by Lisa Gardner
Then, on the heels of that thought: “Lola didn’t just send the picture to Doug de Vries, did she? She also sent them to Anya.”
“Revenge must be revenge, or it isn’t sweet.”
Anya had implied to D.D. and me that she’d been with Doug during the time of the shooting. But he was hardly a reliable alibi. Given the existence of incriminating images, he’d say anything to keep Anya on his side. He needed her help for the cover-up. Meaning Anya could’ve donned the costume of her choice from the theater, walked to the Boyd-Baez house, and opened fire.
Was that her real self? I wondered. The woman who’d walked from room to room, calmly eliminating her targets. Until she reached the upstairs and zeroed in on her final enemy. Or had she approached the whole exercise as a role? Anya Seton, playing Female Kick-Ass Assassin in this morning’s performance of Vengeance Is Mine?
Did either way make it any less scary?
My phone rang in my pocket. I almost didn’t answer it, then realized it was Sarah. I hit the accept button, placing it to my ear impatiently.
“Yes?”
“She’s gone.”
“What?”
“Roxanna. She was here, still asleep on the sofa, when I returned with the groceries. I set out some food. Then I thought I’d take a few minutes to shower. Five at the most. When I came back out . . . Her bag is gone, too. She took everything with her.”
“Okay. Contact Sergeant Warren—”
“She just called. I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say.”
“You might as well tell her. We’re going to need her help.”
“Do you know where she went, what she’s doing?”
“I think so.” I looked directly at Mike Davis as I spoke. “Roxy’s heading back to the theater. She believes Anya murdered her family. And now, Roxanna is looking to even the score.”
Chapter 38
D.D. APPROACHED THE COMMUNITY THEATER building, lights off. If Roxy was already there, preparing to ambush Anya, D.D. didn’t want to spook her. Also, she had no idea about possible theater rehearsals, other people being present. The last thing she needed was a hostage situation involving the lone survivor of a family massacre and an equally vengeful target.
She had issued a BOLO for Anya Seton. Now, D.D. slowed her vehicle, driving by the front of the building while trying to search for any sign of activity.
She didn’t know much about the community theater. It looked like a former church, tall and plain as many of the historic houses of worship were. The white front featured chipping paint and a pair of recessed doors that formed an arch. One of the doors appeared to be cracked open.
Given the bright, sunny day, it was impossible to tell if any interior lights were on. D.D. didn’t see actors coming or going or people milling about out front, but that didn’t mean anything. Chances were, a building of this size could be filled with dozens of aspiring thespians, let alone two girls engaged in the final act of a five-years-running play.
She turned the corner, went around the block. And immediately spied a silver Honda sedan parked down a narrow backstreet at the rear of the church. The plate read: DRAMA.
Doug de Vries’s vehicle, had to be. From here, she could just make out someone sitting in the driver’s seat. The angle of the sun, however, blocked her view of the passenger’s side, meaning Anya might or might not be in the vehicle with him.
D.D. cruised past. Eyes forward, hands flexing and unflexing on the wheel. One block up, she made a right and looped all the way around the next block, parking one street over and up from the rear alley.
She got on her phone to Phil. “At the theater. Have eyes on de Vries and his vehicle.”
“Okay. I’m at his house with a full team. His wife is here. She said he’d gone out, but has refused to offer anything more. She’s waiting on her lawyer.”
“I need to know if there’s a rehearsal scheduled for this morning.”
“D.D., she’s already requested a lawyer.”
“I know, I know. But requesting a schedule is hardly asking someone to risk self-incrimination. I just need to know how many people might be in a gigantic building where I may have at least one armed suspect. Tell her having a pervert husband is bad enough. Surely she doesn’t want to be held accountable for a hostage situation, too.”
“You have such a way with words.”
Rustling, followed by the low murmur of voices as Phil relayed her message.
