When Secrets Die

by Lynn S. Hightower

  “Twyla sent me.”

  “Oh, my God. Twyla. Is she here?”

  “No, she’s in school where she should be. And where you should be too.”

  “I would love to be in school.” Blaine felt a sob overwhelm her.

  “How about your mom? You getting along okay with your mom? She treat you all right? You want to go home?”

  “Of course I do. But I don’t think she knows where I am. Have you talked to her? Did she send you?”

  “I called your house once, but your mama wasn’t home. I did hear that message she left you on the answering machine though. I liked the sound of it.”

  Blaine licked a tear that ran down the side of her cheek.

  “I thought I better get on down here. Your little friend Twyla said you were in a weird situation with your mom and you wanted to come home. I promised her I would check it out.”

  Blaine laughed, a relieved sound. “Twyla, I can’t believe it. Oh, God, it’s a long story. See—”

  “That’s okay, little sailor. I’ll be coming inside, and you can tell me then. Now, you go tell that lady to open the door and let me in, or I’m calling the cops. Then come on back to the window.”

  “Did you hear that, you bitch?” Blaine shrieked. “Open the front door, or he’s calling the cops.” She noticed that Amaryllis had stopped beating on the door. She crossed the room, her stomach hurt, hurt bad actually, but she went and listened. And just as she put her ear to the door, the fist slammed again, making the wood jump in the frame, and Blaine ran back to the window.

  “She’s beating on the door. She just keeps beating on the door.”

  “Don’t be scared. I’ve got my cell phone, I’m calling the police as we speak. Oh, hell, what’s … no service.”

  “She keeps beating the door.”

  “Don’t panic, honey, I’m coming in one way or another.”

  He jammed the cell phone back in his pants and ran around the house.

  The beating against the door stopped. Blaine heard noise from the hall bathroom, running water, the rattling of glass or something under the sink. The doorbell was ringing again, ringing, ringing, and someone was slamming a shoulder against it, and then quiet. She couldn’t hear for sure, but Blaine thought that Amaryllis had opened the front door. Voices in the hallway, the man’s and Amaryllis Burton, sounding breathless and little-girlish and very, very angry.

  And then she was throwing up again, and running for the bathroom. She thought maybe she heard the front door slam. She flushed the toilet, stepped over the dried vomit in the bathroom, and went to the door. Listening, listening. But nothing, no sound.

  “Hello? Are you out there? Help?”

  But her voice was smaller now, she was feeling so bad, and she was afraid because it was so quiet. She hesitated, then slammed her fists on the door. No one came. She called and called, but no one came. And after a while, she had to lie down.

  CHARLIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Charlie didn’t like leaving the little girl behind, but he needed help, and he was still trying to get a handle on what he was dealing with. His thigh ached where Amaryllis Burton had injected him; his heart was pumping hard.

  He took her by the arm and dragged her to the door.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “I don’t know what the hell was in that injection, lady, but you and I are headed for the emergency room, where you can tell the doctor and the cops what was in the syringe.”

  “I won’t,” she said.

  Her eyes were round and disturbing, and he knew he was dealing with a certified nut. He still felt okay, though, he just didn’t know for how long. Damn, his hands were shaking. It was shock, of course. He’d had no idea what he was walking into. Leave it to Twyla to land him in the middle of something bizarre.

  “Let me go, you jerk.”

  Jerk? he thought. That little girl back there, that Blaine, could have come up with a lot worse. Kid cussed like a marine. Her mother ought to have a word with her. Charlie didn’t like a potty mouth, not on little girls. But he supposed he’d cuss too if he’d been locked up in a house with this crazy lady. And a part of him admired the child. She’d been mad as hell and ready to fight. Make a good marine.

  She wasn’t all that strong, this woman, this Amaryllis Burton, and she kicked him but he was big and well trained, and he kept her arms pinned and wrestled her down the front steps and over to his car. He kept an eye out, hoping some neighbor might come out of their house and object to a large black man overpowering the white lady who lived right across the street, but either Amaryllis Burton was not popular with her neighbors or there was nobody home. He would have been grateful for some concerned citizen deciding to get involved, or at least call the local sheriff.

