by Laney Monday
Blythe glared at me. Then she ripped the pretty paper off the muffin and stuffed as much as she could fit into her mouth. She was aiming for the whole thing, but only managed about half. They were big muffins and Blythe has a dainty little mouth. It was a shocking sight, let me tell you. I gasped as she tried to speak around a mouth still full of muffin.
“There. Is. No. Poison. In. These. Muffins!” Chunks of potentially poisonous crumb topping flew at me as she spoke. “Get a grip, Brenna.”
I held my hand up to protect myself from any further muffin fire. “Okay, I have a grip. I promise. You proved your point. Just spit out the muffin.”
Save yourself while you still have a chance! I wanted to scream.
Blythe grabbed my Coke, took a big swig, and swallowed the muffin instead. Great. Blythe turned the volume back up on one of the few movies she owned on DVD—Pride and Prejudice. Some day we’d get all the unpacking done and uncover my collection of action flicks. Maybe. If we weren’t both in prison. Blythe cleaned up the mess I’d made of my hands when Lourdes came to the door, and I stared at those warm muffins, glancing at my apparently-still-alive-and-well sister every few seconds. How long did poison take to go into effect? I supposed it depended on the type of poison.
Blythe went to the kitchen to get me another Coke, and I took a checkered napkin from the basket and wrote on it with sharpie:
If we die of poison, Lourdes Vargas gave us these muffins.
I stashed the note under one of the throw pillows, and then I gave in to the call of butter and sugar. Blythe smiled triumphantly as she placed a fresh glass of Coke in front of me and watched me pick the last bits of muffin off the wrapper.
“I’m glad to see you’re coming back to your senses.”
I grunted, rather than tell her the truth, that I felt like I may have lost my senses for good. I shut the DVD power off on Mr. Darcy and reached for the TV remote. “What channel is the news on?” I needed to hear the usual stream of disastrous and depressing stories right now. To remind myself a lot of people were worse off than me.
I flipped past PBS and through several fuzzy channels, before I came to a clear one, with a newsy intro song playing in the background. A woman in a blazer smiled out from the screen. Behind her, the words Olympian Accused of Murder appeared. So did my official Team USA photo. No! My concussion and my obsession with my current woes had to be playing tricks on me.
But one glance at Blythe told me I’d seen right. That, and her subsequent desperate dive across the couch to grab the remote from me. I anticipated her move and jumped out of her way as the dark-haired anchor announced, “This is Pam Nagatori with some breaking local news—In Bonney Bay, of all places! Already rocked by the violent murder of local journalist Ellison Baxter, the tight-knit community is now reeling with the news that the Olympian they just celebrated moving into their town may have been involved in that murder.” A clip of me being interviewed at the recital played in the background. “And the murderer herself may have been either Olympian Brenna Battle, her sister, Blythe Battle.”
A still shot of a smiling Blythe at the party replaced the clip of me. “An anonymous source from the Bonney Bay Police Department confirms that Brenna Battle was arrested today in connection with a break-in at a law enforcement official’s house. That break-in is allegedly tied to a strange series of events surrounding the murder of Ellison Baxter. The Olympian’s judo bag was found at the scene of the break-in. Police speculate that she was startled by a neighbor during the break-in and forced to leave the bag behind. The bag allegedly contained evidence of criminal involvement, though our sources would not confirm what sort of evidence of what sort of crime. We can only wonder if the contents were related to the murder of Ellison Baxter, either by her or her sister, or if the bag contained evidence of another crime she had planned to commit—perhaps the murder of that very law enforcement officer whose house she is alleged to have broken into!”
“Maybe someone should murder that very law enforcement officer!” I shouted at the TV.
“Brenna,” Blythe cautioned me. But I could tell her heart wasn’t in it.
“We might as well. He’s determined to make us into murderers one way or another.”
“Doyle?”
“Of course, Doyle! Who else would be their ‘source?’”
“That Tony guy, maybe?”
“Maybe,” I admitted.
On TV, Pam Nagatori announced with great enthusiasm, “Dan Deering is live right now in Bonney Bay, with the scoop.”
