by Skylar Finn
Cynthia disconnected the call, and it took everything she had not to hurl her phone into the pool. A niece. Matilda had a niece. She left the house to her niece.
Cynthia swung her legs over the side of the deck chair and lurched unsteadily to her feet. She practically ran across the hot cement, nearly colliding with the server, who was returning with her drink.
“Give me that. Charge it to the room. Thanks.”
Cynthia tossed the drink back in a few gulps, which was probably unadvisable under the circumstances, but who knew how long it would be until she’d get another Mai Tai? She took one last wistful look around the gorgeous pool deck and the infinity pool that seemed to disappear right into the endlessly blue ocean. Then she retreated into the dark air-conditioned catacomb of her room.
She’d just have to book a flight immediately, that was all. And when she got back, she’d deal with this little hiccup, the same way she dealt with Matilda.
She’d already gotten rid of four people, what was one more?
Cynthia regarded her old trailer with dismayed revulsion. She thought she’d never be back here again. After the Caymans, this seemed like a long way to fall.
She dumped her bag inside and opened the window in the back bedroom to air the place out. She couldn’t stay here, of course; she was supposed to be dead, after all. She’d have to go to Theresa’s: the only thing worse than this. Cynthia sighed with despair.
How many more people would get in her way? Would this be it, or would more of Matilda’s relatives appear out of the woodwork when she got rid of this one? What if they were like the brooms in Fantasia, and just kept multiplying the harder she tried to get rid of them?
Cynthia told herself firmly not to think that way. She couldn’t afford to, this late in the game. She would just have to see it through: eliminate the latest opposition, and the rest would fall into place.
She took one last look of revulsion around the tiny prison she once thought she’d never again call home before she turned the light out and pulled the door shut firmly behind her.
Cynthia stood in the dark yard outside of the house. She’d parked the next block over and snuck onto the property to see what she was up against.
The night was cold, and she raised the collar of her jacket as she stared into the parlor window. It was bright and warm inside, and a woman just a few years shy of Cynthia’s age leaned over to study the picture that hung on the wall over the telephone table. She was the only thing that stood between Cynthia and her final goal: the niece. Oh, excuse her: great niece. Whatever that even meant.
The niece looked up, glancing at the window. She looked startled. Cynthia quickly ducked out of sight and crawled under the window out of her eye line. She didn’t think she could be seen outside in the dark with all the lights on inside the house, but maybe she had been wrong. No matter. It changed nothing.
Perhaps she’d simply think she saw a ghost.
30
Richard told Emily he kept a shotgun behind the seat of his truck and a forty-five in the glove compartment. Emily found she was not especially surprised to learn that Richard was armed. She could easily picture him shooting at raccoons for getting into his garbage. She realized she was unable to imagine Richard’s house, because she’d never seen it.
“Richard, where do you live, anyway?” she asked him as they walked from the house to his truck. “This whole time we’ve known you, we never asked you anything about yourself.”
“I live up in the mountains,” said Richard. He opened the passenger side door for her, and Emily climbed in. “I know exactly where that address is: it’s in the middle of nowhere. They certainly picked a spot, all right.”
Emily imagined going into a dark place in the middle of nowhere with a murderer and expecting to emerge unscathed. “I don’t know. Maybe we should call the cops. How would she know? I just have a bad feeling about all of this.”
“Do you really want to take that risk?” Richard asked.
Emily thought of the picture of Jesse and shook her head. “No, no I don’t.”
“All right, then.” Richard put the truck into drive and pulled away from the house. “Let’s hit the road.”
Emily stared out the window as Richard drove out of town to the steep streets that led into the mountains. She thought of Jesse and whether or not he was okay. What would they find when they arrived? Was there any way for them to make it out of this alive?
Richard pulled the truck to a stop at the bottom of a steep hill. Just barely visible among the trees was a steep, narrow trail. The mailbox at the bottom displayed the numbers of the address Cynthia had sent Emily.
