Allison took three steps back as Autumn’s furious mother emerged from the driver’s seat gripping what looked like a long, metal crowbar. On closer inspection, it was a fully extended steering wheel lock similar to The Club.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Allison gasped aloud as the woman marched toward her.
“You think you can just destroy everything my baby built?” the woman shrieked. “I’ll see you in Hell.”
Allison backed away from the woman. “In case you haven’t noticed, your baby just abandoned you. Your license plate is on every camera in this garage, and she knows the cops are coming for you. Don’t you get it? You’re just her diversion. Everything she does is calculated. She doesn’t give a shit about you. She only cares about herself.”
The woman bit her lip and made a run toward Allison, screaming and furiously swinging her weapon. Allison ducked to avoid the metal rod, and attempted in vain to grab it from her hands.
The woman swung the weapon again, and this time Allison ducked and lunged at her midsection, tackling her to the ground and causing her to drop the steering wheel lock.
Allison placed all of her weight on the tiny woman and clenched her throat with both hands, causing her to choke.
“Tell me where my niece is,” Allison screamed, “or so help me, I’ll smash your trachea to fucking dust. I swear to Christ.”
As the woman choked and cursed, Allison leaned in with all her weight, pressing her thumbs tightly against the woman’s throat. After about a minute, the woman closed her eyes and stopped moving. Her arms fell lifelessly to the concrete, and her mouth hung wide open.
Allison knew the woman was still alive because she could feel her heartbeat and the pulse in her neck. More difficult to determine was whether the woman had passed out or was just playing possum.
Allison kept one hand on the woman’s throat and used her opposing arm to reach for the steering wheel lock, which was lying on the ground about three feet away. She curled her fingers around the rubber handle and slowly dragged it toward her, careful not to loosen her grip on the woman’s neck.
Just as she lifted the steering wheel lock from the ground, she felt two surprisingly strong hands grab her throat, causing her to drop the weapon. The woman’s eyes were now wide open, and she was squeezing Allison’s neck with every ounce of strength she could muster.
Allison swung her free hand toward the woman’s throat, but her fingers instead connected with the woman’s mouth. The woman opened her mouth and bit down as hard as she could on Allison’s pinky and ring fingers, locking her jaw like an attacking dog. Allison cried out, released her hand from the woman’s throat, and punched her repeatedly in the face. But the woman did not let go. The pain was excruciating. Allison was certain the woman would dislodge her fingers. All she could do was scurry onto her side and continue punching the woman’s face.
She delivered an open-handed strike directly to the bridge of the woman’s nose, and finally the woman released her grip and rolled over onto her side, crying out.
Allison jumped to her feet and examined her throbbing fingers. They were punctured and bloody, but she could still move them and feel pressure in her fingertips.
The woman, her face now bloodied, grabbed the steering wheel lock and thrust it forward with both hands into Allison’s ankle as though launching a pinball. Allison dropped to her knees and cried out. She attempted to scurry away, but the woman was already back on her feet. She swung the lock at Allison’s forehead, knocking her onto her side. Now, on top of everything else, Allison’s head was swollen and throbbing. She rolled over to a crawling position and scurried to put as much space between herself and the woman as possible.
“Come back here, bitch,” the woman shouted, marching after her. “You fuck with me and my family, and I’m gonna make sure your dead carcass is spread across this pavement.” She swung the lock hard, and the hooked end connected with Allison’s spine, knocking her flat onto her stomach. Allison cried out.
The woman swung the lock again. This time Allison rolled out of the way, narrowly missing the metal as it connected with the concrete.
Allison could hear the sound of a car slowly making its way up the ramp to the roof level. Perhaps this car would be her salvation. She scurried slowly away from the woman, just trying to buy a few more seconds.
Apparently sensing that her time was limited, the woman furiously swung the lock at Allison’s head, hitting her twice. The car pulled up to the roof level, drifted down a distant row of cars, and disappeared from sight.
Allison screamed out for help, but her cry was cut short as the metal bar smacked her again on the side of her skull. Her head was pounding, she was completely disoriented, and she once again felt like she might vomit. She knew she was in the throes of a severe concussion, and she feared she might pass out.
“Time to finish this,” the woman said, reaching into her pocket and retrieving the small stun gun. “Say goodnight, bitch.”
Recalling the severe pain of the electricity, Allison scurried to her feet and tried to run. She was unable. Her intense dizziness and disorientation caused her to nearly collapse with every step, and so she had to move carefully, methodically. This meant the woman had no trouble keeping up as she tailed Allison with the steering wheel lock in one hand and the stun gun in the other.
Just then, Allison heard footsteps coming toward them. Whoever had just driven up to the roof was now walking to the elevators. Allison and her attacker both turned to look. Emerging from between rows of cars were two twenty-something women in cocktail dresses.
“Is everything okay?” one of the women asked.
Allison considered crying out for help, but then she noticed an opportunity. The woman’s back was now turned to her, and she appeared confounded as to what to do next. Without hesitating, Allison tiptoed toward her, ripped the steering wheel lock from her hands, and proceeded to beat her senseless with it. She swung left and right like a baseball hitter on a rampage, audibly cracking the woman’s ribs and causing her to collapse to the ground, screaming.
