by N L Hinkens
Pulse racing, she crept toward the last door at the end of the corridor. One hand on the gun concealed beneath her jacket, she twisted the door handle and nudged it open. Her eyes darted around a messy bedroom. The floor was littered with mounds of discarded clothing, and it smelled almost as bad as the room with the dogs’ beds. There was no sign of Josh, and no evidence that he’d been here. Heather closed the door and retraced her steps, picking her way through the mess back down the hallway toward the kitchen.
Panic was rapidly welling up inside her. What if this was all a ruse and Josh wasn’t here at all? What if he was being held at a different location? She had wasted precious time driving thirty miles out of town to Teresa’s remote farmhouse. Maybe this was what she had wanted all along—to mock her PI skills while she killed Josh at another location. But then why had she left the door open? Heather peered tentatively into the kitchen and looked around the deserted space, catching a glimpse of fur through the window. The dogs still hadn’t let up barking. Teresa might be lurking outside somewhere.
Heather’s gaze fell on another door at the far end of the kitchen. A pantry, perhaps? It seemed odd that there was a key in the lock—maybe to prevent the dogs from getting into the food. Keeping a careful watch over her shoulder, Heather stole across the room and carefully opened the door. The skin on the back of her neck tingled as she took in the unfinished wooden stairs leading down to a gloomy basement. Could this be where Teresa was keeping Josh? The thought had no sooner struck her before a muffled cry for help wafted up the stairs.
“Josh! Is that you?” she called back into the darkness.
The cry came again, louder this time, accompanied by scuffling sounds, as though someone was trying to kick something to get her attention. Adrenalin shot through her. Stopping only long enough to snatch the key from the door, she darted down the steps, her eyes adjusting to the dimly lit space. A tiny rectangular window at the far end of the basement was the only source of natural light. Directly below it sat Josh, bound to a chair, hands tied behind his back. Heather ran to him and yanked the gag from his mouth. She pulled out her knife and set about cutting him free. Released from his bonds, he mumbled something as he fell forward into her arms.
“Josh! What did she do to you?”
He moaned. “A shot. It’s hard to breathe.”
“Okay, take it easy,” Heather soothed. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
“She sent me a picture of you tied up,” Josh rasped.
“She faked it,” Heather said. “It wasn’t me.”
Josh panted a few breaths. “Why … is she doing this?”
“I’ll explain everything later. There’s no time right now. I’ve got to get you to a hospital. Can you walk to the steps?”
He threw a dubious glance across the room. “I’ll try.”
Heather quietly assessed their route to freedom. The stairs were only twenty feet from them, but she wasn’t strong enough to carry Josh. He would have to muster his strength and walk with whatever support she could lend him. Gripping him under one arm, she helped him up out of the chair. It was only then that she noticed the glass enclosures lining one entire wall. “What is this place?”
Josh took a ragged breath. “She keeps reptiles down here. She’s crazy.”
Heather peered at the enclosures with revulsion. She could just about make out a coiled shape in the enclosure closest to them. Snakes!
Bile surged up her throat as a disturbing thought struck her. Had Teresa somehow orchestrated the fatal rattlesnake bites that killed Lindsay? A shiver rippled across her shoulders. If that was the case, Damien’s twin was even more sick and twisted than she had imagined. “Let’s get out of here before she comes back,” she urged Josh.
They had taken only a couple of faltering steps before a low-pitched voice washed over them. “I see you made it here in time for the party.”
Heather tensed, her eyes widening at the sight of the large-boned woman standing at the top of the basement steps. A long, heavy, brown braid hung limply over one shoulder. It was the woman Aidy had found a picture of on Roy’s phone.
“It’s over, Teresa,” Heather said, her calm tone belying the tension swirling in her gut. “You need to step aside. I have to get Josh to the hospital.”
Teresa bared her teeth in a cold smile. “That’s heroic, but I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. I’ve already planned the ending to our little soirée, and it doesn’t go quite the way you’d like it to. This ends with your death—we both know that—but when I found out about your little crush on Josh, I thought it would be a more interesting twist if you died together.”
“You know you don’t mean that,” Heather responded. “You’re angry and hurt, and it’s understandable that you want to lash out at someone, but if you kill us, you’re only going to end up spending the rest of your life in prison.”
“What makes you think I haven’t spent my entire life in a prison of your making?” Teresa snapped as she descended a step. “You murdered Damien and now you’re going to pay. You think you’re a hot shot PI, but it turns out you’re not as clever as your website claims. What you tried to cover up has come back to bite you after all these years.”
“I didn’t kill your brother,” Heather replied. “He made the choice to drink and drive. I followed him because I had to try and make him understand exactly what he’d done to my sister—how it had broken her.”
“You can’t talk your way out of this,” Teresa snarled. “You took a shotgun with you that night. You had every intention of killing Damien. You just got lucky he crashed, otherwise you’d still be locked up right now. Instead, you got to walk away and wash your hands of your crime. You left my brother to die.” She paused, narrowing her eyes. “All your friends are suffering now as a consequence of your actions, and you’re going to die next—just like Lindsay did, and just like Roy did.”
