by Vivi Barnes
“Whose idea was it?” I ask.
Maggie cocks her head to one side. “I am curious about what they see in you. You’re not that pretty. Are you smart?”
They? I shrug. “Not that smart. You say this wasn’t your idea?”
“I always thought you were just Z’s rebound after Jen. Did you know she was his rebound from me?” She sighs, staring at the rose in her hand. “I told him if he stayed with me I wouldn’t go with Bill. I would’ve been his forever. I think his feelings for me scared him. That’s why he broke up with me.”
“That makes sense,” I say carefully, pulling my phone out of my pocket. I unlock it with my thumb and glance down to press the call button.
“Don’t bother,” she says. “Your signal is jammed.”
Of course. “Does Z know you set up these candles for me?”
“Like I said, this wasn’t my idea.” She narrows her eyes. “Z doesn’t love you, you know. He doesn’t love anyone. Not even himself. How could he love us if he can’t even love himself?” she adds softly, her fingers fiddling with something around her wrist. I stare at the familiar gold band, emeralds glinting softly in the candlelight.
“Maggie, is that the bracelet that was sent to me?”
She presses her arm to her chest. “This is my bracelet. Yours was nothing but a means to an end.”
“And what’s the end?” I ask. “Are you planning to kill me?”
Her face clouds over, and for a moment my heart plunges to my shoes. Then she shakes her head. “I thought about it, you know. I was supposed to just leave the rose and the bracelet and go, but you were just there, sleeping. I couldn’t figure out why Z wanted you. I hated you right then more than I’ve ever hated anyone, even Jen. He used Jen as much as he used me.”
“So why didn’t you?” The words come out almost strangled-sounding, probably because I’m sure I haven’t swallowed since the moment I stepped into Maggie’s crazy trail of candles.
“I can’t kill somebody. Even if I do hate you,” she says. “You were supposed to think it was Z after you. You were supposed to turn him in to the police, start the paper trail against him. You’re an idiot for not doing that, you know.”
This is making less and less sense. “How did you get into my car and into my house?” I ask.
“Climbed up the vines to your balcony. It was easy. And amplifiers work wonders for getting into fancy locked cars.”
She laughs then, a strong, proud sound, and I can’t help but admire the front she put on this whole time. She had everyone fooled, especially Jack. I’m pretty sure the whole plan wasn’t just about turning me against him. The paper trail—she’s trying to frame him for something, but what? What would she gain from setting up the guy she obviously loves?
“Who are you working with, Maggie? Frank?”
She laughs again. “That was an easy one to set up. Sort of an afterthought once I found out you guys suspected him. You’re too easy to fool.”
I stare at Maggie’s curly hair, bouncing on her shoulders as she laughs, and suddenly everything clicks. I know where I’ve seen her recently.
God, please no.
“Maggie, this guy who tried to kill Z is someone you knew when you worked for Bill, isn’t it? A customer?”
Her smile grows across her face slowly, a Cheshire cat’s grin.
He’s here. I can see it in the lift of her chin.
The cold confidence that someone’s got her back.
Running away isn’t an option for me—even if my feet weren’t rooted to the ground, my knees literally knocking against each other in terror, I wouldn’t make it very far before he’d catch me.
I can’t let him catch me.
This girl might be my only chance now.
“Maggie.” I force my feet to rise and fall until I’m standing in her circle of candlelight. She stares at me, her face void of emotion. “Listen. You said it yourself—you’re not a killer. You’re not a bad person. The person who’s making you do this is no better than Bill Sykes. He’s using you to get to me.”
She scowls at that. “What do you know about it? You, with your privileged life and perfect house. You don’t know what it’s like to have nothing and no one, even in your crappy foster life. I found one person—one—who wants me for me. Who treats me like a real person, even a friend, instead of a whore. So I’ll go where he goes and do what he wants because he at least treats me like a human being. He needs me. We’ll go live on a beach in Mexico together with the money from those jerks over at Briarcreek.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” I say, trying a different tactic. “He tried to kill Z by running him off the road. Z almost died.” She flinches at that. Jack is still her weakness, no matter what she says. “If you think that Derrick will let him live, you’re wrong. And if you think he cares more about you than himself, you’re wrong again. I lived in his house, remember? I know.”
