Literally Offed Page 16

  “Alex.” His name was a plea on my lips. “Let me come with you.”

  Jaw tight, he shook his head.

  “What should I do?” Dylan’s eyes were wide.

  “You make sure she stays.” Alex pointed at me. “Other than that, just wait until I come back or the police arrive.” At that, he pulled out his gun, cocked it, and left.

  Stepping carefully along the house, he skirted around the back and out of my line of sight. My heart hammered in my chest. Everything felt too hot. The cab of the truck was closing in on me the longer Alex was in there.

  “Oh man. I can’t believe Liam would do this,” Dylan whined as his body began to bunch up, looking as uncomfortable as I felt. “The guy saved my life, you know.”

  I nodded, remembering Gregory talking about the shots and the Thoreau questions. Turning to face Dylan, I asked, “How many questions did you miss?” If I was stuck here. I might as well take my mind off Alex alone inside that big house.

  “Nine before I passed out.”

  “How many did Liam miss?”

  Dylan gulped. “None. He knew them all.”

  Eyebrows raised, I turned back to the house. And my heart stopped. Walking up to the house was the redhead Kevin had been sweet-talking yesterday in the library, inviting her over tonight.

  No, no, no… My eyes widened as she jogged up the front steps. I didn’t know if Alex had made it inside yet, but I held my breath and hoped he was somewhere safe and hidden as she lifted her hand to knock at the front door.

  I watched the redhead bang her fist three times on the glossy, black front door, sure I looked just like Hammy did whenever I made her wait for a treat—body quivering, eyes locked. After knocking, the redhead cocked her hip… then tapped her foot. Pulling out her phone, she checked it, then clicked it off and pivoted to face the other direction.

  Releasing the breath I’d been holding, I let my body relax as she started down the steps.

  But instead of walking back toward the street, the way she’d come, she started walking around the house, heading for the backyard.

  “Wait. Where’s she going?” My voice was frantic as I pressed my hand up against the truck window. Kevin’s words from the library came to mind. If we don’t answer the door… and then he’d whispered the rest. “Is there a back door?” I asked before realizing the stupidity of my question. Of course they had a back door.

  “I only came here twice and I used the front door both times.” Dylan said with a shrug, taking my stupid question seriously.

  Whipping around to face him, I widened my eyes. “Stay here.”

  Dylan’s mouth dropped open, but he didn’t even have a chance to utter a syllable before I opened the door and jumped out of the truck. My feet flew across the springy green grass in my pursuit of the redhead. If Alex had gotten in through the back door and it was open, she could be walking into a whole lot of trouble.

  My shoes crunched as I transitioned from the grass onto a stone pathway that led into a backyard equally as overgrown as the front. I stopped short once I could see the whole yard and sucked in a quick breath.

  No one was there.

  But… she had been just in front of me—ten seconds ahead at the most. There was no way she could’ve already scaled the back steps, opened the door, and shut it behind her. Deep creases formed in my forehead as I surveyed the rest of the yard.

  Toward the middle of the space, a small, algae-infested pond rippled with the occasional bug touching down on its surface. So their cabin had a pond, too. Though, I had to admit this one was not emitting the serene vibes I imagined Walden would. In fact, this water feature only added to the eerie, uncomfortable feeling rising up the back of my neck.

  Or maybe that feeling had more to do with the redhead flat out disappearing back here seconds earlier.

  Where had she gone? Was she hiding somewhere?

  Walking forward, I searched for any movement, anything out of the ordinary, a flash of that red hair. There were tall, woody lilacs bordering the property, along with a tall fence. Leafy, green rhodies crowded untended walkways while weeds sprouted up in between.

  Overgrown as the plants were, I still couldn’t see any area she could’ve used to hide. The fence ran continuously along the three sides of the yard, so unless she went back around to the front of the house, she wasn’t back here. I turned to face the house and that’s when I noticed it.

  Butting up right against the back corner of the porch was a small shed. A shed was definitely a hiding spot, but what caught my attention most was the white, striped snake, spray painted via stencil onto the bottom part of the shed door. The striped snake from Walden, Thoreau’s symbol for the common man, numb and oblivious.

  Glancing up at what looked to be one of the bedrooms, I noticed a shadow moving through the window. Alex must be upstairs. He was too far away to help the girl and she might not have time for me to get his attention. It was up to me.

  Following the snake, I jogged over to the shed, opening the door as quietly as I could. Inside, it took my eyes a moment to adjust from the brilliant summer sunshine to the musty darkness, but once they did, the hairs on my arm tingled as they raised slightly. I wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or out of fear, but it was probably a mixture of the two as I stared down a set of dark steps instead of the inside of a garden shed.

  Feet fueled by necessity—I had to find that redhead before she became one more victim on the list Liam had begun—I ran down the steps, skidding to a stop at the bottom. But apparently I didn’t stop quickly enough, because what I expected to be a solid door at the end of the staircase turned out to be a dark curtain of fabric and I fell forward into a well-lit room, stumbling on something at my feet.

  Liam stood right in front of me, pointing a gun at me.

  “Another one?” He shook his head, annoyance leaking from his pores.

