The Antagonist (A Sarah Roberts Thriller, Book 10)

Home > Other > The Antagonist (A Sarah Roberts Thriller, Book 10) > Page 13
The Antagonist (A Sarah Roberts Thriller, Book 10) Page 13

by Jonas Saul


  She entered her bedroom, opened the closet and retrieved Joan’s front door keys from the small lockbox where she kept all the neighbors’ keys.

  She still didn’t know what Sarah was up to, but Sarah had kidnapped her husband. The fact that Deborah had keys to Joan’s house was probably lost on Sarah, even though she was told that Deborah was the one who came to check on the previous tenants, Jacob and his girlfriend, as Joan had asked her to.

  How much time did she have? Sarah had been gone at least three minutes now. Deborah guessed she had a minimum of twenty minutes.

  She used her back door, scooted around to the front of the house, the Colt hidden behind her leg, and made her way, as casual as she could, to the front door of Joan’s house. The Rankins next door were gone. The only other house was half a block down on the other side of Deborah’s house, leaving no one close enough to see what she was doing. She rationalized that the only way she could get caught was if Sarah came home while she was still inside.

  She turned the key and opened the front door to Joan and Mike’s house.

  “Hello?” she called. “Anyone home?”

  She crossed the threshold. It was dark. All the lights were out. A chill coursed through her. Goosebumps rose on her arms and she shuddered.

  With her free hand she turned on the hallway light.

  Nothing in the living room looked any different from the last time she had been here.

  “Hello?” she called louder. “Barry? You in here?”

  “Debbie?” His voice came from somewhere in the house. Maybe the basement.

  “Debbie!” he shouted louder.

  “Where are you?” she shouted back.

  “Basement.”

  Deborah left the front door ajar as she started for the basement. Barry hated basements. He refused to enter theirs unless absolutely necessary. It had something to do with his childhood, but she never heard the entire story.

  Her curiosity made her smile. What could Sarah have been thinking? Barry was an RCMP officer. She would be in a lot of trouble when this came out. But the side of Deborah that hated her husband and the monster he had become held out hope that Sarah had hurt him in some way. He had to be secured in some way too, otherwise he would’ve walked upstairs and left under his own power.

  “Are you alone?” she called down the stairs.

  “Yes,” he said, a tone of weakness in his voice she hadn’t heard before.

  She took the stairs one at a time, knowing she still had time. And she had a gun. As observant as she had been, Sarah hadn’t appeared armed.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Deborah stopped and stared at her husband. He was strapped to a metal chair with duct tape. He had a ball of white and red paper towel wrapped around one hand and he was as pale as a white sheet. With his hair dampened by sweat, he didn’t just look deathly pale, he looked near death.

  “What happened here?” Debbie asked.

  “How did you know to come over?”

  “I saw Sarah bring you inside this house. You were only wearing underwear and your hands were bound. I had no idea …” she trailed off. “I waited because I wasn’t sure … is this supposed to be some kind of sex game? Does Sarah work at the Garden of Eden? Because if I’m intruding, I’ll just leave now. I don’t want to watch this kind of debauchery.”

  He rolled his head back and forth. “Sarah is a vile woman. She kidnapped me, brought me here and has been torturing me.” He nodded at the floor beside him. “That’s my finger.” His eyes watered when he looked up at her. “Sarah hacked it off.”

  She gasped and coughed to cover up a smile. “What?” She tried to sound shocked, mortified, but it wasn’t working. It came out in a giggle, like she laughed the word.

  Whatever you did, it serves you right.

  “Something funny?” Barry asked. “Untie me. Cut this fucking tape. Get me out of here before that crazy lunatic bitch comes back.”

  “Where has she gone?” Debbie asked as she moved farther into the room.

  “To buy groceries. Can you believe it? Torture me, cut off my finger, slap me around some, then go get some food. This girl is psycho. Look, honey.” He glanced up at her, his eyes pleading. “Cut me loose. I’m really thirsty. We need to go and call the police. Ever since this girl showed up at the beach the other day, she has harassed me. Now she’s torturing me. She said that when she was done with me, I would beg her to paralyze me to stop the pain. ‘Paralysis would be mercy,’ she said, or something like that.”

  “Why is she doing this?” Debbie asked as she moved to stand in front of her husband. “What did you do to her? Or is this just for fun?”

  “She’s asking me all these insane questions about my life and the parlor.” He swallowed hard. “Look, I’m really thirsty.”

  “In a second. What kind of questions?”

  “What does it matter?” He met her eyes and studied them for a moment. “You’re starting to sound like her. And what’s with my Colt? Why do you have it?”

  “Protection. If a girl will kidnap a cop, there’s no telling what she’s capable of. What else have you two talked about?”