Maggie doesn’t say anything, just holds the rose between us, the stem clenched in her fist like it’s a weapon. I hear a slam behind me and whip around to see Jack walking toward me quickly, his jaw set so hard I know he’s clenching his teeth. I don’t remember him ever looking this mad. I breathe out, both relieved and worried that he’s here. He’s a target, too, and now that we’re together, who knows what she and Derrick will do. I hope he called the police before he came here, but Maggie has his phone, and in the state he’s in, I could see him just rushing here without calling anyone.
“Z,” Maggie says sweetly. “Come in.”
“Maggie, what are you doing?” he asks, his voice shaking with anger. “This shit needs to stop now.”
“Shut up,” she says harshly. “You’ve never, ever believed in me. Do you remember when you first brought me to Monroe Street? I had already hacked into two banks. You told me I was as good as you. You don’t remember that, do you? All you remember is sad, crying Maggie, who was nothing but a joke to you and Sam. I heard you talking about me.”
“We talked about you because we were worried about you,” he said, his voice crisp.
“You used me, pretended to love me when the whole time you thought I was just a stupid, pathetic girl who couldn’t hack. I showed you. I showed you all.”
“Maggie—”
“Actually,” she says in a lighter voice, “you should be grateful for me. I’m the reason you’re still alive, you know.”
“I almost wasn’t,” he says, placing a hand on his ribs.
“That wasn’t my idea,” she mutters.
“Where’s Derrick?” Jack asks.
“Right here,” a chillingly familiar voice says before I have a chance to wonder how Jack knew it was Derrick. My entire body trembles as I turn to face the most horrible person in my life. This man, who once welcomed me into his home when I was a hapless foster kid, is now pointing a gun at me. Derrick looks so different from when I lived on Green Valley Drive. His hair is longer, pulled back and tied behind his neck, and he’s got scruff around his face like he hasn’t shaved in a week or so. But the worst part is the look in his eyes. Once kind (or so it seemed), his hard gaze cuts me. And when he turns his eyes on Jack, they go flat entirely.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the infamous Z, the whiz kid who thinks he can ruin a person’s life with one keystroke,” Derrick croons softly.
The revulsion rises into my throat.
“Maggie,” I whisper urgently to her. Her eyes flick to me, void of any emotion. “Derrick isn’t kind. He’s a monster. He tried to rape me. He’ll do the same to you.”
Maggie’s hand flies toward my face, smacking my cheek hard enough to make me stumble backward. Jack starts forward, his jaw set fiercely. I have to grip his arm to keep him from losing it. “Don’t.” No way is he playing the protective hero, especially when I’m pretty sure that Derrick would rather kick his ass than mine. My face burns where she made contact, but I don’t reach up to rub it.
Derrick laughs. “That’s my girl,” he says fondly to Maggie. She beams
back at him. Derrick waves his gun toward us. “So let’s start by separating you two lovebirds.” His eyes rake over me, and a horrible sensation of loathing slides through me.
“I’ll take her,” Maggie says quickly, and I wonder if she senses his ulterior motive. Maggie grabs my arm and pulls at me, forcing me into a chair inside the ring of candles. I don’t fight and neither does Jack—what can we do when a gun is pointed directly at us? And the police—they thought it was Frank doing this. Sam will send them directly to his house. I’m guessing Derrick and Maggie forged a phone under Frank’s name to set him up.
“Derrick, let her go,” Jack growls as Maggie ties my hands behind my back with a cable. She pulls it tight, but I press my fists together hard to keep my wrists as far from each other as I can. “You’ve already stolen money from our house, so what’s the point?”
Derrick laughs. “The point? Well, for one, you haven’t paid your debt to me. Putting me on the sex offenders’ list—pretty ingenious. But considering it’s opened up a whole host of problems for me, I thought I’d return the favor.”
