Crimson Eve

by Brandilyn Collins

  Go, girl, go!

  She hit the front door and bounced off, hand scrabbling for the knob. She found it, threw the door open, and heaved herself outside. Tears blurred her vision as she grunted her way down the three porch steps, fumbled around to the driver’s side of her car, and threw herself inside.

  The key, where’s the key?

  Carla plunged her fingers into her purse, searching. She felt wallet, checkbook, makeup kit, paper, pen, cell phone. No gun, no pepper spray. What had she done with the canister? And where was the key? Her hand flew left and right, turning items over, feeling the bottom of the bag. Precious seconds ticked by. Had it fallen out of her purse?

  In her side vision, she saw a shadow in the yawning front door. Carla jerked her head around. The man staggered in the doorway, breath heaving, face purpled with rage.

  “No, God, please.” She dumped her purse on her lap, raked through the contents. No key.

  Her attacker stumbled down the porch steps. Carla smacked the button to lock her car doors.

  Thornby barreled into the passenger door, fought to open it.

  Did he have the gun? Maybe his blurred eyes hadn’t seen . . .

  Her cell phone. What had happened to it? Carla found it on her lap, snatched it up.

  At that moment her eyes fell on the car key — stuck in the ignition, where she’d left it.

  Carla threw down the phone, turned the key hard, and roared the car to life. Smacked the gear in drive and squealed off. Thornby hung onto her car door for a terrorizing second, then fell away. Carla surged around the circular portion of the driveway and up toward the front gate. She flicked a glance in the rearview mirror but didn’t see him.

  At the white caution line before the gate, she skidded to a stop.

  The gate was automatically tripped from this side. Slowly, it unlatched, swinging open toward her. Thornby’s rented black Durango sat on the other side, a little off to the right. Maybe she could drive around it.

  “Come on, gate, come on.”

  Her foot shoved against the brake, her arms shaking. She threw another look in the rearview mirror and saw the man stagger-running up the road with teeth-gritted, superhuman strength. How could anyone get hit that many times with pepper spray and still be standing? He plunged a hand in his pocket. Up came the gun.

  The gate was three-quarters open.

  Thornby slowed, took wavering aim.

  “Go, gate, move!”

  Carla hit the accelerator, fishtailed her Toyota partly off the driveway and around the gate. On the other side, she jerked the steering wheel left, plowing off the drive once more and around the rental car, barely missing two huge fir trees.

  Ping. A bullet hit metal. The gate? She didn’t stop to look back.

  At the end of the drive, she skidded left onto Lakeshore and toward town.

  It took a minute for her brain to catch up with her body.

  She’d made it.

  He couldn’t catch her now. Carla knew that, but her fingers still froze to the wheel. She forced her trembling right hand to seek her cell phone on the passenger seat. She had to call the police immediately; every second counted. If they could just get here in time to catch her attacker before he ran, leaving what would surely be a trail of false identification. How could she ever feel safe again if he was on the loose?

  How much time before he could see well enough to drive?

  Her fingers found the phone. As she picked it up, it rang. Carla jumped and nearly dropped the thing. Then, with a surge of hope, she flipped the phone open. “This is Carla! Whoever this is, call the — ”

  “Shut up and listen to me.”

  All sound withered in Carla’s throat. She sank back against her seat.

  “Now you’ve made this messy.” The guttural, hate-filled words chewed into her ear. “Bad mistake. And you’ll pay.” The voice squeezed off, coughed once.

  “You can die alone, Carla Radling, or you can take people with you. Vince Edwards is your chief of police. His wife is Nancy. He has a daughter, Heather, a little granddaughter, Christy. You call any law enforcement, one of them dies. Got that?”

  Carla couldn’t respond.

  “And by the way, you won’t know what law enforcement to trust, because some of them just might be working for me.”

  A long pause as the words sank in. Carla’s blood pounded in her ears.