  He got the jumper cables out of the trunk, keeping the woman pinned with one hand. It was sad, really, how easy it was for a man to overpower a woman. But damn lucky for him.

  He tied her into the front seat with the jumper cables, making sure she was in her seat belt, more to keep her strapped in place than safe, and she bit him like a rabid bunny, on the wrist and the back of his arm. If they did have a car accident and she got hurt, no doubt she would sue the state of Kentucky. Not that it would do her any good. Kentucky had passed enough state laws making it illegal for people to sue them. Sovereign immunity.

  God, his mind was wandering.

  He heard the little girl crying. Be brave, he thought, but he didn’t say anything, because he was starting to have a rather severe pain under his rib cage that made it hard to talk. He checked the cell phone. Still no service.

  “You’re going to die,” Amaryllis Burton told him. Her voice was whispery and babyish.

  Charlie slid into the front seat beside her and started the car. He pulled out of the little horseshoe street where Amaryllis Burton lived, onto one of the main arteries of the neighborhood. He wasn’t sure where the hospital was, but the main thing was to get out of the neighborhood, and then onto the main roads where he could find help, and a phone to call the local cops for help. There was a BP station right on Dolly Parton Parkway, no more than three minutes away. He’d go there. He was feeling bad. Really bad. He wasn’t sure he would make it to a hospital, and it wasn’t like Amaryllis Burton was going to give him directions. Right now he’d settle for another human being who registered comfortably high on the normal scale.

  The nausea hit with a violence that rocked him. He pulled to the side of the road and opened the car door, vomiting on the pavement. This is not good, was all he could think. He knew she was watching him, but all he could do was hang his head out the door and, empty his stomach, keeping his right foot on the brake so the car would not roll.

  He could not stop throwing up. Everything he had eaten in the last twenty-four hours came up, heavily, smelling strong and making him regret he’d eaten anything at all, but then it got down to yellow bile, and after that, he still didn’t stop throwing up, although now it was nothing more than flaky white froth. The pain over the top of his stomach made it impossible for him to talk or do much of anything, even though he was aware that the woman was struggling with the jumper cables. A really ineffective way of tying her up, and he was aware when she put the car in park, but he still kept his foot on the brake. He couldn’t think clearly. Should he take his foot off the brake? If the car rolled, he knew he would not be able to break his fall. He heard the front passenger door opening and closing. Amaryllis Burton put her little rabbit face close to his just for a moment. She pulled the lever to pop the trunk.

  Hazy as he was, he was aware of her pulling him out of the car, skidding a little in the vomit, putting her shoulder under his. He knew he should do something, he just didn’t know what. Maybe she would just leave him there by the side of the road and someone would come along to help. Maybe she was just stealing his car. He could crawl to one of the houses, there were at least ten of them right on this street, they hadn’t even made it out of the neighborhood. />
  She walked him around the car, bumped him suddenly, and he knew then what she was up to. She was going to put him into the trunk.

  That focused him. He pushed her away hard, and she stumbled backward and onto the curb. He slammed the trunk down, the sound of the latch clicking into place a monumental relief. He could see out of the corner of his eye that she was opening the back door, left-hand side.

  Another bad idea. He had to get out of the street and onto the sidewalk, crawl if he had to, find a house where someone was home and would call for help.

  He realized that he was either going to pass out or throw up again, and he wondered which would happen first, and which he would prefer. It was funny the way your vision went just before you lost consciousness, like the world was a tunnel and then a little pinpoint of light.

  She had him. He felt her arms around his midsection, pushing him. He groaned, rigid with the pain in his middle. Then the feel of the upholstery on his left cheek, and he collapsed in the backseat of the car.