Jack looks over at Maggie. “You did this from my computer in my own room so everyone would think I did it, didn’t you? When I trusted you more than anyone else.” His voice is surprisingly soft, though his eyes flash with anger. As Maggie starts forward, it’s obvious Jack knows how to get under her skin. She jerks to a stop when Derrick barks at her to stand still.
“It was the only way I could do it,” Maggie says, and now her voice has a slight pleading tone to it. “The only way it couldn’t be traced to him. You understand that, right?” After all of this, she’s still looking for Jack’s approval.
“That’s enough!” Derrick backs his way over to me, keeping the gun pointing straight at Jack. He then presses the cold barrel to my temple. My eyes stay on Jack’s, watching as his anger turns to fear. I can see his chest moving rapidly now. Don’t panic, I try to tell him with my gaze. Please don’t panic and do something stupid.
“Put the cuffs on him, Maggie,” Derrick says. “In front.”
Nodding, Maggie takes a pair of handcuffs from a bag on the floor and walks back to Jack. He’s saying something to her in a soft voice, but I can’t make it out. His wide eyes stay on me, though, and the gun pointed at my head.
“No talking,” Derrick snaps. Obviously he doesn’t trust Maggie around Jack. As far as Maggie trusting Derrick, that doesn’t surprise me. I did for a while, too.
“How did you even end up together?” I ask, though I already know. At this point, with our cell phone signals jammed and no one knowing where we are, I can only hope to stall whatever he’s planning. Maybe he’ll say something that will turn Maggie against him. I still think that, given the choice, she’d rather be with her beloved Z than Derrick.
“Maggie and I have been friends for a while,” he says. “She took care of me when Denise wouldn’t.”
I bite my lip to keep from gagging. “How did you know Maggie knew Z?”
“I dropped her off one day and saw his bike in the driveway. Recognized it from before, when you lived with me. And Maggie told me all about how he helped you find a new life with your sugar grandpa. And then all of a sudden, I have a sexual predator knock against my record. Didn’t take me long to put two and two together.”
“You deserved it,” I say.
“My beautiful, smart Maggie,” he continues as if I hadn’t said anything. Maggie looks over at him, beaming. “She stopped by my house earlier today. Said it looked like someone had been in there. Know something about that?”
The white car parked in front of Derrick’s duplex when we left—it was Maggie’s. And we were so caught up in being relieved there wasn’t a black truck that Sam didn’t even notice. “I know you’re a scumbag, addicted to porn,” I tell him. “I saw a video that you took of Maggie, too.”
Maggie laughs. “If you think you’re outing him, you’re not,” she says.
She knew she was being filmed—great. There’s got to be something that will turn Maggie against Derrick. “You know, Denise knew about you cheating on her,” I tell Derrick. “She knew what you were up to with the cameras you installed in my room, too.”
Maggie looks sharply at me, then Derrick. She’s not laughing now. “Cameras?”
“He was spying on me, watching me undress when I—”
“Shut up,” Derrick says, pressing the gun against my temple so hard that I have to squirm away to relieve the pressure.
“Stop, Derrick. Leave her alone, and I’ll do whatever you want,” Jack says sharply, his fists clenched through the handcuffs. I can tell he’s trying hard not to lose it. I try to look calm, for his sake as much as mine. Easier said than done.
“Maggie, get the laptop,” Derrick orders.
Of all the possibilities swimming through my head, this is the last thing I expected to hear. Is he wanting Jack to transfer money into his bank account? That would mean he’d have to shoot us both, since it’d be easy to stop the transfer before it goes through.
Maggie brings a laptop and a tray table over and sets them up in front of Jack. His brows pinch together in confusion. “You brought my own laptop here?” Then his jaw sets as he stares at me. I get it, too. They want him to break into a bank account from his own computer so it traces back to him.
“I’ve got an account pinpointed right here.” She smiles at Derrick as she flips open the top. Jack’s face pales. “You’ve been looking at this ICL page a lot. I’m sure no one will be surprised when a million dollars goes missing.”
“Derrick, the police will be here any second,” Jack says calmly, though I can tell by the quick rise and fall of his chest that he’s nervous. “You can take what’s in my wallet, leave right now, and no one will find you.”
