by Vivien Chien
With Bryce aiming the gun at me I didn’t have much of a choice other than to obey. So I sat down in the chair and put my arms behind my back. Again the thought crossed my mind: How am I going to get out of this one?
CHAPTER
33
Even though it had only been hours since I first arrived at Bryce’s house, it felt like days. Through the narrow basement windows, I had watched the day turn into night. I kept quiet as much as possible because I didn’t want them to gag me, too. But there was so much I wanted to say. I couldn’t lose hope now. No matter what the odds were against me, it wasn’t over until it was over.
Donna’s eyes flitted open and shut from time to time, and I imagined it was taking everything in her not to pass out.
Yvette had gone upstairs for a short time while Bryce kept an eye on us, never letting go of his gun. Not that I could have done anything had he put it down. My hands were tied behind my back.
“Why’d you do it?” I said, breaking the silence.
“I already told you, now shut up,” Bryce replied.
“No, I mean, why did you kill Alice? I assume it was you who drowned her that night.” I flashed back to the night of the party when he approached me in the kitchen. His clothes had been all wet, and he’d blamed it on the kids splashing in the pool. “Were you guys ever really together or was it all for show?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, we were together. For a time.”
“So what happened? Is it true what Evie said, that Alice had gotten involved with an older man? Did she leave you for him and you got jealous?”
“Ha!” Bryce raised his eyebrows in amusement. “Me? Jealous? Hardly. That’s a story Evie cooked up to buy us some time. She knew you were up to something and wanted to steer you away from us. She was hoping you’d waste time searching through Donna’s group of rich biddies for an older man who would have an affair. There are a few of them.”
I really despised the fact that Evie attempted to send me on a wild goose chase. I pushed my personal feelings aside and continued with my questioning. “Well, what actually happened then?”
“She couldn’t handle it.”
“Couldn’t handle what exactly?”
“Why do you care?” he asked. “You’re not making it out of this alive anyway. Buying yourself some time isn’t going to stop anything.”
“Because I don’t get it. At least entertain me that much. If I’m not going to make it, then what’s the harm in telling me?”
He shrugged and leaned against the washer. “She couldn’t handle the job and it got in the way of our relationship. She didn’t have the same vision that Evie and I had. Can you believe, Alice actually liked those damn kids? She thought this was going to be her life now and wanted out. But it was way too late for her to change her mind. She thought she was being smart by giving Donna the thumb drive, but it was the dumbest thing she could have done.
“She texted me during the party from her room and told me that she had left the thumb drive for Donna to find. Someplace she’d spot it before anybody else, and then Donna could dispose of it. Well, you can’t get rid of me and Evie that easy. I asked Alice to meet me down by the pool so we could talk about it … I was going to reason with her. But she wouldn’t listen. I guess I should have figured, she was kind of on the stubborn side.
“After the party was over, I was going to sneak upstairs to try and get it back, but I didn’t count on Donna being so attentive with her kids.
“But whatever, I knew it was only a matter of time before we’d find the drive. Unfortunately, Donna here had to go and mess up the rest of the plan. Once I had it back, then I’d get my hands on the money we needed to get out of this rotten city.”
“So you were going to try and blackmail her again?”
“Try, try again—that’s what they say, right? If the old lady was smart, she wouldn’t have held on to the damn thing to begin with. She had every opportunity to flush it, mangle it in the garbage disposal, throw it in Lake Erie … and what did she do? She held on to it. If you ask me, she deserves to die based on stupidity. Now shut up. We have big plans ahead and I need to center myself.”
My stomach hurt and I thought I might throw up. I wondered to myself what Adam and Lydia were up to. Were they searching for me? Had Adam told Megan that I was missing? Was she worried about me? What would happen to Kikko?
I thought about the things I had left undone. I’d never gotten to tell that jerk Warren what I really thought about him and how he’d made me feel. I’d never gotten to hear his side of the story … what excuses he planned to come up with.
I thought about my family and how they would react. I thought about Donna’s children losing both of their parents in the span of a year. What would happen to them? Would they go into foster care? Would a stray aunt or uncle adopt them and save them from a life in the system?
My mind was out of control. My thoughts were telling me that I had already given up even though I knew I couldn’t. There had to be a way out of this, there just had to be.
They had taken my purse away from me, but thankfully my phone was in my back pocket. Not that I could get to it with my hands tied behind my back.
I heard Yvette clacking down the stairs in her heels. Despite the situation, she was still wearing stilettos. “Time to go, ladies,” she said while clapping her hands.
Donna turned her head toward me, her eyes wild with fear. I tried to tell her telepathically that it was all going to be okay.
Bryce neared Donna’s chair, began untying her hands, and hoisted her up. “You first, old lady.”
She mumbled something at him through the bandanna, and he smirked.
Next he untied my hands while Yvette held on to Donna’s arm. “Just a friendly reminder: Don’t try anything cute. You can’t outrun a bullet.” He waved the gun in my face, and I felt sweat drip down my back.
“All right, we’re walking very slowly to the garage, no tricks,” Yvette warned. “Old lady goes first. Little brat, you go next.” She shoved me forward.
