared at her through the darkness. “We’re going through that basement door,” he said, inclining his head toward the house. “If you make one sound, I will squeeze your throat until you’re dead.”
“You like to live on the edge, too.”
He didn’t answer, just climbed out of the car and came around to her side, opening her door and putting his finger on her lips. She kissed that finger and gazed up at him in silence.
He pulled her out by her tied hands and then gently closed the door. With a sideways glance at the house, he suddenly pressed her against the car, his dick hard against her leg.
“How’d you find me?” he rasped out.
“You told me not to speak,” she reminded him softly.
“ How ’d you find me?”
he snarled in her ear.
“I’m lucky.”
One of his hands found her neck. “Give me a straight answer.”
“I liked the way you looked,” she said. “I saw you before at Bad Dog. I wanted a chance with you, so I kept coming back there until you showed up again.”
“I never was at Bad Dog.”
“Yes, you were. A few days ago. I guess you didn’t notice me. I’m crushed . . .” She moved then, settling him between her legs. The hand at her neck drifted downward and she lifted up her arms and gently wrapped them around the back of his neck. In the way she’d taught herself years before, she went to some other place. Somewhere safe. Far removed from the terrible moment.
But she couldn’t go completely away. Couldn’t totally forget where she was. She needed to be cognizant to get the upper hand.
He dry humped her against the car, then slid her down to the cold ground and climbed atop her. She could tell by the tenor of his breathing that he liked the danger. He ripped down the zipper of her jacket and yanked off her jogging pants. She was afraid he’d feel the lock picks in her jacket pocket with such intimate, frontal contact or find the band of money at her waist.
But no, he was too intent on getting his dick inside her to take much notice of her clothes.
A light came on over the basement door and Ugh froze in the act of undoing his belt and ripping down his pants.
Immediately he was yanking her arms from around his head and scrambling away from her, grabbing at his trousers.
A door opened and a man’s quavery voice asked, “Who’s out there?”
“It’s me, Dad,” Graham yelled back. “I’m just coming in.”
“Ahh . . . okay . . .” Lucky could see the older man head back inside.
“How the fuck did he hear?” Ugh muttered. He looked down at Lucky and for a moment she thought he might go for it again, but then he pulled her up hard by her zip-tied wrists. “We’ll wait until we’re in the basement.”
“Untie my hands so I can touch you.”
“You wish.” He laughed.
He dragged her along with him and she stumbled because her pants were still at her ankles. She fell once and he swore, releasing her for a moment. “Pull those up,” he ordered tautly.
She did as she was told, bending over to grab her pants, unzipping her jacket pocket in the process.
“What’s that?” he asked, alerted to the sound.
“The zipper at the bottom of my pant leg.”
He made a move toward her but she’d gotten her hand in the pocket with the picks. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
She yanked out a pick and lunged for him. He turned his head at the last second and she jabbed the pick down, down into his left ear as hard as she could.
He screamed and yanked back from her, grabbing at his ear. She went head down and barreled into him, tripping on her pants, falling hard atop him as he flew backward, his head coming down with a crack.
Quickly she scrambled back, grabbed her pants, pulled them up. Glancing down, she saw he was remarkably still. Leaning over, she saw his head had hit a flat stone and he was out cold. She checked his breathing, hoping against hope that she’d killed him. No such luck.
She straightened. She had to get out of here. She had to get these ties off her hands, but first . . .
She ran lightly to the car, opened the back door. Her belongings were strewn about and she returned them quickly to the backpack. She had more zip-ties, however, and she brought them to Ugh and bound his legs, then rolled him over and bound his hands behind his back as well. It was her turn to take him to a location of her choice, but to get him to the car she was going to need her hands free of her own bindings. After a moment of thought, she ran to the basement and down a set of concrete stairs. The door was locked.
“Shit.”
He’d been heading that way, so he must have a key, she realized. Quick as she could, she returned to him, searching his pockets to no avail. She sat down, breathing hard, thinking, worrying.
The keys were still in the ignition.
Climbing to her feet, she hurried to the car once again. Sure enough, the keys were dangling down. There were a number of extra keys attached to the ring. Grabbing them up, she ran to the basement door and on the third try it opened.
She groped around for a switch and her face ran into a hanging string from an overhead bulb, causing her to gasp before she caught herself. Pulling the string, she looked around in the sudden illumination. In the center of the large, rectangular room a set of stairs led to the upper floors. She hoped the old man wouldn’t hear her.
Along the back wall were tools and she hurried toward them. Her eye scanned the wall. A box cutter. Snatching it up, she sawed away at the plastic until it gave. She dropped the box cutter, thought better of it, picked it up again and added it to the picks in her pocket.
Switching off the light, she hurried to the outside door just as the one at the top of the stairs opened, throwing a square of yellow light into the blackness. “Ulysses . . . ?” he quavered. “Eleanor called. She heard you. . . .”
Lucky ran out the door and up the stairs. Ugh was groaning awake. With a strength born of fear, she hauled him to the Lexus and into the backseat. Slamming the door shut behind him, she circled to the driver’s door, stuck the keys in the ignition, and threw the car into reverse. Mud flew from the rear tires and as she slewed around and finally got aimed the way she’d come in, she saw a series of lights flick on in the nearest house. Eleanor, most likely. The house was set well back from the road but within easy earshot of Ugh’s father’s place.
Then she was on the main highway, driving with control and determination. She was going to get out of Quarry and over the mountains to the beach. The Pacific drew her like a mother.
And she was going to send him directly into mother’s arms.
September stopped into the station before heading home. George was already gone, naturally, but Wes was still at his desk. “Crime techs found blood spatter in the Livesay entryway,” he said. “Looks like it might be Livesay’s.”
“So, she was attacked,” September said, disheartened.
“That’s what it looks like. A lot of shit happening in a short time at one school,” he observed.
September nodded. A lot of shit, she thought. Stefan sure as hell wasn’t responsible for Claudia Livesay, so maybe she was on the right track when it came to Lucky after all. Maybe she had found another target at Twin Oaks. Someone who Ani/Lucky felt needed to be permanently removed.
Ugh woke up before Lucky was halfway to the coast and started flinging himself around in the backseat. She wished she had her stun gun, or even Mr. Blue’s .38. Something, to get him to calm down, but her hands were on the wheel and she was laser-focused, her sight narrowing to the ribbon of road in front of her, dark as pitch through the mountains except for the occasional light outside a far-off cabin or along a curving bridge.
He swore at her, a string of filthy epithets that went on for miles. Then suddenly he slammed his head into hers. Pain exploded inside her skull. She held the wheel with an effort, the tires sliding, and screamed as she crossed the asphalt to the other lane and back again.