  “Or maybe I won’t go after Edwards’s family at all. Maybe I’ll kill your friend Bailey, or someone at work. Or Wilbur, how about that? Maybe even his wife, Trudy, too. In their bed at night. They’ll never know what hit them. Get it? It’ll be my little surprise. As for calling friends — don’t even think about it. Any friend who helps you is dead. You hear, Miss Wit?”

  Carla’s mouth hung open, but still no words came.

  “Do you?”

  “I . . . Y – yes.”

  “Good. And don’t bother running. I’ll have people looking for you everywhere. No matter where you go, I’ll find you. Within twenty-four hours — you are dead.”

  SIX

  Carla drove into town, following the winding Lakeshore Road. Forest and fields whizzed by on her right, the lake on her left. She barely noticed. Her limbs were wooden, her brain hardly able to function.

  She had to call the police.

  She couldn’t call the police.

  Of course she could. Wouldn’t they respond to the Edna San estate before David Thornby, or whatever his real name was, could get away? All they had to do was catch him and she’d be safe. Vince’s family would be safe.

  But what if they didn’t arrive in time? What if Thornby was able to drive away? Or if he fled on foot, with darkness now falling? Once he was loose — with who knew how many identities and accents to assume — there could be no stopping him.

  Carla shuddered. What could she do now? Where could she go? Certainly not home. If Thornby knew so much about people in Kanner Lake, he certainly knew where she lived. Neither could she go to a friend’s house. Anybody she turned to would be placed in danger.

  Carla gripped the steering wheel as she rounded a bend on Lakeshore Road. Darkness was descending fast. A few more miles, and she’d enter town.

  She checked every few seconds in the rearview mirror but saw no one. Surely the man couldn’t drive yet. Could he?

  Who had sent this man to kill her? Why?

  Was her life even worth a half-million dollars?

  She’d been a realtor in Kanner Lake since moving to town six years ago. Before that she’d lived in Spokane for ten years, working for the last eight as an administrative assistant in a real estate development company. She hadn’t wronged anyone, hadn’t fought with neighbors. Hadn’t faced any major trauma since her teenage years in Terrin, Washington. But that was half a lifetime ago. She’d long since stuffed those memories deep inside her. And she’d never spoken of what happened to anyone.

  Carla passed the sign at the city limits to Kanner Lake.

  Fear willed her arms to steer toward the police station on Main. Vince would call other law enforcement for help. He’d tell her she’d done the right thing.

  Or would he? The man would also be forced to place his wife, daughter, and granddaughter in hiding until David Thornby was caught. Vince, who’d already lost a son to the Iraq war just a little over two years ago. Who’d done so much to help this town through the previous tragedies.

  She couldn’t do it.

  Carla headed straight, bypassing Main. Up a half mile until she reached Claremont, then turned left. Her beloved two-bedroom house sat two blocks up on the left. Blue wood with white trim, tall front windows and four square pillars across the recessed front porch. The house she’d bought four years ago and so proudly decorated.

  She turned into the driveway at the right side, where the garage protruded an additional ten feet. Hit the remote button on her visor, casting feverish glances right and left as the door rose. She drove inside. Smacked the remote to close the door.

  Twenty m
inutes max to gather some critical items and flee town. She’d hide out in some hotel until she figured out what to do next.

  And when she found a place to hide, she’d wrap her ankle and put it up. The throbbing wouldn’t stop.

  Carla left the key in the ignition and hobbled to the door that opened into her front hall. Every step made her wince. She pulled open the door and jumped up the one step on her good leg.

  The house was dim, but she was afraid to turn on the light.

  She veered right, limped through her living room. At the threshold to her bedroom, she pulled up short.

  Someone had been here.

  A pillow lay askew on the bed, one drawer of her dresser slightly open. Nothing that would be obvious to anyone else, but she was particular about her house’s neatness and knew how she’d left things.

  Violation surged through her. How dare someone go through her house? How would she ever feel safe here again? Carla gripped the doorway, legs trembling. Willing the emotions to settle enough so her mind could sort out what to do.