I got behind Donna as she moved toward the steps. She took one careful step up, teetering back and forth. Donna also had stilettos on.
As the four of us slowly went up the steps, my instincts told me what I needed to do. If they got us in that car and to the pier, it was over for sure. I needed to time this just right. As Donna’s foot touched the landing of the first floor, I braced myself and kicked back as hard as I could, hitting Yvette in the kneecap. She bellowed loudly and I kicked again; she swayed for a moment and then fell backward onto Bryce.
Bryce let out a string of swear words as he tried to steady Yvette. But thankfully he failed, and I heard them tumble backward on the stairs.
I yelled to Donna, “Run!”
Her scream came muffled, but she bolted for the door, and I sped up my pace behind her. Having my hands behind my back was screwing me up, but I tried my best to pick up speed.
I heard angry clomping up the stairs. As Donna neared the front door, I watched her turn and bend down, attempting to twist the lock open with her hands. We were running out of time.
Finally she got the door unlocked, but we had yet to open it. “Move over,” I told her.
She moved and mumbled my name. That much I could make out. When I turned to get my hand around the doorknob, I saw that Bryce had made it up the stairs. “Sh—” I got the door open and Donna pushed through the sliver of door that was open. She was out.
However, I was not. Bryce was now inches away from me. I didn’t see the gun in his hand, so I took the chance and slammed the door closed behind me. With all the power I had left in me, I leaned my weight against the door and flung my leg out, kicking him right in the unmentionables.
The pain on his face as he crumbled to his knees gave me satisfaction. On his way down, I kneed him in the head, pushing him back so I could open the door. I finally twisted the knob back open.
Right as I was about to exit the house, I heard Yvette come up the stairs. I h
eard the clicking of the gun. I made the split-second decision not to turn around and look back at her. I had to keep moving, and take the chance she would miss.
The bullet grazed right past my left ear as I stumbled onto the walkway leading to the house. My eyes took a minute to adjust to the dark; then I saw Donna standing at the edge of the driveway, hunched over and crying.
I ran toward her. “We have to move now, they’re coming.”
She stared at me, frantically, waiting for direction.
“This way,” I hissed. I ran in the direction of my car. Crap! My keys were in my purse, and they had my purse in the house. I kept running. I turned around to see where Donna was—she was falling behind. I paused so she could catch up. While I did that, I saw Bryce come storming out of the house. “Donna! Come on!”
I ran through someone’s yard and found a grouping of boxwood bushes. I shimmied myself between the house and bushes, I banged the house with my elbows a couple of times, hoping it would alert the homeowners, but I didn’t have much strength left.
Once we were hidden, I told Donna to be quiet. We crouched and waited.
After a few minutes of nothing happening, I turned to the left, toward the street. I thought I saw someone walking down the sidewalk, but I couldn’t tell if it was a passerby or Bryce. It definitely looked like a man’s stature. That much I could tell.
I was pouring sweat, and didn’t know how we were going to get help. I could tell by the way that Donna was hunched over, trying to breathe, that she couldn’t run much farther. Would they find us in these bushes? How long would they look for us?
“Bend your head down more,” I instructed Donna.
She did. I turned my back to her, lifting my arms at an awkward angle to pull down her gag as best I could. It was caught on her chin, but she could at least use her mouth again.
“Lana,” she said, gasping for air. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “We can’t stay here all night, it’s too close. They have to know we didn’t get very far.”
“Does anybody know where you are?” she asked.
“No,” I replied with defeat. “But I do have an idea. Turn your back to me, and I’ll turn mine to you. My phone is in my right back pocket. Pull it out.”
She nodded and we turned away from each other. I felt her hand blindly reaching for my phone.
“Okay, I have it,” she said. “Now what?”
“Now hold it out,” I told her. “I’m going to use my thumbprint to unlock it. And then I’m going to turn around and use the voice commands.”
I pressed my thumb over the HOME button and saw the light brighten against the siding of the house as my phone unlocked. I shimmied myself back around and put my face close to the screen. “Siri, call Adam…”
“CALLING ADAM TRUDEAU…”
Siri said it so loudly that it was deafening in the otherwise quiet night and I immediately regretted doing it.
Donna and I heard rustling nearby. We glanced at each other.
“Drop the phone!” I hissed.
The phone plopped onto the ground and I covered it with my thigh.
Footfalls approached our hiding spot. I watched as Yvette’s stilettos walked along the far side of the bushes. Bryce stayed on the side nearest to us.
“Hello? Lana!” Adam’s voice yelled from my speaker.
I cringed.
“They’re back here, Bry,” Yvette said smugly.
“Come out here now or we’ll just start shooting,” Bryce threatened.
I prayed again that the homeowners were alerted by the sounds outside their house. “Okay, we’re coming out. Don’t shoot.”
My phone had gone silent and I wanted to cry knowing that I had been so close. Now, leaving my phone behind, Donna and I shimmied out from behind the bushes and were greeted by Bryce and a cocky smile. Yvette came up from behind me and kicked the back of my knee, causing me to fall to the ground. “That’s for kicking me earlier, you little b—”
“That’s enough, Evie,” Bryce barked. “Let’s get them back to the house before someone calls the cops on us.”
