Bound to the Past (Starville Series Book 1)

by Lauryn Michaels

  Chapter 35

  Jack watched Sara walk away until she disappeared inside the house. Only then did he turn to Richard. He shook his head when the older man offered him a cigar.

  “Thanks again for inviting us, Richard. I know you guys must have been busy this week,” he said, shoving both hands in his pockets. As much as he liked and respected Brentʼs father, he still felt strangely uncomfortable around him.

  “Itʼs always kind of hectic here during the holidays, but itʼs also fun. Would you and Sara like to try the maze after dinner?”

  “Sara wonʼt do it at night, but Iʼll be happy to give it a try,” he answered with a smile, then looked around. “Whereʼs everybody?”

  Richard rolled the cigar between his fingers. “Nicky just took a phone call, and I believe Martha is checking on our dinner. Look, son, the reason I wanted to talk to you is because I have a proposal for you. A business proposal,” he started—but Jack wasnʼt listening to him anymore.

  His full attention was focused on Nicky, who was running toward him with a grim expression on her face. He ran to meet her halfway. “Whatʼs wrong?”

  “Whereʼs Sara?”

  Jackʼs stomach clenched at her anxious tone. “In the house. She needed to use the bathroom. Why?”

  “Brent just called me.”

  He frowned, confused. “And?”

  “I donʼt know, he…sounded weird,” Nicky explained, her gaze fixed on him even after Richard joined them. “He must have been driving, because the connection was terrible; his voice kept cutting out. I didnʼt get much, but he seemed frantic and kept repeating something about Sara—something about danger. The line dropped after that. I tried to call him back, but his phone is going straight to voice mail.” She took a deep breath. “I donʼt like this, Jack..”

  Jackʼs blood turned to ice. He looked around quickly, trying to assess the situation, then moved his gaze back to Nicky. “Stay here and keep calling Brent. If he still doesnʼt answer, call for backup,” he ordered. “Do you have your gun with you?”

  She nodded. “Itʼs in my car.”

  “Go get it.” He turned to Brentʼs father. “Richard, please, wait at the front gate in case your son is heading—”

  “Heʼs here, already,” Martha interjected, striding toward them with a worried expression on her face. “I just saw his car parked in the driveway, but I have no idea where he is. What is going on?”

  Jackʼs jaw tightened as he grabbed Nickyʼs wrist and glanced at her watch. Ten minutes had gone by since Sara had left. Nicky swallowed loudly. When her gaze met Jackʼs, he knew that they were thinking the same thing: Brent.

  Brent had always resented the bond between Jack and J.T. and had suffered when the older man had pushed him aside to favor his adoptive son. He had a reason to kill J.T. and let Jack take the blame for his murder. He was also the only one, beside Jack, Sara, and Nicky, who knew about Carrieʼs file and the appointment she’d had with Jack the night she was killed. But then, what role might Max have had? Could it be possible that he and Brent had been acting together?

  Nicky jumped back, her face drained of all color. “Jack, no! You canʼt think Brent—”

  “Iʼm going to look for Sara,” he cut her off, his voice deceivingly calm as he scanned his surroundings. “And when I find her, Brent better have a damn good explanation for this.”

  ***

  Sara tried her best to keep her cool as Layla forced her toward the Haydensʼ huge corn maze.

  “Whatʼs going on, Lay? Where are you taking me?”

  The woman squeezed her arm and kept pushing her forward, her gun pressing against the small of her back. “Don’t make things harder than they are, Sara. Just keep walking,” she said, her tone sharper than a knife.

  The analogy made Saraʼs skin curl.

  She didnʼt know how long they’d walked, but her legs were starting to ache, and she almost tripped when Layla suddenly stopped and looked around with satisfaction.

  Sara followed her gaze. Panic filled her at the realization that they must be standing in the middle of the maze. They were surrounded by nothing but darkness, the dim moon the only light illuminating Laylaʼs tense features. She couldn't even see the Haydens’ house anymore, and she could hear nothing but the wind blowing through the thick cornstalks that rose all around her.

  “I know you heard my conversation with Brent.”

  Layla’s voice snapped her from her thoughts, and Sara turned to look at her. “Yes. Yes, I did,” she admitted with a long sigh. There was no use denying it.

