The Relatives: A Virtue Falls Story

by Christina Dodd

  She also delivered a series of FedEx overnight packages to Cecily, several every day. Not that Cecily hadn’t always received a lot of packages. The woman obviously had an online shopping addiction. But to order with overnight shipping—that was new. Gwen couldn’t help it; she worried that Cecily had somehow overheard the eviction plans and intended some kind of dangerous mischief.

  Then Cecily started opening the boxes in front of Gwen, pulling out dresses and heels, urging Gwen to try them on right now, and generally acting as if Gwen’s failing marriage required emergency measures. That reassured Gwen about Cecily’s intentions, and she didn’t even wince much when Cecily assured her they would “spruce her up and win back her man’s attention.” Sometimes she thought the glint in Cecily’s eyes seemed more malicious than usual. But that was a matter of degree, and Gwen told herself all she wanted was to focus, to survive until she could see Mario pick Cecily up out of bed and dump her on the doorstep.

  On day three, at seven a.m., Mario and Gwen finally gave up on trying to sleep. They got out of bed and smiled tensely at each other. They knew what they had to do. They stood ready to do it. But they were kind people. Hospitable people. They tended to see the best in others.

  Okay, it hadn’t worked out this time. They weren’t the type who wanted to think that Cecily and Landon were evil. Except in looking back over the last interminable weeks, Gwen could see how she’d been manipulated, brainwashed, taken to the breaking point by exhaustion and a well-planned campaign to undermine her hard-won confidence.

  Landon was nothing but a tool in Cecily’s grasp, but he knew what his wife was, and he had done nothing to stop her. He had put Mario through hell; Landon was weak and guilty, and Gwen despised him.

  Mario and Gwen went downstairs to the main level. To the level overlooking the living room. To the level of the kitchen, the pantry, and the festering stink hole of a guest bedroom where Cecily and Landon slept.

  They walked into the kitchen, and Gwen stood looking at the stove where she had worked like a galley slave these last few weeks. “Perhaps I should fix breakfast for them before—”

  “No!” Mario said. “No more. You are my wife. You are done working for them. You are my love. My life. Let us never again forget how much we mean to each other.”

  She leaned against him, a sideways stretch that put her head on his shoulder. They stood together for a moment, gathering strength for the deed ahead.

  Then he straightened away from her. He turned his head to the side. “What is that noise?”

  Gwen did the same. “That ticking? The battery in the clock must be going out.”

  “No. No! That is no battery. That is…” Mario looked around. “It’s coming from the living room.”

  They walked to the rail.

  The sound seemed to be coming from the wall by the fireplace.

  “I don’t know what that is.” Mario ran down the stairs and stood listening. He walked toward the center of the room “It’s from one of the sconces.”

  “The wiring has gone bad?”

  “Impossible. I wired it myself.” He headed for the utility room. “Let me get a ladder.”

  Gwen came slowly down the stairs. When it came to his work, Mario was obsessive and meticulous; for that reason, he had no patience with Landon’s incompetence.

  Mario carried in the ladder and set it up by the wall.

  Disquiet sat heavily on her shoulders, for Gwen wondered—had they read Landon wrong? Was he spiteful? Had he done something to sabotage the wiring in their house as revenge for Mario’s firing him?

  Mario climbed up until his head was level with the sconce and leaned closer. “Definitely a ticking. It sounds like a timer is in there.”

  Gwen watched him. She looked up at the chandelier. She loved those sconces. She loved the chandelier.

  She loved Mario.

  If Cecily had somehow realized their plans, overheard their plans with that uncanny hearing of hers, and forced Landon to do something dastardly …

  Now Gwen heard another sound. The tap tap tap of Cecily’s stiletto heels on the hardwood floor.

  Impossible. She was bedridden.

  But Gwen glanced up, and there Cecily was, peeking around the corner of the kitchen. She wore headphones. She held a small disk-shaped transmitter in her hand. Her face was a gargoyle mask of cruel satisfaction.

  Gwen looked at Mario.