Then: “Rehearsal is set for this evening. But apparently the theater is pretty informal. Doesn’t mean people won’t come in earlier to work on set pieces, run lines, whatever.”
“In other words, your guess is as good as mine?”
“Exactly. Want me to call for backup?”
“I don’t know,” D.D. said, and she meant it. In any dangerous situation, protocol demanded SWAT. And yet two teenage girls . . . The mom in her wanted to believe there was a better answer to all of this. Even as the cop knew kids could kill just as easily as anyone else.
“Put out the call, but no one moves until I say so,” she determined. In other words, plan for the worst but don’t stop hoping for the best.
She ended the call, then exited her vehicle, unsnapping the holster at her waist and willing her left arm to cooperate. As Flora Dane could attest, D.D. could still get lucky with some one-handed shooting action. But since her injury, she didn’t have the aim or accuracy she used to, and she knew it. All the more reason to take this slow and easy.
She walked down the street toward the rear alley, keeping her body as close to the buildings as possible, and out of sight of de Vries’s silver automobile. The back bumper jutted out. She paused with her back against a storefront. Being a Sunday afternoon, most of the block appeared quiet.
She eased her gun out of its holster. Wrapped her right hand around the grip, followed by her left.
Quick step out, glance through the rear window, gun still held low and in front.
Backseat, empty. Passenger seat, empty. Which left just de Vries, who sat still, facing forward.
She dropped back, wondering if he’d seen her. Something nagged at her. The outline of his head. Straight up, staring forward. Same as when she’d driven by.
Who sat like that anymore? Especially alone in a car? People stared down at their phones. Or maybe nodded their heads along to music. But sitting so perfectly still . . .
She got the first tickle of a bad feeling as she eased around the corner, ducked low, and raced along the side of the car to the driver’s seat.
“Hands up! On the steering wheel! Keep them where I can see them,” she barked, zeroing in on de Vries through the driver’s-side window.
The community theater director gazed right at her. But he didn’t move a muscle.
• • •
DUCT TAPE. IT TOOK HER a moment to make out the silvery mess. De Vries had been wrapped with what appeared to be miles of the material. His eyes were wild above the bright gray patch stuck to his mouth. More bands of tape bound his left hand to the door handle, while his right wrist was attached to the gear shift. A rush job but an effective one. Especially given the pièce de résistance, which D.D. was just now making out.
A box cutter, taped to the bottom of the steering wheel and positioned with its blade wedged into the most sensitive part of a man’s anatomy. Basically, the slightest movement on de Vries’s part risked immediate castration.
Knowing what she did about the man, D.D. couldn’t help but be impressed.
She glanced around the alley. No sign of Anya Seton or Roxanna Baez. Or Flora Dane, for that matter, because this certainly reminded D.D. of Flora’s handiwork. Which maybe Flora had passed along to her newfound support group, including Roxy? Hey, ladies, want to ensure an evil pervert doesn’t bother you again?
D.D. took an experimental sniff of the air. Sure enough, a whiff o
f pepper. Remnants of bear spray, most likely from one of the cans she’d found in Roxy’s backpack.
Meaning Roxanna had gotten here first, then taken some time to play with the first target of her rage.
And now?
D.D. circled the car, popped opened the passenger’s door, stared down at de Vries. She reached in a hand and ripped the tape from his whiskered face. The man gasped in pain.
“Talk,” she ordered.
He did.
• • •
MIKE KNEW A SIDE DOOR into the theater. On the run, moving with a sense of urgency, his normally bounding gait smoothed out. His limbs and joints seemed to find themselves, working together with a kind of fluid efficiency he still couldn’t master in everyday life. I was surprised by how hard I had to work to keep up, and how ragged my breathing grew.
Mike Davis had once worked in the theater. With Roxanna. Set design, something like that. I had a vague memory from things Anya had said, or maybe it was from Roxy. But he definitely knew where he was going, striking a direct line from the school counselor’s house to the former church.
