A Berry Horrible Holiday

by A. R. Winters

  Now there was a thought. “She could have asked for his help to do just that.”

  “And then he misgauged how hard to hit her.”

  “And almost killed her.”

  If that was the case, at least Rita would be safe.

  “Kylie?” Mama Hendrix’s voice called from a distance.

  She was standing on the wraparound porch. Her hair looked as though she’d walked through a typhoon, but the woman was still standing. She was like a bull that just didn’t know how to stop being a bull. Didn’t know how to give up.

  I waved an arm in the air. She spotted me.

  “Kylie!” she called and hooked a come-here arm.

  Zoey went back to consoling the geek squad, and I made my way over to Mama Hendrix.

  “This whole weekend is a disaster,” she said, throwing her hands in the air. She turned her back to me and headed inside the kitchen.

  I followed, staying quiet as her rant heated up.

  “It’s got to be saved. I have to pull out all the stops.”

  I’d helped her make dinner. I’d helped her clean up dinner. I’d been making food all day long. My body hurt, and I was exhausted. What I’d wanted to tell her was that I was her guest, that I was going to bed, and please deliver a cup of tea to my room. Those were, of course, not the words that came out of my mouth.

  “How can I help?” I asked, even though she hadn’t asked for my help.

  “We have to dig a pit,” she said, picking up a landline phone that hung on the wall.

  “A pit?” I asked startled.

  “Best way to roast a pig!”

  “A pig? A whole pig?”

  “What time is it?” She glanced at her watch. “After midnight.” She got a far-off look and mumbled something under her breath. “Yes, yes,” she finally said. “I think there’s enough time.”

  “Where will you even get a whole pig? And at this time of night?”

  She wagged the phone at me. “Calling in a favor.”

  The next several hours had me dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and assisting Mama Hendrix as she used an all-purpose tractor to dig a deep hole. We then transformed the hole into a roasting pit. She mostly stood at the hole’s ledge and directed as I arranged things within the pit itself.

  It was not a comfortable experience on soooo many levels. Pit roasting a pig didn’t seem like the best thing to do as a condolence effort for what had happened to Dougie Dan.

  But who was I to judge? The arrival of Mama Hendrix’s favor told me nobody else was.

  Chapter 22

  Her place, her rules.

  That’s what I told myself as I clawed my way out of the pit on hands and knees. Mama Hendrix felt that she needed to make good with her guests—minus me, it appeared. She had the right to do that however she pleased.

  As for the favor, it came in the form of five big guys and a refrigerated truck. The guys took over, and I let them. I wasn’t usually the kind of girl to stand back out of the way whenever the testosterone brigade rolled into town, but I was done.

  I excused myself without a word to anyone and headed for the house.

  “Kylie!” Mama Hendrix called after me.

  I turned, gave her a big, cheery smile, waved a hand and called, “Goodnight.”

  Her expression turned slightly sorrowful. Whether it was because she wanted me to stay a bit longer, or because she wanted to say something more to me, I couldn’t tell.

  She had help, didn’t look like she was about to have a heart attack, and could survive through the night without me.

  At least I hoped so.

  Guilt tugged at my insides, but I told it to come back in the morning. If something happened to Mama Hendrix, I’d do the right thing and feel guilty about it then.

  Still, a little bit of guilt nagged me all the way through a cool shower that felt good on my heat-stressed skin. Slipping one of Joel’s T-shirts over my head to use as a nightshirt quieted the voice for good. The shirt smelled like Joel. I knew it wasn’t really him. It was whatever laundry detergent he used. But I lost myself within the soft, fresh scent all the same.

  Joel was fast asleep when I crawled into bed—my own, this time. I used his gentle snore as my lullaby. But sleep didn’t come. Instead, a zillion little chimes pulled me completely awake.

  “My phone!” I whispered. I leaned off my bed wheelbarrow style and dug around in my overnight bag until I found the thing. Sure enough, it had one bar worth of signal. The chimes were from a massive download that had just come in.

