Red Rover, Perdition Games

by L E Fraser

  “We can’t explain any of this.” Jordanna waved the gun around and Sam cringed against the wall. “We can’t explain Mother, we can’t explain Father. Unless…” She clenched her fist and cold, dead eyes scrutinized her brother. “You want to tell the truth?”

  “We need help.” Jordan sounded whiny rather than influential now. He reached for the gun again.

  His sister sidestepped his grasp, and he stuffed his hand into his back pocket.

  “I can help you,” Sam desperately promised over the deafening beat of her heart in her ears. “This doesn’t have to end badly for anyone. Tell me what you need and let me help you.”

  Completely ignoring her, Jordanna licked her lips and smiled at her brother. “Hey, I know. You could take one for the team,” she said in a pleasant tone. “What do you say?”

  His voice trembled when he said, “I didn’t kill anyone.” He edged away from his sister and punched his fist against the side of his thigh. “I tried, Jordanna. I did everything you said. When you called from Caitlyn’s house, I came. I helped you.”

  “I’m not suggesting you talk to the police.” She cocked her head to the side, and regarded him coyly. “That’s not the object of the game.”

  Keep them talking, keep them bickering.

  “Who killed Graham?” Sam broke in, pausing in her attempts to loosen the ropes when Jordanna glanced at her.

  “What do you think, brother dearest? Should we satiate her curiosity?”

  He lunged for the gun.

  Jordanna easily avoided him. Anger flooded her face. “Get on the floor!” she demanded, aiming the weapon at his head.

  Jordan raised his left hand in submission and slouched to the ground beside Sam, so close their shoulders touched. He ran his fingers through his hair with his left hand and shoved something behind her back with his right. His eyes never left his sister’s face.

  The object fell between the wall and her back, but Sam knew what it was the second her fingers found it. A small pocketknife, maybe four inches in length. What she didn’t know was how she could finagle the task of releasing the blade. Her wrists crossed over each other and she couldn’t bring her hands together.

  “I went to my room that afternoon,” Jordan said. “There was yelling from the basement. Jordanna came home and went downstairs. When she didn’t come back, I followed. Brenda was on the stairs zoning and Dad was dead.” He swallowed. “I ran upstairs, called 911, and waited outside.” He shuddered and self-consciously brushed a tear off his cheek.

  “Crying?” Jordanna said with contempt. “You’re crying over that son of a bitch. You are such a fucking loser. If you’d manned up, none of this would have happened.” Her face became a mask of fury. “This is your fault. All of it!” she screamed.

  Sam had the closed pocketknife between the middle and index fingers of her left hand. With her thumbnail, she tried to push out the blade. Her fingers grew clumsy with panic. It took her a second to realize she had it upside down. She could feel the pivot and locking mechanism. She had to flip it and try to pull the tip of the blade outward from the casing. If she could keep them talking, she might have enough time.

  “You killed your father,” Sam said to Jordanna. “Why?”

  “I did not!” Jordanna retorted. “I wouldn’t be sloshing around in raw sewage like an animal,” she said with a grimace.

  She paced back and forth in front of them, but the gun never wavered. If anything, her rage had made her more focused. “I was handling things until Caitlyn got involved. I told her to stay away from Jenny, but the stupid bitch didn’t listen.”

  “Is Caitlyn dead?” Sam asked.

  Much to her horror, the knife dropped. Sam shoved her butt against the wall in a feeble effort to silence the noise but the metal scraped against the wall.

  Jordan’s eyes flickered to her side and he screeched, “Yes!”

  His sister frowned and suspicious eyes drilled into Sam’s face.

  Sam sat still and held the girl’s steady gaze.

  After a few seconds that felt like hours to Sam, Jordanna turned around and took two steps away from them.

  Jordan slumped closer to Sam’s side and flicked the knife with the end of his finger. “I buried Caitlyn in the conservation area behind her house,” he said.

  Sam grasped the knife and felt the edge with the tip of her thumb, located what she thought was the right end, and positioned it between her fingers.

