Out for Blond

by V. J. Chambers

  I didn’t see Stella’s car there, not that I had expected to. I supposed some part of me had hoped that maybe I could catch a break here.

  I watched the cars in the drive-thru for a while. Watched them pause at the menu, speak to the little box, wait, and then pull up to the windows to hand over their cash in exchange for little white paper bags. All different kinds of cars. Squat, tiny ones with no backseats. Big, imposing SUVs. Pick-up trucks. Every color of the rainbow, from sky blue to cherry red. I stared at them and felt helpless, because I didn’t know what to do next.

  I tried to reassure myself. Maybe I was overreacting. So, Stella was a murderer. But, as far as I knew, she’d only killed Tess, so there wasn’t any reason for me to suspect that she was being violent towards Brigit. Maybe she and Brigit were just having a nice friendly chat.

  Right. So, then, why wasn’t Brigit answering her phone?

  I thought of what Adeline had said, about Stella slashing Tess’s throat—

  Maybe Brigit could fight Stella off. After all, Stella was just a teenage girl. She wasn’t that strong or big or…

  Oh what the hell? Brigit wasn’t very strong or big either.

  And if anything happened to Brigit…

  Hell, I didn’t even want to think about that.

  My phone rang, startling me. It was Eden.

  I picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Ivy, it’s Eden. I’ve got the address for you.”

  “Oh, good. What is it?”

  “I’m texting it to you. You should be able to put it right into your GPS. It’s right outside of Renmawr, so I doubt you’ll have any trouble getting there.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Back in my car, I leaned back against the headrest and tried to think. Where could Stella be? How could I find her?

  And then, the answer was so obvious that when it popped into my head, I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to think of it.

  I called Eden back.

  “Is Brigit okay?” said Eden. “What happened?”

  “I can’t find her,” I said. “That’s the problem.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? I can track her phone.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “I will call you right back,” she told me.

  I hung up and waited. If I’d just had Eden do her mojo earlier, all of this could have been avoided. But instead, I’d been running all over like an idiot. It was my fault for not being up on the latest technology, I supposed. I didn’t think about that kind of thing right away. Instead, I thought about police stuff, going to people’s doors and pounding the pavement. That was who I was, and it often served me well. But in this case, it had meant that I could have found Brigit more quickly.

  I just hoped that I was going to make it in time.

  I looked at my phone, willing it to ring, for Eden to call me back and tell me where Brigit was.

  Of course, that was the worst strategy ever in terms of making the time I was waiting go faster. It seemed to drag on forever.

  My phone would intermittently go black, the screen turning off to save power. I’d hit the button to turn it back on again, and the process would start over again.

  It seemed like a thousand years passed, but I could see the minutes changing on my phone, and it was only five minutes. Still, staring at a screen for five minutes is an eternity.

  Eventually, however, the phone rang.

  I answered it. “Hello?”

  “Ivy, it’s Eden. I’ve got the phone traced.”

  “Great. So, where is she?”

  “Well, it’s kind of hard to say. It’s not an address or anything. I can see it on the map, though, and I’m sending you a screen capture, so that you can look at it.”

  “Okay.” I waited again.

  So did Eden.

  We were quiet.

  “Do you have it yet?” she said.

  “It’s downloading,” I said. “I’ve only got 3G here.”

  We were quiet again.

  “Now?” she said.

  “Unh uh.”

  More silence.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ve got it.” I opened up the map that she’d send me and looked at it. I couldn’t believe it. That’s where Stella had taken Brigit? That was kind of obvious. Hell, if I hadn’t ended up relying on technology, I might have even looked there myself.

  “Good,” Eden was saying. “Do you even know where that is? I’m not sure you can take a car in there. It looks like it’s just woods or something.

  “It’s the murder scene,” I said. “The place where she killed Tess Carver.”

  “Wait a second,” said Eden, “Brigit’s with a murderer?”

  “Yes,” I said, “and I have to get there too.”

  “Well, hold on,” said Eden. “You can’t go by yourself. You need backup or something.”

  “Eden, I don’t have backup. I’m a private detective.”

  “Shouldn’t you call the police? Call Miles, at least? Wouldn’t he help you?”

  “I don’t have time,” I said. “Can you do me a favor and call him for me?”

  “Ivy, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Stella was a teenage girl. She wasn’t that big and she wasn’t that strong. I could handle this.

  * * *

  Eden was right about one thing. I couldn’t drive my car right up to the crime scene. It was in the woods, and I’d have to park and walk. But that was probably a good thing. It meant I could sneak up on Stella. If I roared up in my car, she’d have advance notice that I was coming. This way, I could move quietly to where I wanted to be.

  I found Stella’s car parked by the side of the road, and I pulled up directly behind it.

  Good. At least I knew that she was here.

  Then I started through the woods. I was not a woodsy person by any means, so it was amazing that I managed to move through the woods as silently as I did. I didn’t do a perfect job, of course.

  At one point, I stepped on a twig that snapped, and I swear the sound seemed to echo off of every tree trunk for miles around.

  And then later, I did it again. Another snapped fallen branch. Another loud sound.

