But there’s still one chance. One last hope.
The panic button.
It’s only across the hall, but in her state—with a bullet wound in her head, a deep cut in her neck, and a dozen or more stab wounds on her back and shoulders—it might as well be on the moon.
She has to try.
Chapter 31
Andrew Schmuhl unscrews the cap on the can of gasoline and tosses it aside.
He pours a stream of the liquid onto the foyer floor and begins to make a trail through the house. He enters the kitchen and pours some on the stovetop and the kitchen table. He splashes gas on the novel lying on the table. He pours some on the blackened casserole dish in the sink.
He makes his way to the living room where he dumps gasoline all over the big L-shaped couch and the recliner. He douses the lamps and the big rug on the floor.
The air around him quickly smells of chemicals, and Andrew feels euphoric. He can’t tell if it’s because of the fumes or because he’s so happy to be doing what he’s doing.
Or both.
Leo is lying on the floor where the living room meets the hallway. Andrew heads that way, planning to douse Leo’s body with gasoline, but he was too enthusiastic with his pouring earlier. There’s hardly any gas left.
He stands over Leo and flings a few droplets onto his body.
It doesn’t matter, Schmuhl thinks. In about thirty seconds, this whole goddamn house is going to be an inferno.
He hopes Leo Fisher wakes up long enough to feel the flames blistering his skin.
When Leo takes his final breath, Schmuhl wants him to taste smoke.
Chapter 32
Sue lowers herself off the bed and stands on wobbly legs.
She puts one hand over the gash in her neck, which seems to be bleeding worse than any of her other injuries. Every movement is painful. Her sweater is matted to her back from all the blood, sticking to her skin like she wore it in the shower. Her vision is muddied by the blood on her glasses. And even though she knows what she needs to do, she can’t seem to get her legs moving.
Finally, she throws one leg forward. Her muscles contort and strain, doing everything they can to keep her from falling over. She lunges forward with the next step and, again, almost falls over.
She feels like a mummy in an old black-and-white horror movie—unable to move with any speed or grace, only barely able to control her own muscle function.
She gets close to the wall, and she flings her arm out for balance. She leans forward and peeks out the bedroom door. The crazy intruder is standing near the entrance to the hallway, looming over Leo, who lies unmoving on the ground.
Sue freezes in place. The tremors in her leg muscles expand into earthquakes. She never knew it could be so difficult to do something as simple as stand upright.
Is that gasoline she smells?
My God, she thinks. What is this maniac going to do? Burn the house down? Hasn’t he done enough?
She wants to give up. Wants to collapse onto the carpet and go to sleep. Leo is already dead, no doubt. What is the point of going on without him?
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees movement. One of their cats—Shout—is standing at the other end of the hallway, near the door to a spare room.
The cat’s eyes are wide. The poor thing is terrified.
I have to go on, Sue thinks. If only to save the cats.
She peeks around the doorway again. This time, the crazy man has his back turned to her. He is walking away.
Sue takes a deep breath and then hurls herself across the hallway to the office, stumbling like a drunk person. When she gets to the other side, she leans against the wall with her back and then hisses in pain when her stab wounds touch the drywall.
She leans on one shoulder, trying to catch her breath, listening to make sure the psychotic man isn’t backtracking to investigate a sound he might have heard.
She eyes the panic button on the other side of the room.
Ten feet away.
To her, it feels like a hundred.
Chapter 33
Andrew Schmuhl strolls through the foyer and arrives at the front door.
He opens the door to a whoosh of cold November air. A stiff breeze has kicked up while he’s been inside.
Andrew sees Alecia waiting for him in the car at the end of the driveway, and looks around to make sure there aren’t any other cars or pedestrians.
All is quiet.
Andrew sets the gas can on the concrete walkway and fishes around in his pocket for a book of matches. It’s an old book he picked up from a bar a couple weeks ago. There are three matches left.
He plucks one from the book and places it along the sandpaper strip. He scratches the match across the rough surface.
Nothing happens.
He does it again and again, but the strip is worn and he can’t get the matchhead to light. Soon the match in his hand is practically shredded, and he discards it in the bushes and grabs another.
Chapter 34
Sue shuffles forward, her breathing heavy, her head pounding, her muscles howling in pain. She’s wheezing loudly. Her throat feels like it’s constricted to the point where air hardly moves through it. Liquid is running down her face, and she isn’t sure if it’s sweat or blood.
She makes it to the desk, but the panic button is on the other side. She puts her hands down for support, smearing bloody handprints on the wood.
She hobbles her way around the desk, but the chair is in the way. On any other day, it wouldn’t present much of an obstacle. But she can hardly move.
She puts her hands out and pushes the chair in, the wounds in her back screeching as she does it.
A couple more steps.
Chapter 35
Andrew gets the second match lit.
“All right,” he says, gleeful.
He holds the match out to drop it on the gas puddle just over the threshold. The breeze pushes at his back and the exposed flame blinks out, leaving a wisp of smoke rising from the blackened matchhead.