  Spinning around to face them, Jordanna said in a haughty tone, “Don’t bother asking. I didn’t kill her either. Well,” she paused and shrugged her shoulders with a sigh of displeasure. “I had to finish the job, but I didn’t plan to kill her. The whole thing ended up much too messy for my taste. At least that sterile home was a breeze to clean. No irritating stains on carpets or fabric. Still, bleach is horrible for your nails.” She glared at her brother. “Because you bought bargain basement gloves, I broke two nails.”

  If it hadn’t been Jordan or Jordanna, it could only have been one other person. Sam felt a wave of overwhelming sadness. “Jennifer. Why?”

  “Ever since Caitlyn got out of jail, Jennifer spent the night once a week,” Jordan said. “Great-aunt Rachel set it up in secret and wanted Jordanna and me to go, too. She quoted this bible verse and told us we wouldn’t reach the kingdom of heaven if we dishonoured our mother.”

  Jordanna rolled her eyes, an expression of exaggerated annoyance on her face. “Do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart forever. Blah, blah, blah. Can you believe that religious old bitch thinks everyone’s a child of God? She didn’t recognize the devil when she stood beside her. What a joke.”

  “I threatened to tell Dad,” Jordan continued. “Jenny went and told Caitlyn awful stuff about me. Stuff that wasn’t true and then she showed at the school and Mrs. Alistair got all up in my shit and told lies.” He stared accusingly at his sister. “I couldn’t handle Jenny. You said you’d take care of it.”

  “You did rape that girl outside the school. Mrs. Alistair didn’t lie about that,” Jordanna commented. “And who helped you out of that mess, hum? I had to give Steve a blowjob to get him to hack their computer. Thank God that fat neighbour identified Caitlyn when he saw me poison the dog. That was a lucky break.”

  She leaned down and poked a manicured nail into her brother’s shoulder. “It was because of the dog that Mr. Alistair freaked out on Daddy and nearly got himself arrested. The police figured he was a nut case and a liar. I managed to discredit everything the Alistairs said about you. Did you thank me? No, of course not. I protect you and I protect Jennifer.” She stepped back and studied him with disapproval.

  “I’ve done lots to keep Jenny safe,” Jordan sputtered.

  Jordanna laughed at him. “Like what, nearly getting her arrested after she killed Daddy? If you had talked Daddy out of sending Jenny to a shrink, she wouldn’t have had to kill him at all.”

  “I stopped those tests that Roger was doing. I told Dad that Brenda was sleeping with Roger,” Jordan argued.

  “Daddy made an appointment with an adolescent psychiatrist the school recommended!” Jordanna shouted.

  “Ask Jenny why she had to play with that English teacher! When Jenny asked for my drawings, I didn’t know about the sick shit she was writing.” There was a defeated slump to Jordan’s shoulders now. “She didn’t need to kill Dad. She could have tricked any shrink he sent her to.”

  “You’re her big brother. It’s your job to protect her. Everything pointed to Roger killing Dad. All we had to do was get them to back off.” She waved the gun at Sam. “Once everyone thought Caitlyn poisoned the Alistair’s dog, killing Reece should have been a breeze,” she said in aggravation. “I got him out of the office, just like I promised Jennifer I would. You raced in and stopped Jenny before she put enough antifreeze in his drink.”

  Jordanna threw a nasty look Sam’s way and then glared at her brother. “And where were you when Jenny lit the barn on fire? When I got home, Ree
ce was already there. Jenny had to try to delay him long enough for me to get inside and drag Sam further into the flames before her blue-eyed baby saved her.”

  The blade required too much pressure to open. She’d have to nudge it, get her nail under the edge, and push up. It would cut her, but it was the only option. She needed time. She had to try to turn Jordan against his sister.

  “You’re innocent of murder,” Sam said to him. “You probably saved Reece’s life when you stopped Jennifer.”

  He scowled at his sister and nodded. “I didn’t rape that girl either. She wanted it. It’s not my fault she changed her mind.”

  Jordanna rolled her eyes. “What about that girl who lived down the street before we moved here?” She turned to Sam. “Brenda freaked out but Daddy said ‘boys will be boys’ and it was a misunderstanding.” She laughed. “Not that he cared what happened to Jordan, but he was worried about his reputation if his son was labelled a rapist. Brenda borrowed money and compensated the girl behind Daddy’s back, but we still had to move out to the boondocks because of Romeo over there.”

