Hitting the Books

by Jenn McKinlay

  A noise came out of Liza’s throat that sounded almost like a feral growl. “You didn’t pick her for me. You picked her for you.”

  “That’s not true,” Larry protested. Everyone looked at him. “Okay, it’s a little true, but I would never have asked her to marry me if I didn’t think she’d be a wonderful mother to you.”

  “I. Have. A. Mother.”

  Larry looked at his daughter. Sadness pulled his features until his eyes drooped at the corners and his lips turned down.

  “No, you don’t, not really,” he said. He reached up and pushed aside a hank of Liza’s hair, exposing her throat. “You know this scar above your collarbone?”

  “Where I cut myself when I was little?” she asked.

  “You didn’t cut yourself,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper. “Your mother did that when you were sleeping. She was holding a knife to your throat, threatening to kill you if I didn’t let her leave and take you with her. She slipped. I think the blood surprised her, and I was able to knock her away from you. I couldn’t let her take you. She couldn’t take care of herself, never mind a child. After that night, I knew she couldn’t be your mother anymore.”

  “She told me you just wanted to be rid of her because you were bored with being a husband and father,” Liza said. Her fingers moved over the old scar as if its shape might have changed now that she knew the truth of its origin.

  “Liza, you know that’s not true,” Larry said. “I know I traveled a lot during the weekdays when you were growing up, but I made sure I was always home on weekends, and I always made time for you. I even coached your soccer team, and I hate soccer.”

  He stepped close to his daughter and cupped her face in his hands. “Your mother can be wickedly charming. She makes you doubt yourself and everything you know to be true. When did you get in touch with her?”

  “I didn’t,” Liza said. “She got in touch with me. She found me online. At first, I didn’t believe it was her, but she knew so much about me and you . . .”

  “Did you go see her in Virginia?” he asked.

  Liza nodded. Her chin dropped to her chest, as if the burden of having her mother in her life had become too heavy to carry.

  “What did she say to you?” he asked.

  “She said she never wanted to leave me and that you forced her out. She said that if I helped her scare off Theresa, you’d give her another chance and we could be a family again,” she said. She began to cry in earnest. “She told me she’d kill herself if she had to spend another night there away from me. She promised me no one would get hurt but then . . . Chad. And she told me I had to shoot Ms. Norris, and I . . . oh, Dad, what do I do?”

  Liza broke down into sobs, and Larry looked at Emma. She gave a small nod and then stepped forward and unbound Liza’s arms. The twins shadowed her. If Liza had any nefarious plans to bolt, she had another think coming.

  “Liza, where is your mother now?” Lindsey asked. She still couldn’t get the face in the window out of her mind.

  “She’s in Virginia,” Liza said. Her voice came out high and tight, and her gaze shifted to the ground.

  “No, she isn’t,” Emma said.

  Larry’s head snapped toward Emma. “What are you saying?”

  “When I got the divorce report from Lindsey, I did some checking and found mention of a Sarah Milstein performing in the Serenity Springs production of The Sound of Music. They even had her picture in the local paper. When I called Serenity Springs to verify that their Sarah Milstein was your Sarah Milstein, they told me that she’d been checked out of the facility by her daughter.”

  “Oh no,” Larry said. He looked at Liza in horror. “You didn’t.”

  “I . . .” Liza’s face crumpled. “I didn’t know what to do. She said she’d kill herself.”

  “The face,” Lindsey said. “The face I saw in the window at your house. That was your mother.”

  “What?” Larry looked at his daughter in horror. “She was in our house?”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she cried. “She said she wouldn’t hurt anyone!”

  “Tell that to Chad Bauman,” Emma said. Her look was dark.

  Liza swallowed and then started to sob.

  Larry spun around to look at the twins. “Who is with Theresa?”

  “Don’t worry,” Emma said. “I had Officer Kirkland take Theresa to a safe house.”

  “A safe house?” Larry asked. “What does that even mean? You don’t know my ex-wife. She can convince you your favorite ice cream is vanilla even if you know you’ve loved chocolate all your life.”

