Brink of Death

by Brandilyn Collins

  “Mom!” Kelly sat up in bed, clutching the covers, her voice pinched and trembling. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, honey.” I hurried to hug her. “They’ve stopped at Erin’s house. You stay—”

  “Erin!” The name burst from Kelly’s mouth, and her eyes teared up. Erin was her new best friend—the girl who’d reached out to her when we moved to Grove Landing one month ago. Kelly sprang from her bed. “I have to go see—”

  “No, Kelly.” I placed firm hands on her shoulders, speaking rapidly. “Stay here. We can’t get in the way. Just let me see what’s going on first.”

  I heard bare feet ascending the massive curved wooden staircase that ended not far down the hall. My younger sister, Jenna, materialized in the doorway, clad in her cotton summer pajamas. A second later the thud of Stephen’s feet echoed in the great room, one floor below. The feet trotted across the hardwood floor before I could stop my son. The front door opened and banged shut.

  I slipped past my sister, knowing I had to stop Stephen from getting in the way of the officials dealing with whatever nightmare had befallen the Willits. A fifteen-year-old with a mind of his own would hardly be welcome. “Jenna, will you stay with Kelly? I’m going to see what’s happening.”

  “Yeah, sure. Go.”

  I scurried down the stairs, fear for the Willits mingling with a selfish fear for myself. Traces of my dream snagged against my memory, like gauze over splintered wood. Vic making promises…then disappearing. For the millionth time I wished him back, despite all he’d done. I wasn’t made to be without him. To raise two kids alone. Always so many crises to handle, and goodness knows I wasn’t good at coping with any of them.

  The soles of my feet smacked against the oak steps. How much faster I moved than the first time I’d descended that staircase, when I was sure I’d fall right through it. It was custom-made and ridiculously expensive, each polished step seeming to float with no backing, connected only by gnarled, thick logs on either side, and similarly sized handrails. By the time it reached the second floor, fourteen feet down, it turned one hundred eighty degrees. Certainly not the kind of stairs for small children. But perfect and fitting for my father’s executive mansion of a log home.

  Hitting the bottom of the steps, I ran across the great room to the front door—a good thirty-five feet. At the entryway I stopped to slide into the open-back shoes I’d left there, then flung myself outside.

  Barrister Court is the width of two normal streets, designed for use by both cars and the private planes owned by each of the twenty-four homeowners of Grove Landing sky park. Across the street and down, I caught sight of the Willits’ next-door neighbors, Al and Sandy Edinberger, emerging from their house. Other figures ran up the road, but I couldn’t make out who they were. Radios crackled from the patrol cars. The flashing lights pulsed against trees, the road, the frightened faces of the Edinbergers as they cut across their yard toward the scene. A new siren wailed up the street, another patrol car carving out a parking place behind the ambulance. A deputy sheriff sprang from the car practically before the engine died. He headed for a rubbernecking Stephen, a few feet from the Willits’ front yard.

  “Back, please!” He held up both hands.

  “Stephen,” I called as I trotted down the front walk, “come here!” My voice sounded weak. Stephen ignored me. No surprise there.

  Al Edinberger met me in the middle of the street. “What happened?”

  I shook my head.

  The memory hit then, clear and cold as ice water in my face. Erin at our house that afternoon, hanging out with Kelly:

  “My dad’s gonna fly the plane to San Diego around two.

  Wanna come with me to say goodbye to him?”

  Dave Willit was gone. Erin and her mom were alone in their house.

  I brought a hand to my mouth, thoughts swirling as I surveyed the scene. Sweet Erin. And Lisa, so kind, so accepting of me and my motley crew. She had a manner about her that drew me in—an openness, a sense of embracing life as if each moment held new wonder. Lisa had brought over cookies as we were still unpacking, Dave and Erin trailing behind. She oohed and aahed over the house, noting with a pixie expression that she’d wanted for so long to take a peek inside once it was completed. Yet her words seemed void of the implication that my father had been less than neighborly to not invite her over, and she wouldn’t hear of my apologies on his behalf.

