Allison slowly shuffled toward the bedroom door and tiptoed into the hallway, turning her head toward the living room. She could see the main entrance door to the apartment, but there were no signs of human life. She continued her cautious march toward the living room, gripping the flimsy umbrella in both hands. When she reached the end of the hall, she leaned forward and peeked her head into the living room. Aren was lying face-down on the ground, a huge bloody gash on the back of his head. He was completely lifeless, his arms and legs spread.
Autumn Noble was standing directly over him, carrying a metal baseball bat and dressed in jeans and a Stryper T-shirt. She wasn’t wearing black-rimmed eyeglasses as she had been in Dominic’s chapel, and so she was difficult to recognize at first glance, but Allison had no doubt about her identity. Her prissy smile, emotive eyebrows, and slender frame may have seemed unassuming to the casual observer, but Allison could easily distinguish the unique brown-red hue of her hair and the oddly skeletal appearance of her cheekbones.
“Let me guess,” Autumn said, glaring at Allison. “That dipshit sold me out and told you where to find me.”
Allison slowly stepped toward her. “I mean, to be fair, you’ve been selling him out since day one, right? Using him as your scapegoat?”
Autumn laughed and stepped over Aren’s lifeless body. “The Bible is mostly bullshit,” she said, “but there are a few verses that are oddly profound. Like, one of my favorites is Ecclesiastes 5:10. Do you know that one, Allison Lockwood?”
Allison took a step backward. “Sorry, not off the top of my head.”
“‘He that loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loves abundance, with increase.’ You see, that’s how I knew I needed to partner with Dominic. I’ve never met anyone as obsessed with making money as that guy. Present company excluded, of course. But ever since I was a kid and I had to deal with dimwitted preppies in Summerlin, I knew that people obsessed with money are the easiest motherfuckers in the world to manipulate. And it’s okay, because they deserve to be manipulated. I may be a sick fuck, but at least I have no illusions about it. I’m like the spider that eats other bugs. You probably hate spiders and cockroaches, but because of me, you have a lot less roaches to deal with.”
Autumn took two more steps forward, now facing Allison with only five or six feet between them. “So now I’d like to know,” she said, gripping her metal bat in both hands, “why are you constantly up in my shit lately?”
“Because you made it personal,” Allison replied, taking another step back.
“Cassidy Sinclair,” Autumn said. “What a pain in the ass she was. Most people, when deprived of food and water, will drop dead within four or five days. That bitch hung in there for almost seven. By the end, even I was almost rooting for her. She was so sure that someone would come save her that she actually chewed off part of her own lip for sustenance.” Autumn laughed. “I mean, is that psychotic or what? I kind of respect it, I’m not gonna lie. I’ve never had a victim do that before.”
Allison felt her heart sink, and she could barely bring herself to consider the pain, desperation, and loneliness that Cassidy must have felt in her final days. It was all too much to bear, and her thoughts immediately returned to Kristen.
“Where is my niece?” Allison shouted.
“Oh, that ditzy little blonde tart? You know, I usually save my talents for people I can profit from, but in this case, I made an exception, and you only have yourself to blame. You’re the one who made this personal. Are you happy with yourself?”
“Where is she?” Allison screamed.
“She’s in a better place now, if you believe that sort of shit.”
Without thinking, Allison lunged forward, stabbing Autumn in the ribcage with the pointed cap of the umbrella and tackling her to the ground. Autumn responded by swinging her baseball bat repeatedly, finally connecting with Allison’s neck and knocking her onto her back. Autumn jumped to her feet and rushed down the hall.
As Allison used one hand to put pressure against her throbbing neck, she used the other hand to send a text message to Officer Jacobs: “She’s going to kill me. Sammy Davis Tower 1706. Please come quick.” She then tucked the phone back into her pocket and fell flat on the ground, her entire body throbbing in agony.