“Your wallet?” Derrick snorts. “Right. And I know they won’t find me, Jack. Oh, yes. I know your name. I’ve been tracking your conversations for a while. I’m just as clever as you.”
“We’re just as clever,” Maggie pipes up, glaring at Derrick. “I’m the one who did all the work. And it was my idea to disguise ourselves at the jewelry store.” She smirks at me. “They totally thought I was Jen.”
“Right, you wore a blond wig. That made all the difference,” Derrick says in exaggerated praise, rolling his eyes. “But if you’d done like I told you and hidden that bracelet, they wouldn’t have suspected you in the first place.”
“If you hadn’t run Z off the road,” Maggie yells, “we could’ve followed the original plan and gone through ICL from his computer ourselves. She wouldn’t even be here right now. You’ve screwed everything up, and now look where we are!”
I watch their bickering like a tennis match, the entire time working at the cable holding my hands captive behind my back. My arms ache, and my wrists are sore and probably bleeding, but I keep them moving.
Derrick holds up a hand. “This is getting us nowhere. Party time, tough guy,” he says to Jack.
“You are insane if you think this will work,” Jack says. “They’ll track you down right away and stop the transfer.”
“You mean they’ll track you down.” Derrick sighs. “Which will be really sad, especially because you won’t be able to defend yourself after your little accident.”
“Derrick,” Maggie says sharply. “You promised.”
Derrick shrugs and smiles at her benevolently. “I promised I’d do everything I could to protect our future, sweetheart. And that’s what I’m going to do.” Derrick gestures at the laptop screen.
Jack stares at it, his eyes flicking to catch mine as Derrick backs up toward me. I close my eyes as a series of clicks sounds next to my head. Derrick strokes the gun against my head in a caressing way that makes me choke back a gag. He’s really loving this. All I can hope is that he wants to make this moment last as long as possible. Long enough for us to figure a way out. “It’d be so easy to pull the trigger. Just the slightest twitch and our beautiful Olivia will be gone.”
“Okay, okay,�
� Jack says quickly, his hands shaking as they move to the keyboard. It doesn’t do anything for my nerves. I swallow hard, imagining what the bullet would feel like when it punctures my brain. The pain will be sharp and fast. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, except when the Band-Aid is gone, I’ll be dead. I work at the bindings around my wrists, keeping each movement tiny so as not to attract attention.
Jack’s fingers move slowly over the keys. He’s sweating now, even in the chill. He must know as much as I do that there’s no way Derrick’s going to let either of us live after this.
Maggie bites her lip nervously as she stares at Derrick, obviously thinking the same thing. She doesn’t care about me, but killing Jack wasn’t in her plan.
“Why did you buy me a bracelet?” I ask, trying to buy time.
“Figured you’d suspect your ex-boyfriend. Get the police on him. Easy as cake.” Derrick doesn’t take his eyes off Jack. “The police will have no trouble buying in to the fact that he stole this money. It’ll be too late by the time they find you both here. The ex-girlfriend he was trying to lure here and shot when she realized what he was up to. Just before he killed himself.”
My wrists are painfully raw now from trying to slide out of my bonds, but I finally manage to slip one hand over the other. Keeping my hands behind me, I wait until Derrick and Maggie are both completely caught up with whatever Jack’s doing. I slide out of the chair and put my hands on the back, lifting it as quietly as I can.
Unfortunately, Derrick sees my shadow and whips around, his eyes widening to see me holding the chair. Without getting the momentum I need, I swing the chair at him as hard as I can. He doesn’t fall, but the gun does. He dives for it even as I bring the chair down again on his back. Jack lunges for him at the same time, his hands still handcuffed in front of him. Unfortunately, Derrick’s foot makes contact with Jack’s ribs, sending Jack howling in pain to the floor. Everyone scrambles—a confusing mess of chairs and bodies. Derrick manages to pin me down, his elbow pressing hard into my shoulder. His breath is stale, making my stomach lurch. Jack shoves him off me, and Derrick turns on him, his hand wrapping around Jack’s throat. I throw myself at Derrick, trying to wrench his hands from Jack’s neck.
