Tess's Tale (The Chanel Series Book 3)

by Donna Joy Usher

  ‘Might have a shower myself.’ Thor stood up and headed for the bathroom.

  I took a seat at the table, tapping my fingers on the placemat in front of me. I felt like I was biding time. ‘I should say goodbye to Hillary.’ I was as surprised as Liss when the words popped out of my mouth. I hadn’t ever been close to Hillary. It was as if we had been born just to torture each other. But she was my only remaining relative. And she was all alone.

  ‘Do you want me to come?’ Liss reached across the table and clasped my hands.

  ‘No.’ It was something I needed to do by myself.

  ‘Well, you need me to at least drive you. I’ll stay in the car.’

  She was right. Harry would have taken ours. ‘Thanks.’ I squeezed her hands and stood up. I was going to miss her more than anything.

  We were quiet on the drive over. It felt strange to be going home. Now. Like this. I wasn’t sure how Hillary could stand to live there, knowing Mom had been murdered there.

  ‘I’ll wait here.’ Liss pulled into a spot across the street and I climbed from the car.

  It took Hillary a few minutes to come to the door. When she did, she opened it an inch and peered out. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  As soon as the shock of Mom’s death was over, our relationship had returned to normal. I doubted very much I was going to get a goodbye hug. Didn’t even want one, but I still felt the need to tell her.

  She shut the door and I heard the rustle of a chain being undone. ‘Come in,’ she said, opening it wide.

  I followed her down the hall, past the bedrooms we had slept in, to the small lounge. Both the bedrooms were bare.

  ‘You’ve moved?’ I was lucky I had caught her at home.

  ‘Into the main bedroom. It has the biggest wardrobe.’

  ‘Oh.’ There wasn’t much to say to that.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  It seemed rude not to accept. I stood while she filled the jug and placed it on the stove.

  ‘Might just use the bathroom,’ I said. I didn’t really need to, I just couldn’t stand the awkward silence.

  The kitchen was empty when I returned, the jug working itself up to its first wheeze. I switched off the stove and poured hot water into the teapot, stopping when I heard voices coming from Mom’s, I mean Hillary’s, room, raised in a heated discussion. Hillary was arguing with… my blood froze in my veins as I realised who it was.

  I crept towards the bedroom door. Lou was here. Lou! And I had left my handbag in the car with Liss. I thought about going back to get it but then I heard flesh smacking flesh and Hillary cried out in pain.

  ‘You treacherous slut,’ Lou bellowed. ‘It was you all along.’

  I made it to the room and peered around the door. Hillary stood in the doorway to the wardrobe. She held her hand to her cheek and stared at Lou with angry eyes.

  ‘Get back,’ she snarled. ‘It’s mine.’

  He pounced, grabbing her throat with both hands as he started to shake her. She looked like a ragdoll flopping about, but she gouged at his face with her fingers, sticking her thumbs into his eyes. He let out a yell and threw her backwards. Her head made a cracking noise as it slammed into the doorframe and she slid to the floor. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her limbs hung limply.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ he muttered as he undid his belt.

  I watched in horror, frozen with indecision. Did I go back for my gun or not? I didn’t think I’d have much more luck than Hillary had if it came to hand-to-hand combat between him and me.

  He pulled his belt out through the loops and threw it to the side, then he undid the top button of his pants.

  That made my mind up. He was planning to rape her, and then probably kill her. If I went back to the car I might be too late.

  Lou was intent on his prey as I crept up behind him. I palmed a bottle of perfume from Hillarys’ dressing table and slammed it into the back of his head. It shattered with the impact, pieces of glass burrowing into his skull. The perfume soaked his head, the scent overpowering in such a large amount.

  I jumped back, plucking a large piece of glass from the palm of my hand as he swung around. The perfume bit into my cut, stinging with an intensity that brought tears to my eyes.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘Come back for more?’

  I looked around for another weapon. The perfume didn’t seem to have slowed him at all. ‘Come back to finish you off,’ I said. It was all bravado.

