Kelly acknowledged her need with an understanding little nod. She held up a finger. Soon, the finger said.
Kelly moved down the line. Stopped between Jon and Karen.
“That leaves you two, I guess. Logic would say I get rid of Karen because Jon here is all but useless. Except his constant moaning is annoying the hell out of me. Putting him down would be a mercy killing for him and my ears.” She glanced over at Allan. “Maybe I let Allan choose. After all, they’re his guests. What do you say, Allan?”
She walked over and tore off his duct tape. He did not wince from the sting, just began pleading instantly.
“Please, just please listen to me…please call my sister back and tell them to turn around. I will do absolutely anything you want, just please call them back. PLEASE.”
“You’ll do anything I want?”
“Yes—yes, absolutely.”
“Choose then.”
He let out an exasperated little cry. “Okay! Okay fine, I’ll choose! But you have to call first. Call first and then I’ll choose.”
“Here’s the problem with that though, Allan,” Kelly said. “If I call them back and tell them not to come, then we won’t need the extra room, and then choosing won’t be necessary.”
“Fine!” Allan blurted. “That’s fine!”
“I don’t think that’s fine. I don’t think that’s fine at all. If we do that, then Amy here wouldn’t have learned her lesson. This is all her fault, after all. The reason your sister and kids are coming over is because of Amy. So, you might want to start directing your anger a little more her way and a little less my way, don’tcha think?” She now got nose to nose with Allan and enunciated the next part slowly and clearly: “You’re…going to watch…your little girls die… because of Amy Lambert’s…big fucking mouth.”
Tears started down Allan’s cheeks. “Please…”
“Choose.”
Allan said nothing.
Kelly stood upright. “How the hell are you even conflicted? You have a chance to save your children by sacrificing one of those two—” She flicked a dismissive hand towards the Rogerses.
Sacrificing.
(“The thing about pawns, Allan, is that their low piece value allows you to sacrifice them relatively easily in order to gain a stronger position overall.”)
Nothing easy about this.
(She’s right, though. It’s Kat and the girls. How are you even conflicted?)
Because I don’t trust her.
(What choice do you have?)
We’re pawns. We’re here to be sacrificed so that Kelly may gain a stronger position over Amy, remember?
(Except now she’s allowing you to play. So play and be ruthless. Living in the here and now—you don’t get to just turn it off and on as you please, pal. Choose one. Sacrifice one of the pawns. It may just give you a stronger position over her.)
“Time, she’s a-wasting, Allan. Better choose soon, or Kat and the Kittens will be here any minute—”
“I choose Jon,” Allan said.
“No!” Karen cried.
Kelly took a step back. “Really? Why Jon?”
“Who gives a shit why? I chose. Call my sister.”
“Well, we have to carry it out first,” Kelly said.
“Bullshit! I chose like you wanted. Now call my fucking sister and tell them to go back!”
“Please don’t,” Karen sobbed.
Allan looked down the line of chairs toward Karen. He was amazed he was able to make eye contact with her. “Karen, I’m so, so sorry. He would want the same thing. Jon? Jon?”
Jon slowly lifted his head. He was no longer moaning or grimacing. The continuous pain and blood loss now made him look drugged. Face sluggish and pale and coated in a slick sheen of sweat, he struggled to keep his head from lolling to one side.
“Jon, right?” Allan said. “You’d sacrifice your life for Karen’s? You’d do that, right? Jon?”
Jon nodded once before his head dropped. To Allan, it looked as if he’d fallen asleep.
“No…” Karen continued to sob.
“Well, I guess chivalry isn’t dead,” Kelly said. “Very noble of you, Jon.”
Kelly whispered something into Jennifer’s ear. Jennifer nodded and lunged forward with the machete, burying it in Karen’s forehead. She then let go of the handle and took a step back, the machete staying put, standing to attention like an odd horn. Only this wasn’t the oddest thing. The oddest thing was that Karen was still alive. Odder still, she began to giggle. Blood running down both sides of her face, eyes fluttering rapidly like some type of nervous tic, she actually started giggling.