  He was reaching for the swirled blue glass cover to slide it off.

  Gwen glanced back at Cecily.

  Cecily ripped off her headphones and tossed them away. She ran backward toward … safety?

  And in that split second, all was clear.

  Gwen shouted, “Mario, don’t touch it!”

  Too late. He tugged.

  The sconce exploded in his face.

  He flew backward, broken, blasted …

  One split second of horror.

  Then the wiring in the house sizzled and sparked. The chandelier blew off the ceiling in a thousand glass shards.

  Gwen looked up, and saw her doom descending.

  The heavy pendant and wide arms slammed to the floor.

  Cecily ran out of the pantry, around the corner, and leaned over the railing.

  Cousin Mario had been hit by the full force of the explosion. Cousin Gwen had been standing directly under the chandelier.

  They were dead, gone, extinguished in an instant.

  Lifting her arms, Cecily shrieked, “Take that, you bastards!”

  Down the hall, she heard the door slam. Landon came running out of the bedroom, dressed and ready to go to “work.” He looked around at the bodies, at the flames that licked the wall where the sconce had been, at the smoke that oozed from every outlet and every light fixture. “What have you done?” he shouted.

  “I killed them. I killed them!” Cecily did a sort of flamenco, slamming her stiletto heels on their precious restored hardwood floor. “They insulted me. They laughed at me. And I killed them!”

  “Are you crazy? You’re crazy.” Landon turned on her. “The police are going to take you away!”

  She stalked him like a giant cat with sharp claws and long fangs. “The police are not going to take me away. I don’t know anything about electricity. I’m not the one who blew the wiring in that house last week. I’m not the one Cousin Mario fired.”

  Landon fell back, step by step, along the railing toward the bedroom. “But you do. You know wiring. You know as much as I do!”

  “Do I?” She took another step. Another.

  “And I don’t hold a grudge against Mario!” Landon stumbled on a piece of broken glass. He righted himself, grabbed the handrail, and backed up some more.

  “Who’s going to believe you?”

  She acted as if she had tasted blood and wanted more. “But I didn’t do anything here. To this house.” The handrail ended at the stairway. He whirled and ran a few steps, then turned and shouted, “You’re … you’re lying!”

  “This place out here in the wilderness is going to burn. By the time anyone sees the smoke, it will be ashes. All the evidence will be destroyed.” She paused at the top of the stairs, and like a merciless triumphant goddess, she lifted the briefcase in her hand. “I moved money out of their accounts into ours. Yesterday, Cousin Gwen left her desk open. I found cash and credit cards, and I’ve got them in here.” She gestured down the stairs. “You can come with me or you can stay here and wait for the cops … or be burned alive.”

  “But you killed Mario and Gwen.” He gestured toward the living room. Didn’t she understand? “You killed them!”

  “They deserved it. Talking about me like that. Calling me like a bloodsucker.” She whirled in a circle. “I made them pay. I made them— Ugh!” She tripped on a hunk of blue glass. Her heel slipped off the top stair tread. Her eyes grew so wide he could see the whites all the way around. Her arms windmilled wildly, the briefcase slapping the air.

  Landon lunged for her.

  Too late. Wide-eyed and
screaming, she tumbled backward down the stairs.

  With a harsh crack, her neck met the edge of the tread. She went limp, landing facedown and catawampus across the last three steps.

  The briefcase tumbled, edge over edge, to the bottom.

  Landon raced after her. Then, two steps above her and with a sudden onset of caution, he stopped. “Cecily?”

  She didn’t grab for him. Her hand rested still and limp.

  “Cecily? Are you okay?”

  She didn’t speak.

  He shuffled down one step, then another, and with his toe pushed on her shoulder.

  She rolled over.

  All her viciousness, her triumph, her madness—they were gone. Her jaw was slack, her head crooked at an awkward angle.

  She was dead. Cecily was really truly dead.

