by B. J Daniels
Silas pulled on his coat and, taking TJ’s with him, said over his shoulder, “I’ll check on her. You guys go on to the bar.” He headed for the door, but stopped before going out. “What kind of car does Ester drive?”
“An older model. As big as a tank,” Annabelle said. “Blue, I think.”
Silas told himself TJ was fine, but all his instincts told him otherwise. He thought about the boxes of old discolored paper. Mrs. Taylor had said she’d sold one of the boxes to someone from the school. A teacher? A former teacher?
Once outside he looked around. A few people were coming and going. He didn’t see a big blue car. He didn’t see TJ or Ester Brown. Maybe TJ had decided to drive her home. He ran back inside, asked for directions to the woman’s house and then ran to his truck.
He told himself that TJ could hold her own with an elderly woman. But his fear was that she wouldn’t see it coming.
* * *
TJ GASPED AS a glass of cold water was thrown in her face. She didn’t know how long she’d been knocked out. After the shock of the cold water, she became aware of the pain. She hurt all over. Worse, she found herself bound with tape on the floor. In the dim overhead bulb Ester had turned on, she could see that her ankles were bound, along with her hands. Her arms and one knee were scraped and bleeding, and her head ached.
She looked up into Ester’s weathered face, still feeling as if this couldn’t be happening. Her former teacher had pushed her down the basement stairs. It was a wonder the fall hadn’t killed her, and yet Ester didn’t seem to be in the least bit concerned. Probably because she plans to kill me anyway.
She looked around the basement, still feeling as if her brain was fuzzy. She spotted a small desk with the old manual typewriter sitting on it. Next to it was an open ream of the discolored paper. The rest of the box sat on the floor next to the desk. She thought as her mind seemed to be clearing that this was the teacher who’d said she bought it to give to the school.
Ester had been down here secretly writing the letters? But not just those, she saw. The trash can next to the desk was filled with wadded-up paper. Even from where she was tied up TJ could see what appeared to be a stack of typed pages on the other side of the typewriter. A book Ester was working on? Why write down here and not upstairs? Why keep it a secret?
She saw that Ester was fiddling with something over by the stairs. TJ began working at the tape binding her wrists behind her. It felt a little loose. If she could get her finger under the last loop...
Ester, she realized, had been wiping TJ’s blood off the basement stairs railing. The thought made her stomach drop. How long did she plan to keep her in this basement? Or was she going to kill her and maybe bury her down here? Ester knew that surely she’d never get away with this.
Unfortunately, as the woman turned toward her, TJ saw something in her eyes that told her Ester wasn’t worried about getting away with it.
“Did you know that I used to do some writing myself?” Ester asked conversationally as she pulled up a chair in front of her.
TJ stared at her, wondering if she was hallucinating all of this. “I didn’t know,” she managed to say, since it appeared Ester was waiting for a response.
“Of course you didn’t. I was talented, but I needed to make a living.” At the edge of the bitterness was pain and regret. TJ had heard it before from aspiring writers. “I dreamed of writing books and being famous like you.” Her voice broke.
TJ didn’t know what to say. “Now that you’re retired—”
Ester shook her head, the gun in her hand still pointed at TJ’s heart even though she was bound to the chair. “It’s too late.”
She decided now wasn’t the time to point out that Ester could have written in her spare time as a teacher. The woman had never married or had more to look after than a cat. Maybe she could have found time to write.
But it was clear Ester wanted to blame someone for the fact that she’d never written the books that she’d dreamed would have brought her fame and fortune.
TJ felt badly for her because there’d been a time when she’d had to work at an eight-to-five job. All she’d wanted to do was write. She remembered the frustration. She had the feeling that if she could just write full-time, she could get published. She could support herself on her writing.
It had been hard back then, but she’d gotten up early in the morning and written as much as she could before she had to go to work. Then she’d written late into the night. It hadn’t been easy and what she’d written wasn’t that great, but she wasn’t the only writer who’d had to make a living as well as write starting out.
“That’s why you’re so angry with me,” TJ said, realizing what this really was about. Tessa Jane had the audacity to become a writer while Ester felt she’d been kept from it by students like TJ and her sisters.
“I had talent,” Ester said angrily. “I tried to share that talent as a teacher with students like you. But you never appreciated it. When I wrote you the letters, I knew you wouldn’t take them seriously if they were from me. That’s why I didn’t sign them. I thought I could help you...” Her voice broke.
So instead of writing her own books, Ester had wanted to rewrite TJ’s.
She didn’t know what to say, but she knew she had to say something. Ester seemed confused, as if now that she’d taken TJ, she didn’t seem to know what to do with her. Had she just wanted her to know the truth?
“Ester, I’m so glad you’ve finally told me that the letters were from you. I didn’t realize that you were just trying to help me.”
Ester stared at her. “How could you not realize it? I told you—”
“But how could I trust it not knowing who the advice was coming from?”
The older woman stared at her. “As if you would have listened even if you’d known. You were impossible in my class.”