  “She thinks I killed Maxine Freeman. Crazy, eh?”

  “Yeah, totally crazy.”

  She raised the Colt and leveled it, the barrel aimed at her husband’s forehead.

  “Hey, what are you doing—”

  He didn’t get to finish his sentence. The bullet tore through his left eye, opening a hole that widened enough to expose bone above his nose. Brain matter and blood shot from the back of his head. For a brief second his head stayed up—suspended in a slow-motion pantomime of a bobble head on strained neck muscles—before it dropped and his jaw bounced once off his chest before coming still.

  To be sure he was dead, Debbie fired two more times. Once in the chest roughly in the location of his heart, and another in his groin. The distance between them was such that she didn’t need to worry about aiming properly to hit him where she wanted. The bullet in the groin was not so much to make sure he was dead as to throw off the police.

  Now they would be looking for a vengeful killer. One who hated Barry so much that even after he was dead, they had to shoot him in the cock.

  The shooter must have been raped by Barry at one time or another.

  There’s no way his loving wife would ever kill her own husband.

  Especially not in such a vile, angry way. And not in Joan and Mike’s house where Sarah was the tenant. The same Sarah who had been seen taking the half naked and bound RCMP officer from her vehicle into this house.

  “It’s perfect,” she said to herself. “I get rid of my husband and Sarah takes the fall.”

  She wrapped her hand in a paper towel and picked up the handsaw. Then she went to work on her husband’s legs. An experienced cutter, she sliced along the top of his thighs where they attached to the base of his hips. At the bone, the handsaw wasn’t enough. Within two minutes she found an axe in the storeroom and hacked Barry’s legs off with ease. She dropped the axe on the floor, wrapped the exposed ends with paper towels and secured the paper towels with the duct tape Sarah had supplied. Then she took her husband’s legs and ran from the room, one under each arm.

  Deborah left the house the way she came in, but she didn’t turn off the lights, nor did she lock the front door.

  The police would need access to the house as soon as they got there.

  After placing Barry’s legs in the bathtub in her basement bathroom, she stepped back outside and walked down the embankment toward the beach. At the water, she wiped her fingerprints off the Colt and tossed it as far as she could into the lake.

  By the time she got upstairs and in her house, Sarah still wasn’t home.

  She poured a glass of wine, turned on some soft jazz music and picked up the phone.

  A woman answered and asked, “Do you require police, fire, or ambulance?”

  “Police.”

  The line clicked.

  “Police. What’s the
emergency?”

  “My neighbor.”

  “What’s your neighbor doing, ma’am?”

  “Something awful I’m sure. My name is Deborah Ashford. I’m Barry’s wife up here on Bennett Road.”

  “Oh, hi Debbie, it’s Bob. What’s happening?”

  “Bob, you know that picture of the girl that was circulated in the news earlier?”

  “Yeah, the girl we’re looking for.”

  “I think she lives next door.”

  “Really?”

  “I saw her come home earlier and she had someone with her.”

  “You want a unit to respond?”

  “Maybe after what I tell you next. She took someone inside her house. This man was only wearing underwear and his hands were bound. He had a shirt tied around his head.”

  “Oh, that sounds like …”

  “I just heard a couple of gunshots next door and I haven’t been able to raise my husband on his phone. Could you send everything available? I’m kinda scared over here. I’m all alone.”

  “Hold on, Mrs. Ashford.” Bob’s voice turned cold, less friendly. “We’re on our way.”

  Deborah smiled.

  She sipped her wine.

  Chapter 23

  When the door opened again, Detective Lang didn’t have a phone book with him. Another man entered the small room with Lang. He wore a similar suit and identified himself, but Greg forgot his name almost immediately.

  “Greg, you don’t have to say anything until your lawyer gets here. But we want to share something with you. Fair enough?”

  Greg didn’t respond. Lang took that as an answer.

  “Okay. Here’s what we have.” Lang sat down across from him and clasped his hands together. “We have you arguing at the front door of the Garden of Eden. You assaulted Nate Ferrey—”

  “That’s his name?” Greg asked, smiling. “Ferrey?”

  “Why is that funny?” Lang asked.

  “You know, for such a big guy. Working as a bouncer. And his name is Ferrey.” They weren’t amused. “Forget about it. You were saying?”

  “After you left the premises, Nate claims to have called his boss, Barry Ashford. When Barry arrived, he pulled his employee into the back room to talk about why her brother was causing so much trouble.”

  Greg felt the loss and loneliness like it was something he could touch. If Lesley had died, he probably would’ve ended up killing Barry Ashford.

  “That man wasn’t just talking to her. As everyone in this room already knows.”