A few seconds later, Autumn returned. She sauntered casually into the room, carrying a syringe filled with some unfamiliar liquid. Allison thought for a moment, and it quickly occurred to her what the syringe likely consisted of. During their first visit to the house in Henderson, Aren had searched the upstairs medicine cabinet and found a sedative intended for large animals. This was likely how Autumn incapacitated her victims, and Allison was next in line.
Autumn stepped over Allison, syringe in hand, and placed a firm hand on her intended victim’s throat. Right before she could plunge the needle into Allison’s neck, Allison kicked Autumn firmly in the shin, knocking her onto her stomach. The syringe fell from Autumn’s hand and landed on the carpet, right beside Allison’s head.
Still in physical agony, Allison snatched the syringe and pulled it away from Autumn, but Autumn responded by grabbing Allison’s wrist and squeezing it tightly, supposedly in the hopes of forcing Allison to drop the needle. Allison stood her ground, and the two engaged in a fierce game of tug-of-war as Aren remained unconscious just a couple of feet away.
“You’ve already lost,” Allison shouted, struggling to break free from Autumn’s tight grip. “The police are on their way, you fucking bitch. It’s over.”
Upon hearing those words, Autumn released her grip, kicked Allison into the wall, and scrambled out the front door, disappearing from sight.
“Are you fucking serious?” Allison groaned.
She crawled over to Aren, flipped him over, and placed a hand on his heart. It was still beating. She then checked his pulse, which was also responsive. His head was swollen but his bleeding was minimal; she was convinced he’d survive another day. Now she had to attend to more important matters. She jumped to her feet and staggered out of the apartment just in time to see the emergency exit door at the end of the hall swing shut. Autumn was taking the stairs.
Tucking the diary into her back pocket, Allison raced after her, bursting into the stairwell and circling down flight after flight of stairs. She chased after the echoes of Autumn’s footsteps, but not once did she catch a glimpse of the woman. Autumn was just too fast, her head start too great.
By the time she reached the bottom of the stairwell, Allison was sweating, panting, and completely out of breath. She felt as though she had been punched hard in the kidney, but she didn’t slow down. She kicked through the door separating the stairwell from the ground-floor hallway, and raced across the tiles toward the emergency exit that was now slowly swinging shut.
Outside, she felt a blast of frigid air and heard the sounds of laughter and cheering on Las Vegas Boulevard. Even on Tuesday night, the Strip was alive with activity. She raced across the landscaped courtyard in front of the tower and stopped on the crowded sidewalk, looking both ways and scanning the brightly lit hotels. Dozens of people squeezed past her, but Autumn was nowhere to be found.
30
Kristen awoke with a painful headache. A glint of moonlight shone through the sole tiny window above her head, so she knew it was still night. She tried to sit up, but a series of tight straps held her body in place. She wriggled fiercely but was unable to move. Looking down, she saw that she was strapped to a narrow blue hospital bed, like the kind that restrained dangerous mental patients in horror movies. She cried out and looked around the room. It was a narrow room with a pointed, brown ceiling. In an instant, she knew exactly where she was: the attic of the house.
She used every ounce of strength to try and move the bed, but it was no use. She was practically mummified by the straps. She looked to her left and found a message written on the wall in black paint, faintly spotlighted by the beam of moonlight. It read, “I can hear you. If you scream, I will set y
ou on fire.”
Kristen began to weep, the tears cascading down the sides of her face. She prayed to God, begging for a miracle. She had a powerful feeling that she would not survive the night, and so, not knowing what else to do, she prayed that God would forgive her sins. For not being kinder to Grandma, for thinking those sinful thoughts about Trevor Finn, for sometimes wishing she didn’t have to get up so early for church. “Father, please forgive me,” she cried aloud through the tears. “And please protect Aunt Allison.”
31
Allison pushed past the hordes of drunken revelers on Las Vegas Boulevard. She ignored every “Hey!” and “Fuck you!” as she knocked her way past half-naked college girls, stumbling frat boys, and even the occasional old lady in a motor scooter. She knew, almost for certain, that Autumn’s shadow had drifted in this direction, northbound past the bright lights of the Planet Hollywood.
