Because I'm Watching

by Christina Dodd

  Rainbow had left for the day.

  Llewellyn covered the evening shift.

  And Cordelia sat at her usual table, staring at her computer, frowning fiercely.

  Never in a million years did Kateri expect to find Cordelia still at work. She walked over, pulled up a chair, and prepared to wait until Cordelia deemed it the proper moment to speak.

  But Cordelia surprised her. She promptly put her work aside and, eyes sparkling, said, “You’re late.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I was here yesterday.”

  Cordelia folded her hands on the table. “I was sick. Throwing up is very inconvenient.”

  “I imagine it is.”

  “When accompanied by diarrhea, it causes dehydration and—”

  Kateri interrupted. “Thank you for waiting for me. May I see your texts?”

  “I got a new one today.” Cordelia shoved her iPad across the table.

  Kateri read, “You’re gone. She’s alone. She’s finished the book. Now I can do the job without you whining. Andrew, your sister will be with you soon.”

  Revelation brought Kateri to her feet.

  “It’s that odd girl, isn’t it?” Cordelia started packing her equipment into her briefcase. “The one everyone talks about. The one who calls the cops all the time. That’s who is being threatened.”

  “Her brother is the writer.”

  Cordelia blinked myopically at Kateri. “Obviously not.”

  Kateri thought back to what she’d seen in Maddie’s house: the desk set up with a laptop; the box filled with A. M. Hewitson’s next book; the pens and paper; and, more important, Maddie’s glow when Kateri praised the stories. Kateri had thought she was proud of her brother. But Maddie’s appreciation had been personal; Madeline Hewitson was bestselling author A. M. Hewitson. “You’re right. Obviously not.”

  “Once one has the right clue, it’s easy to arrive at the right conclusion.” One by one, Cordelia stuck her arms in her white sweater, the one with the yellowing collar.

  Kateri called Moen. When he answered, she snapped, “Where are you?”

  “I’m outside Maddie’s front door. She called for an officer, but she’s not answering. I’m worried.” He sounded worried.

  Thank God for Moen. Kateri was starting to suspect the boy had good law enforcement instincts. “Can you get inside? See that she’s not hurt?”

  “Sure, but—”

  Someone beeped in. Kateri glanced at the ID; Deputy Bergen was calling. “Hang on,” she told Moen, and answered.

  “Sheriff Kwinault, Mrs. Williamson called me. She saw Madeline Hewitson go past on the cliff path and a few minutes later some guy in a costume followed her.” Deputy Bergen sounded surprised and befuddled.

  “What kind of costume?” As if Kateri didn’t know.

  “Cap, hat, white face, bizarre makeup.”

  “Her monster. Did this guy notice Mrs. Williamson?”

  “Yes, and she’s scared. Mr. Williamson took a fall yesterday and he’s confined to bed. She’s getting her rifle.”

  “Can’t blame her.” But in the right circumstances, a determined woman out to defend her man would certainly lead to bloodshed. Hopefully the police could get there in time to forestall that. “What’s your closest access to the cliff path? Can you get there to help the Williamsons?”

  “I’m headed there now.”

  “Moen is at Maddie’s house now. I’ll send him to help Maddie from there. I’ll access the path from Ocean Avenue. Listen, Bergen, that guy in the costume is a maniac and he’s out to kill Mad Maddie. So let’s get this bastard.” She clicked over and spoke to Moen.

  He had picked the lock and was inside the empty house.

  She ordered him down the cliff path as fast as he could go.

  He was out the door before she finished her command.

  Kateri reached across and pressed Cordelia’s hand. “Thank you, Cordelia. You did it. You gave us the break we needed.”

  Cordelia looked annoyed. “I know.” She picked up her briefcase. “Now, do you mind? I’m going home.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Whether or not Maddie liked it, she had been trained to fear darkness as a presence that absorbed breath and blood and safety and confidence.

  Darkness was swiftly coming, looming high behind the high roiling black clouds. Isolation walked with her down the lonely path, depriving her of human contact.