They ordered Donna and me to walk in front of them, and as we rounded the drive, red and blue lights illuminated the houses surrounding us. Three patrol cars, two unmarked cars, and one black Ford Mustang came barreling down the street and slammed their brakes a few feet from where we stood.
A police office got out of the car, his gun drawn, the driver’s-side door his shield, and he yelled the infamous words no criminal wants to hear. “Hands up! We will shoot!”
Because Bryce and Yvette had been walking behind us, they used us as human shields. Yvette grabbed my hands and pulled me toward her while Bryce did the same to Donna.
“Don’t shoot us!” I yelled at the cop. “We’re the hostages!”
The cops glanced at each other. The one who’d gotten out of the car first spoke: “Let them go. This could go a lot worse for you if you don’t.”
“Yeah right,” Bryce yelled to the cop. “We’ll take our chances.”
Out of corner of my eye, I saw Lydia’s Mustang. She wasn’t alone. I fully turned my head to see who was with her. It was Adam. The expression on his face was something I had never witnessed before. He was no longer my boyfriend; he wasn’t even the original serious and professional Adam Trudeau I had met back on a day that now seemed so far away. No, he was someone else entirely. His eyes appeared hollow and cold, his jaw tense and lips clamped shut. His movements were robotic as he approached.
Lydia and Adam continued to inch closer. No one was paying attention to them. All eyes were on the cops with their guns drawn right in front of us.
I watched as Lydia raised her gun and aimed at Bryce. I stilled myself, hoping that she had good aim.
The gun went off, and I heard Yvette gasp. Blood splattered onto my arm as Donna fell forward. I yelled as I lifted my foot and stepped down hard on Yvette’s foot with my heel. She yowled and released my hands. I fell forward, trying to figure out where the blood was coming from. Had Donna been shot? Had I?
The cops in front of us yelled for nobody to move.
I’d scraped my knee on the driveway cement when I fell forward, and I felt the stinging of the open wound as my eyes began to flutter. The world started to spin, and the last thing I saw was the stars in the night sky. Then everything went black.
CHAPTER
34
I woke up about an hour later in Southwest General Hospital. When I turned my head, the only person I saw in the room was Lydia. She was reading something on her phone; when she noticed I was awake, she put the phone away and approached the bed. “Hey, chickadee, how you feelin’?”
“Like I’ve been to war,” I croaked. “What happened?”
“You passed out,” she replied. “Not that I can blame you. You went through quite an ordeal.”
“Was I shot?” I asked, inspecting my body while trying not to move my head. Everything ached. My head was pounding, my wrists stank, and my legs were sore.
“No, you weren’t shot.” She snorted. “As if I ever miss my mark.”
I sighed relief. That meant Donna hadn’t been shot, either. “Did you kill him?”
“Nah, just got him in the thigh.”
“Where’s Adam?” I asked.
“He’s calling your family. Your roommate is already on her way.”
Groaning, I asked, “Do I have to stay here?”
“No, you and Donna can leave soon. They just wanted to check you out one more time before they let you go. Donna is waiting on Rosemary to come pick her up. Everything is taken care of. You just relax until it’s time to go home.”
“What about my things?” I said, remembering that my purse had been in the house and my cell phone in the bushes.
“I took care of all that, too.” She pointed to the chair opposite my bed. Then she stuck her hand in her pocket. “And I have this.” She produced the terra-cotta soldier.
“Where d
id you find that?”
“It was in that dingy basement right by your purse. What an idiot.” She laughed. “Don’t worry, though. This never happened.” She stuck the thumb drive back into her pocket. “Donna’s secret will be safe with me.”
“Do you think that Bryce and Yvette will tell?”
“From what I’ve heard, Yvette isn’t talking at all. She’s denying any involvement. I can come up with a list of what information she stole from the agency, though. I don’t know about this Bryce guy, but I have a feeling he won’t say anything. At this point, I don’t think they’ll want to admit to blackmailing Donna on top of everything else. We’ll deal with it if the time comes. There are ways to doctor information, don’t you worry.”
“Thank you so much,” I said. “Once we’re out of the hospital, Donna will square everything away.”
“I know she’s good for it. Like I said, stop worrying.”
There was a knock at the door. Adam stood in the threshold looking like his old self again. I smiled at the sight of him.
Lydia turned. “Well, knight in shining armor is here,” she said playfully. “That’s my cue to get on out. I’m sure we’ll talk soon.” She winked.
Adam gave Lydia a respectful nod as he stepped into the room. “Thanks for your help tonight.”
“No problem.” She punched his arm. “Take care of our gal here.”
Once we were alone, Adam sat on the edge of the hospital bed and took my hand into his.
“I know,” I said, feeling ashamed of myself.
“You know what?” he asked.
“I know that I was supposed to tell you the truth, and I didn’t. I went behind your back and got myself into trouble, yet again … for the hundredth time.”
“You think you know me so well,” he joked. “Do you think I’m going to lecture you?”