“You go up first,” said Richard. “I’ll wait down here for a few minutes, so they see you and think you’re alone, then follow.”
Emily hesitated before getting out. “What if she already killed Jesse? What if she’s waiting till I get there to kill me as soon as she sees me?”
“If she did that, how would she get the house?” said Richard reasonably.
“Okay.” Emily took a deep breath and then put her hand on the door.
“Wait.” Richard reached into his glove compartment and handed her his forty-five. Emily had never held a gun in her life. “Have you ever fired one of these before?”
“No,” Emily admitted.
“Then only use it if you have to,” said Richard. He showed her how to hold it and how to pull the hammer back. “Once you do that, keep your finger off the trigger till you’re ready to fire.”
“Okay,” said Emily. She concealed the gun in the waistband of her jeans beneath her jacket and got out of the truck, closing the door behind her as quietly as she could without looking back. She felt certain if she so much as looked at Richard again, she would lose her nerve and become paralyzed, unable to leave the truck. Only the thought of Jesse kept her moving forward.
The light was rapidly fading, and Emily could barely make out the steep rocky trail among the trees, but she was reluctant to shine a light and alert whoever might be at the top of the hill, waiting for her.
Emily climbed the trail until the sky was black with night and she was out of breath and winded. Just when she was beginning to wonder if this was all a set up and Cynthia had simply lured her up here to kill her in the woods, she reached a plateau. She could just barely make out the silhouette of an aging wooden structure. It looked like an old log cabin built by hand. The building looked like it had weathered many a storm.
There were no lights on inside, at least none that Emily could see. She approached the front door cautiously and knocked.
“Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Emily felt a cold metal muzzle press into the back of her neck and froze. She hadn’t heard anyone behind her. Had she been waiting on the porch for her to arrive?
“I said put your hands where I can see them! That’s it. Nice and high,” the voice continued. It was a couple octaves lower than the voice on the phone, but familiar nonetheless.
“Theresa?” said Emily, confused.
The muzzle immediately jabbed her in the neck again and Emily regretted saying anything at all. “You were expecting maybe Bugs Bunny?” said Theresa. “Open the door. It’s unlocked.”
Emily turned the knob and pushed the door in with an ominous creak.
“Walk,” Theresa ordered her. “Slowly.”
Emily squinted into the darkness, trying not to trip as she looked around to see if Jesse was there. She couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her face.
The footsteps behind her paused briefly and a light in the room switched on. The living room was illuminated. Its bent wood chairs were empty and Jesse was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Jesse?” Emily demanded.
“Pipe down, and maybe I’ll tell you,” said Theresa. “Sit in that chair and keep your hands on your head. Good.”
Emily obediently sat in the chair Theresa indicated with her hands placed on the top of her head. She glanced around the room f
rantically, her eyes sweeping the room and taking inventory: there was a fireplace and a rug in front of the hearth, but no Jesse.
“What did you do with him?” she said, her voice breaking.
Theresa came around from behind her and sat in the chair across from Emily’s. She kept her gun trained on Emily’s face.
Theresa rolled her eyes. “He’s fine. I got him tied up in the back and gagged. You can see him in a minute. Do you have the deed?”
Emily was mad enough to spit. Part of her didn’t believe Jesse was alive and wished Theresa would just shoot her and get it over with. “No, I don’t have the deed yet. It’s a process; it has to be transferred.”
“I know that!” snapped Theresa. “I’m not stupid.”
Emily had concluded a number of contradictory opinions regarding Theresa’s intelligence, but her gun was still aimed at Emily’s head, so she remained silent.
“Did you talk to the lawyer?” Theresa demanded. “Watkins? What’d he say?”
“He said he was taking care of it,” said Emily. “I want to see Jesse.”
