by Steve Richer
“We have to get out of here. Check her, Rusty. Check Libbie. Make sure she’s safe… that we’re safe.”
She’d heard the thud from whatever Rusty had used to hit Libbie with. She didn’t think Libbie would be doing anything for the time being. Alice levered herself into a sitting position.
She was getting used to dealing with the pain. Numbed to it. She hoped that wasn’t a bad sign, loss of feeling as a result of what Libbie had done when she’d pulled on the broken limb.
She turned, putting her weight on both hands and her good knee.
Rusty would have his hands full getting Tom out and she knew they had to move. They couldn’t just wait here.
She sensed movement around her. Rusty.
Then she heard him say, “Ms. Burchett? I…”
And then he fell silent as another dark figure rose from the shadows, moved to one side, and Alice saw the muzzle of that gun pointing right at her once again.
She looked up and saw Libbie’s cold snarl one more time. Her teeth were white against a face painted dark with blood from the wound Rusty had inflicted.
Then Rusty threw himself in between them just as another gunshot exploded in the small space.
Rusty fell clutching at his chest.
Libbie remained standing.
Alice stared up at her, agape. Then she recognized the hard shape pressed up against her knuckles. She shifted her weight to free the hand, coming to rest painfully on the knee of her shattered leg.
She closed her hands around the shape and pushed forward like a sprinter launching herself off the blocks. Her fingers closed around the blunt object. It was the brick she’d tripped on earlier.
In a flash, she swung her arm as she flew through the air, swinging the hard brick.
Bringing it down hard.
The feel and sound of brick on skull, of bone and meat breaking under the impact, was unlike anything Alice had experienced before. It wasn’t something she ever wanted to experience again.
Libbie collapsed, Alice on top of her, her hand still closed around the brick, even though it was embedded deep in the other woman’s skull.
They hit the ground together and at long last Alice relinquished her grip. She managed to roll away from Libbie’s unmoving form.
She managed to reach out a hand across the floor, finding Tom’s face. She relaxed only when she felt the flutter of his breath on her hand.
“Oh, baby,” she said softly to him. “Please tell me you have your phone. Because there’s no way I’m moving again under my own steam tonight.”
Chapter 40
Franco Vialli and his crew had put up Christmas decorations at the Whitetail Lane place. Tinsel around the front door, even a small tree in the foyer.
The place would be finished in time for Christmas.
After the storm damage to the roof and the damage Libbie Cottrill had done to the place, the insurance payout had been enough to cover the rest of the work. Franco was happy because he got to finish the work the best way, not just the cheapest way, and he’d been fully paid up in advance of completion.
Tom was happy because they’d agreed to put the place on the market after New Year’s.
And Alice was secretly happy, because she’d come around to Tom’s view. She wanted to sell the property, too. The place held too many sad memories, after all that had happened here.
Something changes about a place when you’ve seen someone die there.
They’d just completed the final inspection. All that remained was a snagging list of minor details they’d spotted for Franco to deal with, and then the place would be finished.
It still felt strange to Alice, walking through that foyer. She could never be here and not relive that awful moment when Tom had taken a bullet in the stomach.
When Rusty had stepped in front of her and taken a shot full in the chest for her.
Or the moment when that brick had come down on Libbie’s skull, killing her as she’d killed four men before her.
They stepped out onto the porch.
Even the yard was looking good now. The overgrown vegetation had been trimmed back. The bushes pruned into shape. The flowerbeds cleared for spring.
“Hey there, Mrs. Granger. Mr. Granger.”
Rusty came around the building, rubbing his muddy hands on his jeans in just the way his mother had probably told him a hundred times not to do.
“I hope you’re taking it easy, Rusty,” said Tom. “Not many people take a bullet in the chest and get back to work so quickly afterward, you know.”
Rusty grinned. He knew Tom was joking. He’d finally worked out how to tell.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I just wanted to ask if you’d mind me finishing here a little early?”
“Oh?”
Alice smiled. Tom was playing it innocent, but she knew Marissa Sigley had asked him to help her with the Christmas decorations earlier. He’d said he couldn’t, but maybe she should ask Rusty. The girl had been surprised. She didn’t think Rusty even knew she existed, she told them. And Alice had seen the look in Marissa’s eye, the smile when they assured her Rusty had noticed her all right.
“Scrub up a bit, Rusty, okay? Treat Marissa well. You want to make the right impression.”
“And if all else fails, show her your war wound,” said Tom. “Chicks dig wounds.”
Rusty laughed again, this time to cover his blushing.