“Oh, God, help us.” My voice was barely a whisper, more prayer than exclamation. And here I’d thought the post-Olympic loss interviews I’d endured were the absolute worst media nightmare possible for me. Never had I dreamed of being the center of this kind of news story.
“They’re here, Brenna. They’re right outside the studio.”
23
Blythe had drawn the drapes earlier, to shield me from the light. Bright light still made my head throb, but with the sun already set, it wasn’t really necessary. But I sure was grateful for Blythe’s overprotective gesture now. At least the media couldn’t see us or take pictures of us.
“They can’t get up here,” I said, trying to reassure us both. There was no outside door to our apartment. The only way to enter was through the dojo downstairs. Both of the doors downstairs were locked.
Dan Deering’s face filled the TV screen. There was no cheesy smile this time. Instead, he wore a carefully practiced frown, complete with smartly crinkled brow. “Just two days ago, I was here for a celebration, to bring you the story of Bonney Bay’s beloved dance teacher retiring, and of Olympian Brenna Battle and her sister moving in to convert the building to an Olympic judo school.”
I gritted my teeth at yet another media reference to my intended fun-for-kids judo dojo being described as some kind of elite training center.
“It was a bittersweet moment,” Deering went on, “full of happy memories and hope for the future.” He paused dramatically. “Today, the mood has changed. The building has a quiet, shuttered look.” He gestured at the tarp-covered window. “And all of Bonney Bay is wondering what sort of people are inside. Who are the Battle sisters really, underneath all the window dressing? And just what have they brought to Bonney Bay?”
Deering made a big show of rapping on the front studio door. I could just feel the whole town—and the whole coast from Seattle on down—waiting in anticipation for one of us to open the door. Well, they were going to have a long wait. I only hoped they wouldn’t hold out until tomorrow, when I had to report to the police station.
“Now, our sources tell us that though Brenna Battle is being charged with several crimes, she is not in the Bonney Bay jail, but in the apartment above this studio. Her sister, who has yet to be charged in any crime, is with her. Our source did not say why Blythe Battle had not been charged in Ellison Baxter’s murder, or why Brenna Battle is not currently behind bars. Though we have yet to get word on exactly how Baxter was killed, our source tells us the murder weapon allegedly belonged to Blythe Battle. And the rumor in Bonney Bay is that it was—a hairbrush. Yes, you heard that right. The murder weapon is rumored to be Blythe Battle’s hairbrush.”
The camera zoomed out, and Dan Deering stepped away from the door and paused in front of the painted studio windows.
“Oh, no,” Blythe groaned.
The paint was still unwashed. We’d had other things to do today. Like tail Stacey Goode, get beat up, get arrested …
The gentle ocean breeze picked up a bit, even managing to move Deering’s carefully gelled hair—and the tarp behind him. Deering’s face scrunched and he touched his ear piece. I could just imagine the cameraman frantically gesturing for him to look behind him. He turned to the flapping tarp.
“What was that? Ladies and gentlemen, it appears there is more to these windows here. As you can see, someone has tried to cover it with a tarp, but if we lift the tarp just a bit … well, this is shocking. Just absolutely shoc
king. Just look what it says!”
“We’ve been framed! That’s what it says, you idiot!”
“Don’t worry, Bren. People aren’t as dumb as Deering. Or Doyle.”
“We’re going to catch that murderer, Blythe. We’re going to clear our names.” Hopefully before this made it to the National news. How many times had it been drilled into me that I was an ambassador for the relatively unknown sport I loved? And I’d always taken it to heart. I’d tried to be a good example for kids. Heck, I never even drank, except a few sips to be polite, if the culture I got thrown into demanded it. I could not make National news as a criminal!
An elderly man, probably some passerby taking a leisurely stroll, was thrust into the spotlight.
“Sir,” Deering said, “what do you think of what’s going on here? Do you know the Battle sisters?”