  Emma frowned. “I am quite certain that she is safe and sound.”

  “Call,” Larry urged her.

  “I don’t think—”

  “I’m begging you,” he said. “Call her and let me know she’s okay.”

  Emma took out her phone and dialed a number. She put the phone to her ear. She looked at Larry. She looked at the sky. She began to tap her foot. Finally, she ended the call with a frown.

  “No one is answering,” she said. “I’m going over there.” She looked at the twins. “Stay with her. Do not let her out of your sight.” With that, she ran to her squad car.

  Larry broke into a run and joined her, jumping into the front of her car. Lindsey looked at Sully, and he nodded.

  “Make yourselves at home,” he said to the twins. Then he looked at Lindsey and Heathcliff. “Come on.”

  They piled into his truck, with Heathcliff taking the passenger window. Sully bolted down the driveway, keeping Emma’s squad car in front of him. They raced through town, slowing down on Main Street and then turning onto a small side street. Emma parked beside an old brick building that used to house a bustling fish market but was now Lurie’s Variety Store, where the locals could pick up anything from shoelaces to beef jerky to the odd appliance.

  The shop was closed, but there was a light on in the second-floor window above. Lindsey had always believed that the second floor was used by the Luries, the owners of the store, as an office and storage area. But since Emma was here and there was a light on above, she had to assume this was the safe house. It was a good choice. She never would have guessed. She rolled down the window to give Heathcliff air while he waited and hopped out of the truck. Sully did the same.

  Emma and Larry were standing by the side entrance of the building, where no windows looked down on them. Emma motioned for them to huddle up.

  “There are two ways to get upstairs,” she said. “Through the shop or up the back entrance. I have the code to get into the shop. The Luries gave it to me so I could check on the shop as needed.”

  “I’ll watch the back,” Sully said. “If anyone comes down, I’ll—”

  “Call me immediately,” Emma said. “Lindsey, Larry, I want you two to wait in Sully’s truck.”

  “What?”

  “No!”

  Emma held up her hands. “This is not up for debate. Officer Kirkland is supposed to be up there with Theresa, but he’s not answering his phone. I may very well have an officer down. I’m sorry, but accommodating you two is not the priority here. Sully is a former naval officer; he can handle himself.”

  Lindsey looked at her man, and she knew Emma was right. She didn’t like having him in harm’s way, but there was no denying that Sully was the most viable candidate to give Emma backup.

  “You’re right,” Lindsey said. “We’ll wait here.”

  She took Larry by the elbow and led him to the pickup truck. Larry looked like he would protest, but Emma was already approaching the side door and Sully was moving along the edge of the building to hide in the shadows at the base of the stairs in the back.

  Lindsey climbed into the driver’s side of the pickup truck while Larry took the passenger seat. Heathcliff, who’d been sprawled, popped up to a sitting position so he could lick
Lindsey’s face.

  “It’s all right, buddy,” she said. “Sully will be just fine. I promise.”

  She wasn’t sure whether she was trying to reassure herself or the dog. She suspected it was herself.

  “I can’t stand this,” Larry said. “What if something has happened to Theresa? I’ll never forgive myself for getting her mixed up in this mess.”

  “There’s no way you could have known,” Lindsey said.

  “Yes, I could have,” he argued. “I should have been more vigilant. I promised myself when I made Sarah go away that I would never ever let her get to Liza, and yet she did.”

  “What do you think she wants?” Lindsey asked. “I mean, do you believe that she is trying to get the three of you to be a family again?”

  “No, that would never ever happen,” he said. “She has to know that after what she did.”

  “The knife?”

  Larry’s mouth tightened. He looked like he was going to refuse to talk about it. Then he turned to her, and Lindsey could see the stark fear and hurt in his gaze.

  “When she held that knife to Liza’s throat, she told me she would kill her if I didn’t give her everything she wanted,” he said. “At the top of her list was a divorce and full custody of our daughter. She actually thought I would just give away my only child to a woman who was holding a knife at her throat. I took Liza to the emergency room, had her stitched up, and within a day, I had Sarah shipped away for evaluation.