  Okay, Carla, think!

  She’d been in her office before meeting Thornby at the San estate. He must have been watching her, knew he could come here and search the place. Had he picked the lock to the back door? She hadn’t noticed any broken windows.

  What was he looking for?

  The answer to that question might lead to whoever had hired him.

  Carla rattled in a deep breath, glanced at her watch. She could cuss and scream later. Right now she had to move. If she wanted to save her own skin, she needed to be out of here in under fifteen minutes.

  Teeth gritted against the pain, she stumbled through the bedroom — her bedroom, even now tainted by the lingering sense of an intruder’s presence. She could almost smell him —and it was no longer the smell of expensive cologne. Carla pulled a small red suitcase from the floor of her closet, threw it on her bed. In went her laptop in its case, the charger to her cell phone. She grabbed toiletries in the bathroom, some jeans and tops, a jacket, a pair of slip-on flat shoes, which she put on. With every second that ticked by, her fear ratcheted higher until she could hardly breathe. As she pulled out drawers, yanked items from her closet, her eyes flicked right and left, up and down, cataloging. Was anything missing?

  Come on, get out of here!

  Her hands shook as she fought to zip the suitcase closed. Placing the bag upright on the floor to pull, she turned from the bed — and her eyes landed on the shoebox in the right corner of her closet shelf. Its top was ajar. Carla froze, staring at the box.

  Sudden realization pierced her brain.

  No. It couldn’t be that.

  She hobbled to the shelf. Pulled down the box and threw off its top. Rifled through its contents. Recent photos, scrapbook memory stuff — ticket stubs, newspaper clippings of her first sales — all were still there.

  But no photos of her at sixteen. With him.

  Carla dropped the box. Slapped both hands to her face.

  Could this be true? He wanted her dead? Why, after all these years? She’d fled that life, hadn’t said a thing about him to anyone. His secrets were safe with her, didn’t he realize that by now?

  Dizziness washed over her. Carla sucked air in, blew it out.

  If this man from her past had come back to harm her, she might as well give up. He was too powerful and loved. He could destroy her with lies, hire to kill — and who would believe the truth?

  Oh, God, help me.

  Outside her window, a tomcat yowled. Carla jumped. The sound thrust her into desperate action. She grabbed her suitcase and stumbled back to the garage to her car. As she was about to slide inside, a thought sped through her brain.

  The diary!

  Had they found it too?

  Dwindling time yanked at her to go. Carla hesitated a split second, then turned back, returning to her bedroom closet. With trembling fingers she snatched a hatbox off the shelf, flipped aside the lid. Inside were a dozen stacked baseball caps. A green one sat on top. She lifted them out, removed the top five, six, seven — and exhaled in relief. There, hidden between number seven and eight, sat the small yellow-flowered diary. She picked it up. Those pictures her attacker had taken meant so little. They weren’t even intimate photos, nothing that could have given away the truth. But this.

  For a split second, she considered leaving it. If something happened to her, police would go through her place, looking for clues. Vividly she pictured flashes of scenes — her body lying crumpled and dirty in a forest, undiscovered. Police searching through her house for clues to her disappearance. Frank West, Kanner Lake’s youngest officer, finding the diary, flipping through it. His eyes going wide . . .

  The diary might lead them to her killer. But it would also spill her heinous secrets. Even in death, she couldn’t bear it.

  Carla put all the caps back as she’d found them and slid the box onto her closet shelf.

  Clutching the diary to her chest, she hobbled back to her car. Behind the wheel, Carla threw it under her seat.

  Breathing a prayer, she smacked the garage door button, half expecting to see her killer’s black Durango on the other side.

  No one was there. But he could be mere minutes away.

  Carla screeched in reverse onto the driveway, closed the garage door, and fled into the night.

  SEVEN

  Man, would the cell phone in his pocket ever stop ringing?