  “I really wish you hadnʼt, Sara.”

  She swallowed hard. “Layla, listen to me. I know that Brent is your friend and you love him. I love him, too. But please, you have to tell the truth to the police.”

  The womanʼs blue eyes narrowed to mere slits. “Don’t tell me what I have to do. You know nothing about me.”

  “I understand that you want to help Brent, but think about Jack. What happened is not fair to him, and—”

  “He deserved it!”

  Layla’s words sounded so full of hatred that Sara almost thought she’d imagined them. “What…” she started confusedly, but her words broke off in mid-sentence as the womanʼs hysterical laughter filled the air.

  “You’re so naïve, Sara. You think Jack loves you, but he doesnʼt love anyone but himself. He’ll use you as long as he needs you, then he’ll toss you away like an old, useless doll.”

  Sara fisted her hands and counted to ten, trying to hold down her anger. While she wasnʼt sure why Layla went around with a gun in her waistband, she had no intention of seeing that weapon aimed against her—and, most of all, against her baby. “How can you say that? You hardly know him.”

  “Youʼre the one who doesn’t know him!” Layla’s blue eyes glittered with insanity. “Jack is mine! Heʼs always been mine; heʼs just too stubborn to admit it,” she continued, mostly to herself. “But this time he’ll have no choice. This time heʼll finally realize that we belong together, that I’m no longer that little girl starved for any crumbs of his attention. Iʼm going to take whatʼs mine, Sara. You might have Jackʼs attention now, but once youʼre gone, heʼll forget you, and Iʼll be the one by his side. Like I should have been all these years.”

  Sara barely heard her through the pounding in her ears. Her heart was racing a thousand miles an hour, one thought playing over and over in her head: Brent was innocent. Somehow he must have found out the truth about Layla, but he wasnʼt the killer. Layla was. Relief washed over her so violently she felt light-headed. At the same time, though, another realization slammed into her: she was alone with the killer. In the darkness. In a freaking corn maze.

  She needed to make Layla talk, Sara decided suddenly. She had to make precious minutes go by in order to give Jack time to look for her. Because Jack would look for her. He would save her. But most of all, she needed to know. If she really were to die tonight, she wanted to know exactly why.

  “How long have you been in love with Jack?” she forced herself to ask, even though the mere thought revolted her. Her question caused the reaction she was hoping for, because Laylaʼs eyes seemed to soften all of a sudden.

  “Sixteen years, my whole life…whoʼs counting?” The woman gave a faint smile and took another drag from the cigarette. “I fell for him the first moment I saw him.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fourteen. I was spending the summer in Starville with my Dad when I met Jack at J.T.’s. He was eighteen then, and so different from any other boys I knew. He was a rebel, a restless soul—just like me. I knew right then and there that we were meant for each other, but he kept treating me like a spoiled, bratty child. One day I followed him to the stables and told him I loved him. He laughed and told me I was too young to talk like that. Can you believe it?” Laylaʼs voice hardened again at the memory.

  “But you were only fourteen…”

  “So? I knew what I wanted, and I wanted Jack.” Laylaʼs eyes narrowed with rage. “I
was crushed when the summer ended and I had to go back to California. I saw Jack again during the holidays, but the following summer, my mother had the brilliant idea of enrolling me in one of those stupid camps instead of letting me come to Starville. That whore always enjoyed ruining my life.”

  Sara winced at those harsh words. She knew that Maxʼs ex-wife had lost her life in a tragic accident years before, but sheʼd always been under the impression that Layla had loved her mother dearly. A shiver skittered down her spine the instant reality hit her, and she couldn’t hold back a horrified gasp. “It was you! You killed your mother, too!”

  Layla burst out laughing at her shock. “You’re finally starting to get it, aren’t you?”

  “But…why?”

  “She hated me,” the woman answered simply. “She always said that I reminded her of Dad, that I was the biggest mistake of her life. She even tried to lock me up in a mental institution once, claiming I was crazy—but the truth was, she just wanted to get rid of me. So I got rid of her instead.”