  Stupid way to die, he thought. If he did ever wake up again, he would snap the damn woman’s little rabbit neck with one hand, even if it meant prison for the rest of his natural life.

  BLAINE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  She slept. Not for long, but it impressed her that she had actually fallen asleep. Let her know how sick she was. She was getting worse. Weaker. Whatever it was she had, whatever it was in that peanut butter, there was enough of it that even after throwing everything up, it was in her system, and shutting her down.

  She had gone through every drawer in the room, and through everything in the closet, and then under the sink, finding the kind of skanky stuff people keep in bathroom cabinets—Windex, and dirty rags, and a toilet brush. A can of peach shave cream, some nubs of scummy green soap, an open box of maxi pads. Ick. Her treasure was a huge toenail clipper. Blaine had never seen one so big, and she figured it was a guy clipper, and probably belonged to Stanley the Manly. The nail file on that end could be used like a flat-head screwdriver, and she sat cross-legged at the door, taking the screws out of the round faux brass plate that held the doorknob on. Going out the window was her backup plan, but it was a second-story window, and there wasn’t really anything to grab onto except the surface of the brick. She’d have preferred the window—there was no chance of running into Amaryllis that way. But there was a good chance she would get hurt, weak as she was. And the thought of Amaryllis dragging her back into the house, only this time her with a broken leg or something … she’d never get away. She had listened for a long time. Screamed and beat on the door. No one had answered. No one had come and hit back at the door. She got the empty-house feeling. She had the impression the front door had slammed shut while she was being sick earlier. And she felt pretty sure that if Amaryllis had been there, she would not have stayed so quiet, that she would have hit back against the door like earlier. Blaine had tried screaming out that back window, but this time no one had come. Who was that guy … Charlie? Where was he? Thank God for Twyla. The kid next door must have kept his promise and called her. She wondered if he was still over there. She wondered if he had heard her scream.

  Her biggest fear was that Amaryllis was out there, still in the house, waiting quietly. It didn’t make sense, but just the image of that woman, waiting, breathing quietly, made her afraid to leave the bedroom. But she was leaving. If she did go out there and find Amaryllis, she would stab her with the damn nail file. She would punch her and hit her and run out the door; go to a neighbor and call for help. All she had to do was get across the street. And it was no more than thirty feet, max, to the next house. She just had to get out of the house.

  Even when her side of the doorknob came off, the locking mechanism was still in place. Still, she unlatched it pretty quickly, peering out the hole in the door down the dark hallway. Her hands shook, and her legs trembled so much it was hard to walk. She had gotten very afraid of Amaryllis when the woman had beat back against the door. It had been so weird, so angry.

  Blaine moved quietly down the hall, using the wall as a support, pushing her way along with her hands. No noises, except the ones she made; no sound of anything or anyone but herself. Everything dim in the afternoon gloom. The sun was already going down, another day in this god-awful house, another day out of school and away from home, and God please she did not spend another night here.

  Phone first, or just get out?

  Out, of course. Get the hell away.

  No one in the living room. No sign of that Charlie. Where had he gone?

  The front door had a dead bolt. She twisted it free and turned the knob and opened the door. She was surprised. It was almost too easy. She headed down the steps of the porch and ran across the street. Oh, God, to be out of the house. She looked over her shoulder. She’d left the door wide open. It was awful and weird, the compulsion she felt to go back and shut it.

  The people in the house across the street had a dog, a little one—Blaine could see the top of the dog’s head as it jumped and jumped, could see the dog through the frosted window beside the door. She rang the bell. The dog jumped and barked, but no one came. Nobody home. Next door, no one home. The next two houses were empty, rentals between families.

  She was sick again, and threw up right there in the road, falling to her knees, vomiting up air and white froth. Even with nothing to expel, her body jerked and convulsed with a frantic strength, trying to survive whatever it was in that peanut butter. Blaine was in pain again. But even in pain she could walk fast, if not run. Which way? The road, or cut through the backyards?