The door squeaked when he jerked it open. I winced at the noise, but he didn’t seem to notice. I was trying to run a quick catalogue in my mind, possible self-defense weapons. Laces from my tennis shoes. A clip in my hair that happened to disguise a small razor blade. One tiny black plastic lock pick, which looked like a shortened bobby pin but was perfect for releasing wrist restraints. Add to that some hand-to-hand combat basics, the sharp point of my elbow, the hard-edged heel of my hand, the razor jab of pointed fingers, and I had many tools at my disposal.
The question was, for what?
The side door led us straight to a set of steps, headed down. The stairwell was narrow and dark and smelled slightly of mildew. Basement access, I realized. But I wasn’t sure why we’d want to head directly into the bowels of the building, when most likely the action was happening overhead.
We shuffled along in the dark. Then, abruptly, Mike drew up short, motioning for me to pause. I halted directly behind him, working on calming my breathing while straining my ears for sounds of activity.
The faint murmur of voices. One high and strident. The other low and angry. Anya Seton and Roxanna. Had to be.
In front of me, Mike bounced soundlessly on the balls of his feet, clearly focused on the conversation, trying to make out the words.
He looked up, and that’s when I got it. The voices weren’t coming from ahead of us but from on top of us. Somehow, we’d worked our way under the stage. That’s what the side door must be—the safety egress for the trap room under the stage decking.
We eased forward. The voices grew louder, but the words were still hard to distinguish. Roxanna and Anya had to be standing nearly on top of us now. Unfortunately, the acoustics of a theater were designed to project their voices out into the audience, not down into the pit.
In the dark, Mike tugged at my hand, then pointed ahead. I could just make out the glowing outline of a door. He eased it open to reveal a second flight of stairs. Lighter and brighter this time. They appeared to be leading behind the main stage area, where windows placed up high allowed for natural light. Better for us to see, but also better for us to be seen by. We tiptoed up cautiously, flinching at each groaning riser.
“You’re insane!” I could hear Anya Seton’s voice clearly now. “You and your sister both. Beneath those poor-little-me exteriors, you’re nothing but ruthless manipulators, prepared to do anything to get what you want.”
“Lola was eight years old—”
“Please, that girl never did anything she didn’t want to. Including play you like a fiddle. When are you going to wake up and smell the coffee?”
“She was my sister!”
“She killed my boyfriend. Who never hurt anyone.”
“Now who’s insane?”
“Lola shot Roberto in the head. She liquored him up, then took him out. And I told her as much. I let her know I was on to her.” Mike and I crept around the corner. I could just make out the back of Roxanna. She held a bright yellow aerosol can in her left hand—bear spray. What concerned me more was her right arm, extended straight in front of her, pointing a gun directly at Anya’s head. Where had Roxanna gotten the gun? There hadn’t been a weapon in her backpack. Unless she’d stashed it in the theater, already planning to return.
Anya stood ten feet in front of Roxy. Her face was easier to see, and the blonde wasn’t a pretty sight. Her eyes were bright red. Snot still streamed from her nose, gluing strands of hair to her cheeks. Compared to pepper sprays intended for self-defense, bear spray contained significantly higher levels of capsaicinoids, and Anya looked it. Most likely Roxy had ambushed Anya with the spray in order to drag her into the theater. Which would also explain Anya’s hands, bound in front of her with strips of duct tape.
Provide the tips, and others will use them.
When I had started the support group a year ago, was this really what I’d wanted? Because this was all my advice, live and in color, playing out in front of me.
“Lola didn’t kill Roberto!” Roxy was saying. “Neither did Las Niñas. They would’ve said if they had. Killing him would’ve been their honor.”
“Shut up!” Anya spat.
“You just don’t want to face that Roberto committed suicide. And it was your affair with Doug that drove him to it!”
“Shut up!”