When she reached the half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, directly in front of the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, she caught a glimpse of a familiar, dark-haired woman jogging past the valet and into the south-side entrance doors. Allison raced after her.
Once inside, she scanned the crowded casino. The digital bells of slot machines echoed through the massive, ornate resort, and cheers roared from the massive sportsbook off in the distance. Allison weaved past the dense crowds of people, card tables, and video poker machines, and sprinted around the perimeter of the restaurant at the foot of the Eiffel Tower—which happened to be inside the casino.
When she reached the opposite end of the tower, she found a small lounge where several busy bartenders served drinks to a largely business-oriented crowd. Seated at one of the tables, ordering a drink from a middle-aged cocktail waitress, was none other than Autumn Noble. She smiled and cracked a joke with the waitress, then leaned back in her chair and watched the piano player as the woman departed to collect her drink.
Allison slowly made her way to the lounge and stopped directly behind Autumn. “Mind if I sit down?” she asked, expecting Autumn to burst out of her seat and run for dear life.
But Autumn did no such thing. She remained still, her eyes fixed on the piano player. “Please,” she said, gesturing toward the empty chair directly across from her. “I ordered you a Jack and Coke, I hope that’s okay. You don’t strike me as the Cosmo type.”
Allison opened her mouth to argue, but she was caught off guard by Autumn’s nonchalance. She started and abandoned three sentences before finally saying, “Where’s my fucking niece?”
Autumn turned to her and smiled. She closed her eyes, apparently absorbing the classical piano music. “I love this song,” she said. “Emperor’s Hymn by Haydn. I wanted to learn how to play it when I was little, but Mom couldn’t afford piano lessons. Or a piano.”
Using both hands, Allison grabbed a massive chunk of Autumn’s hair and pulled, cocking the woman’s neck back. “Where is my fucking niece?” she repeated through gritted teeth, glaring furiously into Autumn’s eyes.
Autumn just smiled, seeming to enjoy the aggression. “Sit down,” she said as though trying to calm a frustrated child. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Honest.”
Reluctantly, Allison walked across the table and sat across from her, glowering. The two women stared at one another in silence for several seconds, and then the cocktail waitress returned. The waitress placed two drink glasses on the table, one in front of Allison and one in front of Autumn. Autumn thanked the waitress.
“Do you really expect me to drink this?” Allison asked, staring at the dark-colored beverage in front of her.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Autumn said, reaching across the table and sipping from Allison’s glass. “Happy now? I told you, it’s Jack and Coke. You really should learn to relax a little.”
“Where’s my fucking niece?”
Autumn sighed and took a drink from her own apparently-whiskey-based concoction. “She’s alive, I can promise you that. Honestly, I don’t even want her. She’s not the type I usually go after at all.”
“Then why’d you take her?”
“Because you stuck your nose where it didn’t belong,” Autumn said, her cheery demeanor growing suddenly dark. “You ever read the Bible, Allison Lockwood? Adam and Eve let their curiosity get the best of them, and their children had to pay the price along with all future generations. Your sins, too, have a ripple effect. You cross me, and I make sure you’re not the only one who suffers for it.”
“Sorry, I’m not much of a churchgoer.” Allison quietly slid her phone out of her pocket, concealed it beneath the table, and clicked her text conversation with Officer Jacobs.
The officer had already replied to her previous plea with the words “on my way - hang tight.” The message had been sent twelve minutes earlier. Feeling a surge of hope, Allison tapped out the words “i’ve got her @ paris hotel. Lounge by eiffel tower. Please hurry.” She clicked the “Send” button.
Apparently not noticing Allison’s activity, Autumn took another drink from her glass. “Oh, you’re really missing out. If you like scamming New Age hippies, you should try Jesus people. They’re so ridiculously easy to manipulate, I almost feel bad about it.”
“And yet my Christian niece saw right through your bullshit ministry,” Allison shot back. She took a swig of her drink just to taunt Autumn.