“Son of a bitch,” Andrew mutters.
He tugs the last match out of the book and puts it against the rough lighting strip. If this one doesn’t work, it’s not a big deal. He’ll just have to go into the kitchen and find something else to light the gasoline with. But he’s anxious to get out of here.
There are two dead—or near dead—people inside. There’s no sense dilly-dallying.
He scrapes the match across the strip and—success!—a flame appears on the first try. Andrew cups his hand around the match. He doesn’t want it to go out this time.
He kneels toward the puddle of gasoline with the flame.
Chapter 36
Sue takes a deep breath and lunges for the panic button.
Her palm hits it and pushes it inward. For a moment, nothing happens and Sue feels horror overtake her.
And then sirens start to wail through the walls of the house—a loud, deafening sound that under any other circumstances would make a person instantly throw their hands over their ears.
To Sue Duncan, it’s the most beautiful sound she’s ever heard.
Chapter 37
Andrew hears the bleating alarm and jolts upright.
He looks behind him, expecting to see a police cruiser pulling up to the house. Nothing unusual there. He realizes the sound is coming from the inside.
How can that be?
Andrew turns his head and stares inside. He can see Leo from where he stands. The old man is lying on the floor, just where Andrew left him.
Susan must have done it. Somehow she’s still alive.
Well, Andrew thinks, I’ll show you, you crazy bitch.
He moves to drop the match onto the gasoline. But he stops short, disappointment washing over him in a wave.
The flame has gone out.
He hesitates for a moment, unsure what to do. The siren continues to wail. Panic overtakes him. Andrew grabs the empty gas can and runs down the sidewalk to the getaway ca
r.
Chapter 38
Sue’s legs give up their fight, and she plunges to the floor like someone dropping through a trapdoor.
She wants to pass out, but she knows her work isn’t done yet. She reaches with her hand and fumbles around on the top of the desk. When her fingers find the telephone, she pulls it down.
She punches 9-1-1.
“Home invasion,” she says, mustering all her strength to speak.
She tells the dispatcher the address and explains that she and her husband have been shot and stabbed.
“Please save our cats,” she adds, and hangs up the phone.
She gets onto her hands and knees, crawls around the desk, and then blackness overtakes her, pulling her into a deeper sleep than any she’s ever known.
Her body collapses facedown on the carpet.
Chapter 39
“What the hell happened in there?” Alecia screams at Andrew.
Her foot is pinned to the gas pedal. The tires of the Honda SUV squeal as it flies around a corner. In the backseat, Andrew is trying to remove his bloodstained clothes, but Alecia’s driving is throwing him around like a wet sock in a tumble dryer.
“I don’t know,” he says, tearing open his shirt and sending the buttons flying inside the vehicle.
“Who pulled the alarm, Andrew?” Alecia says. “Who in that house is still alive?”
“It must be Sue,” he says. “That crazy bitch is like a cockroach. You can’t kill her.”
“She’s just a little old woman.”
“Hell, I shot her in the head,” Andrew says, trying to pull his T-shirt off over his head.
“It was a perfect plan, and you messed it up,” Alecia says. “Now I’m going to get screwed again.”
Alecia takes another curve, and the direction of the car throws Andrew off balance. As he tries to catch himself, his back muscles tighten and he hisses in pain.
“Will you slow down for Christ’s sake? We don’t want to get pulled over for speeding.”
“We need to get the hell out of here.”
“Drive like normal,” Andrew says. “They don’t know who I am. Neither one of them can identify us. Don’t worry—we’re going to get away with this.”
Alecia says nothing but realizes he has a point. She slows the SUV down. She pulls up to a stoplight and tries to act normal. A Honda Odyssey minivan is sitting in the lane next to them, and Alecia risks a sideways glance at its occupants. A man and woman sit in front, chatting. In the back, a DVD player mounted to the ceiling glows for however many kids are sitting back there. These people suspect nothing, which makes Alecia feel some measure of relief.
In the back, Andrew shoves his bloody shirt and jacket into a black garbage bag. He puts the guns in there, both the Taser and the Cobra. He pulls the Velcro tabs on his sneakers and kicks off the shoes, which are also peppered with droplets of blood.
Andrew tells Alecia to give him her telephone, and when she reaches it back to him, he takes out the SIM card inside and breaks it in half. He does the same to his phone and places the pieces into the garbage bag.
“We need to get rid of this stuff,” he says. “See if you can find a dumpster somewhere.”
He unbuckles his blood-splattered pants and tries to squirm out of them. It’s not easy as pain shoots through his lower back.
Alecia drives on, calmer now.
“Tell me this,” Alecia says. “Did you at least kill Leo?”
“Yeah,” Andrew says. “That son of bitch is dead for sure.”
Chapter 40
Leo Fisher is floating.
He must be dead, levitating up out of his body, passing through his living room and into the foyer like a ghost.
There are people walking near him, all of them in uniform. EMTs at his head and feet. A police officer walking next to him. The cop’s mouth is moving, but Leo hears no words. All he can hear is strange breathing—is it his?— like Darth Vader from the Star Wars movies.