  ‘I’ll finish you off, then I’ll take your sister. Then I’ll do to both of you what I did to your mother.’

  Even though I had been sure it had been him, hearing him admit to killing Mom gave legs to my rage. I screamed and launched myself at him, kicking and scratching. I felt skin jam under my nails as I raked his face. He bellowed and slammed his fist into my cheek but I barely even felt it.

  He had killed my mother and I was going to make him pay.

  I ducked under his next punch and kicked him in the crotch. He roared as he bent over and I thumped him on the head with both fists. If I’d had something more substantial than my bare hands, that may have been the end of it. As it was, I barely even hurt him.

  He stayed in his crouched-over position and tackled me around the waist, picking me up and throwing me back at the wardrobe. I smacked into the door and fell on top of Hillary. She didn’t even stir.

  He kicked me in the ribs and pain exploded in my side. I rolled into a ball, wrapping my arms around my knees to protect my baby. Another kick like that and there may be nothing to tell Harry about.

  I looked back into the wardrobe, searching for a weapon. An umbrella lay beyond my reach, a bag lying on its side next to it. Where was a nice tyre wrench when you needed one?

  He stood above me, his gloating smile grotesque. ‘I used to watch you shower,’ he said. ‘I played with myself as you soaped up your boobies. I imagined taking you from behind while you shaved your legs.’

  I felt ill. I had thought the time I had caught him watching me was the first. I had been wrong.

  ‘Think I might tie you to the bed so I can have you whenever I want.’ He reached his hand inside his pants and pulled out his penis. It was huge and purple and the most disgusting thing I had ever seen.

  I wiggled back into the wardrobe as he reached out for me. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be. I was going to kill him. Not the other way around.

  ‘Might tie Hillary up in the other room. You can take turns seeing to my particular needs.’

  He dropped his pants and stepped out of them.

  Oh God. He was going to take me now. Here. Next to my unconscious sister. The man was a sick pervert and deserved to die. I just didn’t have any way to make that happen.

  I shoved the bag to the side, paper rustling under my fingers as I groped for the umbrella. He threw back his head and laughed, and then the strangest thing happened. His face exploded. Flesh and blood and bits of brain flew out from where his forehead had been. He wasn’t laughing as he toppled forwards. I screamed and pushed at his dead weight, wiggling out from under him.

  Liss stood in the middle of the bedroom. My gun was in her hands. ‘And there ends Lou the Brain.’ She laughed. ‘Get it?’ Brain?’

  I got it all right. Bits of his brain were stuck to my face.

  ‘Lissy.’ I crawled towards her. ‘Lissy.’

  She pulled me into her arms and cradled me against her. ‘Shhh,’ she cooed into my hair. ‘You’re safe now.’

  We stayed like that for a few minutes until my trembling and tears had stopped.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. She had risked a lot to kill him.

  ‘Because I love you.’ She sighed. ‘And I owed your Mom.’

  I pulled back and looked up into her face. Tears slid down her cheeks. ‘It was my fault Lou raped Rose the first time. I let him into our house on my way out one day. I knew she didn’t like him but he promised me he was just there to talk.’ She was silent for a moment, her eyes staring back through time. ‘I
found her when I got back. He choked her until she passed out and then he raped her.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t have guessed that was his intention. He did it, not you.’

  She sighed. ‘I wish Rose had seen it that way. It ruined her career and she never forgave me.’ She stood up and looked down at Lou. ‘What a disgusting piece of filth.’ She kicked him in the leg. ‘What are we going to do with him?’

  I walked over to the wardrobe and knelt beside Hillary. Her chest rose slightly in time with her breath. I looked past her to Lou, and that was when I saw it.

  The paper rustling beneath my hands had been money. Lots and lots of it. It flowed out of the bag and all over the floor.

  ‘I think we just found the missing two million,’ Liss said.

  I sat down on the floor. Stunned didn’t even begin to sum up how I felt. Hillary was the thief?

  She was Jim’s secretary. She had access to his office.

  Liss stepped over Lou and pulled the side of the bag open. She put her hand in and searched through the money. ‘Ah hah.’ When she withdrew it, she had a revolver in her hand.