Autumn frowned. “She’s a good kid. I’m going to miss her.”
“She’s fifteen years old,” Allison spat. “Just tell me where she is, and I’ll pretend I never met you.”
Autumn smiled. “Oh, sweetie, do you really think I’ve evaded arrest for so long by being naive? Because of you, I now have to leave town again, and I really like this town. I think Las Vegas may be the best city on Earth. But now it’s time to get going. Thank you for sharing this last drink with me.” She gulped down all the liquid remaining in her glass.
“I do like you,” Autumn continued, “and maybe it’s just the alcohol talking, but I’m going to give you a chance to find her before it’s too late. It will be like a fun little treasure hunt. I’ll give you a clue, and then it’s up to you to find her.”
“Just tell me where she is!” Allison shouted.
“If you want to know how to find her, just check your boyfriend’s bag of tricks. It’s been a pleasure knowing you, Allison Lockwood.” She then rose to her feet.
Allison jumped out of her chair. “Just wait,” she said, desperate to stall her long enough for Officer Jacobs to arrive. “Just sit down for a minute and let’s talk this out. I’m not going to get security. I’m not going to scream. I just want to know why you do this stuff. What are you trying to accomplish? Please just tell me. Give me some closure on this.”
Autumn smiled and sat down. “You’re an atheist, aren’t you?” she said.
“I guess,” Allison replied. “So what?”
“So I don’t have to explain to you how evolution works. This is survival of the fittest, my love. For over four billion years, life on this planet has adapted, survived, and grown ever more complex. And how did we do it? Definitely not through mercy and kindness. The Bible is full of lies, Allison Lockwood, but do you know the biggest one?”
Allison shook her head.
Autumn smiled. “‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.’ That comes right from the sermon on the fucking mount. But guess what? The meek never, ever inherit the Earth. We have four billion years of data to back that up. Mankind rose to the top of the food chain because we figured out how to build cages and wield fire. Then America rose to the top of the human power structure because we built weapons of mass destruction and showed the world that we’re not afraid to use them. The strong eat, the meek get eaten. You see where I’m going with this?”
“So you’re just a marvel of evolution,” Allison said, casually glancing around the casino in the hopes of seeing Officer Jacobs.
“I’m just an animal like any other sentient being on this Earth. But unlike most people, I haven’t been brai
nwashed into buying the myth that humanity is made stronger by adhering to arbitrary codes of ethics. Tell a lion to live with honor, and he and his cubs both starve. I’m sort of a lion in my own right. When I was a kid, we would go days at a time with no food because Mom’s food stamps only went so far. Today, I eat caviar like M&Ms. Survival of the fittest, my love.”
Allison felt a painful contraction in her stomach. “You think that killing in cold blood is just survival of the fittest? You’re not a Darwinist. You’re just a vile sociopath. You’re completely incapable of human empathy and you’re obsessed with killing just for the sake of killing. You’re not a lion. You’re a dog with rabies. You think you’re ahead of the evolutionary curve? Fuck you. You’re an evolutionary defect. You have any idea what we do to rabid dogs?” Allison gripped her rib cage as the pain in her stomach grew stronger.
Autumn smiled. “What’s the matter, my love? Feeling a little under the weather?”
Allison swallowed hard, feeling as though she were about to projectile-vomit all over the table. “What the fuck did you do to me?”
“I just think it’s hilarious that we’re both sitting here trying to kill time,” Autumn said. “You think someone’s going to come arrest me, and I’m just waiting for the ipecac to kick in.”
“Ipecac?” Allison echoed. Beads of sweat were forming on her forehead.
“Yeah, ipecac. It causes really intense vomiting. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find nowadays. But I actually found a guy who manufactures it in capsule form. Thank goodness for the dark web, right? That’s where I get all my best candy. But you know, for someone who’s fucking a famous magician, you sure don’t have much of an eye for sleight of hand.”
The Devil's Lullaby Page 24