  Tony Derrat wasn’t about to answer. The ring tone told him it was his boss. Tony just wanted to smash the phone on the late Edna San’s long driveway. His eyes still stung and his throat burned like fire. Rage alone kept his feet moving toward his rental car outside the gate.

  How dare some smart-mouthed realtor think she could outwit him. No way was he going to lose that half-million dollars.

  Tony hadn’t climbed into his job; he’d fallen into it. Down and drunk ten years ago, living on the streets — and out of the blue, a proposition from a woman he barely knew. Five thousand bucks for getting rid of her abusive husband.

  Five thousand dollars. All he had to do was pop off some lowlife who knocked his wife around.

  The job had gone down like smooth vodka — and Tony’s new habit was born. The next two years brought a dozen more hits. Meanwhile he cleaned himself up good. Landed a pretty wife. Learned new skills and made some key friends. He studied accents, how to dress. How to look educated around hoity-toity people.

  Four years ago he’d hit the big time, working behind the scenes for one very powerful person. Was paid more than ever and hadn’t even had to kill anybody. Until now.

  Tony stumbled and nearly went sprawling. He spit out a curse, caught himself with both hands. Rough asphalt scraped his palms. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself back up, dragging searing air in, out, in, out.

  He had to get off this property.

  Tony’s eyes wouldn’t focus on his watch. How long had he laid on the ground after Carla Radling screeched away?

  She could be headed any direction by now.

  His cell phone went off again, different tone. Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Great, the home ring. Tony told himself he’d call his wife back later, but the next thing he knew, he was pulling the phone out of his pocket. Robyn would worry if he didn’t answer. He tried to make his voice sound normal. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Daddy!”

  Timmy, his three-year-old. Tony’s heart surged. Timmy was the one person who made this gopher job worth it. “Hey, Boo. What’s up?”

  “Mommy said I could talk to you before I went to bed.”

  “Yeah, great.” Tony turned his head and coughed hard.

  “You sick, Daddy?”

  “No,” he wheezed. “I’m fine.”

  “Then whatcha doin’?”

  “Just got out of a dinner meeting.”

  “Whatdja eat?”

  Eat, what did he eat? Tony’s mind went blank. “Uh, hamburger. And fries. And a chocolate shake.”

  “
Wow! Yummm. I wanna go with you next time.”

  A click in Tony’s ear. Had to be his boss calling on the other line. He made a face. “Hey, Boo, gotta go, another call’s coming in. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  “ ’Kay, Daddy. Love you.”

  “Love you too, big guy.”

  Violent coughing seized him as he closed the phone. A fireball from his chest rose up his throat.

  The phone rang his boss’s tone. Spitting curses, Tony snapped the thing open. “Yeah.” The word sounded like a sick bark.

  “What kind of a way is that to answer a phone?”

  Hello to you too. Tony bit back a retort. This voice covered his bills — and then some. This voice had agreed to pay him a half million to take out Carla Radling. What he could buy his family with that money.

  “Sorry, I was coughing.”

  “Well, cough on your own time. Is it done?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “She didn’t show for our appointment.”

  A long breath seeped over the line. “Think she’s onto you?”

  “No way. She just got held up at her office. We’ll probably meet tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow? This was supposed to be done tonight, Tony. I was all set for a peaceful night’s sleep.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m working on it.”

  “What is this, a crocheted sweater? I didn’t agree to pay you a fortune so you could ‘work on it.’ ”

  Tony’s jaw clenched. Someday he was going to pop some teeth right down that pompous throat. “I am taking care of it. You know these things don’t always go as scheduled. If Plan A doesn’t work, I’ll get her in Plan B. I’m always prepared.”

  “I do not want this left hanging until tomorrow. Put a bullet in her head while she’s sleeping tonight.”

  “You wanted her to disappear, remember? Pretty risky getting a body out of a house on a residential street. Better to have her meet me at the estate as planned.”

  The caller grunted. Tony wondered if his lie had been believed.

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I went through her house. Took some photos I found. Nothing personal, though.”