  Crawling back into bed, I held the glowing device close to my face like a sacred treasure. I scrolled through emails and then social media. That’s when my phone chimed again. Agatha was messaging me!

  I shot a worried glance at Joel, concerned the phone’s beeps and buzzes would wake him. But he snorted a broken snore, turned on his side, and settled back into a steady low rumble of breathing in and out.

  I wrote Agatha back. “What are you doing up?”

  Rather than write me back, my phone buzzed with an incoming video call from her.

  I held my breath as I clicked accept. I wasn’t sure that one measly little bar worth of signal would support the call, but I needn’t have worried. Agatha’s old-as-an-ancient, spry-as-a-grasshopper mug blipped plainly into view.

  “Thought you might want to say hello to someone,” Agatha said, lifting a sleepy tortoiseshell cat up to her chest.

  “Sage!” I whispered loud enough to wake Joel up and the people next door. Yet, he didn’t stir. I smiled a toothy idiot grin and wiggle my fingers at my phone. Sage yawned to show off her killer fangs, batted sleepy eyes, and snuggled in against Agatha. “Awwww.” I missed her.

  “How’s it going?” Agatha asked. “Has anyone died?”

  My face fell and my shoulders sagged.

  “Ohhh,” Agatha said in reply. “Anyone I should feel bad about?”

  I shook my head. “Sadly, no. He kinda had it coming.”

  “Well at least there’s that,” Agatha said cheerily, pointing out the silver lining in the situation. “Know who did it yet?”

  “I thought I did.” I slumped even more. “But someone tried to kill her too, so I think I was wrong. Agatha, I think, maybe…” My voice trailed off. I had been so completely wrong about Rita while being so completely sure I was right.

  “What, dear?”

  “I think maybe I’m a hack.” All those other murderers I’d caught, it’d just been a fluke.

  “Oh, sweetheart, of course you are, but why should that stop you? It’s like your cooking. You’re simply terrible, but you keep at it anyway.”

  “Agatha!” I complained.

  “Well, it’s true! People at the café are really missing your Oops Board discounts. You’ve even got some lunchtime regulars who’ve stopped coming because you’re not here. They say it’s just not as much fun knowing in advance what they’ll be able to get that’s edible.”

  “But… but… burning the toast or serving runny eggs isn’t the same as catching a killer.”

  “Sure, it is. You have a goal. You figure out how to reach your goal, and then you take steps to do it. No difference at all.”

  Until somebody tried to kill me for my efforts that is, except this time it wasn’t me who was almost killed. It was Rita.

  I frowned. Someone had tried to kill Rita, and that meant that someone had a reason to try to kill Rita. Maybe Rita was investigating the murder too. Maybe she’d even figured it out.

  “You just had a thought, didn’t you?” Agatha asked, smiling indulgently.

  “Maybe…” I answered, smiling sheepishly back.

  “You guys still going to come back after the weekend?” There was a tenseness to her voice when she asked the question. There was something she wasn’t saying.

  “That’s the plan, if we can. I’m sure we’ll need to give permission from the local sheriff before leaving. We’re still all technically suspects. Everything okay?”

  “Right as rai
n for now,” she said.

  That was a dismissive pat on the head if I’d ever heard one. “Na-uh. What gives? Is everything okay?” I asked again.

  Agatha did a noncommittal side-to-side head bob. “Hard to say. Could be something worrisome with Jack, but it’s nothing to worry about right now.” She followed that up with a cheery smile. “You all just make it home and make it home safe.”

  My stomach chose that exact moment to growl. It was a big gurgly sound that had Agatha laughing and Joel stirring. It made me realize that it had been hours since I’d eaten. On top of that, my dinner had been somewhat interrupted by my investigative pursuits.

  “I’d better go,” I whispered with a chuckle.

  “You’d better go get something to eat,” Agatha laughed.