  Aghast, Landon looked across at the graveyard of bodies. “B … but, Cecily, now the police are really going to believe I did it. I didn’t kill them, but you made it look like I did, and now you’re dead, and it looks even worse. This is not fair! I didn’t do this! I’m innocent!”

  Smoke began to ooze out of the return air vents. Heat made the wallboard turn tan where the studs were catching fire. In the attic, he heard a blast; this home ran propane heat. The fireplaces were gas.

  Cecily was right. The whole house was going to burn to the ground.

  He knelt beside the body of his wife.

  But not too close.

  He extended his shaking fingers.

  But he didn’t quite touch her. “Cecily, you have to get up. We’ve got to get out of here. I don’t know what you planned, exactly, but whatever it was…” He picked up the briefcase. He opened the latch and looked inside. He saw a roll of twenties and a clutter of credit cards. “You stole all this?”

  She stared straight up, her eyes wide and glazed.

  He dug into the side pocket, pulled out pages of information on the money transfers from the Riccis’ accounts to theirs. “I can’t believe that you … all these years, I didn’t realize…” He held on to the briefcase, hurried over to Cousin Mario. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t know what she intended. Really. Really I didn’t.” Poor Cousin Mario. The explosion, at face level, had erased his features, yet Landon knew that in life they had looked alike. So much alike.

  A thought came to him. From nowhere. It just came to him.

  They did look alike, he and Mario. They really did. If he had Cousin Mario’s identification, he could take their car, drive to Seattle, use the credit cards to obtain more cash, and while the fire department and the police were trying to figure out what had happened here, he could get away.

  He glanced back at Cecily, half expecting her to be on her feet and nagging at him.

  But she was still dead.

  Cousin Mario and Cousin Gwen were still dead.

  The house was still on fire.

  If Landon stayed in here, he would die, too.

  If he stood around outside, he would be arrested for the murder of three people.

  If he wanted to live, and live free, he had no choice.

  Kneeling beside Cousin Mario’s body, he gingerly searched his pockets.

  Car keys. Wallet, with driver’s license, credit cards, and cash. Fifties, hundreds …

  The smoke was getting thicker. The flames were heating the house. Landon had only a few minutes to make his final decision.

  But that was a lie.

  He had made that decision the moment he picked up the briefcase.

  * * *

  At three o’clock that afternoon, the border guard at the Peace Arch on the Canadian border was suitably impressed when a silver Mercedes-Benz E400 Cabriolet convertible, top down, pulled up to his station. “Nice car,” Walt Bingham said as he took the proffered ID. “Mr.… Mario Ricci.”

  “Thank you.” The gentleman in the driver’s seat looked relaxed.

  A little too relaxed, to Walt’s mind. Most people, no matter how innocent they might be, were nervous when crossing the border.

  Mr. Ricci said, “Actually, it’s my wife’s car, but mine is an electrician’s truck, so she let me borrow it for the trip.”

  Walt frowned at the photo on the driver’s license, then looked at the guy’s face. “Would you take off your sunglasses, please?”

  The guy whipped them off.

  “This is you?” Walt asked.

  “Mario Ricci. Yes.”

  “You don’t look like you’re this old.”

  “Facelift.”

  Walt didn’t like him. Men didn’t admit to stuff like that. At least not so readily. “Could I see your registration and insurance?”

  “Let me see if I can figure out where she stashed it.” Mr. Ricci dug around in the console and came up with the papers.

  Yep. Car was registered to him and … “What’s your wife’s name?”

  “Gwen. Is there a problem?”

  Walt shook his head. “No. Everything looks like it’s in order. Pop the trunk.” He walked to the back and found a duffel bag.

  Mr. Ricci appeared at his side. “Want me to open it?” Without waiting for an answer, he unzipped it and showed Walt the contents.

  Walt poked around a little more, looking for … something. “Why are you visiting Canada?”

  “Vacation.”

  “Without the wife?”

  “She’s got relatives visiting, so I’m getting out of town.”

  “I can relate to that.” Walt handed back the paperwork, slammed the trunk, followed Mr. Ricci back, and waited while he got back into the driver’s seat. “How long will you be staying in Canada?”