“I think that was my sister Chloe, or maybe Annabelle. Mrs. Brown—”
“You’re just trying to confuse me. I need to think.” Suddenly she seemed agitated. The hand holding the gun was shaking.
“You don’t want to hurt me. You need to let me go. This is not the way you want to end your teaching career.”
Ester huffed. “I didn’t even get a gold watch. A luncheon and a pat on the head before I was replaced with a young teacher who doesn’t know grammar and couldn’t care less.”
“I’m sorry,” TJ said, not knowing what more there was to say. Ester felt as if her life hadn’t mattered. TJs heart went out to her.
“Actually, I owe you so much. I learned a lot in your class. I wouldn’t have been as successful as I’ve been without you.”
Ester cocked her head at her as if trying to judge if she was just saying this.
She rushed on, all the time still working at the tape around her wrists. “I loved the writing assignments you gave us,” she said, trying to remember one of them that Ester might also recall. High school had been so long ago and yet for Ester it had been only months ago. It was no wonder the students had all run together in Ester’s mind—at least TJ and her sisters.
She thought about what Annabelle had said about Ester having a series of ministrokes. That could account for some of this strange behaviour as well, especially if Ester had had them in the past six months.
“My favorite writing assignment was a character study. Do you remember that?”
“Of course I do,” her former teacher snapped. “I used it in all my classes.”
“I wrote mine about the hall bully. You liked it so much that you read it to all your classes. It was the first time I realized that I might actually be a writer. That I might actually succeed at it.”
Ester got a faraway look in her eyes for a moment. “Rick. That was the boy’s name.”
TJ nodded and felt a ray of hope even though Ester was still holding the gun steady and pointed at her heart.
“You gave me hope that day. All I ever wanted to do was write.”
Ester nodded, tears in her eyes. “That’s all I wanted too.”
“So you need to let me go. This is just a misunderstanding.”
Unfortunately, the woman shook her head again. “I can’t do that.”
* * *
ESTER BROWN’S HOUSe was only a few blocks away. The moment Silas pulled up in front of the small white home, he saw that there were no lights on inside. Also there was no blue car parked outside. But there was a garage to one side.
Is it possible they would have gone somewhere else? He couldn’t even be sure that TJ was with the older woman. But both Annabelle and Chloe had seen her leave with Ester. He told himself that TJ was so accommodating that she might have taken her by the gas station to fill up the car for her. Or even the grocery store for milk and bread.
But his gut told him that wasn’t the case. Fear gripped him as he climbed out of the truck and ran up to the garage. He peered in. A big blue boat of a car filled the small space. He ran up the front steps, rang the doorbell and then hammered with his fist before trying the door. Locked.
Where the hell were they?
He tried to calm down. But he knew that something was terribly wrong.
He saw a loose brick in the planter that ran the full length of the house and jumped down to retrieve it. Back up on the porch, he threw the brick through the small window next to the door. The glass shattered. He knocked the lethal-looking shards aside and reached in to unlock the door.
* * *
AT THE SOUND of breaking glass upstairs, Ester jumped, and for a moment TJ flinched, fearing that she would accidently pull the trigger. They both froze, listening. Someone was breaking into the house.
TJ opened her mouth to scream only to have a balled-up sock stuffed down her throat. She gagged and tried to spit it out, but Ester held it in place with a strip of tape.
“Stay here,” she ordered before taking the gun and starting for the stairs.
Like she was going anywhere bound like this. But she had managed to loosen the tape on her wrists. She waited until Ester’s back was turned as she headed up the stairs before she worked frantically at the tape. Whoever had come to rescue her wouldn’t be expecting Ester to be armed. That could be a fatal mistake.
* * *
SILAS HAD JUST gotten the door open when Ester Brown appeared. She still wore her coat as if she hadn’t been home long. Her hands were in the pockets. She didn’t look that surprised to see him or that upset that he’d just broken into her house.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded in a voice that reminded him of a teacher he’d had in middle school.
“Where’s TJ?”
“TJ?” she asked, and frowned as if the name didn’t ring a bell.
“Tessa Jane. She helped you out to your car, possibly drove you home?”
Ester frowned. “Well, yes, but the last I saw her was in the parking lot with Joyce Mason.”
He thought of the woman who’d seemed to purposely bump into TJ at the dance. He’d seen Joyce’s expression. It had been hateful. For a moment, he thought he’d broken into the wrong house. But then he saw something over by one of the chairs and recognized it at once as the bracelet TJ had been wearing at the dance tonight.
Ester had followed his gaze—and seen it as well. She stepped to the side as if to block his view, but then must have realized it was too late. Her face filled with anger.
“Ester, what have you done with TJ? TJ!” he called.
“She can’t hear you.”
He started to rush past her when she pulled the gun. It looked so incongruous that for a moment he thought it was a joke.
But one look in her eyes and he knew this was no joke. His heart dropped at the thought of what she could have already done.