  We said our goodbyes, and then I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and flip-flops. I let myself out of mine and Joel’s room with nary a sound and padded down the two flights of stairs and through the house. I paused long enough to peek through a window at the part of the yard where I’d abandoned Mama Hendrix to finish up her plans without me. She was still there and so were the five guys with their refrigerated truck, but things looked to be wrapping up.

  I headed to the kitchen. Pushing through its large solid wood door, I made a beeline for the fridge. I didn’t bother to turn on the overhead light, but the fridge’s light flooded the room when I opened its door and stood before it.

  “Show me what you’ve got,” I murmured, leaning forward. I was eager to sink my teeth into some yummy leftovers.

  A chair creaked behind me. My heart stuttered when I realized I wasn’t alone.

  “I’ve been waiting for you.” The voice was gravely and low, and it wasn’t one I recognized.

  I spun around, but while I was standing in the light, the rest of the large kitchen was trapped in deep shadow.

  The chair screeched—the sound of it sliding over the floor.

  Whoever was here, they were mobile, and I was frozen with fear.

  Chapter 23

  My legs felt like lead, but I made them move.

  I made a mad stumbling dash through the darkness for the door. My hand landed on wood, and I was poised to yank the door open, but what the disembodied voice said next stopped me.

  “You saved Rita… Thank you.”

  Instead of jerking the door open and running for my life, I fumbled around the wall next to the door until I found the light switch. I gave it a flip. The enormous kitchen lit up as bright as day.

  “Lucas,” I breathed out in a whisper. My gaze drifted down the handyman’s long form to the sharp bladed shovel at his side. “You were saying thank you?” I croaked out, never once taking my eyes off that shovel.

  “For saving Rita,” he said. He took a step closer. The tip of the shovel dragged across the floor.

  I gulped and took a step back, essentially pinning myself against the wall. Of all the ways I thought I’d die, dismembered in a kitchen wasn’t one of them. Death by food poisoning or salmonella, sure. But this? Nope. Wasn’t on my radar.

  I wondered if Sage would continue to live with Agatha, or if she’d go to live with Auntie Zoey. I loved Zoey, but I was kind of rooting for Agatha as Sage’s new forever home.

  “I want to show you something,” Lucas said, taking another step forward.

  I finally managed to pull my gaze up from the shovel to his face.

  I studied his eyes. To my immense surprise, they seemed sane. Intense, but sane.

  “You’re wanting to show me something?” I’d like to say my voice didn’t go into the octave of a four-year-old little girl, but I’d be lying.

  A door somewhere else in the house opened and closed, making us both stare in that direction as if we could see through walls.

  “We have to go,” Lucas said, breaking the spell. “Hurry.” He took steps toward the door that led toward the wrap around porch.

  “I need my coat,” I said.

  “No time. Come on.” He didn’t stop his pace to see if I was following. Within seconds, I was the only one left in the kitchen.

  I said a few choice words. Not only did I not have my coat or a pair of decent shoes, I’d also left my cell phone up in my and Joel’s bedroom.

  My feet started moving before I could convince them not to. I pushed through the door to the wide porch beyond only to find myself alone there as well. Lucas had already descended the stairs and was waiting for me out in the yard. He stood statue-still and silent.

  I looked this way and that. I glanced wistfully behind me at the way back into the house. There was no one around. Only me and Lucas, who had come to show me something. Like maybe who had killed Dougie Dan?

  TSTL, my brain chanted, making it very clear what I thought of myself. Too Stupid To Live. If I followed Lucas into the dark of the night without at least telling someone, anyone, where I was going or who I was with, TSTL was exactly what I was.

  Yet my damn feet hadn’t gotten the memo. They had me skipping down the stairs like I was on my way to Easter brunch. But they didn’t stop there. No, they kept right on going.

  When Lucas turned his back to me and started walking at an angle that took us past the destroyed geek tent toward the edge of the woods beyond, my feet had me right there with him.

  I need to find out, I told myself. It was now or never, and I needed to know what Lucas knew.

  The harsh scent of what had so recently been billowing black smoke still scarred the air.