  The medical team and two sheriff’s deputies had disappeared into the Willits’ wood-shingle house. The paramedics carried a gurney. A tense silence fell over our street, punctuated only by the disembodied voices from the radios and nervous whispers among gathering neighbors. Had I slipped into some Outer Limits episode, where characters wait in a time warp for gruesome news?

  I shifted from foot to foot. Stephen huffed. Shadowy figures moved across the windows of the Willits’ lighted kitchen. None of them looked like they could belong to Lisa or Erin. More cars drove up, more figures of authority raked a look at the house, then strode up its steps. Three men in plain clothes, two dressed in jeans, as if they’d been pulled from bed. And a woman with short, curly, graying hair who looked to be in her fifties, in civilian slacks and shirt but sporting a vest with “Chaplain” on the back. A badge hung from a cord around her neck.

  The deputy sheriff securing the area told us to retreat to our side of the street, out of the way of the responding vehicles.

  “What’s going on?” Al Edinberger demanded.

  “We’re not sure yet, sir. We have to finish checking things out.”

  Al shook his head and muttered under his breath.

  Stephen and I exchanged a grim glance.

  I rubbed my arms. The July day had been hot, hot, but nighttime brought a chill to the air. The ebony sky, pocked with stars, hung low and threatening, a witch’s face thrust toward earth to observe human tragedy with sneering delight.

  I fidgeted, tapping knuckles against my chin. Kelly and Jenna appeared at my side, dressed but without shoes. Kelly was crying. I put an arm around her shoulder and drew her close.

  As each minute ticked by, I knew with more certainty that something terrible had happened.

  Think good thoughts, think good thoughts.

  The night’s events held an irony I couldn’t deny. I’d moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Grove Landing, northeast of Redding, California, to get away from the traffic, the crime, sirens in the night. Yet in all my years there, never had something like this happened on the very street where I lived.

  Someone inside the Willits’ house opened the door. I stared up into the entryway, trying in vain to perceive what lay beyond. Kelly dug her fingers into my arm, rising on her toes, neck craned. In the froth of light just inside the door, two paramedics appeared, carrying the gurney. As they crossed the porch, I frowned, willing my eyes to discern who lay upon it. I caught sight of white-blond hair, too light to be Lisa’s. “It’s Erin.” The whispered words felt dry upon my tongue. The chaplain woman followed the gurney through the door. She took a few catch-up steps and drew near its side, taking Erin’s hand. The group faced a long flight of stairs.

  Like many of the other homes in Grove Landing, the Willits’

  main level rose above a large garage with ceiling high enough to hangar an airplane.

  “Erin!” Kelly cried. But her friend was unable to hear.

  Before I could stop her, Kelly broke away, bounding across the street toward the Willits’ lawn. She hit the grass and nearly tripped, swaying into the deputy sheriff. He caught her, soothing, “Hey, hey, it’s all right. You’ve got to stay back now.”

  “She’s my friend, she’s my friend,” Kelly protested, struggling. I ran to her side, pulling her away, apologies spilling from my mouth even as my eyes remained locked on Erin’s pitiful figure being brought down the stairs.

  “Keep her back, all right?” The deputy sheriff meant business.

  “I’m sorry, I know she shouldn’t—”

  “E
rin!” Kelly’s cry tumbled through the night.

  The rear paramedic stepped off the final stair onto the front walk.

  “Almost there now, we’re almost there,” the chaplain told Erin. My jaw hung askew as I watched them make their way toward the ambulance. When they were no more than a car’s length away, Erin turned her head to focus empty eyes upon Kelly.

  “Erin, are you okay? What happened?”

  Erin blinked, then let go of the woman’s hand, her arms lifting toward Kelly like weakened magnets. Kelly rushed past the deputy sheriff and he let her go. I could see the trembling in Erin’s limbs. Kelly reached for Erin’s hands, grasping them hard in her fright. Erin’s mouth creaked open but no sound came.

  Think good thoughts, think good thoughts.

  But my mind raced down terrifying paths, imagining, filling in the blanks. There were so many cars. Where was Lisa?