“I think…I think something’s wrong,” Karen said and giggled again, eyes still fluttering. “I think something’s wrong,” she repeated. “Jon? I think something’s wrong.”
Jon said nothing. He couldn’t—as Allan had guessed, he had passed out moments prior.
Kelly whispered something to Jennifer again, and again Jennifer nodded back and approached Karen.
Karen actually greeted Jennifer with a smile. “Hi,” she said to her. “I think something’s wrong—”
Jennifer yanked the machete free from Karen’s head. Karen’s bizarre chatter stopped instantly. Her fluttering eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. Her head dropped forward a second later. Blood immediately began soaking her front. A few of her fingers twitched.
When Jennifer returned to Kelly’s side, Kelly looked at her and said: “Good for you—” She then gestured to Jon. “I couldn’t even get that one’s ankle off. Gotta join a gym or something.”
“What the fuck was that?” Allan asked. It came out as barely a whisper.
“What was what?” Kelly asked.
“I chose Jon. You know I chose Jon.” His voice started to rise.
Kelly’s reply was dreamy, as though replying to Allan while thinking about something else. “Yeah…”
“So then why did you kill Karen?!”
Kelly brought her full attention back to Allan and gave a bored little shrug. “I don’t know.”
“You wasted all that time having me choose!”
Kelly nodded. “I guess I did, yeah.”
“Call them!” Allan screamed. “I did what you wanted, and I chose, NOW CALL MY FUCKING SISTER!”
Kelly shook her head. “I don’t know…you may be right—we wasted too much time choosing.”
“What?!”
“They’re probably going to be here any minute. I mean, what would I even say? ‘Allan changed his mind and doesn’t want to see his kids after all’? Kinda makes you look like a jerk.”
“No no no no no no no no…”
“Yeah, you’d look like a total jerk. Your sister would have to turn around and head all the way back home. Your kids would be sad, asking things like, ‘Why doesn’t Daddy want to see us?’ Total jerk. I’d actually be doing you a favor if I didn’t call.”
“NO! You call them! You call them now!!!”
Kelly maneuvered behind Allan and tore off a piece of duct tape.
His head whipped over his shoulder toward her. “I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU FUCKING LITTLE CUNT! I SWEAR TO GOD, I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL—”
She taped his mouth shut. Walked back and faced him again. Allan continued to scream through the tape, his face purple, eyes bulging, snot flying.
Kelly brandished Allan’s cell and then promptly stuffed it back into her pocket again. “Now you’re not a jerk,” she said. “You’re welcome.”
Chapter 49
Amy tried speaking through her tape, her efforts so incessant that Kelly could no longer ignore them. She huffed and tore off Amy’s tape.
“Yes, Amy?” Kelly spoke with the tone and manner of a parent finally addressing a nagging child.
“You’re reaching too far again, Kelly. What’s your plan now? You can’t use me as the killer anymore—after what happened with Tim and Irene and my kids, you’d never be able to sell it.”
“And your po
int is?” Kelly said.
“My point is actually for Jennifer.”
Jennifer, sweating and slightly shaking now from withdrawal, said: “Huh?”
Amy locked eyes with her. “Think about it for a minute, Jennifer. Kelly here needs a plan B she can sell. Tim’s already gone. Where do you think that leaves you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what a patsy is, Jennifer?”
“No.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Kelly said.
“A patsy is someone who is easily manipulated and taken advantage of. Someone to blame for something. Two addicts like you and Tim? Do the math.”
Jennifer glanced over at Kelly.
Kelly closed her eyes and calmly shook her head. “Don’t listen to her,” she said again.
“Hell, I’d be shocked if Kelly had intended for you and Tim to survive the night even if the plot worked out the way she’d planned,” Amy said.
“That’s not true,” Jennifer said. “We made a deal.”