  I passed the spot where I’d knelt on my knees with Rita. A memory stirred within me. When I’d been with Rita, I’d seen something move at the tree line. I’d thought it was a creature.

  A man’s a creature.

  Lucas was a man.

  Creatures sometimes hurt people.

  Therefore, men sometimes hurt people—hurt them by bashing them in the back of the head with, you know, a shovel. Sometimes even by sharp shovels getting dragged over heat-scorched ground.

  My fingers twitched with the tactile memory of Rita’s drying blood. She’d been hit in the back of the head, and it had killed her. For a moment.

  “Lucas,” I said.

  He stopped and turned to face me, shifting from a moving body to an unflinching statue. If I hadn’t already known he was there, my eyes could have mistaken him for shadow. He said nothing in response to my hail of his name. He simply waited.

  I stopped too, holding the distance between us steady. “What did you do to Rita?” I asked.

  “Nothing you didn’t do to her too.”

  I took a half step back and shook my head. The guilt that flooded me sat discordant over my soul. I’d believed the girl was guilty of murder. I’d pushed her to admit it despite knowing her past struggles with mental health. I was a terrible, terrible person. But rather than take an ounce of responsibility for her predicament, I said, “I didn’t do anything.”

  Yay me. Way to go me.

  I wondered if my health insurance would cover seeing a therapist. I had some stuff to work out.

  “Keep up.” Lucas turned his back to me once more and walked on. I was still fifteen feet away from the tree line when he vanished inside its mishmash canopy of trees and undergrowth.

  I hesitated at the tree line’s edge. My legs trembled. I could imagine Lucas standing just beyond my sight with his shovel raised and its sharp blade leveled at my throat.

  This is a bad idea, my brain told me. But just like before, my feet took over to take a step.

  I didn’t die. My throat wasn’t severed. My windpipe remained intact.

  I took another step.

  My eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness within the trees. I spotted Lucas. He was an outline of yet even deeper darkness within the darkness. He was a good fifteen feet away. I was close enough to the yard and the house that I could still run. I could still scream for help. If I continued to follow him, though, my options would dwindle. My survival would become dependent on him not being a psychopath.

  “Did you hurt Rita?�
� I asked, more specific with my question than the first time.

  “No,” he answered, his voice gruff. Then he added, “Try to keep up.”

  The man-shaped darkness moved. Moonlight would illuminate an arm, a shoulder, or the back of his head now and then. It would sometimes even glint off his shovel. Yet I followed.

  I dodged branches, tripped over exposed tree roots, and shivered against the cold. The night’s chill had long since sunk past the oversized T-shirt of Joel’s that I’d borrowed to use as a nightgown. It’d also gotten past the sweatpants that covered my legs. To be honest, it really didn’t bother me until it reached bone deep. That’s when my teeth started chattering, and I began regretting my decision to follow.

  A slow realization occurred to me. It made Lucas’s genius shine like a neon beacon above his head when I put it together. It also highlighted the severe contrast of me as an idiot fool.

  For you see, Lucas didn’t need to touch me to kill me. He didn’t need to put a finger on me. All he needed to do was get me lost. Exposure to the elements would do the rest.

  I’d be dead before dawn.

  Chapter 24

  I’d long since lost track of which direction the way back was. We’d followed winding paths that had seemed to have been forged by deer and the like.

  Ahead of me, Lucas looked cozy in thickly padded, cold-weather overalls. If I hit him from behind on the head with a rock, I might be able to knock him out. I could then strip him of the overalls and… and… let him die of exposure? Snuggle up to him for shared body warmth and knock him out over and over again every time he stirred? We might both survive the night that way, but he’d likely have to join Rita in the hospital. And there was the small issue of attempted murder—by me.

  I wondered if Brad and Joel would visit me in prison. Remaining close with me would probably do damage to Brad’s law enforcement career. On the other hand, I’d be able to feed Joel the inside scoop of what it was like to be in a women’s prison.

  “We’re here.”

  “Huh?” Lucas’s declaration pulled me out of my prison life reverie.