  That was when I glanced down, noticing for the first time what I’d stumbled over. It was the redhead, lying in a crumpled heap at my feet. I wanted to cry, to scream, to yell, but then I remembered that I hadn’t heard a gun shot. The relief that surged through me at the realization that he must’ve just conked her over the head was short lived as I looked around.

  I was in the basement. Kevin, Grady, and two more of the frat guys I recognized but couldn’t name, sat tied to chairs in the middle of the basement. They were slumped over, eyes either blinking at me deliriously or completely closed.

  “I know you,” Liam said, watching me, still holding the gun level with my chest. He moved closer and I thought he was going to knock me unconscious, too, but he said, “It’s my turn to ask some questions.” Using his gun, he motioned to a chair in the corner. “Sit.”

  When I did, he wrapped a length of rope tightly around my ankles and the legs of the chair. I stifled a yip as he cinched it tight and knotted it. Then checking around him on the floor, he seemed to come up empty-handed because he let out a low growl. “Looks like that’s the last of my rope, but if you try anything, anything, I will not hesitate to shoot you.”

  Trying to breathe through the fear clawing at my throat, I nodded and then moved to sit in the chair he’d designated.

  “You were the girl asking Dylan questions the other day.”

  I nodded.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “At work.” Not technically a lie.

  “You came here alone?”

  Another nod.

  Liam narrowed his eyes, staring at me as if he were trying to stare into my body, to see my brain. Finally, he said, “Your boyfriend did say you have some weird Nancy Drew complex. I guess you seem dumb enough to run in here alone, thinking you can save everyone.”

  I gulped.

  That seemed like enough of an answer for him, because he tucked the gun into the back waistband of his jeans then grabbed a large bottle of vodka and a funnel with a rubber tube attached. Walking over to Kevin, he positioned himself in front of the hunched shape. He tilted Kevin’s head bac
k so he could stick the tube in his mouth, then proceeded to pour the vodka into the funnel. Kevin, who I’d thought was completely passed out, sputtered and coughed, but Liam held his hand over his mouth.

  “That’s it. Drink. Drink yourselves to death. Just like you made Ethan do.”

  With a sick smile, he turned to Grady.

  “You’re killing them!” I cried, my body wanting to run over to help them. Sure my hands were untied and I could try to reach down and untie my feet, but my mind was bound by the fear of the gun Liam had tucked in the waistband of his pants.

  “Uh… yeah,” he said, turning toward me and rolling his eyes.

  “They’ll catch you. You’ll never get away with this.” I realized that I’d now become part of that ominous this. Would Liam kill me, too? In that moment, I restrained myself from looking up, listening for Alex. If Liam didn’t know Alex was up there, we still had the upper hand.

  “Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison,” Liam said, quoting Civil Disobedience.

  He moved back toward Grady, who glanced over at me blearily before Liam shoved the tube in his mouth. From the wetness coating their shirts and the ground around them, I’d say Liam had been at this for a while. My stomach churned at the sight, and I searched around wildly for anything that might help.

  “Who did Thoreau plant a garden for as a wedding present?” Liam asked the guy next to Grady.

  He mumbled something and shook his head.

  “Oh, sorry. The answer was Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife Sofia. I guess you’ll have to drink, just like my brother.” Liam shoved the tube into the poor guy’s mouth and began pouring again.

  I felt like puking as the prisoner gagged and tried to fight his restraints. Even though I wasn’t tied up, I was just as imprisoned as these young men, knowing if I moved I would have that gun pointed at me again. I tried hard to think of anything I could do. I knew Alex’s backup would be here any moment, but these guys might not have moments with the way Liam was dumping booze down their throats.

  Closing my eyes, I thought back to something my father used to say whenever we went hiking. “All good things are wild and free.”

  My eyes flashed open. My body may not be free, but my mind was. And little did he know it, but my father had prepared me for this very moment.

  “Liam,” I said softly.

  He glanced over at me, wild in his movements and expression.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to remember everything I could. “It is not a man’s duty to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong. And he must not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders.” I knew I was paraphrasing, but I think I hit the main idea.

  Liam stalked over to me, my words seeming to have only stoked the fire in his expression. “These are but improved means to an unimproved end,” he shot back, sneering.

  A creaking sounded from the top of the basement steps, from the door leading inside the house, not the secret entrance in the garden. Alex. He had found me. Liam turned his head, listening.

  Inwardly cringing, I frantically tried to think of a way to distract Liam. With how well my last quote had caught his attention, I thought back to any more Thoreau I could remember.

  My father’s words floated through my mind. I was ten. It had been a bad day, I was curled up on my bed telling my father I wished I could be Tracy Stevens because she had beautiful, blond hair and their family went to France every summer. And he’d told me…

  “Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, Liam.” I almost smiled, happy at my ability to remember, but then I noticed the anger smoldering in his features and I gulped it back. “I know you’re mad about your brother, and you’re right; what happened was not okay. But it doesn’t mean you have to become just like them. We can reopen the case, find justice for your brother’s death.”