“That’s right, you did,” Kelly said. “I intend to honor it.”
Amy laughed. “What was the deal, Jennifer? Do as she says and you’ll get all the heroin in the world? Let me ask you something: If you and Tim were to go missing, would anyone notice?”
Kelly raised the gun on Amy. “Shut up.”
Amy continued, undeterred. “Someone who is easily manipulated,” she said again. “Your addiction checks off that box, Jennifer. All we have to do now is wait and see if plan B includes blaming you for anything.”
Kelly pressed the gun barrel against Amy’s forehead. “I said shut up.”
Amy’s eyes stayed on Jennifer as she said: “If it weren’t true, she wouldn’t be getting so agitated now, would she, Jennifer?”
Gun still pressed to Amy’s head, Kelly glanced back at Jennifer. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just trying to mind-fuck you.”
Jennifer rubbed a hand vigorously up and down the arm holding the machete as if trying to warm herself even though such an assumption contradicted her incessant sweating. She was also shaking considerably now. “What is plan B?” she asked Kelly.
“You’re going to get what I promised you,” was all Kelly said.
“I need a hit,” Jennifer said.
“She’ll hold out on you until you do as she says,” Amy said. “Makes it easier to manipulate you, Patsy—I mean Jennifer.”
Kelly dug the barrel into Amy’s head and glared at her. “I would really, really consider shutting the fuck up.” She then pulled the gun away with one demonstrative gesture, twirled on the spot and addressed everyone: “Okay! Plan B? Everyone wants to know what plan B is, yes?” There was an exasperated condescension in her tone and theatrics. She maneuvered behind Amy and taped her mouth shut once again. Then, looking at Jennifer: “Wait here.”
“I need a hit,” Jennifer said again.
Kelly’s flared nostrils betrayed her patient smile. “If you just wait here and keep an eye on them, I will set you up for life, Jennifer. You will never have to go on the street for it again.”
Amy mumbled something into her tape. Jennifer looked at her as if she not only understood what Amy had just mumbled, but was also considering it.
“Jennifer?” Kelly said. “Who are you going to believe? A woman who will say anything to save her life, or someone who has already shown you kindness and supplied you with the purest dope you’ve ever had? The purest dope that will be all yours when the night is done? Tim’s gone now, remember? All yours.”
Jennifer started to nod, slow and tentative at first, and then soon faster and with more assertiveness, the sickness, her debilitating need overriding all else. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” Kelly left the den.
The mudroom door leading into the garage could be heard opening and slamming shut in the distance. Echoes of clanging and banging inside the garage. Sounds of the mudroom door opening and slamming shut in the distance again.
Kelly appeared holding a can of gasoline. She raised it for all to see.
“Plan B,” she said.
Chapter 50
Kelly began sprinkling gasoline all throughout the den, talking as she did so.
“It has been my experience that fire is one of the true constants you can rely on in this world. I’m actually a little ashamed it took me this long to consider it for plan B.”
She stopped speaking just then and intentionally sprinkled a generous amount of gasoline at the feet of Allan and Amy, winked at them, and then carried right on speaking while attending to the rest of the den.
“People consider forest fires a tragedy. They try to stop them. But forest fires are, in fact, nature’s way of cleansing the earth. Even the Native Americans knew that. They did not try to fight the fires that occurred for centuries in dry habitats, but instead let them run their course. They knew how beneficial they could be in cleansing the environment.”
When the can was empty, she set it on the floor and removed her black Zippo. “I guess you can say that’s what I’m doing here,” she said. “Cleansing the environment. Creating my own little forest fire, if you will. All traces of you and your home will be gone, but in time, a new house, a new family will appear. It’s kinda cool when you think about it.”
Kelly lit a cigarette with the Zippo, snapped it shut, and took a deep drag on it to ensure the tip glowed strong. She exhaled with a grin, looked at Jennifer, said, “Watch this,” and then flicked the lit butt into an area of the den she’d sprinkled heavily.