“No, I never met them. But I’ll tell you, I don’t like it one bit. Bonney Bay was always the safest town in the Northwest. Then those two decide to move here, and we’ve got murders, break-ins … ” He shook his head. “Now, could be it’s just a coincidence. But I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
They transitioned to what must have been a clip they’d taped earlier, in Mayor Conway’s office. “What’s your take on the Ellison Baxter murder case?” Deering sat in a leather chair across from Mayor Conway as he spoke. She sat at her desk, behind a placard that read, Nicole Conway, Mayor.
The woman didn’t look like a politician today, small-town or otherwise. She looked completely stunned. When she spoke, her words were near robotic. “It’s a terrible tragedy. Just terrible. Ellison was a fixture in our community.” Her voice cracked a little, and for a moment, it looked like she might crumble. Just when I thought Deering was going to sign off, she found her composure—and perhaps a prompter. The robot was back, saying, “The Bonney Bay Police are on it. We look out for each other in Bonney Bay. We will find justice for Ellison Baxter.”
The next morning, Blythe made me breakfast. I have to admit I was grateful for her grocery planning. If she hadn’t been determined to shop for the whole week, I’d be stuck here, starving under the media siege instead of being pampered. Bacon and hash browns went well with the couple of Lourdes’s muffins we had left over. I guess Blythe was right about those muffins, too. We were both still alive, and after a decent night’s sleep—Blythe had awakened me several times to ask me obvious questions and make sure I wasn’t getting worse—my headache was gone and I felt much more calm about everything, crazy as it was.
I grabbed the last piece of bacon and approached the window so I could peek through the tiny gap between the edge of the blinds and the side of the window. So much for Sunday being a day of rest.
“They’re still there, but they look a little sleepy. Maybe we can slip out the back,” I said.
Blythe shook her head. “I just looked out the back. There’s a girl out there. An intern or something, playing lookout.”
Blythe’s phone chirped out her cheery ringtone, startling us both out of our musings about possible escape.
Blythe looked at the screen and gasped, “Brenna! It’s you!”
“What?”
“Someone’s calling me from your phone!”
“Give it to me!” I grabbed the phone and hit the green button. “Who is this?” I demanded through my mouthful of half-chewed bacon.
“Um, I found this phone.” The childish voice went from trembling and hesitant to the sort of speed talking that comes with nerves. “If you want it back, you better do exactly what I say.”
I struggled for patience and calm. “Okay … thank you for trying to return my phone. May I speak with your mother, please?”
The kid ignored me. A girl, I was pretty sure. No more than fourteen, by the sound of her voice. “Look, I know the police are watching you. So I’m gonna make a daveersion.”
“A what?”
“I’m gonna to distract them, you know. Make them think you’re somewhere else. Then you sneak out the back door. You’ll see.”
So, this kid knew who I was and where I was. She knew I was accused of a crime—multiple crimes. So why wouldn’t she be afraid of me? Why wouldn’t she give my phone to the police?
Because she was up to no good, that’s why. There was no way this kid simply “found” my phone. She knew something. She might even know the killer.
Blythe was leaning in close, listening. “What if it’s a trap?” she mouthed.
What choice did I have? “And once we sneak out the back, then what?” I said to the kid.
“Then you meet me about … half an hour later at Watson Point. In the shelter on the beach.”
“Where is that?”
“It’s in Bonney Bay. It’s not the sandy beach, it’s the pebbly one.”
There was a sandy beach in Bonney Bay? I’d have to make sure we found that after this was all over.
“Nobody’s ever there,” the kid added. “Wait for me under the shelter. No police! You can’t trust the police!”
Something changed in the kid’s voice when she said, “You can’t trust the police.” Something that made me believe it. She believed it, that was for sure.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll be there. Just me and my sister, Blythe.”
“Get ready. The daveersion is going to happen in about three minutes.”
Three minutes! What was three minutes to a kid? Was she actually keeping time? “Are you—” I began to ask, but it was too late; she’d already hung up. I hurried to grab my wallet and stuff my feet into running shoes. We each made sure we had our keys, but I warned Blythe, “No way we’re using the truck.”