  “Your sister is now recovering at the hospital. We can’t say for certain what happened in that back room. How do we know she didn’t do that to herself before Barry got there?”

  Greg wanted to add that Barry was dressed in underwear when he and Sarah barged in, but Lang raised a hand, staying his protest.

  “Just let me finish.” He adjusted his jacket and placed his hands on the table. “When you returned to the massage studio, you had a girl with you.”

  Yeah, my hero.

  “What is her name?” Lang asked.

  Greg remained silent.

  “Okay, can you tell me what the plan was?”

  Greg looked down at his hands. He brushed a piece of lint off his pants.

  “In the time that you took your sister to the hospital, the girl you entered Barry’s place of business with tied Barry’s hands together. She wrapped a shirt around his head and walked him outside where she pushed him into the back of a Jeep Cherokee. We have two witnesses who saw your friend kidnap an RCMP officer. Barry hasn’t been seen since and he hasn’t been answering his phone. His car is still parked outside the Garden of Eden. We have every available officer looking for the girl in the Jeep. Do you know how serious this is? Do you know what aiding and abetting means?”

  As Lang talked, Greg’s stomach sickened. What could Sarah have done? It was one thing to beat the guy for what he did to Lesley, but kidnap him? An RCMP officer? What was her plan?

  “Are you at least willing to tell us her name?”

  Greg stayed quiet, too scared to talk now.

  “You’re aware that you are going to be charged with whatever she gets charged with when we figure this all out? You two walked in together. You pulled Lesley out. Then, instead of calling us, that girl abducted a cop.” Detective Lang slammed his hands down on the table making Greg jump in his seat. “Tell me where she is. Tell me where she has taken Barry Ashford.”

  Greg was cowed into silence. He would never speak without a lawyer present.

  “We also have her BMW motorcycle. She ditched it off Sexsmith Road. It has California license plates. We should have her name as soon as we hear back from the DMV down there.”

  Someone knocked. The door opened. A woman stuck her head in.

  “What?” Lang asked.

  “A call.”

  “Tell them I’m busy.”

  “You’re going to want to take this.”

  “Why?” Lang asked, not taking his eyes off Greg.

  “It’s Barry’s wife, Deborah. She just saw a girl in a Jeep Cherokee take a man into the house next door to hers. His hands were tied and he had a shirt wrapped over his face.”

  Lang turned to the woman at the door. “Are you serious?”

  The woman nodded rapidly.

  Detective Lang got out of his chair and almost jumped at the door.

  “Lock this door. He does not leave. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  The door shut after both men had exited. Greg was alone.

  “What the hell have you done, Sarah?” he whispered. “What have I done?”

  Chapter 24

  Sarah had picked up what she needed and was on her way back when a tickling sensation crossed the back of her neck. An inauspicious premonition. As if a spider caused her to shiver as it crawled along her flesh. But the premonition wasn’t strong enough for her to cut and run. She couldn’t walk away and leave Barry tied up in her basement. Too many unanswered questions. She had to find out why she was here and what Vivian wanted from her. Vivian wouldn’t have brought her this far just to make her lose it all and end up in jail. There was a darker truth that needed to be revealed.

  Even though she didn’t see any cops, she kept her speed down.

  She reminded herself that no one knew where she was. Under pressure, Greg Wright could be a risk, but even he didn’t know where she lived.

  Five minutes later as she drove along McKinley Road, minutes from home, she realized they could find her house through Greg. She had hired his company to do housecleaning. Derek, Greg’s employee, had come out to walk around the house and produce an estimate. Sarah’s address was on Greg’s books, and Greg was aware of this from when they had talked at the pub the day he had followed her.

  But would Greg tell the cops where she lived after Sarah had helped get his sister out of the Garden of Eden? There was no easy answer. But one thing was for sure, she couldn’t rely on anyone. If Greg was a weak link, she had to consider the possibility that the police were on their way or waiting for her.

  The bag of food and carton of distilled water on the seat beside her would last at least three days. Maybe the Rankins next door wouldn’t mind her visiting their house while they were away.

  She parked on a side road, grabbed the bag and the water, and headed toward her house. Greg’s gun was safely in her waistband. At any sign of the police she would have to leave. She could make it on her own for a couple of days until the local authorities worked out all the details. Then she would turn herself in and tell her side. Her reputation would go a long way to help clear her name.

  But she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Vivian clearly had an end game and it was Sarah’s job to trust the process until she figured out where Vivian was leading her.

  As she approached the end of Bennett Road, she saw the Rankins’ house silhouetted in the dark. To her right, Barry’s house had a couple of lights on inside. As far as she could tell, Deborah wasn’t peeking out an
y of the windows.

 

‹ Prev