“Roy? I don’t understand. What did he have to do with anything?” Heather asked, trying to buy some time to think as she struggled to support Josh’s weight.
Teresa gave an indifferent shrug. “He meddled in things he shouldn’t have meddled in. He caught me hiding out at his house while I was waiting for you to show up. Of course he went ballistic like the hothead he is. He thought I was working for some guy he owed money to. He took a photograph of me and said he was going to the police with it—he wanted to press trespassing charges. I couldn’t let him draw that kind of attention to me.” She smirked as she came down another step. “Besides, I needed a scapegoat for the arson.”
“How did you know I was going to be at Roy’s house?” Heather asked.
Teresa let out a scoffing laugh. “You’re the PI. Figure it out!”
“So you were behind it all—the flower delivery, the threats, the arson, the poisoning, even Roy’s murder?”
“I wouldn’t say everything,” a familiar voice said.
Shock ricocheted through Heather’s veins when she saw who stepped into view at the top of the stairs.
36
“Reagan! What … what are you doing here?” Heather choked out.
“Help us!” Josh mumbled, stretching a hand in her direction.
Reagan leaned against the door frame, arms folded in front of her, a callous smile playing on her lips. “Oh I’m here to help all right—just not you, Josh.”
“What are you talking about?” Heather cried. “Are you … were you in on this—luring Josh here, drugging him?”
Reagan let out an exasperated sigh. “You and your nauseating schoolgirl crush. You’re missing the point as usual. That’s the thing about you, Heather. You think you can sail through life without any consequences while the rest of us pay dearly for the mistakes we make.”
Heather shook her head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand what you mean. Look, whatever happened between us our senior year, you got what you wanted in the end. I don’t hold a grudge against you.”
Reagan let out a scoffing laugh. “Do you really think
that’s what this is about? I couldn’t care less about squashing your lame campaign for class president.” She straightened up and scowled down at Heather. “This is about something much bigger. You didn’t just destroy Teresa’s life when you left her brother to die like a dog on the side of the road. You destroyed mine too. All these years and I never suspected a thing—not until I got a call from Teresa a few months back. She found my contact information in Lindsay’s phone. Once she realized who I was, she told me everything. She said Lindsay made a confession in her dying moments—that you were the reason Damien wrecked his truck and died that night.”
Reagan’s features twisted and she teetered on the step as if reeling from the impact of her own words. “Damien Kinney was my boyfriend. I couldn’t tell anyone I was dating him in high school because my parents didn’t like him, or the fact that he was two years older than me. We kept our relationship secret from everyone, other than Teresa, but we had plans to move in together as soon as I graduated. You took all that away from us. After Damien died, I was a lost soul. I ended up with that lowlife Roy—wasted ten years of my life with him.” She curled her lips into a cruel smile. “Although, as Teresa pointed out, he did serve a purpose in the end.”
“But … you have a good life now. You have a family,” Heather countered. “Your daughter, and Dave.”
“Don’t you dare bring up Lucy!” Reagan screamed. “She should have been Damien’s child. You screwed up everything. Now I’m stuck trying to milk money out of Marco to support his kid because Dave doesn’t earn enough to provide for us properly. It’s time you paid for what you stole from me.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Heather said.
Reagan arched an amused brow. “Is that a fact? You think you’re such an amazing investigator, but you fell for every piece of bait I laid out for you. Why do you think I included a tribute to Lindsay in the reunion program? To lure you back to Iowa, of course.”
“You knew all this time that Teresa killed Lindsay!” Heather spat out. “You’ll pay for this, Reagan!”
“No one knows you’re here,” Teresa cut in abruptly. “My property backs up to national forest land. Don’t think for a minute anyone will ever find your graves.”
Teresa descended the remaining steps and reached for a long-handed reptile grabber hanging on the wall. She approached one of the glass enclosures and opened the hinged door on the front before expertly scooping up a yellow and black banded snake.
Heather gripped Josh tighter and took a hasty step backward, a knot forming in her throat as Teresa dangled the snake from the grabber. “Let me introduce you to Achilles,” she said. “A banded krait from Bangladesh. Stunning specimen, isn’t he?”
“This isn’t funny, Teresa. Put the snake back and let’s talk about this,” Heather urged in a calm tone.
“Beautiful things are sometimes dangerous,” Teresa continued in a hypnotic tone, tuning out Heather entirely. “Did you know that krait snakes are actually cannibals? They eat other snakes as a matter of course, but they’re not adverse to eating other krait snakes either in a pinch. So you see they’re not all that unlike us. We humans eat other humans all the time. Not literally, but with the same net result—we destroy each other.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that though,” Heather countered. “Humans can forgive each other too. We have it inside ourselves to show compassion and grace.”
Reagan let out a disdainful snort. “You didn’t feel that way twenty years ago.”
“I was seventeen-years-old, trying to defend my little sister. I made a terrible mistake. I’ve had to live with the guilt of my choice that night ever since,” Heather said quietly. “But we’re adults with some life perspective now. Surely we can forgive and move forward.”
Teresa cocked her head to one side. “Do I look that weak to you?”