Everyone’s eyes, including Jennifer’s, bulged in horror as they tracked the path of the cigarette to the floor where it landed and sat smoldering and harmless.
No fire.
There was a unanimous sigh of relief from the three, Allan and Amy from their nostrils, Jennifer from her mouth.
Kelly laughed and lit another cigarette. “Big myth,” she said. “You see it a lot in movies, but the truth is, cigarettes don’t burn hot enough to ignite gas vapors.”
All eyes went back on the cigarette as though needing more confirmation despite the experiment they’d just witnessed. The cigarette still smoldered harmlessly on the floor.
“A match, on the other hand…” Kelly handed Jennifer the Zippo, stuck the cigarette between her lips, and pulled out a pack of matches. She lit one and flicked it into Amy’s lap.
Amy screamed into her gag, the single paper match flickering on her lap.
Kelly laughed and retrieved the match. Blew it out, went to toss it, and then hesitated.
“Wait,” she said. “The embers on a match still burn pretty good after you blow them out. I wonder if a recently burnt match would fail to burn hot enough to ignite our party like its friend the cigarette. I want to wait until Allan’s sister and his Deejays arrive, but it’s too damn tempting not to try right now.” She glanced over at Jennifer. “If it gets too bad, we can always put it out, right?”
Jennifer nodded back without smiling. Her agreeability at this stage was simply to advance things as quickly as possible. To placate the god who would soon take her away and make it all better.
Kelly took a final drag of her cigarette, tossed it (once again, all eyes followed its path with dreadful anticipation, prior display be damned), and then lit a second match. She brought the burning match right before the tip of Amy’s nose.
Amy turned her head and shut her eyes.
“Make a wish,” Kelly said, blew the match out, and dropped it into the puddle of gasoline at Amy’s feet.
Nothing happened.
“Poop,” Kelly said.
Amy’s head whipped back and dropped down, frantic eyes on the now lifeless match at her feet. Her exhale of relief was so strong her torso appeared to shrink.
“Shall we try again?” Kelly asked. “What about you, Allan? You wanna try one?”
Allan screamed muffled hate into his gag.
“Fine…” she said with mock hurt. “I guess we’ll have to wait until our guests
arrive.”
The doorbell rang.
Allan’s eyes stretched impossibly wide, rage dilating his pupils demon-like, his muffled tirade into his gag a muzzled dog’s.
“Now that’s what I call right on cue,” Kelly said with great delight.
She left to answer the door.
***
Kelly put on an unassuming face before opening the front door. Her goal was to greet with courtesy and respect, but little enthusiasm; she was playing a member of a grief session, not a host to a party.
She opened the door and found herself staring into the barrel of a pistol; behind the barrel were the half-crazed eyes of Kevin Lane.
“Evening, Kelly,” Kevin said and rammed his fist deep into her stomach, crumpling her instantly.
Chapter 51
Earlier
Parked on a rural side road some fifty yards away from Allan Brown’s residence sat Kevin Lane’s battered Oldsmobile. Kevin Lane was not inside. What was inside—in the glove compartment, to be exact—was a piece of paper spotted with dried blood. On the paper was a message that initially looked to Kevin as if it had been written by two different people.
The meat of the message was perfectly legible. And that made sense; the man who’d written it had been very much intact.
The slices of text holding that meat together were a different story. The script was nearly illegible. And sadly, this too made sense to Kevin; the man who’d written those had been moments away from death.
The note read:
save amy
ALLAN BROWN
125 HENKEL ROAD
WESTMORE
kelly blaine did it
The conflicting emotions Kevin Lane had faced while standing in a dead man’s home (with two other dead men to boot) were not gentle as they flew at him. They’d crashed into him, each with its own justification.
Domino is dead. Call 911.
He’s dead. He can’t be saved. If you call 911, the police will get involved.
If the police get involved, you lose any chance at getting your hands on Kelly. She could slip away again.
Bad Games: Malevolent Page 17