  “Once the relatives leave…” Mr. Ricci shrugged. "They said they were going to stay for two days."

  Walt waved him through. “Enjoy your stay.” He didn’t like the feel of the guy, but he couldn’t arrest a guy based on nothing more than his instincts.

  He watched the car pull away and accelerate.

  All that Mr. Ricci left behind was the faint smell of smoke and the memory of his parting smile.

  Read on for a sneak preview of

  OBSESSION FALLS

  the new novel from Christina Dodd

  Available September 2015

  Excerpt from Obsession Falls © 2015 by Christina Dodd

  CHAPTER ONE

  The highway from Idaho’s Sun Valley travels north into the Sawtooth Mountains with two lanes and strategically located turnouts in case a person needs to change a tire or gawk at the scenery. The road winds past shacks constructed of beer bottles and aluminum siding, past rusty mobile homes and clapboard houses in need of paint. That highway is a drive back in time, to a moment when the West opened its arms to every pioneer and misfit in the world.

  Then the National Forest Service moved in.

  No one ever said they did it wrong. The world deserves places of wildness, where no one logs trees that have grown since the time of Jesus, where snowmobiles and ATMs can’t challenge black bears to battle and take out rare and delicate flowers. Most people want a place where hikers and backpackers can roam the wilderness, and then only in summer months when winter retreats … and waits.

  But even the National Forest Service can do nothing about Wildrose Valley. Wildrose Valley Road turns off the main highway, and rises up and up in hairpin turns that make flatlanders clutch and cringe. The surface is gravel, full of washboard stretches that beat a woman’s teeth together as she drives her rented black Jeep Cherokee toward the place where she had been born.

  She tops the summit and there it is—the valley, slung like a hammock between the mountains. Ranchers had settled here in the early twentieth century, carving out tracts of land where they raised cattle and children, grew gardens and alfalfa, fought freezing cold and the Depression and bankruptcy.

  But here and now, in August, the valley is wide, yellow with grass, dappled with cattle and antelope. Meadows stretch miles to the far horizon where the mountains close in. The Forest Service likes to think they protect the wilderness; in
truth, the Sawtooth Mountains themselves are the sentinels and guardians of the land.

  Taylor Summers had spent her first nine years roaming the Sawtooth Mountains in search of a safe place, away from her home, away from her parents’ constant, bitter arguments about her father’s ranch, her mother’s ambitions, and Taylor, who had somehow become the heart of their conflict.

  Then, on her tenth birthday, she had moved with her mother to Baltimore, and was never again to see Wildrose Valley … until today.

  She drove slowly down the steep grade and into the flatlands, absorbing the changes. Where small craftsman-style ranch houses had once stood, mansions now sprawled. Not many mansions, though; rich people bought wide acreages and surrounded themselves by vistas that could not be blocked.

  Taylor didn’t blame them. Today, when she rolled down her windows, she heard nothing but the wind through the golden grasses and the occasional call of a bird. She recognized a few landmarks: a stand of maple trees where she used to play, the unpainted wreck of a barn where she’d swung in an exhilarating ride on a rope out of the hayloft and through the wide-open doors.

  And there! There was the turnoff to the Summers ranch, owned by her family for over a hundred years, until her mother forced her father to sell it in the divorce and divide the profits.

  Involuntarily, Taylor’s foot slipped off the accelerator and the car slowed.

  Look! The people who bought the place had put up a phony gate, and they had the guts to put up a sign calling the place SUMMERS FOREVER.

  They not only had claimed her heritage, they’d also claimed her name.

  The bastards.

  Taylor rolled up her windows, put her foot back on the gas, and drove through ruts and dust through the flats at the end of the basin toward her goal, where the mountains came together, squeezing the road like a vise.

  An hour of driving too fast got her at last to the serenity of mountains. Here was the forest she sought. The air was thin, sharp, fresh with the scents of pine and earth and growth and, yes, surely … inspiration.