Roxy didn’t. “What hurts worse? That your first boyfriend died to escape you, or that your next boyfriend, a fat old theater director, preferred Lola to you? I know she sent you the pictures. And that’s what drove you over the edge, isn’t it? That’s what made you kill my entire family!”
Another low growl, then Anya suddenly lowered her head and charged.
I never saw it coming. A bound woman facing down both a gun and pepper spray going on the offensive? Certainly, she caught Roxanna off guard. Roxy seemed to forget she even had a gun, raising the bright yellow can of bear spray instead. But Anya had closed the distance too quickly. She rammed straight into Roxanna, arms still trapped in front of her as they both went down.
“You shot my family!” Roxy was screaming.
“You murdered Roberto!”
“You don’t care. You were just using them. My sister. Manny. My mother. You bitch! How could you, how could you!”
Anya was kicking at Roxy. Then she rose halfway up and delivered a savage head butt to the face. Roxy snapped back on the floor, clearly seeing stars. In that moment, Anya scrambled up on her knees. She spied the gun, halfway across the stage, and lunged for it.
Just as I crossed the space and took her out in a flying tackle. The gun slid farther across the stage decking, away from both of us.
I scrambled to my feet, eyes already on the target. Pistol, five feet in front of me.
Which is why I was caught totally off guard by the gunshot that exploded from behind me.
Chapter 39
FIRE.
My arm. I could feel it burn. The bullet raking across the top of my right arm before burying itself in its intended target, Anya, now groaning on the floor. Blood. Her shoulder, my arm. I could feel myself spinning away. Shock. Pain.
I saw Jacob. No, the first woman, the way the blade had slid into her stomach, the look of surprise on her face. Or maybe it was the rapist, the one I’d doused in antifreeze and potassium permanganate before watching him burst into flames.
Maybe it was me, raking my fingers in and out of the boreholes of the coffin-shaped box, watching the blood dew on my fingertips before sliding slowly down.
My life. My choices. Blood. Pain. The ways I had healed. The ways I was still broken. As I dug my right thumb savagely into the bandage on my left hand and used the sweet, familiar pain of the embedded sliver to ground me again.
“Mike?” Roxanna said from behind me.
&
nbsp; I blinked my eyes. Turning, I took in Mike Davis, who was magically holding a gun and pointing it directly at me. No, at Anya, whimpering on the floor behind my feet.
I finally got it. The skinny figure running away from the shooting this morning. The long hair peeking out from beneath the oversized hoodie. Mike Davis, wearing a wig to throw off suspicion. Mike Davis, doing everything in his power to protect his one true friend, Roxanna Baez.
“You’re the shooter,” I heard myself say, as if making the statement would help me accept the truth. “Hector Alvalos, Las Niñas, me. You shot at me!”
“Mike,” Roxanna said again, her voice full of concern. She still held the can of bear spray, but made no move to approach.
There was a look on Mike’s face that worried me, too. As if he weren’t entirely here. As if he’d gone someplace darker, bleaker, from which he never expected to return.
“She hurt you,” he said softly. “She deserved to die.”
“You shot her,” Roxy said. “It’s over now. Please.”
A squeak of hinges; then a door opened to our left. Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren appeared, stalking into the amphitheater, having no doubt heard the gunfire and now leading with her own firearm. I didn’t know if I was grateful for her presence or even more worried about what was going to happen next.
“Flora,” she greeted me tightly.
“We’re okay. Kind of. Mostly. I got shot in the arm. Anya has a wound to the shoulder.”
On the stage floor, the girl moaned theatrically.
I frowned at her. “For God’s sake, the bullet lost most of its momentum striking me. Now shut up and stop reminding the guy with the loaded weapon that you’re still here.”
Mike was still trying to figure out a shot. But right now, my body blocked most of Anya’s. And while he’d accidentally hit me once, he didn’t seem ready to repeat the mistake. It occurred to me this was the longest I’d ever seen him stay so still. Because this was it, I realized. This moment, this conversation, this act, he considered the end.