  “They came back with a doozy of a diagnosis, all of which essentially means that she is incapable of forming an emotional attachment to anyone or anything. That’s one of the reasons she is so good at manipulating others. She can see what people want or need; she can use their vulnerabilities against them to get whatever she wants. Frankly, she’s terrifying. I had no choice but to have her institutionalized. I found the best facility that I could—”

  Creak.

  The passenger door to Sully’s truck was yanked open. Standing on the other side of Larry was the woman Lindsey had seen in the window of the house. Sarah Milstein.

  Sarah shoved Larry hard in the shoulder, pushing him across his seat. “Move over, husband. We’ve got to go.”

  “Sarah! What have you done?” Larry balled up his right fist, looking like he was going to take a swing at her. She lifted a handgun and pointed it right at his nose.

  “Relax, your lady love is fine,” she said. Her voice was full of derision. “Can’t say the same for the policeman who was with her, but—” She shrugged. Her gaze moved to Lindsey, who was holding on to Heathcliff’s collar. “You’re still alive? Pity.” She looked at Larry and shook her head. “That daughter of ours. She had one job to do.”

  “You sent her to kill me,” Lindsey said. The words made her breathless, and she had to force herself to breathe normally.

  “Yeah, well, Mom is on the job, but it looks like Liza will have to take the fall for it all,” Sarah said.

  “Why are you doing this?” Larry asked. “I mean, I get why you’re coming after me, but why Theresa—”

  “Do you want to know, Larry, really?” she asked. “Revenge. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be locked up and held against your will, day after day, with every day bleeding into the next while you live on a constant diet of pills that make you feel as euphoric as a ball of lint? I spent every single day planning my revenge, and now it’s here.”

  Lindsey thought her heart was going to beat right out of her chest. She slid her left hand down to the seat, trying to get to the door handle. If she could open it, she might be able to tuck and roll around Heathcliff and get them both out of there.

  “You can’t blame me. What choice did I have?” Larry snapped. “You threatened our daughter at knifepoint.”

  “‘What choice did I have?’” Sarah mimicked him. “Quite simply, you should have given me what I wanted.”

  “Over my dead body, I’d let you take Liza,” he said. “You are unfit to mother a rock, never mind a child. I mean, for God’s sake, you had her point a gun at a librarian, a woman she considers her friend.”

  Sarah’s gaze moved to Lindsey, and the look in them was one of sheer, undiluted hate. Lindsey stopped feeling for the door handle. She didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe.

  “Well, since baby girl couldn’t do it, I’ll just have to take care of the librarian for her,” she said. “See? I am a good mother.”

  “You’re a nightmare,” Larry said. “You always have been. Liza isn’t your daughter anymore. She’s mine, and I will protect her from you until the day I die.”

  “That can be arranged.” Sarah’s gaze swept back to him, and she hissed, “I’m going to kill you, Larry. I’m going to shoot you right between your beady little eyes.”

  “Where’s the chief of police?” Lindsey asked. She saw Sarah’s finger twitch on the trigger, and she had to stifle the scream that clawed up her throat.

  Sarah looked at her as if she’d forgotten Lindsey was in the car with them. Then she blinked as if pulling Lindsey into focus.

  “When I saw the chief enter the shop, I knew I’d have to sneak out before I could finish the job—well, most of it anyway. At least I took one cop out,” she said. She waved the gun at Lindsey and the steering wheel. “Start the truck.”

  Lindsey felt her chest compress. The cop she mentioned had to be Officer Kirkland. Lindsey had shared quite a few adventures with him. The tall, lanky redhead was always quick with a smile and eager to take on any case that came across the front desk of the Briar Creek PD. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to him. Heathcliff must not have liked it either, because with an abrupt yank against Lindsey’s hold, he lunged across Larry at Sarah with his teeth bared. Sarah turned her gun on the dog, and Lindsey felt her heart stop.