  But in the distance, she could see the path turn onto Front Street, and that led into downtown Virtue Falls. She had her cell phone in her pocket, her revolver in her holster, her computer on her shoulder, and her trusty baseball bat in her hand. In a few minutes she would be hurrying toward the town square, toward the Oceanview Café filled with lights, warmth, the smell of coffee, and Sheriff Kwinault. She could relax, order pasta primavera made with zucchini noodles and lots of Parmesan cheese and at last explain exactly what was hunting her.

  The incoming storm oppressed the day’s last rays of sunshine.

  Maddie hitched the computer bag farther up on her shoulder, tightened her grip on the bat, and jogged until she reached the spot where the cliff sloped down toward the beach, toward sand dunes and driftwood.

  There a human monster might lurk.

  She slowed. She scanned the area. Nothing moved.

  She hurried on. The cliff rose again, passed a modern house of glass and concrete with a privacy fence and a stern warning on the gate that this was private property. No lights shone here; whoever owned it was not home.

  Not too much farther. She could see the tree they called the Bear. Its windswept branches marked the place where she would take a turn onto the street and into civilization. She was going to make it. She was almost there—

  Behind her at the empty house, the fence gate slammed.

  She whirled around and glimpsed a tall figure in a black, broad-brimmed hat and swirling black cape. The grotesquely painted white face held wide, dark eyes lit red by the setting sun. The large gloved hands held a thin knife that looked uncannily like the pointed fingernail that had, so long ago, eviscerated her friends.

  In grim and intent silence, the monster of her nightmares charged her.

  Icy fear blocked Maddie’s throat … then melted as hot anger blasted her. This person had killed her brother. This monster had terrorized her. She wanted revenge. She wanted justice. She wanted to live.

  She would not tolerate this horror anymore.

  She didn’t have time to pull her gun and click the safety. She was shorter, thinner, weaker. She had to be crafty.

  So she stood as if paralyzed with fear. Stood and waited until the thing was almost upon her. Then she leaped aside, raised her bat, and as the monster rushed past, she smashed its head.

  The monster didn’t swoop away unscathed. Instead it grunted and stumbled sideways. Its hat fell off.

  At the back of the neck, a rubber band held long blond hair in a tight bun.

  How unmonster-like. How vulnerable.

  How human.

  The monster righted itself, turned and charged like a freight train, a freight train that was bleeding from the ear and whose white makeup was smudged.

  Maddie liked that. She swung the bat again.

  With a loud smack, the monster caught it in one large hand and tried to wrestle it from her.

  Maddie screamed in fury and kicked out, hard, connecting at the knee.

  The monster yelped and let go.

  Maddie stumbled backward, alive and triumphant. She reached under her jacket, grabbed her holster, and unsnapped it.

  And the woman in the costume shouted, “You little bitch!”

  A woman. A blond woman, tall with broad shoulders.

  “Barbara,” Maddie said. Only she didn’t say it, she shouted. Then, in recognition, “Chantal!”

  This woman, this model with the short skirt and the long legs, this scheming neighbor, had been Andrew’s secret girlfriend. She had married and murdered Andrew. This excuse for a human being had trie
d to drive Maddie mad.

  At last, Barbara had succeeded; Maddie was crazed with rage.

  Barbara rushed toward Maddie.

  Maddie gripped the end of the bat like a battering ram and ran, not away, but at her.

  Barbara’s eyes grew wide. She tried to get out of the way. But Maddie, who had done nothing but whimper and flee from every cruelty through all the months of malicious tricks and clever illusions … Maddie rammed the end of the bat into Barbara’s stomach.

  With a whoosh, Barbara doubled over, wrenching the bat from Maddie’s hand.

  Maddie should flee, get to town, to safety. She should. She knew it. She should pull her revolver and shoot Barbara through the heart. This was the last resort Jacob spoke of, wasn’t it?

  But her legs were short and Barbara’s were long. She would lose the race.…

  The truth was, she was so angry and beating on Barbara was so satisfying.

  Pulling the computer bag off her shoulder, she swung it by the strap, slamming the edge into Barbara’s shoulder, then smashing it onto her downbent head.

  Barbara grunted and staggered.

  Then luck and Maddie’s advantage of surprise ran out.