  Sara’s hand shot up to her mouth as she struggled to stifle the nausea that threatened to overwhelm her. She wasnʼt sure what was worse, Laylaʼs horrible revelation or the proud tone in which she had spoken it. Many people confided in J.T., Sara. He was a great friend, and a great keeper of secrets. As Jackʼs words came back to her, she knew what the terrible secret was that Max had revealed to J.T.

  “Your father found out the truth, didn’t he? He found out that you were responsible for your motherʼs death, and he told J.T. about it… Thatʼs why you killed him,” she murmured, starting to follow her contorted mind.

  “What was I supposed to do? I had no choice!” Layla retorted, confirming her suspicions. “J.T. was trying to convince Dad to go to the police and sign a statement repeating everything heʼd told him!”

  “He was trying to help—”

  “He should have minded his own fuckinʼ business! But no. As always, he had to stick his nose where it didn’t belong.”

  A lump rose in Saraʼs throat, and she had to clear her throat before she asked, “What happened the night he died?”

  “Dad went to see J.T. that afternoon to talk about a big loan heʼd asked him for. A loan that, as I found out later, was meant to be used to send me away.” She shook her head with disgust. “When he came home that evening, he looked so out of it that I immediately knew what heʼd done; as usual, that idiot couldnʼt keep his mouth shut and had spilled his guts to his best friend. I went to the ranch right away to talk to J.T. and when I got there, he was in Jackʼs room.”

  “Oh, God…”

  “We talked for a long time. I donʼt know how much I cried, trying to convince him that what happened to my mom was just an accident, but he wouldnʼt have it.” She stopped and gave a sarcastic smile. “Thatʼs when I realized there was no use talking to him. Being the dumb dreamer that he was, he insisted that I tell the police everything, that heʼd help me through it all. But I couldnʼt let it happen, Sara. I couldnʼt let him ruin my life.”

  “So you killed him,” Sara finished for her. Layla shrugged.

  “It was easy. Jackʼs room had this huge floor-level window, you know—no rail, or anything. All I had to do was stand in front of it and threaten to jump out of it for that dumbass to come to my rescue. Pathetic, huh?”

  Horror suffocated Sara so much that she didn’t even manage to reply, but she instinctively smoothed a hand over her stomach and took a step backward. As hard as it was not to panic with a gun pointed against her chest, she knew she had to remain calm. No matter what happened next, she couldnʼt let Layla understand how frightened she was. And most of all, she couldnʼt let her find out that she was carrying Jackʼs baby.

  Forcing her hand off her abdomen, she raised her seemingly serene gaze to the other womanʼs face. “Why did you let Jack take the blame?”

  The womanʼs expression hardened; her voice became almost a hiss. “He knew I was in love with him. Many times I warned him he couldn’t treat me like I didn’t mean anything to him, that one day heʼd pay for always tossing me to the curb. He never took me seriously. He kept choosing dumb sluts like Charlene over me. He had to learn his lesson.” She smiled then. A cunning, vicious grin that sent chills up Saraʼs back. “What happened with J.T. was exactly what I needed. I knew that itʼd be all too easy to frame Jack and make everybody believe he was guilty.”

  “But…if you really loved him, how could you do that to him? How could you destroy his life like that, how could you stand the thought of him locked up in jail?”

  “I needed Jack to be locked up, Sara! Donʼt you understand? If I couldnʼt have him, then no other woman would, either. Including you.”

  Sara’s mouth opened and closed with a snap as all hopes of making it out of this ordeal in one piece shattered and died. Layla was crazy. Completely, inexorably crazy. It didn’t take a genius to understand that it was just a matter of time until sheʼd shoot her. But how much longer did she have? How much longer was it going to take for Jack, Nicky, or the Haydens to wonder where she was and look for her?

  “Why did you kill Charlene? After all these years, why now?” she asked, in a desperate attempt to buy some more time. “I thought you guys were friends.”

  “Friends!” The woman blew out a sarcastic laugh. “You really are too naïve, dear.”

  “I donʼt understand.”

  “Let’s say Charlene and I had…an agreement.”

  “An agreement?”

  Layla nodded. “She and Jack were supposed to go out to dinner the night J.T. died. Only she came to the ranch a little early, and Jack wasn’t there yet.”

  “But you were,” Sara guessed.