“Get the police,” Allison shrieked, and the two women made a beeline for the elevator. She wasn’t sure if it was to get help or to get away, but she wasn’t worried about it at this point.
Now writhing and bleeding on the ground, the woman attempted to reach Allison’s ankle with the stun gun. Allison moved away and thrust the tip of the steering wheel lock into the woman’s wrist, crushing the bone. The woman screamed at the top of her lungs, but Allison wasn’t finished.
Breathing heavily, Allison circled the woman. “Where’s my fucking niece?” she cried out.
“I don’t know!” the woman screamed.
Allison swung the lock, hitting her again in the ribs. “Wrong fucking answer.”
The woman screamed out. “Go fuck yourself!” she shrieked with tears in her eyes. “Your niece is a prissy little cunt and she deserves to die.” She rolled over onto her side, crying.
Allison lost it. She frantically swung the weapon in every direction, hitting the woman in the face, the forehead, the stomach, the kneecaps. Finally, as she considered the possibility that she herself might become a murderer, she tossed the weapon aside and dropped to her knees, crying.
It was then that she heard the police sirens racing up the ramps toward the roof. The woman beside her was bloodied and broken, but she was alive. Could the same be said for Kristen.
Several police squad cars emerged on the roof, their lights flashing. There were at least six of them, and they didn’t stop until they reached the bloodied spot where Allison and the woman both clung to life.
Allison knew that it didn’t look good for her. She was on her knees, a weapon at her side, while the older woman lay like a fading corpse on the ground, far bloodier and with several broken bones as an added bonus.
Allison looked up to see four police approaching, two with guns drawn. She slowly placed her hands in the air, but a fifth person emerged from the crowd and approac
hed her, throwing his arms around her. It was Aren.
Hugging her tightly, he whispered, “It’s okay. We’re going to get you to a hospital.”
“No!” Allison shouted in his ear. “We have to find Kristen. We have to.”
Two police officers approached and examined Allison, asking her questions. She assured them that she was fine, just a bit banged up. Nevertheless, the next thing she remembered was being lifted onto a stretcher and placed in an ambulance. Now she was certain she had failed Kristen.
32
Twelve hours after being taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, Allison stared at the ceiling and reflected on everything that had happened. Aren had assured her that no charges would be filed against her, as the Flamingo security cameras had corroborated her version of events and demonstrated unmistakable self-defense.
The woman, Marlene Noble, was currently being treated in the same hospital but would likely be spending the rest of her life in prison after cameras caught her murdering a Henderson police officer and then attempting to commit a second murder.
But there was still the matter of Autumn.
“They weren’t able to find her?” Allison asked from her hospital bed.
Aren was seated in a chair just a few feet away. “They saw her on camera running through the hotel and heading out to the crowd on Las Vegas Boulevard. But then she just vanished. They’re still looking into it, though. They’ll find her.”
Allison wasn’t so confident.
“Autumn said something I can’t get out of my head,” she said, turning to Aren. “She said that if I wanted to find Kristen, I should check my boyfriend’s bag of tricks.”
Aren stared at her, contemplating her words. “My bag of tricks?”
“Yeah. What the hell did she mean by that?”
Aren leaned toward her. “Allison, you know I’m not working with her.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’ve been thinking about this for hours. Everything we do leads us back to that house in Henderson, but we never find anything. It reminded me of that one trick in your show. The dollhouse. You open up the house, and it’s empty. But then you spin it around, and someone pops right out of it. How do you do that?”
“It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book,” Aren said. “You just need a really flexible assistant to hide in the attic compartment.”
Allison felt her heart skip a beat. “That house has to have an attic,” she said. “I couldn’t find a door, but I think I know where it is. It was right there the whole time.”
“Where?” Aren asked.
Allison sat up in her bed and picked up Cassidy’s diary from the cabinet beside her. “Listen to this,” she said as she started flipping through the pages. She read aloud: “Dear Mom, I think I’m losing it. Last night I heard noises coming from the hall closet upstairs. So I opened it up and there was a strange book on top of my suitcase. It was some kind of occult demon book. It definitely wasn’t mine. I closed the door and ran away, but then a few minutes later, I went to check it again. I don’t know why. I was freaking out. But when I opened the door again, the book was gone. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear that’s exactly how it happened.”
Aren’s eyes widened. “The hall closet.”
Allison placed the book on top of the cabinet. “I kept reading that passage over and over, trying to figure out what was going on. But it all makes sense now. If we open that closet, we’ll find an entrance to the attic. I know it.”
Allison jumped from the bed, feeling exposed in her thin hospital gown. She rushed over to the gray plastic cabinet against the wall and opened one of the drawers to retrieve the clothes that her mother had brought her the previous night. She had cried hysterically upon seeing her mother, and had made a promise—despite her own skepticism—that she would find Kristen alive. She swore it. Now she would have the chance to find out if she could keep that promise.
Aren politely averted his eyes as she quickly changed right in front of him. Despite the protests of the medical staff, she and Aren hustled across the hallway, out the hospital doors, and into Aren’s rental car, a Ford Fiesta. On short notice, it would have to do.