  Liam tilted his head as he listened. I must’ve been channeling my father in that moment, between the calm, cooing quality of my voice and the quotes. The memory of him wrapped around me like a bulletproof vest. I was getting through to Liam, I could see his shoulders dropping, his attention flitting back to the frat guys in the chairs, away from the basement stairs.

  But his shoulders stiffened; he stood up straight, and his eyes glazed over with a terrifying anger. “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil, but I am striking at the root.” He moved to spin away.

  Which was when I saw my opportunity.

  My skin pricked with anticipation as I lunged at his back, grabbing the gun he’d left tucked into his waistband. He spun around throwing his bodyweight into me as I fumbled the pistol. It clattered to the floor, skidding off underneath the staircase.

  Liam’s gaze met mine. I jumped onto him as he scrambled forward toward the gun. My mouth went dry. For a second everything felt like that recurring nightmare where I desperately needed to yell but I didn’t have a voice.

  Swallowing, I tried again. This time, it worked. “Alex! Now!”

  Tears crowded my eyes as I heard the door bang open and footsteps thundered down the basement stairs. Alex was first down, but a group of Pine Crest’s finest followed closely behind. Alex reached me, pulling me up into his arms once he was sure the other officers had Liam under control. Liam’s hand was only inches away from the gun when they grabbed it and cuffed it behind his back.

  The basement was a confusing cacophony of noise and movement. I could hear Detective Valdez’s voice through the din, calling for ambulances as he knelt to help the frat guys. Liam yelled, kicking out and throwing his body as the officers took him away, leading him up the stairs.

  Alex squeezed me close, kissing the top of my head. “Are you okay?”

  I looked up at him, nodding. “I’m sorry. I know you told me to stay in the truck, but she came into the picture and…” I motioned to the redhead who was slowly coming to with the help of one of the officers. “I tried to stop her, but I failed.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Detective Valdez said from a few feet away where he knelt next to Grady.

  Alex and I turned to look at him. Three other officers had taken over untying Kevin and the others, so the detective stood and walked toward us.

  Before he could say anything more, our attention turned to the stairs, where EMTs were now streaming down. After a quick check for vitals, the first responders took the fraternity members and the redhead upstairs to load them into the aid cars and to the hospital.

  In the relative silence which followed, the detective added, “They owe their lives to you. If you hadn’t figured out who the killer was, we never would’ve made it in time.” He dipped his chin at me and gave me a warm smile. “You know, you wouldn’t make a bad officer, Pepper.”

  Thinking of my dad, I shook my head. “I think I’ll stick with the literature. It’s in my blood.”

  21

  Two weeks later…

  A late summer breeze brushed its fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes and leaned my head out the open truck window.

  “Learning to Fly” by Tom Petty crooned from Alex’s speakers and transported me back in time.

  For a moment, I was with my dad, walking through the forest, listening to Petty and quoting Thoreau. Then I drifted back into reality, into the cab of Alex’s truck, driving through the streets of Pine Crest. My chest ached with how much I still missed my dad, but these days it almost felt like he was walking right next to me, like he’d never left.

  Hamburger pounced onto my lap, sticking her face out the window and snorting happily in the last bit of wind as Alex pulled the truck into my mom’s driveway—sorry, Mom and Duncan’s driveway. They were finally moved in together and were having us over for a housewarming party. Congratulating Duncan on taking my father’s place in our old house felt like the most confusing thing ever.

  Alex parked next to Maggie and Josh’s car, tur
ned off the engine, and smiled at me.

  “Ready?”

  I nodded. Scooping Hammy into my arms, I got out of the car and started down the driveway. Alex plucked the hanging basket we got them out of the truck bed and followed behind.

  “I want Mom to be happy. I like Duncan. He’s nice. I don’t mind him living in my childhood home at all,” I mumbled to myself as I walked up the path. Hammy must’ve thought I was speaking to her, because she looked up and licked my cheek.

  Alex’s hand landed on the small of my back just as we stepped up to the front door. I took a deep breath and then knocked.

  Mom swung open the front door, a huge grin on her face. “Welcome! Come in.”

  We walked forward and Alex held out the basket. “Happy housewarming.”

  “That’s so sweet of you two. Everyone’s in the kitchen if you want to head in.” Mom pointed to the kitchen as if I might’ve forgotten where it was, as if I hadn’t grown up here. “I’m going to go hang these beauties on the porch.” She took the flowers and scurried off toward the back of the house.

  I heard my sister’s loud laugh float out from the kitchen, so I unclipped Hammy from her leash and set her down to roam free. The moment her feet hit the hardwoods, she flattened her ears and scurried into the kitchen as if the large gray cat from our neighborhood were chasing after her.

  “Hammy!” my niece, Brooklyn, exclaimed at the same moment I heard Ham’s claws scrape and slide onto the tile of the kitchen floor. Hudson, the toddler, squealed with delight.

  Alex and I followed in the wake of the little dog, knowing full well she was the main event as far as the kids were concerned. When we walked into the kitchen, Josh was playing with the kids and now Hammy in the adjoining family room, and Duncan and Maggie were chatting over by plates of hors d’oeuvres set out on the island. Maggie let out another long laugh, swiping happy tears from her eyes.