  Still bent at the waist, Barbara slashed out with the knife, caught Maddie on the thigh, cutting through her jeans and into the muscle.

  Maddie screamed with pain and fury.

  Barbara slashed again, cutting Maddie open at the ribs.

  Maddie jumped onto Barbara’s back, knocking her to her knees. She grabbed at Barbara’s hair, her eyes, her ears, anywhere she could reach to pull and rend, and she kept screaming, loud, long, enraged shrieks.

  The voluminous cape inhibited Barbara’s motion; she managed to wrestle her arm free and used her knife to stab repeatedly at Maddie’s hands. She sliced between Maddie’s fingers and pierced her palms.

  The pain brought Maddie’s shrieks to a new high pitch; she took care to do her screaming into Barbara’s ear.

  Barbara rolled, knocking Maddie beneath her.

  Barbara’s monster makeup was ruined, washed away in sweat and blood. She dripped crimson from her ear and her cheek, where with her own knife she had slashed her own face. She was no longer a phantom, but a real person—a creature Maddie recognized from her distant past when, for the first time, death and terror had united to create madness.

  Not Chantal. Not Barbara Ulrich. But Barbara Magnusson, the nursing assistant in the mental institution, a woman who nightly used her knowledge of their fears to taunt the patients.

  She slapped Maddie’s cheek in a swift, familiar gesture.

  Maddie’s ear rang from the blow.

  She wrapped her long fingers around Maddie’s throat and tightened her grip.

  Maddie struggled for air. She kicked out. Blood pounded in her ears. Colors exploded in her vision.

  “Do you know who I am? Do you?” Barbara loosened her hold.

  Maddie didn’t waste her breath with replying. Instead she nodded and groped at her side for the holster.

  Barbara tightened her grip again. “I’m the poor CNA from the nuthouse who had to listen to your whimpering about your poor friends. I’m the woman who came up with the plot to kill your beloved Easton and hired the hit man. I’m the woman who romanced and married and killed your goddamned gambling weak-willed brother.” She let Maddie breathe again.

  “You killed Mrs. Butenschoen.” Maddie touched the revolver’s cool metal, pulled it free of the leather.

  “That nosy old bitch. She had a camera. She spied on me.”

  “You spied on me!”

  Barbara shook Maddie by the throat; she shook so hard Maddie thought her spine would break. “You are mine. Anyway, someone had to watch you, poor, stupid weakling that you are! Now you’re going to die, you ungrateful wimp. You’re going to bleed to death in the dirt and I’m going to collect Andrew’s life insurance and all your royalties, and live like a queen for the rest of my life.” She loosened her grip again and she smiled a terrible smile. “What do you think of that?”

  Maddie took two good, hard breaths and did what she should have done in the first place. She pushed her revolver into Barbara’s side and clicked off the safety. “Not going to happen.”

  She pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Kateri heard the report of a gun. “No. No!” She broke into a listing run, using her walking stick, favoring her artificial knee, yet setting a good pace. She rounded the corner onto the path and saw Moen racing from the opposite direction.

  A still, black-caped figure sprawled on the ground.

  Kateri got closer.

  Someone was underneath, fighting to get out from under the weight.

  Deadweight? Limp, unmoving, boneless. Yes, the caped figure was dead or unconscious and Madeline Hewitson was clawing her way free.

  For the first time since Kateri had spoken with Cordelia, she took a deep breath.

  Maddie was alive. Thank God, she was alive.

  Moen arrived first at the scene.

  But before he could reach down and assist Maddie, she got loose of the cape’s voluminous folds and leaped to her feet.

  Rich, red blood smeared her from head to toe.

  Whose? Hers?

  Maybe not. She held a gun in her shaking hand.… Mad Maddie with a gun. Not good.

  Kateri and Moen froze midstep.

  In a soft, coaxing tone, Moen said, “Miss Hewitson, please put the weapon on the ground.”

  Maddie tilted her head and dubiously considered him.

  All of Kateri’s doubts about Moen returned in full force. He’d done something to frighten Maddie.

  Kateri again eased toward the crime scene. “Maddie, please put the weapon down.”

  Maddie looked around and met Kateri’s eyes. She sagged in relief, nodded, and in slow, painful increments, she knelt and placed the weapon on the ground.