He floats through his front door and down his walkway. He sees flashing lights—red and blue—reflecting off the tree branches overhead.
Leo remembers, all at once, what happened. Andrew Schmuhl zapping him with the Taser, stabbing him with the knife, shooting and stabbing Sue.
Leo realizes what’s happening.
He’s not floating. He’s on a stretcher.
His strange breathing—it’s because of an oxygen mask over his mouth.
He becomes aware of something around his neck—medical tape holding a large bandage to his wound.
The paramedics stop the gurney at the back of an ambulance, but before they load him on, the police officer waves for them to wait. As if he’s just come up from being underwater, Leo can make out what the officer is saying.
“Wait,” the cop says, frantic. “I just need to talk to him for a minute. Leo, can you hear me?”
Leo nods his head as much as he can, which is hardly at all. He reaches up—his arm doesn’t feel like it’s connected to his own body—and pulls the oxygen mask away.
“Where’s Sue?” he asks, his voice hoarse and hardly recognizable.
“She’s alive,” the officer says, pointing.
Leo turns his head slightly to see paramedics loading another stretcher into a different ambulance. For a moment, Leo doesn’t recognize the woman lying prone with an oxygen mask over her face and red paint all over her clothes.
Then he realizes it’s Sue.
“Is she going to be okay?” Leo asks, looking around at the paramedics.
They don’t tell Leo that the first responding officer had to stick his finger into a gash in Sue’s neck to obstruct the blood coming out. Or how shocked the EMTs were by how much blood they found in the house, so much that the first responders think it’s a miracle that either of them—let alone both—are still alive.
They don’t say any of this, and no one mentions that it will take another miracle for Sue to make it through the night.
But the looks on their faces say it all—Sue is in bad shape.
“Oh, Muffy,” Leo says, and he begins to sob.
“Leo,” the officer says, “the EMTs are going to take good care of you and your wife. They’re going to do everything they can. But before you go, I need to know—do you know who attacked you?”
Leo’s sobs stop, and his face turns to steely resolve.
“Andrew Schmuhl,” Leo says.
“Small?”
“Schmuhl,” Leo says again, and then he spells the name. “S-C-H-M-U-H-L.”
The officer writes the name down.
“He held us hostage for three hours,” Leo says. “He tortured us. He tried to kill us both.”
“Do you have any idea why?” the officer asks.
“Revenge.”
Chapter 41
“You’re really firing me?”
Alecia Schmuhl says the words with disbelief in her voice. But Leo isn’t sure why she is surprised. This has been a long time coming.
Leo and Sue are sitting in his office in late October. It’s a beautiful fall day outside, with golden leaves dancing on tree branches in the bright sunlight.
“It’s a decision the partners made,” Leo says. “It’s not just my decision, but I do agree with it. Your job performance just hasn’t been up to par lately.”
This is an understatement. In recent weeks, Alecia has missed appointments with clients, failed to file documents by necessary deadlines, come in late, left early, and has done shoddy work in general. And she’s been on probation for months after she tried to file paperwork for a home mortgage stating that her husband—a man Leo has never met—was employed at the firm. She even went so far as impersonating someone from human resources on the telephone—a clear case of fraud, something a lawyer like Alecia should know.
Alecia was lucky that the partners didn’t fire her when that happened—or press charges. In fact, it was Leo who had vouched for her and explained to everyone that she’d simply made a mistake and wasn’t intentionally
trying to commit fraud. Most of the partners wanted her terminated then, but Leo had argued that she would pull herself together and make a good employee.
He’d been wrong—and now it was his unenviable duty to finally let her go.
Just because the termination was warranted doesn’t make it any easier. Leo’s heart breaks for her. He knows her husband isn’t working, which has put extra stress on her. And he really does believe that if she gets her act together she will make a good lawyer someday.
“I really do wish you the best,” Leo says. “I think you can have a bright future if you live up to your potential.”
With this statement, Alecia starts to cry.
“It’s not fair,” she says between sobs.
Leo says nothing in response, but, again, he is perplexed. He thinks he’s been more than fair. It was him who gave her a second chance—she’s the one who blew that second chance.
“I’ll walk you to your desk so you can collect your things,” Leo says, not knowing what else to say.
There’s just no good way to deliver bad news. But Leo’s done his best to treat Alecia with dignity and respect.
Chapter 42
Andrew is waiting for Alecia outside in their Honda. He spots her exiting the building, and he can see that she’s carrying a cardboard box. As she gets closer to the Honda, he can see her more clearly. It looks like she’s been crying—her eyes are puffy and red—but there’s no sign of tears anymore. Her face is pinched with anger.
“What happened?” Andrew says.
“That son of a bitch fired me!” Alecia snaps.
She opens the back hatch, tosses in the box of stuff from her desk, and slams the door with a boom that rocks the whole SUV. Andrew eases out of the car, trying not to put any strain on his back, and takes her by the shoulders.
Home Sweet Murder Page 6