  ‘How did you know that would be there?’ I stared at the revolver. It was all a bit much for me to take in.

  ‘Well we know she had one.’

  I must have had a stupid expression on my face.

  ‘She killed those men.’

  I had started to get up, but now I sat back down. Liss was right. Hillary had killed those men. They hadn’t been executed. She was as accurate a shot as I was.

  ‘And in the movies the bad guys always hide the weapon with the money.’ She put the gun onto the dressing table and picked up one of Lou’s legs. ‘Here, help me.’

  I grabbed the other one. ‘What are we doing?’

  ‘We’re going to make it look like she killed him.’

  ‘What about the blood?’

  She stopped tugging and looked back in the wardrobe. ‘You’re right. We’ll have to move her.’

  We pulled Hillary out so that she was lying behind Lou. Then Liss packed the money back into the bag so it wouldn’t be obvious I had seen it. Hillary let out a groan as Liss pressed the gun into her hand.

  ‘I’ll wait in the car around the corner,’ Liss whispered.

  I waited till she had left the house before stooping beside Hillary. ‘Hill,’ I shook her shoulder. ‘Are you okay?’

  It seemed a bit of a daft question but it was the only one I could think of.

  ‘Tess?’ her voice came out in a groan. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yes.’ I shook her again. ‘We’ve got a problem.’

  ‘Lou.’ Her eyes flew open. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  She shook her head.

  I had thought it would be hard but the lie flowed smoothly out of me.

  ‘You shot him.’

  ‘I what?’ She sat up, groaned, and then held a hand to the back of her head. She peered into the wardrobe where the indisputable evidence lay. ‘What happened to his pants?’

  ‘He threw you into the wardrobe and you hit your head. I attacked him.’ I stopped and pulled a face. ‘That didn’t go so well. He was going to rape me.’ I choked on the word. Rape was a nice way of putting what he’d planned. ‘But you shot him. Then you passed out again.’

  ‘I did?’ She stared at the gun in her hand and then back at Lou. ‘I did.’ This time her voice had an affirmative inflection and I knew I had her. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We need to get rid of the body.’

  ‘Where?’

  I’d been wondering the same thing but as soon as she voiced the question I knew the answer. ‘The Bellagio.’

  ‘What? We just dump him in the foyer?’ She rolled her eyes and pushed herself to her feet.

  ‘No.’ I managed to refrain from adding the word stupid. That wasn’t going to help at all. ‘We dump him in the huge hole they dug for the fountain.’ If snippets of information I had heard at the wake had been correct, they were planning on pouring the concrete tomorrow.

  She stared at me for a second and then she nodded her head. ‘My car is in the garage. Help me get him onto the rug.’

  It was so clichéd. We rolled him in the bedroom rug and dragged him down to the car. Stuffing him into the trunk took a little longer, especially since Hillary insisted on lining it with plastic bags first.

  ‘Don’t speed,’ I said as she pulled out of the driveway. The last thing we needed was the police giving us the once over. Even though I had washed my face I was sure small flecks of Lou remained.

  ‘Do you want to drive?’ She arched an eyebrow at me.

  ‘No. You’re doing very well.’

  She held her middle finger up at me and then pulled out into the traffic, heading for The Bellagio.

  Ten minutes later we were sitting in the car examining the work site. It was so close to the main road. As we sat there a little drizzle started to mist the windscreen. The drizzle turned to fat, heavy drops.

  Great. It doesn’t rain for months and then it chooses that exact time to start.

  ‘Ask and you shall receive,’ Hillary said.

  I stared at her. ‘You wanted it to rain? Now?’

  ‘My garden needs watering.’ She smiled at me and said, ‘Sometimes you’re not the sharpest pencil in the pack.’

  I resisted my urge to smack her.

  ‘The rain will help hide us.’

  ‘Oh.’ She was right. It wasn’t perfect but it was the best we would get.

  She hopped out of the car and smeared mud onto the car’s number plate, then she popped open the trunk. ‘Let’s put this filthy bastard where he belongs.’