  “Erin?” Kelly bent to hug her friend, then pulled back to study her.

  Erin’s cloudy gaze traveled over Kelly’s face. I could almost feel the wrenching of the young girl’s mind. The answer finally came, words like parchment paper, thin and dry and wrinkled at the edges.

  “My mom…my mom…”

  Something about the sound of her own voice, perhaps the words yet unspoken, broke through Erin’s shock. Her mouth mushed into a wailing cry, her brows knitting. Her keen rose in the eerie night as her hands covered her eyes. Kelly leaned over to hug her again, the two girls’ sobs intertwining until I could not tell where one’s ended and the other’s began.

  The chaplain rubbed Erin’s leg. She turned to me, her eyes full of empathy, then exchanged a glance with the deputy sheriff. He motioned for me to join them.

  “I’m Gerri Carson,” the woman said, “with the sheriff’s chaplaincy program. You’re a friend of Erin’s family?”

  “A neighbor.” I pointed toward our house across the street.

  “Annie Kingston. What happened?”

  She looked again to the deputy sheriff, as if asking him to answer.

  “Erin needs to go to the hospital and have a bump on her head examined,” he explained. “She’s probably okay, but she fell and blacked out for a moment. When she woke up, she called 911.”

  I fought for understanding. “And Lisa?”

  He took a deep breath. “An intruder got in the house.

  They struggled. She…didn’t make it.”

  I stared at him, my mind going numb. “Lisa’s dead?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Gerri said.

  The words made no sense. This was simply not possible.

  Not here, not tonight, not someone I knew. “How can you be sure? I mean, maybe she’s not really…maybe she just…”

  Gerri’s hands gripped my own, steadying me. A moment passed before she answered. “I understand.”

  I closed my eyes, tried to regulate my breathing.

  “The detectives and paramedics did all they could for Mrs. Willit, Annie. But she could not be revived.”

  I turned away, the news wriggling through my stomach like an eel. Bending over the gurney, I tried to hug both girls at once. Erin let go of Kelly and clung to me, as if my very motherhood could bring back what had been ripped away from her.

  “Would you like to ride with me to the hospital?” Gerri’s voice remained calm. “You could be a comfort to Erin.”

  I thought of the ambulance. Such a frightening journey for a young girl. “Can I ride with her instead?”

  Gerri hesitated.

  “There’s not much room in there,” the deputy sheriff put in. “But under the circumstances—”

  “She can go,” one of the paramedics said, nodding. “We’ll make room.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” With Erin holding my shirt, I could not straighten. I eased her hands away and laid them over her chest. She grew quiet again, then still, as if her mind had slipped away to some distant place.

  Jenna trotted over as the paramedics loaded Erin into the ambulance. Somehow I managed to form the words to tell her what happened.

  “I’m going with her. I, uh…I can’t think, Jenna.”

  “The kids, Annie.” Jenna remained calm, as she always did.

  Capable, unflappable Jenna—a world and a half apart from me. “I’ll take care of the kids.”

  I nodded.

  “Isn’t Erin’s father gone?” Jenna pressed. “She said something to Kelly about him going to San Diego?”

  “Yeah. To visit his sister after she had surgery. Something like that.” I glanced at the ambulance. Erin was in place. I needed to follow. “I have to go.” But I couldn’t seem to move.

  Jenna nudged me. “Go. I’ll talk to the neighbors. Somebody needs to get Dave Willit; he’ll be in no shape to fly himself home.”

  “Not you! We need you to take care of the kids.”

  “Okay, okay, not me. I’ll be here. You just go. I’ll…I’ll talk to somebody about Dave and then bring the kids to the hospital, okay? Kelly will want to see that Erin’s all right.”

  “Yes, good.” My sister started to leave. A burst of clear thought fizzled in my brain, a single firework against muddied sky. “Jenna! See that lady?” I pointed at Gerri Carson’s back. “Talk to her about getting Dave home.”

  I turned to climb into the ambulance, my legs shaky. The door slammed behind me.