~ ~ ~ ~
Tom glanced across at Alice as they headed home in her Ford Focus. Her leg was mending well, but she wasn’t up to driving yet. He didn’t mind. He was happy to drive. They were a team. Always had been, always would be.
They were good.
“Has Michael Tuckett told you when you’re going to be VP yet?” he asked her.
“I’m too busy right now,” she said with a laugh. “Now that we’ve landed Mapleview, it’s all hands to the deck. Maybe when things ease off a bit.”
“Yeah, right. And less of that we stuff, okay? You’re the one who landed Mapleview.”
“I’d never have done it without Walter.”
They fell silent for a time, as they drove across town.
Before making his fateful rush to the house to warn Alice, Walter had sent a quick email to Michael Tuckett. He’d advised him to hold fire on Alice, and that information about why she’d been under so much pressure would emerge soon.
It had been unusual enough for the normally unassuming Walter to be so direct with his boss that Tuckett had taken it seriously. So when details had emerged about how Libbie had interfered with so much of Alice’s activities, he’d looked again at her work.
“I’m not putting you back on this out of misplaced sympathy or anything like that,” Tuckett had told her. “I’m doing it because your work was good, and almost complete. We’re running with your pitch, with the full backing of the company.” He’d paused before adding, “And it would be great if you could give your presentation to Mapleview with your leg still in a cast. Let’s milk that sympathy vote for all it’s worth, uh?”
The extra money from Alice’s bonus and impending promotion would make a huge difference. Enough for Tom to carry on just as he had done for the past year with his contracting work.
But he needed more.
“Sweetie?” he said. “I’ve been thinking.”
“As long as it’s not about cheerleaders, I’m good with that.”
They laughed.
“I’ve been thinking about going back to work. Getting a job again. Not just hiding in the house and freelancing.”
“I know.”
He stared.
“Of course I know. You’ve been hinting and hesitating for weeks. You don’t hide things well, you know. I didn’t want to push, though.”
Alice had always been able to read him well. That’s one of the reasons he had over-reacted when she tried to gently point out to him that he was tipping over the mental precipice again earlier in the fall. The truth hurts sometimes.
“You�
�re okay with that, sweetie?”
“Of course I am. I’m glad the time is right. But I have one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That you don’t come and try to take my job.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Today had been a day of significant developments.
The final inspection at Whitetail Lane.
The talk of jobs and careers and their future.
Setting Rusty up with Marissa Sigley at last.
And now, as they pulled up in their drive, Tom saw an unfamiliar car parked at the curb, a flashy, low-slung Audi. A guy climbed out, as if he’d been waiting for them.
He looked to be in his late thirties, but that mop of wild chestnut hair gave him a still-youthful look.
“Mr. and Mrs. Granger?”
He had been waiting. They’d had their share of reporters and cranks coming here over the past couple of months, but this guy looked like neither.
Instinctively, Tom moved slightly in front of Alice, as if ready to take a bullet for her again. It was an automatic thing, and one they often laughed about now. Alice always insisted that it wasn’t fair: it was her turn to take the next one.
The man had his hands up, palms toward them, as if he expected a hostile response.
“I’m sorry for intruding, after all you guys have been through. But if you’d just give me a minute of your time?”
Tom and Alice stood and waited for him to go on. There was something about the guy that was strangely familiar. Strangely disturbing, too.
“My name’s Jonathan Cottrill, and I—”
“We don’t want any trouble,” said Alice, moving up beside Tom as if she really was ready to take the next bullet.
“I know. Believe me, I know.” The poor guy had raised his hands even higher now, as if he was trying to surrender. “I just want to have a word with you about my sister.”
Tom put a hand on Alice’s arm, calming her. They’d both been seeing therapists. Post-traumatic shock. He knew how close a panic reaction was when he saw it. He knew how to read Alice almost as well as she could read him.
“I just wanted to… I don’t know. You can’t apologize for anything like this, can you? You can’t make amends. But sometimes seeing a face, seeing the real people involved. It helps me, and I hope it might help you to know that nobody holds a grudge against you. Only sympathy. And sorrow.”
“You want to come inside?” That was Alice, the panic response quickly replaced by her familiar empathy.
A few minutes later, the three sat at the kitchen table, coffee brewing in the background.
“I feel somehow responsible,” Tom said. “Your sister had an awful time at summer camp and I know I was at least partly responsible.”
“I’ve read all the reports,” Jonathan Cottrill assured them. “I know you weren’t to blame for anything more than things a million kids do day in and day out. You didn’t make my little sister what she was.”
“But…”
The visitor shook his head. “She was always that way. That’s why she was sent to summer camp and I didn’t have to go. That’s why Mom went to see her that time: she thought Lizzie was starting to have another episode.”