  18

  For the second time in one night, Lindsey grabbed her dog, hauling him down and trying to block him with her body from a gunshot. It never came. Instead, there was a sickening crunch, a thump, a groan, and then nothing.

  The door on the driver’s side was jerked open, and there was Sully. Lindsey raised her head and blinked at him. Then she whipped around and looked at Larry. He was shaking out his fist while Sarah was slumped against the passenger door, unconscious.

  “I’ve never hit a woman in my life,” he said.

  The door on the other side of Sarah was jerked open, and she slid out, her body limp. Emma was there and grabbed her before she hit the pavement. Larry climbed out after her, retrieving the gun that Sarah had dropped on the truck floor when he hit her.

  Lindsey let Heathcliff jump out and then followed him. She hugged Sully tight, absorbing his strength and his warmth for a moment before walking around the front of the truck to join the others.

  “Theresa? Is she okay?” Larry asked Emma. He sounded as if he was afraid of the answer, and given how ruthless Sarah had been, Lindsey didn’t blame him. She clenched her muscles, anticipating news she did not want to hear.

  “She’s fine,” Emma said. “She’s upstairs with Officer Kirkland, who was shot.”

  Lindsey gasped, and Emma shook her head. “Don’t worry. It’s not life threatening. When I couldn’t find Sarah in the building, I came down to meet the ambulance. I didn’t realize she was in the truck with you until I saw Sully creeping up on the vehicle.”

  “I heard her force her way into the truck,” Sully said. “But I saw she had a gun, and I didn’t want to scare her into shooting anyone.”

  “Good call,” Emma said. She glanced at Lindsey and Larry. “What did she say to you?”

  “She said she was going to kill Larry and me,” Lindsey said. “Then Heathcliff jumped at her, and she turned the gun on him and Larry knocked her out.”

  “She saw you come into the shop, and she sneaked out,” Larry said. “She wants revenge on me for putting her away. This is all my fault.”
>
  “No, it isn’t.” Lindsey grabbed his arm and squeezed it. “You may have made some poor choices, but you did the best you could at the time and you saved my dog.”

  The corner of Larry’s mouth turned up just a little. He nodded and then turned to Emma. “Can I go see Theresa?”

  Emma glanced from him to the building. “All right, but we have to remain vigilant. Whoever Sarah hired to kill Chad Bauman and take over his hit man duties is still out there.”

  “No, she isn’t,” Sully said. He gestured at Sarah. “That’s your shooter. She killed Bauman, and then she went gunning for Theresa herself.”

  Both Lindsey and Emma gave him wide-eyed looks.

  “How’d you figure that?” Emma asked.

  “We saw the yellow sweatshirt that she’s wearing in the back of the muscle car that was parked in the woods,” he said. “She’s the one who drove through town at top speed, chasing Theresa and the twins. The shooter is her. I’m betting ballistics will prove it.”

  “He’s right,” Lindsey said. “I remember the sweatshirt, too. It has to be her.”

  “Oh God, she was the one shooting at Theresa? I have to go see her now,” Larry said. He ran into the shop, banging the door behind him.

  Sarah groaned. Emma knelt down beside her and rolled her so that she could fasten handcuffs on her wrists behind her back. Sarah’s eyes blinked open, but then she shut them and began to moan.

  “You can’t arrest me,” she said. “You have to send me back to Serenity Springs, where I can get treatment.”

  “You shot one of my officers,” Emma said. “You’re not going anywhere until you answer for that and the murder of Chad Bauman.”

  Sarah opened one eye and stared at her. “You can’t prove anything. Liza was the one who paid Chad Bauman out of her trust fund, she was the one who got me out of the nuthouse, and she was the one who wanted to kill Theresa so she could cash in on the life insurance policy that Larry took out on Theresa for Liza.”

  “That’s a lie,” Lindsey said. Whether Sarah was crazy or not, the fact that this woman would let her daughter take the fall for her own reprehensible behavior made Lindsey furious. “Liza didn’t know about the policy, but I’m betting you did, because Larry likely had one on you, too, for his daughter, am I right?”