  But other than that, I managed fine, zigzagging through the trees, ducking under branches, swerving around patches of briars. The worst of it was the bugs. I must have been stung by eighteen mosquitoes—or one mosquito eighteen times. Either way, I was scratching a lot.

  But then I came up on the clearing where Tess had been killed. Instead of bursting out into the open, I stayed back behind the cover of the trees until I could get a better idea of the situation.

  The clearing was as empty as it had been the last time I was here, and my heart sank. If Brigit wasn’t here, then where was she? Had Stella simply dumped Brigit’s cell phone in this clearing and taken off through the woods? How was I going to find her in the woods? I didn’t have the ability to track someone. I wondered how long it would take for the police to show up.

  If they even showed up. Sure, Pike would be sympathetic to my plight. He’d believe that I’d found something important if I was having Eden phone him. But that didn’t mean that he’d be able to get a bunch of officers out here. He might only come on his own, and I didn’t think Pike could track things through the woods.

  At the thought of Pike, my body clenched on itself, and I wanted to get sucked into a sweet reverie about last night, the two of us together, and how nice—

  Damn it.

  Brigit.

  I dragged a hand over my face, banished the thoughts of Pike from my mind.

  And when I looked up, I realized that I’d been wrong. The clearing wasn’t empty after all.

  Brigit was lying face down in the center. I hadn’t seen her before because her body was partially obscured by the swell of the land. She was in a kind of dip, and the grass rose up around her.

  She wasn’t moving.

 
; I dashed forward, running for her. I probably should have stayed hidden a bit longer, gotten a better sense of everything. But I didn’t think when I saw her. I moved. I was terrified for her.

  I skidded to a halt next to her body, my hands shaking as they felt for her pulse.

  It was there. She was alive.

  But she was bleeding.

  I could see the redness spilling out from under her, staining her shirt.

  I let out a little whimper.

  Brigit’s wound was on the front of her body, and she was lying face down. I couldn’t see what had happened to her. I wanted to turn her over, but I was afraid. I didn’t think you were supposed to move people when they were hurt. I didn’t want to cause more damage.

  So, I just knelt there, gripping her wrist and feeling the steady pound of her pulse, and not knowing what the fuck to do.

  I needed to call someone.

  Right.

  Gently, I set down Brigit’s wrist, and I whipped out my phone. I started to dial—

  But my phone flashed, No service.

  What? Oh god damn it, there were pockets out here where there wasn’t any service. I had forgotten.

  I stood up, holding the phone out in front of me like I was prospecting for gold, and started walking, hunting for a signal, which I knew I would find, because Eden had been able to track Brigit’s phone to this spot, so it must be getting service somewhere.

  “Ivy?” a weak voice from behind me.

  I whirled.

  Brigit was sitting up. Her shirt was open, and there was blood on her stomach. It looked to me as if one of those symbols had been cut into her skin. “It’s Stella. She’s the murderer.”

  “I know,” I said, starting back for her. “Look, I’m trying to get a signal to call for help, but my phone isn’t working.”

  But before I could make it to Brigit, something streaked out of the woods, too fast for me to make out what it was, and tackled Brigit, knocking her onto her back.

  Now, I could see that it was Stella. She straddled Brigit, brandishing a knife, which she pressed into Brigit’s throat. “Stop right there, Ivy.”

  I froze.

  Stella turned to look at me. “I can call you Ivy, right? I mean, under the circumstances, there’s no reason for us to be formal, is there?”

  “Stella, put down the knife. Let’s talk.” Man, what I wouldn’t give for a gun right now. Why was my permit still in limbo? This was ridiculous.

  Stella didn’t put down the knife. She laughed.

  Brigit had her eyes squeezed shut, bracing herself.

  “Let Brigit go,” I said. “She hasn’t done anything to you.”

  “Are you kidding? Brigit’s the worst.” Stella’s nostrils flared. “She acted like she wanted to be my friend, but then when it came down to it, she didn’t have the stomach for it. Just like Adeline. She left me all alone, you know.”

  I remembered thinking that Stella was lonely earlier today. I guessed I wasn’t far off the mark. I just hadn’t realized that Stella was batshit insane.

  “Maybe so,” I said, taking cautious steps forward. “But that doesn’t mean you have to hurt her. No one has to get hurt, all right?”

  “Stop!” Stella pressed the knife against Brigit.

  Brigit yelped.

  I stopped moving. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”

  “You should be,” said Stella. “I don’t want you here. You’re messing everything up.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll leave, then. Just give me Brigit, and we’ll both go.”

  “I’m not giving you Brigit,” she said. “I need Brigit. She’s the sacrifice.”

  I gulped.

  “What?” said Brigit in a very high pitched voice.

  “Shut up,” said Stella. “I don’t know why you’re conscious anyway. I must not have hit you hard enough over the head.”

  “Stella—”

  “Last time,” Stella went on, without looking at me, “I didn’t bother, and the stupid woman wouldn’t stop screaming. I just wanted her to shut up, you know. In the end, I cut her throat just so she’d shut up.”