Theresa snorted. “I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands, do you?” She took out her phone, scrolled through it briefly, and tapped one of her contacts. “Hello? I’ve got her here. Did you talk to him? Well, why didn’t anyone tell me? No one tells me anything. Fine.”
Theresa hung up and sighed huffily. “Looks like you’re telling the truth.” Emily wondered briefly if she would shoot her on the spot. “According to my instructions, it’s time for a little reunion.” Theresa stood, with the gun still trained on Emily, and approached her as she reached into her coat pocket. Emily flinched. Theresa took out a large roll of duct tape and wound it around Emily’s wrists and then her ankles. “Just so you don’t get any funny ideas.” Theresa left the room, disappearing through a darkened doorway, and Emily stared after her, both hopeful and terrified.
She strained at her restraints, but Theresa had wrapped the duct tape too tightly. She shifted around to see if she could still reach the gun at her hip. It was just out of reach.
There was a scuffling sound in the hallway off the dark doorway and Emily looked up in fear. Theresa came back through the doorway, pushing Jesse in front of her. He was gagged and badly beaten, his hands tied. Theresa kept the gun aimed at the back of his head.
“Jesse!” Emily tried to get up and immediately fell.
Theresa rolled her eyes. She shoved Jesse onto the couch and then grabbed Emily by her hair, dragging her across the floor as Emily yelled in pain. She tossed her on the couch next to Jesse.
“Jesse, are you okay?” Emily asked him breathlessly.
He looked terrible. One eye was swollen shut, his lip was cut, and his face was purple with dark bruises. He looked at her with his one good eye and made a series of frantic, muffled noises.
“What did you do?” Emily wanted to throw herself from the couch onto Theresa, but she knew it wouldn’t do either her or Jesse any good.
“What did I do? I didn’t even touch him,” said Theresa dismissively. “I don’t do any of that stuff. I’m not the one who worked him over, so quit looking at me like I’m the devil himself. Not like you’re going to do anything about it, anyway.”
Jesse was still trying to say something to Emily until Theresa turned the gun on him. He stopped.
“That’s better,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “You just keep quiet over there till we get through this. Then you can run that gob of yours all you want.”
“Why are you doing this?” asked Emily. “Who are we to you? How do you know Cynthia? How do we know you’re not going to kill us?”
Theresa shrugged. “You don’t. I guess you’ll just have to hope for the best.” She laughed loudly, as if they were a sitcom she found amusing. “As for why, I thought that would be obvious. For the money, of course. Which reminds me.” She frowned as if thinking hard, then reached under her chair and withdrew a small flight bag. “I’m going to leave this here for you, and then I’m going to go. By the time you get loose or get anyone up here, we’ll be long gone, the house will be ours, and either you can take the money and live happily ever after with your mouths shut, or you can try to get the house back and tell the sheriff all about who the bad guys are, and then we’ll come back and kill you. It’s pretty simple, right?”
“You’re just going to leave us here?” said Emily, staring at Theresa. “We’ll freeze to death.”
“I’ll build you a fire first,” said Theresa. She sounded insulted, as if Emily had called her character into question. “I don’t need some hiker stumbling across your dead frozen popsicle bodies all tied up in the spring. Think I’m stupid? And if you’re dumb enough not to be able to get out of a little bit of duct tape in time not to starve to death, that’s your own fault.” Theresa turned and started piling logs in the hearth. “I’ll make sure it’s a nice big one. That should give you a little bit of time, don’t you think?”
“Theresa,” Emily said, the wheels in her mind turning. Theresa didn’t sound nearly as crazy as Cynthia had when she called her on Jesse’s phone. Maybe Emily could reason with her. “What are you getting out of this? What is Cynthia doing for you?”
Theresa shook her head, pursing her lips. “It’s not about what Cynthia’s doing for me, it’s about what I do for Cynthia. She figures out everything and takes care of things, and I just do what I’m told. Same way it’s always been, same way it will always be.”
“Yeah, but how do you know she’ll follow through?” Emily asked. “What if she’s lying to you?”