“It takes strength to forgive,” Josh chimed in.
Teresa stared at him, a disturbing gleam in her eyes. “Snakes have more strength than most people realize. A single bite from a krait can result in unrecoverable nerve damage. Do you know what that means for you, Josh?”
He made a choking sound at the back of his throat and shook his head.
“It causes paralysis—that little sedative I gave you pales in comparison to what awaits you. In the end, you won’t even be able to move your diaphragm to breathe. You’ll slowly asphyxiate.”
“Enough of the game warden lecture,” Reagan called down to her sharply. “Just do it!”
Teresa flashed a chilling grin at Heather and Josh, and then, in one deft movement, flung the krait snake over the floor in their direction.
Time seemed to stand still, a blur of black and yellow, as Heather’s brain kicked into gear, her training lending her the reaction speed she needed to draw her weapon, aim, and fire at the reptile.
“No!” Teresa howled, propelling herself forward the second the gunshot rang out. She fell to her knees by the writhing bloodied snake that lay between them. Leaning protectively over it, she swayed back and forth as if in a trance, mumbling incoherently.
Heather wasted no time helping Josh hobble across the room to the wooden staircase. The minute they reached it, the door at the top slammed shut leaving them with only the slit of light that the filthy ground level window allowed. Heather tossed a quick glance over her shoulder at Teresa, but she was still hunched over her dead snake, lost in her world of all-consuming grief.
When Josh finally made it to the top of the stairs, Heather twisted the handle to open the door, but quickly realized something was blocking it. She put her shoulder to it and shoved repeatedly until it burst open, knocking over a small chest that had been dragged in front of it. She fished the basement key from her pocket and locked the door behind her. “Dial 911,” she yelled, thrusting her phone into Josh’s hands before darting into the hallway.
“Reagan!” she called out. “Where are you? You’re not going to get away with this.” She listened for a moment, but the only response was a manic barking. Reagan must have gone outside—hopefully she wasn’t going to unleash a pack of rabid dogs on them next. Seconds later, Heather heard the sound of an engine. She dashed out through the front door and took aim at the white Subaru emerging from the barn. Undeterred, Reagan accelerated toward her. Heather took aim and fired, blowing out the left front tire. Reagan altered course and tore off down the driveway, engine screaming. Gritting her teeth, Heather fired again, blowing out another tire. Reagan swerved, over-correcting before careening into the ditch a short distance from the main road.
Heather’s shoulders sagged, her adrenalin level dropping several notches. Shaking, she lowered her weapon and sank to her knees, relief flooding her system. It was over. She had kept her wits about her and prevailed. The paramedics would be here soon and would take care of Josh. Marco and Sydney no longer needed to fear for their lives. Violet and her baby were safe from any future threats or intimidation. And, hopefully, Teresa would get the help she should have got twenty years ago. As for Reagan, Heather would be glad if she never had to see her pinched face again.
The welcome sound of sirens filled her ears. Moments later, several emergency vehicles turned off the main road and onto the dirt lane. She watched as Reagan was handcuffed and led over to a squad car. The ambulance and a second squad car continued up the driveway, and Heather hurried to greet the paramedics and direct them inside to Josh.
“I think she gave him acepromazine,” Heather said as a paramedic checked his vitals. “It’s some kind of sedative for animals.”
“Everything’s going to be all right now,” she assured Josh, squeezing his hand as the paramedics loaded him on to a stretcher trolley and wheeled him out to the waiting ambulance. “I’ll see you at the hospital shortly.”
“I’m Officer Flaherty,” one of the police officers said, introducing himself with a dip of his head. “I take it the perpetrator’s still in the basement?”
Heather nodded and led the officers over to the basement do
or. “She keeps her venomous snakes down here, so be careful,” she warned them as she turned the key in the lock. “I shot one, but there are several more in the glass enclosures along the wall.”
“All right, we’ll take it from here,” Officer Flaherty replied, drawing his weapon as he stepped in front of her. He motioned to his partner, and then slowly opened the door. “Police!” he shouted down the stairs. “Hands in the air. We’re coming in.”
Heather paced back-and-forth across the kitchen floor as she waited for the officers to reappear at the top of the stairs with a handcuffed Teresa in tow. Moments later, a loud crackling of radios erupted, and the two men beat a hasty retreat back up the stairs and slammed the door. “There’s a loose snake down there,” Officer Flaherty said, visibly shaken. “We’re going to have to wait for animal control to get here.”
“What?” Heather exclaimed. “Are you sure it isn’t dead—the black and yellow one I shot?”
He shook his head. “It had a gray body. It reared up and hissed.”
“What about Teresa?” Heather asked.
“She’s sitting in the corner with her back against the wall, leaning up against a freezer,” he replied. “She was unresponsive when we called to her.”
A cold chill went down Heather’s spine. She sank down on a kitchen chair to wait while more officers spilled into the farmhouse and began collecting evidence and taping off the house.
Officer Flaherty pulled out a notepad. “I’m going to take a quick statement from you to add to what Josh relayed to the dispatcher. You’re Heather Nelson, is that correct?”