“As I told Tessa Jane, don’t try me,” she said. “I know how to use it. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.” Her voice was so calm he froze. He wasn’t quite close enough to her to disarm her. Nor did he doubt she would shoot him. Something in her eyes.
“Where is TJ?”
“You’ll see soon enough,” Ester said. “Close the door. You’ll have to pay for that window you broke.” She leveled the gun at him. “Unless you’re dead too.”
* * *
TJ HAD HEARD Silas calling for her. Fear gripped her for a moment as tears blurred her eyes. Ester had taken her gun when she’d gone upstairs. The woman didn’t look like someone who would carry one—let alone use it.
And that could be Silas’s fatal mistake. TJ had certainly underestimated the woman. She wouldn’t make that mistake again, but Silas might not get a second chance. I might not either, she thought, her heart pounding.
She heard nothing from upstairs. No gunshot. Ester hadn’t killed him. Yet. She waited a moment as if expecting to hear a gunshot and praying she wouldn’t.
Then she went to work on the ropes on her wrists again. Now she worked even more frantically, feeling as if time was running out. As she worked, she listened. Earlier, she’d heard someone ring the doorbell numerous times and then the loud knock; she should have known it was Silas. Of course he would come looking for her. The sound of breaking glass had startled her as well as Ester.
What terrified her was that Ester seemed to know that she would never get away with this. She didn’t seem to care. It was as if this was something she’d decided to do before she died. Ester was determined to see this through even though it made little sense.
But TJ had seen the anger that had been apparent in the letters. Ester was furious with herself, with the world. And TJ had become the object of that anger.
The tape gave. She shoved it away, aware of the pain in her shoulder. Her arms were scraped and bleeding, her wrists aching from being taped up for so long behind her. But she barely noticed.
Tearing off the gag, she thought about calling to Silas to warn him, but realized that might put him in more jeopardy. But what if he believed Ester when she said that she wasn’t here? What if he left?
Instead, she hurriedly untied her ankles and got to her feet, blood rushing into her extremities as she looked around for a weapon before she started up the stairs at a run.
* * *
SILAS COULD SEE that Ester seemed out of breath, but she still held the gun in her hand plenty steady enough to kill him. He’d complicated whatever plan she’d had and he knew it. But he could see the wheels in her head turning as she motioned for him to lead the way down the hallway.
“Where are we headed?” he asked, walking slowly. He could feel her behind him, intent on keeping that gun leveled at the middle of him.
“Don’t worry about it,” she snapped. “Just keep walking a little farther.”
Ahead he could see a door on his left and an opening into the kitchen off to his right. The tension in the air was thick as salami. Ester was in planning mode and that was making him very nervous.
He was almost to the door on the left when he heard footfalls. It dawned on him that someone was running upstairs from the basement about the time the door was flung open. TJ came bursting through it.
Silas only had a second to decide what to do. He spun around, bringing up a foot. Ester had been distracted for only a moment, but it was long enough that she hadn’t gotten a shot off. He kicked at the gun in her hand, but the woman must have had a death grip on it. All he accomplished was shoving the gun off to the side.
The report of the shot was deafening in the small hallway. Sheetrock exploded on the wall to the right, sending a cloud of chalky dust into the air. Silas rushed Ester
, but not before she fired again. She was already swinging the gun back in his and TJ’s direction when it went off.
He grabbed the woman’s arm, heard her cry out as he wrenched it hard enough to take the gun from her bony fingers. She attacked him with her hands, flying at him. For her age, she was much stronger than he’d expected. With the gun still in his hand it was hard to wrestle her into compliance. He finally shoved her face-first into the wall and held her there as he pocketed the gun.
He realized he hadn’t heard a sound out of TJ. Turning to look, at first all he saw was the open basement door. Past it was a bare foot, the high heel shoe she’d been wearing lying next to it.
“TJ?”
No answer.
He fought to move the struggling Ester along the wall so he could see TJ. Reaching the door, he slammed it closed. Sitting in the hallway staring was the woman he’d fallen in love with even before he’d met her. She had a hand over her side, blood leaking from between her fingers.
“TJ!” he cried, giving up on trying to hold Ester. He opened the basement door and put her down on the first step before closing the door and locking it. Then he dropped beside TJ and tried to call 911 at the same time as he worked to stanch the bleeding. “You’re going to be all right,” he kept saying, praying it would be true. “You’re going to be all right.”
He held her as the sound of sirens filled the air.
Chapter Twenty-One
TJ remembered little after she was shot other than being in Silas’s arms and then holding his hand in the ambulance. It had all seemed like a bad dream. Or an ending to one of her books. The scream of the sirens. The blood. The feeling that it was over and yet not knowing if everyone would get out alive.
She vaguely remembered seeing her sisters as she was being wheeled down to surgery. They were both crying. Chloe telling her not to die. Annabelle saying something about Christmas. And Silas standing at the end of the hall, his face a mask of pain and worry. The rest was a blur of dreams and waking up in the middle of the night to see a nurse bending over her.