  Chapter 2

  Somehow I managed to balance beside Erin’s gurney as we sped toward Redding. The ambulance siren rose and fell like the wail of a mourner, wrapping itself around my soul. Somewhere behind us trailed Gerri’s car. Jenna too would be following soon with Kelly and Stephen. The sounds and sensations meshed in my head like a metal net, weighting my ability to think. All I could do was hold Erin’s hand and whisper empty reassurances. In the space of an hour our rural sky park, cut out of the forest and gentle hills just south of Lake Shasta, had become a place of horror and fear. Lisa Willit was dead. Her killer had escaped into the night.

  A killer who could have entered any one of our homes.

  Why had he chosen the Willits’ place, way at the end of the road?

  I knew that the sheriff’s detectives were already at work in the Willits’ house, laboring against the clock to gather evidence. With a decade of trial coverage as a courtroom artist, I had enough knowledge of crime scenes to picture all too vividly what would happen next. Not to mention my over-the-top imagination, which is known to flash full-color slides and movies of any subject upon the screen of my mind, like a projector in warp speed. This strange and ever vigilant quirk of mine is enough to drive me crazy.

  In the past year I was astonished to see something akin to it when I stumbled across a new forensic series on television.

  The grimly detailed “flash” scenes in the show were innovative to TV but nothing new to me. My mind had subjected me to that kind of abuse for years. In fact, as I viewed that television show, I was convinced the writers had peeled off the top of my skull and peered inside.

  Now the scenes flashed hard and fast, full of details that my mind added of its own accord…

  A close-up of a roll of yellow crime-scene tape; the hands of a deputy sheriff slowly unwinding it to cordon off the Willits’

  property. There’s a cut on the deputy’s right index finger, the whitened outline of a wedding band now removed…

  A plainclothes deputy in the Willits’ house, leaning to examine a vague smear on the kitchen wall…

  The form of a killer, phantomlike, fleeing into swirls of gray, consuming fog…

  As if these pictures weren’t enough to clog my brain, my father’s features rose before me. For a burning second I felt almost glad he was dead. I’d loved him, feared him, revered him, disliked him. Finally I’d grown embarrassed of his cunning abilities in the courtroom, where he wooed juries as well as he’d wooed his mistresses over the years. The “ultimate defense attorney,” he’d been called. Trent Gerralon was known for getting criminals—like Lisa’s murderer—off free.

  Though he was
dead, my father’s work lived on. If Lisa’s killer was caught and had the bucks, he could always turn to my father’s partner, Sid Haynes, who was still in the Bay Area.

  Sid had managed plenty of his own successes in the courtroom, including the much watched Edgar Sybee murder trial, which he’d taken over upon my father’s sudden death.

  Another acquittal, of course.

  I hoped whoever had killed Lisa was penniless. Only the rich afforded attorneys like Gerralon and Haynes. The rich with blood on their hands.

  Stop it, Annie.

  My father was my father. I should not malign the dead.

  Silently I apologized to his memory.

  “I don’t want to go to the hospital.” Erin’s feeble voice chased away my thoughts. “I want to call Daddy; I need to call Daddy…”

  A paramedic soothed her, his large hand dark against her hair. He looked so young, with a long, angular face, one eyebrow slightly higher than the other. “Don’t worry, somebody will talk to your dad. He’ll get here as soon as he can.”

  “But I don’t want to go—”

  “We’re just going to check you out, Erin. Make sure you’re okay. You hit your head pretty hard when you fell.”

  “I’ll stay with you, Erin.” I stroked her forehead. “I promise not to leave you.”

  I exchanged a glance with the paramedic. He shook his head.

  Without warning my brain popped in another sequence of film and turned on the projector. Up flashed a gruesome image of the scene now occurring in the Willits’ house. A close-up of Lisa…lying where she fell, all privacy stripped away in the presence of exploring, exacting strangers. Her eyes are open and fixed, lips parted, spittle down the side of her mouth. Her colorless face lights in the flash of an investigator’s camera. A few feet away a plainclothes detective squats to view injuries, pointing without touching to a contusion on her face…

  I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the scene from my head.