“Right. We’re going to have to make our escape on foot.”
We barely had our stuff together before a blood-curdling scream cut through the cool morning air. It was something awful.
“That’s it!” I said. “The daveer—diversion! It has to be.”
“Let’s go!” Blythe locked the apartment door behind me, then we ran down the stairs, into the studio. I paused at the door to the stairwell. I opened it nice and slow. To my relief, the news crew was dragging all their gear across the street, in pursuit of the persistent screams.
“Help me! Somebody help me!” the kid, or some accomplice of hers, kept crying.
Dan Deering was running his hand over his hair as he hoofed it across the street and yelled at the cameraman to hurry up. Heaven knows you can’t help a child screaming in mortal fear without a camera to record the deed!
I opened the back door to the parking lot and waved Blythe through. I gestured to the thick brush on the edge of the lot, then locked the door behind us. I jumped into the bushes, then winced. They were blackberry brambles. Blythe gave me a pained look. “Not a good hiding spot,” she whispered.
“Sorry,” I said. But as far as I could tell, it was the only hiding spot. At least the only one that offered a path out of there, without us being in plain sight. Thankfully, it was still spring and the brambles were prickly but not rough and thorny yet.
We paused for a second, waiting and listening. There were no more screams of terror. We heard people saying, “Where is she?” and “Can’t find her!” When the shouts turned to, “Must’ve been some punk kid pranking us!” I knew we had to go. Now.
We moved through the brush at a crouch, as soundlessly as possible, then wriggled through a hydrangea bush and into someone’s backyard. We found cover behind some low-growing evergreens and Blythe entered the name of the beach in her phone. Once we saw the route, it was clear there was no way we were going to get there in half an hour backyard hopping.
“We’ll just use the sidewalk,” Blythe said. “I think we’re less likely to draw attention that way than sneaking through every backyard in Bonney Bay.”
“Yeah, that will get the police called on us—or somebody’s dog on us—for sure.”
“Try to act casual. If any cars come by, we’ll look the other way.
“Right. We’ll be deep in conversation.”
>
We slipped around the side of the house, and out to the sidewalk. We sort of speed-walked away, following the directions on Blythe’s phone. I tried not to think about who might be waiting for us on this deserted beach. I tried not to think about how the police might take it if they discovered we’d slipped the building before I got a chance to show up as promised at the station. Most of all, I tried not to dwell on how screwed we’d be if this all got us nowhere. No closer to the killer. No closer to ending this ordeal.
24
We stood on the ocean side of Bonney Bay, on the south end of town, brushing sweaty hair out of our eyes, trying to catch our breath, and staring at the dead end in front of us.
“You have reached your destination!” Blythe’s phone informed us, for the third time. Though I could tell we were close to the water, I couldn’t see a beach anywhere. We’d tried backing up a couple of steps in the list of directions, and each time the phone had led us here.
“GPS fail,” I muttered. “Now what?”
“Wait! I see a sign!” Blythe pointed toward a chain link fence at the end of the road. Blackberry brambles threatened to overtake the fence.
I could imagine the whole thing disappearing underneath them in the thick of summer, after the leaves had time to fill in. I followed Blythe, at a run. There was a narrow chain link gate in the thicket, bearing a small brown and white sign. Instead of Keep Out, or something along those lines—which would’ve been quite fitting in such an abandoned-looking place—the sign said, Watson Point Beach.
I gave Blythe a grateful squeeze. “Let’s go.”
I opened the gate to reveal plain wooden stairs, flanked by more chain link fence, which served as a sort of rail. The stairs descended the rocky, brambly cliff. We were a third of the way down before the beach came into view. There was no sand here, just very dark, smooth rocks and pebbles—a stark contrast with the bright desert sands I was used to in Arizona. The beach was nearly black, and completely deserted. It had a desolate, almost post-apocalyptic feel. And we were meeting with someone associated with a murderer here. Maybe with the murderer herself. I turned and looked up the cliff. I could hardly see the houses above, with the rocks jutting out so far beyond them. Would anyone hear us if we cried for help?