  In the same polite tone, Kateri asked, “Maddie, would you please move away from the gun?”

  Maddie nodded again, got one foot under her, and tried to stand. She couldn’t. She swayed as if the wind off the ocean might knock her over.

  Now Kateri was close enough to see that blood welled from Maddie’s thigh, belly, and hands. Purpling bruises circled her throat, and a welt rose on her cheek. “Moen, call for medical assistance.” Kateri took off her jacket, stepped close to Maddie, and put it around her shoulders.

  Moen was already on his phone. Kneeling beside the black-caped figure, he pressed his fingers to the carotid artery. “No assistance needed for him.”

  “Her.” Maddie’s voice was hoarse. “Barbara. She was going to stab me. So I shot her.”

  “It looks as if she did stab you.” Blood welled from the open wound on Maddie’s thigh and dribbled from under her T-shirt.

  Maddie looked down at herself. “Slash. She chased me and she slashed me. But I hit her with my baseball bat and my computer.” As if she couldn’t remain upright another moment, she lay back on the grass.

  “We need a first-aid kit.” Kateri straightened and started to walk away.

  Maddie grabbed her ankle. “Don’t leave me.”

  What had Moen done? Kateri turned back. “I won’t.”

  Moen finished his call. “EMTs will be here in ten. Sheriff, want me to get a first-aid kit?”

  “Right away. My car’s close.” Kateri called after him. “And the camera!”

  Moen was younger, faster, and stronger; he got back and forth from her car in record time. He would have helped Kateri stanch the bleeding; she knew Maddie would not like that. “Take photos of the crime scene,” she told him.

  He sprang into motion. “Do you realize how jealous the guys at the precinct will be that we got here first?”

  Kateri sighed.

  Eyes slitted narrowly, Maddie watched him. “He’s just a kid, isn’t he?”

  “He’s getting better,” Kateri assured her. “Anyway, he can’t be much younger than you.”

  “I’m pretty matu
re. I’ve been through a lot,” Maddie said.

  “That you have.” Kateri applied a tourniquet to Maddie’s thigh, pressed a sterile pad to her belly, and wrapped linen around the lacerations on Maddie’s hands. “How did you fight that woman? She’s six feet tall if she’s an inch.”

  “She made me angry,” Mad Maddie said simply.

  “Remind me not to piss you off,” Moen muttered.

  All too rapidly, blood soaked all of the bandages, and even as Kateri worked, Maddie’s face turned whiter and whiter. Kateri asked, “Maddie, one thing I don’t understand”—When would the EMTs arrive?—“If you kept that revolver, why didn’t you shoot Barbara as soon as she threatened you?”

  “I had to make sure she was real.”

  Kateri nodded. She understood that.

  Maddie continued, “And when Jacob left this morning, he told me to shoot only as the last possible resort.”

  “I don’t think he meant…” Kateri realized an explanation would be a waste of time. Maddie thought literally, and in the matter of killing people, Kateri approved. Far too many people shot impulsively and without thought for the consequences.

  Moen lowered the camera. “Okay, Sheriff Kwinault, I’ve got the crime scene photos.”

  “Then turn that body over. Her body?” Still scarcely believing, Kateri looked inquiringly at Maddie.

  Maddie nodded. “Definitely female.”

  Moen rolled the body faceup. “Yep. Female. Tall and…” He picked up the camera and took more photos of the body, concentrating on the face. “Creepy makeup, but Maddie, isn’t this your next-door neighbor, the model?”

  “Yes…” For a moment, Maddie seemed to drift, then she snapped back. “When I saw her on the street, I didn’t recognize her, but she was one of the nursing staff when I was at the mental institution. She didn’t look like that before.”

  “What did she look like?” Moen asked.

  “Dark, short hair. Overweight.” Maddie breathed deeply. Her words slurred.

  Moen got out his phone and called emergency again.

  “When I was in the … the mental hospital … I didn’t dare stare at her because she would say I thought she was ugly and slap me. If I glanced at her when the doctor was in the room, afterward she’d slap me twice. Hard.” Maddie sounded like a recording slowing down … and down.