  “Listen—”

  “And did it make any difference?” said Stella. “Did it make him notice me? No, it didn’t. I thought it would. Gunner was so interested in Tess, spending all his time with her. He never even looked at me. So, I had to get rid of her. I had to get him to see me. And I thought if I did the ritual, it would fix all our problems, but it didn’t do anything. It must have been because Adeline was helping. She didn’t want to do it at the end, and so it poisoned everything.” Stella turned back to me. “That’s why I’ve got to do it again. Get it right this time.”

  “Okay,” I said, humoring her. “Okay, fine. But does it have to be Brigit? Certainly, there’s someone else you could use. Someone you don’t actually like. Brigit’s always been nice to you, hasn’t she?”

  “I have,” whispered Brigit. “I thought we were friends.”

  “Shut up.” Stella pressed the blade against Brigit’s skin.

  Brigit flinched.

  Right, okay. How was I supposed to get this knife away from this crazy girl? I didn’t think I could reason with her. I didn’t have a gun, so I couldn’t threaten her with that. I didn’t have any guaranteed backup showing up, so I couldn’t count on that either. Maybe Pike would be here soon, but I couldn’t just stall waiting for that, because Stella might kill Brigit in the meantime.

  I needed to stop this. I needed to save Brigit. Looking at her there, I felt angry and helpless and terrified.

  I bit down on my bottom lip.

  Okay, okay, so I didn’t have backup coming, but Stella didn’t know that.

  “Listen, Stella,” I said. “The police are on their way.”

  “No, they aren’t,” she said. “I saw you just now. You couldn’t get a signal on your phone.”

  “Before I came here, I had someone call them,” I said. “They’ll be coming. They know everything about what you did.”

  “No,” said Stella. “You’re lying.”

  “The thing to do now, Stella, is not to make things worse for yourself. You don’t want to kill someone else. It’s going to make things much more difficult for you if you do.”

  Stella pointed the knife at me. “Stop lying. The police are not coming.”

  As far as I was concerned, that was progress. The knife was further away from Brigit’s skin. That was what I was going for.

  “They absolutely are. When they get here, though, we can tell them all about how you didn’t really have a choice when you killed Tess.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you’ve had it pretty tough, haven’t you? You never had much of a family, never had anything really, not until you came to the farm. And then you had Gunner. But you didn’t really have him, not with Tess in the way.”

  Stella nodded. “That’s true. I only did it because of Gunner.”

  “Because he’s your family. The closest thing you’ve ever had to family.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the thought of losing him, it was too much, wasn’t it?”

  Stella nodded again.

  “You saw Tess with him all of the time. She was taking him away. You were going to lose him, the only person who’d ever truly cared about you, the only person you’d ever cared about as well. It was the end of your world. In a way, it was self-defense, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Tears were starting to fill Stella’s eyes. “How did you know that? How did you understand?”

  “It’s obvious,” I said. “It’s obvious to me, and it will be obvious to the police as well. But if you hurt Brigit, well, that’s just going to make everything seem much more confusing. That will make you seem crazy. You’ll be a serial killer.”

  Stella hesitated, tears spilling out, down over her cheeks.

  “Why don’t you just come over here?” I said. “Let Brigit get up and come to me.” I beckoned with one
hand.

  Stella looked down at Brigit. Then she looked at me. She was still pointing the knife at me. She wiped at her tears with her other hand. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Stella. I understand you. I understand everything. I can make it okay. Just trust me.”

  “I want to trust you,” she said quietly. “I want to.”

  “Then do it. Get up, come over here, and stop trying to hurt Brigit.”

  “You really think the police will understand?”

  “Well, you’ll be arrested,” I said. “But after the trial, I bet you’ll be able to plea the whole thing down, get out with a reduced sentence, maybe even go to one of those rehabilitation centers that can help girls like you.”

  “You think so?”

  “Why not? It’s not as if you’ve done anything that terrible. Not under the circumstances.”

  Stella stood up. She was still standing over Brigit’s body, one leg on either side, and she was still pointing the knife at me. But she was moving. That was progress. “You’re putting me on. You’re lying to me. You don’t care about me, you only care about Brigit. No one cares about me.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “Just come over here so that we can talk about this. Put down the knife. Calm down.”

  Stella’s hand wavered. Then she stepped over Brigit’s body. One step closer to me. “I’m not going to let you do that to me. I’m not going to fall for your stupid lies.”

  Suddenly, Stella was running for me, brandishing the knife.

  I tried to sidestep, to get out of her way, but I was so stunned that I didn’t have good footing, and I slipped on the grass, falling backwards.

  Stella was on top of me, knife against me. I could feel the tip pressing just under my ribs.

  “Stella,” I gasped.

  “Shut up,” she snarled. She pushed the knife into me.

  I felt it break my skin. I let out a grunt. This was it, then. I was going to get stabbed by a crazy teenager out here in the woods. At least Brigit would have a chance to get free and maybe she could—

  Brigit was behind Stella, holding a big rock over her head. She brought the rock down on the back of Stella’s skull.

  Stella made a startled sound, and the knife pressed further into my flesh.