  Get the focus away from Jordan’s crimes, a voice yelled through the chaotic thoughts circling Sam’s mind. She concentrated on how to manipulate Jordan. The most important thing was to make him feel protected from prosecution. She had to get the topic back to murder.

  “Why did you kill Caitlyn?” Sam asked Jordanna, gritting her teeth to hide the pain of the honed metal slicing through her thumbnail while she pushed against the blade, coaxing it open.

  “I didn’t kill her. Just like this afternoon, little sis called me. It’s always me she calls.” She waved the gun at her brother and uttered a frustrated sigh. “Jordan can’t do anything right. We’ve covered for Jenny for years, but he freaked out over the cat.”

  “She blamed me,” Jordan shouted. “Just like before. If you’d helped when I told you what I saw her do to Midnight, we could have stopped her. When I got to Caitlyn’s place, I told you to call the cops. She was into illegal shit. We could have said we found her like that.”

  “Jordan,” his sister said with a show of great patience, “we couldn’t call the police. How would we explain it?”

  Her attention shifted back to Sam. “Jenny had made such a mess of Mother.” She shook her head in exasperation. “She was up to her elbows in blood.”

  The blade snapped open, and Sam rotated it against the rope. Once in place, the challenge was to apply enough pressure to score the heavy rope. She couldn’t get a firm enough grip on the handle because of her fingers’ limited mobility. The rope was thick. Sawing through it would take time, time Sam didn’t think she had. Worse, the binding on her wrists was beginning to cut off the blood circulation to her hands. Her fingers were numb and tingled painfully.

  There has to be another way, Sam thought in desperation. Think.

  If Jordan didn’t hold sufficient power to talk Jordanna out of killing her, Sam had to create dissonance between them and trigger Jordan’s temper. Maybe he’d attack his sister. He might be able to disarm her.

  “Why did Jennifer do it?” Sam asked Jordan.

  Jordanna glared at her brother and answered for him. “Because Mother figured out Jennifer had killed our grandmother. You see, Mom wasn’t there when it happened. Mother had a little problem.” Jordanna formed a needle out of her finger and mimed putting it in her arm. She rolled her eyes with a euphoric expression that mimicked a stoned drug addict.

  “When she came back, she thought I did it,” Jordan said.

  Jordanna smiled at her brother. “I admit I helped her reach that conclusion. You had Grandma’s blood all over you. All I had to do was clean up Jennifer before Mother got back.”

  “I pulled Jennifer off,” Jordan shrieked. “I tried to stop it.”

  Jordanna shrugged. “I made up the story about crazy Grandma attacking Jennifer because the devil told her to, and you saved Jenny by killing her. You were Mom’s favourite, and I knew she’d protect you.”

  “I warned you it was too dangerous to have Jennifer visit Caitlyn,” Jordan said.

  Jordanna gazed into the distance with a speculative expression. “It surprised me she wanted to spend time with her.” She giggled. “Guess it makes sense now. She wanted to kill her.”

  “But you said you killed Caitlyn,” Sam argued. “You made Jordan an accessory to murder by forcing him to help you after you killed your mother.”

  Jordanna’s brow creased. “I slit her throat because she was making terrible noises. I put her out of her misery.” Her mouth puckered with disgust. “If Jennifer hadn’t tried to tear out her guts like she did to Midnight, we could have claimed we’d found her like that. But she figured everyone would blame Jordan.”

  Her attention focused on her brother. “You were becoming a problem, tiptoeing into her room at night. She told me all about it. All about the sick things you did to her under the cover of darkness.”

  “It wasn’t me,” he yelled. “Jenny’s a liar and you know it. Before Caitlyn went to prison, she used to go into Jenny’s room at night. Maybe she was still doing it, I dunno, but it was fucking sick! I was the only one trying to help Jenny.”

  Jordanna stormed over and smacked him across the side of the head with the butt of the gun. “I helped Jennifer! You made a mess out of everything.” She raised the gun and brought it down on his shoulder.