  “I was still by the window when Charlene came up the driveway.” Her eyes darkened at the memory. “The moment her gaze moved from me to J.T.’s body lying on the ground, I knew that sheʼd figured out what had happened.”

  Sara’s mind raced back to what Jack had told her about that night. Horror almost choked her again at the thought that J.T. might have still been alive when Charlene had arrived at the ranch, yet neither she nor Layla had moved a finger to help him. A veil of tears blurred her vision. “She blackmailed you.”

  It wasnʼt a question, and Layla didnʼt bother answering.

  “Being the greedy bitch that she was, Charlene decided to exploit the situation and threatened to tell the police that she saw me throw J.T. out the window if I didnʼt give her cash right away. Big cash. I knew she meant every word she said, and I knew that Dad would have panicked under pressure. I had to do what she wanted. Can you believe it? That stupid airhead became sly as a fox when it came down to money.” Layla shook her head, disgusted. “Anyway, just as I thought, Dad freaked out when I told him what had happened―which paradoxically made it easier to convince him that I could still fix everything. So he gave me the money that J.T. had loaned him, and I used it to pay Charlene. I knew that, as long as the money kept coming, sheʼd keep her mouth shut.”

  Sara’s heart dove to her shoes. Jack was right. But while he was only a step away from discovering the whole truth, he never would imagine that Layla was behind all those lies, all those terrible deaths. What if Layla really killed her tonight? Would Jack ever figure out the truth? …Would anyone?

  Sara inhaled deeply and closed her eyes to regain control. “That’s why Charlene was so nervous every time Jack mentioned J.T.―like the night of the fair.”

  Layla nodded again, annoyed. “Her confidence started faltering when Jack came back to Starville. She was torn between the desire to re-establish a relationship with him, the guilt for what her lies had caused him, and the fear that he might have come back because heʼd discovered the truth. Needless to say, she started panicking a little too much for my taste.”

  “My God, Layla...”

  “I had no choice! I knew she’d spill the truth sooner or later. I had to kill her!” she explained, as though needing her understanding. “When I followed her to the lake after the fair, she was s
itting right in the spot where she and Jack used to meet in the past. It was perfect. Jack was supposed to be blamed for her murder! And he would have been, had you not ruined everything by telling the police that heʼd spent the night with you,” she added with a resentful grimace. Her gun raised a few inches, pointing firmly at Saraʼs wild-beating heart.

  Keep talking to her, she told herself, swallowing thickly. “So it was you who assaulted Jack the night he came back to Starville—”

  “Actually, no. Believe it or not, that really was my father’s doing,” Layla said with a chuckle. “He was driving back home when he saw Jack’s motorcycle cut through town and freaked out, so he forced him off the road and beat him up good.”

  Sara snapped her eyes closed and wrapped her arms around her body. She didn't want to listen anymore. It was all too horrible, too painful…

  “Iʼve been wanting to get rid of you for so long, Sara.” With a cold grin, Layla raised her gun to her head. “Now itʼs time we say good-bye.”

  “If you shoot me now, everybody’s going to know you did it,” Sara desperately tried to make her see reason. “Jack will come look for me. I know it.”

  Layla’s eyes flashed with pure hatred at her words. “Let him. Then I’ll shoot him, too, and make it look as if he were the one behind all this. Poor, sweet little Sara. She fell right into the murdererʼs trap, and he killed her ruthlessly. I told you, Sara: if I canʼt have Jack, then nobody else will.”

  Knowing that Layla’s plan could actually work made Sara nearly cry with frustration, but she forced herself to remain silent as her mind scrambled for a way out of this mess.

  Her composure faltered when a black cloud suddenly covered the moon, so thickly that she struggled to make out Laylaʼs slender figure in front of her. Panic seized her for a moment as she squinted her eyes in the darkness and uselessly looked around. She couldn’t see a thing. A chilly gust of wind blew through the field that moment, making the long cornstalks sway madly against each other, and Saraʼs heart swayed just as furiously at the sudden realization that this might be her only chance to escape from Layla. Sheʼd been through the maze enough times to remember her way out even in the darkness. The stalks were tall enough to hide her from the woman’s view if she ran away before the moonlight came back…but would they be enough to protect her from the bullets if Layla started shooting at her?