He hesitated for a moment before going on. “And that was why, when Mom passed, I went to live with family but Lizzie went into the system. Nobody could handle her. Nobody wanted to handle her. As I said, she always had problems. I’m just so sorry things escalated this way. She should never have been let out of that secure institution. I told them that at the time, but her doctor insisted she should be given a chance to start over.”
“Well, I hope you’ve found some kind of peace,” Alice told him. “It was tragic. It was awful. But everyone here has come through it, and we’re moving on.”
Tom saw the look that flashed across his wife’s face as she said that. Not everyone had pulled through. Not poor Walter.
Jonathan Cottrill nodded. “You’re very kind,” he said. “I don’t know what I hoped for by coming here, but I guess I couldn’t have asked for anything more than that.” He wavered before speaking again. “But there’s a little more. You see, my family has done well. My folks were hard-working. They had a good business and when my father died my mother kept it going. Until, she passed.”
He paused to lick his lips, before continuing. “What I’m saying is, Lizzie had quite a lot of money behind her. She had an up-market apartment in Manhattan. A trust fund. Some good investments. Listen, I don’t want you guys to be offended or anything, and I don’t know how you’re fixed, but I’d like that money to do some good, rather than just sitting there doing nothing. I’d like to give you some of it. Hell, all of it.”
Tom glanced at Alice and he knew instantly her mind was in the same place as his.
Things were good. She really was going to make VP one day soon and she’d already promised him at least one trip business-class. The Whitetail Lane property was near completion, and when they sold it the only problem they had was what to do with the proceeds.
It was a generous offer, but…
“That’s very kind,” said Tom. “But no. Do something else with your sister’s money. Do some good with it.”
“I just knew you’d say that, but I really want to do something specific. Something that at least feels like it’s fixing something she broke.”
Again, Tom and Alice exchanged a look.
“Well…” Tom said, and before he could continue Alice moved in to complete the thought.
“There’s a boy we know,” she said. “Young and eager. Would do anything for anybody.”
“Like taking a bullet…”
“And he’s spent the last two years working his butt off for his college fund.”
“He sure could do with some help.”
“And he’s missed a few weeks of work this fall because of… Well, because he was busy saving others—”
“Taking that bullet.”
Jonathan Cottrill knew exactly who they meant. He was smiling. They all were.
“Just give me a ballpark figure,” he told them. “And I’ll double it. Triple it. Whatever. Just tell me how I can make a payment into this fine young man’s college fund.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Finally, they sat alone. Just Tom and Alice.
It felt like it had been such a long day. But a good one. A day where so many things had moved on in very positive ways.
“You good, sweetie?”
“I am.”
This was pretty damned near perfect.
It was hard to think, as December drew to a close, that such an awful year could end up in a place as good as this.
Just as Tom was about to try to put some of this into words, the house phone rang. He went across to get it, and listened for a moment.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
He listened a bit more, then said, “It’s someone who’s seen an ad. They said they know it’s an old ad, but just wondered if we were still looking to rent out our basement apartment. They have references. They say they’d be the perfect tenant.”
He paused then.
Smiled. Winked.
And said, “What do you think, sweetie? You think we should give it a try? I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”
THE END
Enjoyed this book? Then you will love Stranger Danger!
About the Authors
Steve Richer is the international bestselling author of Stranger Danger, The President Killed His Wife, and The Pope’s Suicide. He went to law school and film school before considering becoming a sherpa, though he abandoned the idea upon discovering what a sherpa really was. Now he spends his days writing books.
He specializes in fun, over the top thrillers that read like action movies. He splits his time between Montreal and Miami.
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Nick Gifford is the bes
tselling author of Piggies, Flesh and Blood, Like Father and Erased, and he has been described by the Sunday Express as “The king of children's horror”. He writes crime and suspense fiction for adults under his grown-up name, Nicholas Gifford.
His work has been optioned for film by major movie companies, and has featured on various bestseller lists, at one time out-ranking JK Rowling's Harry Potter books. Find out more about him at http://www.nickgifford.co.uk/nicholas or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/thenickgifford
Also by Steve Richer
The President Killed His Wife (Rogan Bricks 1)
Counterblow (Rogan Bricks 2)
Murder Island (Rogan Bricks 3)
The Pope’s Suicide
Stranger Danger
Critical Salvage
Terror Bounty
Park Avenue Blackmail
The Kennedy Secret
The Gilded Treachery
Never Bloodless
The Atomic Eagle
Sigma Division
Intense Past: Historical Thriller Collection
Eyes Only: Spy Thriller Collection