  We pulled him out of the trunk, looking nervously around as we did. The rain was pounding down and the road had magically cleared. I could only think that the universe was smiling on us as we dragged him to the hole. Not one car drove up the road.

  ‘On three,’ Hillary said. ‘One, two, three.’

  We launched him as far into the huge hole as we could, but he rolled down the bank and settled near the edge. A blind man would be able to see him when the sun came up.

  Sighing, I followed Hillary into the hole.

  ‘He was a pain in the ass while he was alive, and he’s still a pain in the ass,’ Hillary said as we started to dig with our bare hands.

  ‘I thought you liked him.’

  ‘Oh please.’ She blew at a piece of hair that was stuck to her forehead. ‘You never were the manipulator I was.’

  It was the most honest conversation we had ever had and all of a sudden I didn’t want her to feel any guilt over having killed him.

  ‘He killed Mom,’ I said. ‘He told me while you were unconscious.’

  She stood, kicked him in the stomach and then spat on him. ‘I’m glad I killed the bastard.’

  We resumed our digging. Thankfully the base of the hole had soft, sandy dirt which was getting softer the more it rained. Even with that, by the time we had finished all of my nails had broken.

  We pushed him into the depression we had made and covered him back up, making sure the floor of the hole was still level when we had finished.

  ‘Oh boy I hope they’ve finished the earth works,’ I said. We were in deep poo poo if they decided to use the bulldozer again.

  ‘Come on.’ Hillary clambered out of the hole and I followed her up.

  We looked awful. Mud covered us from head to foot.

  She pulled the plastic bags out of the trunk and handed me a few. ‘If you even get one bit of mud on my seats,’ she warned me.

  ‘Oh please.’ Even with the plastic there was no way we weren’t going to muddy her car. We were two walking, talking mudpies.

  A few blocks from her house a siren started up behind us. My heart leapt into my throat. Oh God. They knew. They had already found Lou’s body and they were coming for us. We were going to look ridiculous in the police mugshots with the mud crusted on our faces.

>   I know right – it’s silly the things that go through your mind during a crisis.

  Hillary’s hands trembled as she indicated and moved the car to the side of the road. The flashing lights got brighter and brighter and then not one, but three police cars whizzed past us. A fire truck followed closely behind.

  ‘Oh crap.’ Hillary put her head on the wheel. ‘I thought we were gone for good.’

  ‘Well I’m not the one who shot him.’ I felt it wise to drum that home. I didn’t want her to start questioning what had really happened. ‘I’m just an accessory after the fact.’

  The stare she levelled on me was not pleasant. We didn’t speak until we turned into her street. The fire truck was parked out the front of her house and the police were herding onlookers away.

  Flames leapt from the walls and roared out the windows. Two firemen holding a hose, sprayed a torrent of water onto the roof. The rain had stopped and at that moment the fire was winning the battle. As we drove by, a portion of the roof collapsed.

  ‘Keep driving,’ I whispered. All eyes were fixed on the house, but the last thing we needed was for someone to question why we were covered in dried mud.

  ‘My… things.’ Hillary’s voice was anguished.

  I doubted very much she was thinking of her clothes. I was betting two million dollars was foremost in her mind.

  ‘Where should I take you?’ Her fists clenching the steering wheel were white. All-in-all this was turning out to be a pretty shitty night for her.

  ‘The club.’ I hadn’t seen Liss’s car as we drove up the street. She must have headed back to the club when the cops showed up. ‘Take me round the back.’ The last thing I needed was for club patrons to see me like this.

  I was right about Liss. She opened the door before I could knock and hustled me inside. ‘Quick, up the stairs. Thor’s making sure the coast is clear.’

  I ran up the stairs after her, trying not to dirty the carpet too much. Even then I’m sure I left a trail of dirt. Noise coming from one of the rooms indicated that one of the girls had a client. It sounded like Brittney. Of all of them, she faked the best orgasm.

  Liss didn’t stop till we were safely inside the apartment. ‘Good grief. You look like you were the one buried.’