Theresa frowned. “Well, she has to, doesn’t she?” she said. “That’s what family’s for.”
Emily studied Theresa’s profile as she arranged the logs: pale like Cynthia, but with a light smattering of freckles across her upturned nose, long pale hair that caught in a wild snarl down her back. The resemblance to the woman in the photo that hung in Matilda’s parlor was faint but unmistakable. “You’re sisters?”
“Unfortunately. I can’t say we like each other much, but we’re definitely stuck with each other.” Now that her duty was nearly done, she didn’t seem to mind chatting with Emily like an old friend. She sat back on her heels and surveyed the fireplace. “This looks pretty good. Sun will come up by the time this goes out, so you’ll just have to work yourselves loose by sunset tomorrow.”
“Are you really going to let us go?” asked Emily. “Meaning, we’ll never see or hear from either of you, ever again?”
Theresa looked at her, puzzled. “Well I mean, yeah, why would you? You take the money. You keep your mouths shut. Everyone lives happily ever after. End of story.”
“But you killed Matilda,” said Emily. “And the kids. What’s to stop you from killing us?”
Theresa’s eyes clouded over. “I told you. I didn’t do any of that. I don’t hurt people, I just do what I’m told. Nobody wants to explain why you two are dead or missing on top of that old lady and those kids, okay? We just want the house, free and clear, and we want you to be alive to answer a few phone calls if anybody gets curious or suspicious, and that’s it.” Her expression cleared as she turned back to the fireplace. She doused the rolled-up newspaper underneath a log with lighter fluid and lit it with a long match from a box on the hearth. “There you go! Let there be light.” Theresa watched the fire glowing with a happy expression.
Emily stared at her. It was like talking to a child. She didn’t sound like a lunatic, but she seemed no better acquainted with reality than Cynthia. Emily concluded that Theresa not only did whatever she was told, but she also believed whatever she was told.
Theresa got up and gave a bored stretch, as if this much work was more taxing than what she was accustomed to.
“I’ll just go lock up so the bears don’t get in and eat the two of you, and that’s the last you’ll see of me,” she said. “I have to be across town to get all the fancy stuff out of the house while we wait for the legal stuff to go through. Hope you weren’t
too attached to any of it.” She laughed, then turned and disappeared through the doorway.
Emily turned to Jesse and whispered as softly as she could manage. “I have a gun in the waistband of my jeans. If we can just get loose, we can get to it. Richard brought me here and he should be on his way up. If we can just—” Emily shrugged her coat off and tilted her hip toward Jesse, revealing the gun.
Jesse just shook his head at her, his one good eye wide. He made a series of muffled sounds, then looked in the direction Theresa disappeared and stopped. He wiggled across the couch to Emily and immediately began tugging at her duct tape bonds with his bound hands.
“What is it? Wait, hold still. Maybe I can get that off with my teeth.” Emily leaned forward and tried to pull the edge of the duct tape over his mouth without biting him, but it was stuck in his beard.
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” Theresa came back in the room and cackled loudly as she saw them. “Making a valiant start, I see. It’s going to be awhile though, just so you know. There’s one thing I’m good at, it’s duct tape.” She walked past them toward the front door. Emily heard a long creak and a click.
“Jess, I don’t think she’s coming back,” said Emily. “Richard should be here any—”
There was another long, loud creak from the front door, and Emily thought wildly that Theresa had come back, she was going back on her word and returning to kill them. Emily reached for the gun, thinking that if she could only separate her hands just enough to hold it, she could defend them. Next to her, every muscle in Jesse’s body seemed to tense.
“Oh my,” said a voice behind them. “What did they do to you folks?”
Emily sagged against the couch with relief. Richard. She turned to see him standing in the middle of the living room, regarding them with wide eyes. He looked from the two of them, tied up on the couch, to the bag of money in front of the fireplace, taking it in.