Aren soared across the highway, but his vehicle still didn’t move as fast as Allison’s beating heart. Her mind was flooded with a million horrific images of what she might find in that attic, and every passing minute felt like an eternity. When they finally reached the house, it was quiet and empty. The crumbling facade greeted them with cobwebs and a broken line of police tape that dangled from the wall near the doorway.
Before Aren could even put the car in park, Allison leapt from her seat and barreled across the lawn as fast as her legs would carry her. She kicked open the broken front door, screamed out Kristen’s name, and flew up the stairs three at a time. So much adrenaline was pumping through her veins that she could no longer feel any trace of the pain that had been inflicted upon her the previous night.
She opened the closet door, looked up at the ceiling, and saw nothing that might indicate an entrance. Still, she raced into one of the guest bedrooms, grabbed a computer chair from behind a desk, and rolled it into the hall closet. She hopped onto the chair, reached both arms above her head, and pushed the ceiling as hard as she could.
It lifted effortlessly, revealing itself to be a single square panel that covered the length and width of the closet. If a person hadn’t known it was there, they would likely never have found it. Allison cried out Kristen’s name again, and this time she heard a groan coming from inside the attic. Her heart skipped a beat.
She placed her fingertips on the floor of the attic and felt a pile of rope. She pulled at it, and a narrow but sturdy rope ladder dropped before her. She climbed the ladder and entered the attic, stunned that such a spacious and fully appointed room could have been hidden in this home. Above her head was a block-and-tackle system complete with pulleys, ropes, and fixed blocks for lifting large objects—or people—into the attic. There was a bed, a desk, a computer, a TV, even a large patterned area rug to really bring the whole murder room together.
And Kristen.
In a far corner of the room was a blue restraint bed, its straps fully locked in place. Lying flat on the bed, trapped with no hope of movement, was Kristen. She was sweating, she was dazed, but she was moving. She craned her neck and looked at Allison, her mouth wide open but her eyes barely so. She looked like she had lost several pounds.
Allison scurried toward her, tears streaming down her face. She struggled with the straps, cursing how tight they were, but one by one she removed them all. After removing the first strap, she began to cry tears of joy. With the second strap, her tears were complemented with laughter. With the third strap, she took a deep breath and managed to quell the weeping. For a moment.
When the fourth strap was released and Kristen’s limbs were freed, Allison pressed her face against Kristen’s chest and sobbed loudly, passionately, uncontrollably. The tears seemed to pour from her very soul, if only she believed in souls. It was a feeling of simultaneous pain, joy, and relief, and it felt like every single neurotransmitter in her brain was firing on all cylinders.
Though still very weak, Kristen slowly lifted her arm and patted Allison on the back of the head.
Allison raised her head, wiped her eyes, and kissed Kristen on the cheek. Kristen’s eyes were opened a bit wider, and she was smiling. “I knew you’d find me,” she said in a soft, hoarse whisper. “I prayed for it.”
Allison laughed and hugged her niece. “I don’t know if you still want to come live with me,” she said, “but if you do, I promise it gets easier.”
Kristen sat up and hugged her aunt gently. “Did I earn the money for Disney World yet?”
Allison laughed again, tears still streaming down her face. “I think you’ve earned the keys to the fucking castle.”
Epilogue
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: You can’t hide forever
Autumn
Hey Autumn,
I know you’re probably still trolling Dominic’s email, so I figured this is probably the best way to reach you. In case you’re hiding out in a spider hole somewhere, I thought I’d give you a quick update on everything that’s happened in the six weeks since you ran out like a little bitch.
To pretty much sum it up: you lose.
Sorry, but absolutely nothing has worked out in your favor. I almost feel bad for you.
The mother you ditched is now rotting in a jail cell and will probably spend the rest of her life behind bars if she doesn’t get the death penalty.
My niece Kristen, the girl you intended as your most recent victim, is now safely at home in my care. She has recovered fully, and amazingly, the whole experience hasn’t shaken her sunny optimism one bit.
In a surprising twist, Dominic is now under investigation and may face serious prison time if he’s believed to have been an accomplice in your killing spree. I may actually have to testify on that weasel’s behalf, so thanks a lot.
Remember Cassidy Sinclair? You tormented her, killed her, and tried to keep her story from getting out. Again, you failed. I took the diary from your apartment and, if you’ve been following the news, you know how it all turned out. I’m the one who sent the excerpts to the Las Vegas Sun, and now the whole town is talking about the evil, abusive celebrity chef Jack Sinclair. He’s been sacked from his own company, forced into hiding, and he may even face criminal charges. The whole story is making international headlines now that the world knows his daughter was killed by the notorious Sin City Slayer (honestly, I’m amazed you kept that under wraps as long as you did).
The diary itself is now where it belongs, in the hands of Cassidy’s mother. I made sure of it. It may not get rid of her pain, but it will give her much-needed closure. Despite the unspeakable misery you inflicted on that girl, she’s getting the outcome she fought for: justice for her father and peace with her mother. You lose.
The Devil's Lullaby Page 26