  No lights in the backs of those houses. Nobody home anymore these days. A neighborhood was never more deserted than during the hours of broad daylight, where every adult in the household had to work and the kids had to be warehoused away from home.

  Blaine decided on the road. More chance to flag down a car or something.

  She couldn’t run, and her walk was a halfway stumble, but she was making progress. There were several vacant lots in this neighborhood, and the houses backed up onto farmland, but today even the cows were gone.

  She stumbled and fell right by the curb, and hit her cheekbone against the concrete. It hurt bad enough that she thought it might be broken, and she cried, and lay in the road, but she knew that help was not that far. There were lots more houses on the next block, and surely, in one of those houses, someone would be home. Someone would call the police, someone would call her mother. She was minutes, literally minutes, away from help. She was out of the house. She could do this. She just needed to get up and get on the move.

  Blaine pushed up and got to her feet. She tasted blood in her mouth. Her cheek felt like it was getting bigger and bigger; she felt it swell and even go a little numb on the skin, but the ache was bad and competed with the pain in her side for her attention.

  And then the sound of a car.

  She looked up, and the car flashed its lights. A silver Nissan. Thank God. Blaine raised an arm and waved, but could not quite get up. For a minute she was afraid the car would hit her, then she heard the sputter of gravel as the tires ground to a stop, a car door open, and a sound like a trunk popping up.

  The blow took her by surprise, a backhand across the top of her head that knocked her temple into the pavement. She felt the hands lift her, and smelled Amaryllis before she actually saw her, those unshaven fat little legs sticking out of the denim farm-lady jumper, the nasty Birkenstocks on her bare feet, the thick yellowed toenails.

  Get a fucking pedicure, Blaine thought, and tried to slap the woman’s hands off her.

  “Shitty little brat,” the woman said, and somehow it was the cursing that shocked her, even more than the sensation of being lifted into the air. Just as she realized she’d been slapped into the trunk of this silver Nissan, the lid came down, hard, and the latch clicked solidly in place.

  Blaine screamed. The car moved forward, but went only a little way. She felt the turn, then another sharp turn dire
ctly after. Heard the noise of the garage door going up and knew that she was back in the house, right back where she started from, except this time she was locked in a trunk.

  She still had the nail file. Amaryllis had taken her by surprise, but she still had the nail file, and if nothing else, she could hurt this woman. She would slash her eyes out.

  The garage door closed. She heard footsteps, and the car rocked, like someone was taking things out of the backseat. The car door slammed, and the door to the house opened and closed, slammed again, and then the garage was dead quiet, except for the metallic tink of the cooling engine.

  And Blaine, still in the trunk, still grasping the nail clipper with the nail file out and ready to slash the woman’s eyes, realized that Amaryllis was going to leave her in the trunk.

  LENA

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The drive to Tennessee was an awkward convoy—Joel and I ahead of the pack in the BMW, Emma Marsden and Marcus Franklin behind us, and trailing behind, Syd and Theodore Tundridge and Mr. French in a silver RAV4. Syd Tundridge had brought her two dogs, sizable golden retrievers.

  There was a car show in town, and few hotel rooms to be had close to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, so we were all staying at the Clarion on Highway 66, on the outskirts of Sevierville.

  Joel had insisted on exploring while we waited for the FBI. Exploring meant driving up and down the four-lane highway, and I knew he was trying to keep me distracted. I wanted to go straight to confront Amaryllis Burton, but I knew it was best to let the FBI handle it.

  So I let him distract me; I watched the scenery.

  If Amaryllis Burton wanted to pick an area where she could live cheaply, drive to Lexington on half a tank of gas, and pretty much go unnoticed, she had chosen wisely.

  The Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Sevierville area survived on the tourists. The traffic was bad, bumper-to-bumper, most of it comprised of gigantic RVs, all inching their way up and down a four-lane highway that stretched between all three cities. It was impossible to tell which city you were in unless you knew the order, which was one, Sevierville, two, Pigeon Forge, and three, Gatlinburg.