  Sam heard a crack and Jordan squealed. She cringed against the wall while Jordan submissively covered his head with his arm and whimpered. Any hope Sam had of Jordan overpowering his sister dissolved. He was the subservient partner, completely under the control of his twin. The realization that she was powerless to prevent her imminent death made Sam’s bowels feel loose. She was going to die. Die at the hands of a demented teenager. The need to scream was so overpowering that she had to clamp her lips together. A groan of fear emanated from between her pressed lips.

  Jordanna leaned down and shouted in her brother’s face. “I’m the one who got Jenny out of the house after she killed Daddy.” Her spittle sprayed Sam’s cheek. “You called the police and hid upstairs!”

  She straightened and kicked Jordan in the ribs with vicious force. “If I hadn’t come home and found her hiding in the basement closet covered in sewage and wearing Daddy’s rubber boots, she’d be in jail. I was the one who took her over to great-aunt Rachel’s house and told that dotty old bitch Jennifer had been in her disgusting prayer room all afternoon.”

  She stomped across the room, standing with her back to them. After a moment, her shoulders relaxed and she returned to where they sat. Her face was calm and her voice was soft. “I love you, Jordan. I’m the only one.” She crouched down and ran her hand across his cheek. “You don’t want me to leave you, do you? Do you want to be all alone?”

  He clasped her hand against his face and shook his head.

  “Why do you have to make me so angry? You know I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered. “I’m the only one who has ever understood you. Those girls, it wasn’t your fault. I know that. They asked for it.”

  He nodded and smiled at her.

  She stood. “I helped you and you want to help me, right?” She held out her hand.

  Jordan took her hand and stood.

  She tilted her head to the side. “Do you love me?” she asked softly.

  “Yes, you know I do.”

  “Then you need to kill her.”

  In the harsh light, Sam saw the colour blanch from Jordan’s face, but his head bobbed in agreement. “I will. I promise.” He held out his hand. “Give me the gun,” he said eagerly.

  His sister’s laughter was hard and mean when she dropped his hand. “Didn’t I just say we can’t trust you?”

  “You can. I’ll do it,” he said speaking urgently.

  She marched to the other side of the shed and grabbed a piece of rope from the gardening shelves. “Here.” She threw the rope at him. “Strangle her.”

  “Jordanna—” he began.

  She jutted
out her hip and interrupted him. “Since you love me and you do everything to protect Jenny and me, you can get rid of this problem.”

  He stood holding the rope.

  A tear leaked from the corner of Sam’s eye. “You don’t have to do this,” she said to Jordan. “There’s another way. Take my car.”

  Jordanna aimed the gun at his head. “Kill her. Now,” she said coldly.

  “Please,” he whimpered and dropped the rope to the ground. “I can’t do it.”

  Jordanna nodded. “I didn’t think so.” She sighed. “I’ll kill her and tell the police you did it. All of it. By yourself.”

  He looked at Sam. His expression was sad and there were tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “Please, Jordan,” Sam begged, unable to stop the tears that coursed down her face.

  She couldn’t give up. She had to think. There had to be a way to manipulate him. She didn’t want to die trussed up on the dirty floor of a potting shed. The blood from the gash on her thumb made it difficult to hold the knife, but she was almost through the rope. If she only had a few more minutes, she’d be able to free her hands.

  “It doesn’t have to end like this,” Sam said. “Think about it, Jordan. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in prison?” She turned to Jordanna. “You need help. You won’t go to prison. You’ll get the help you need and so will Jennifer. Please, think about it.”

  Jordanna ignored her and stroked her brother’s hair. “I’ll say you killed Daddy and Mother. You threatened Jenny and me. You told us what you did to Mother and where you put her body.”

  She lifted his chin and gazed into his eyes. “Jenny and I are the only ones who have ever loved you,” she said tenderly. “Dad didn’t love you. Remember when he took that other boy’s side when he was playing red rover with you and your football friends?”

  Jordan’s Adam apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed. “He never practised with me after that,” he murmured. “He never even went to my games.”

  Jordanna was nodding sympathetically. “It was so sad. Your own father didn’t want anything to do with you. Without Jenny and me, you’ll be all alone forever. If you do this, we’ll be safe. That’s what you want, right? You want to protect us. You want us to love you, don’t you?”