Wrath of the Sister

by Shannon Heuston

  I couldn’t abandon her to these psychos. Laurel was my only family. If I lost her, I’d be alone in the world, a horrible fate.

  I didn’t realize Agnes would create such a hole when she died. We weren’t much of a family anymore. But I would still fight to the death to protect my sister.

  I followed Sam back inside. He opened the refrigerator. I studied his face as he inventoried the contents. It gave nothing away.

  “We got ham, cheese, bologna, liverwurst…” He glanced over his shoulder at me for confirmation.

  I made a face. “Liverwurst? Who wanted that?”

  “Yours truly. I love liverwurst and onion sandwiches. Yum!”

  “Ha. You’re not kissing me with liverwurst and onion breath.”

  “Want to bet?” Sam asked, before lunging across the island towards me. I shrieked and ran away, giggling like a schoolgirl as he gave chase. He pulled me into his embrace and covered my face with kisses.

  “No liverwurst and onion breath, morning breath instead,” he whispered in my ear.

  I tried to resist, but the smoldering embers always lurking beneath the surface in his presence burst into flames. He backed me into the living room, peeled off my leggings and bent me over the arm of the couch before plunging into me.

  I still wanted him. Loved him.

  How could he be a killer?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The snow changed to rain around four, dripping down the windowpanes. It was already getting dark. My fears rose with the fading of the light.

  Today was Friday, tomorrow was Saturday, and Sunday was when they planned to murder us. Both men would ride back downstate after dumping our bodies somewhere in the surrounding woods, where our soft parts would be eaten by animals and our bones scattered. They’d perfected their technique over the years. No bodies had been found in the area since Lucy’s murder.

  “Can we go out to dinner?” I asked. “Didn’t you say there was a restaurant nearby that had steaks the size of dinner plates?”

  “There’s are a couple of places like that,” Sam said. “We’ll go this weekend, I promise. But not tonight.”

  I pouted. My heart was hammering in my chest. If I could convince the men to take us to a restaurant, I could slip away and call the police, if I played it cool and acted like I didn’t suspect a thing. “I’m getting cabin fever. I’d like a night out.”

  “No can do,” John declared from his perch on the couch. Laurel was sitting beside him. He was massaging her shoulder with one hand and shooting lecherous looks in my direction. Laurel’s eyes shone in the dancing firelight. She was happy. I felt a pang of guilt. Her happiness was about to be shattered.

  “Why not?” I said, arguing for the sake of normalcy.

  “The roads are too shitty. When they’re this bad, we risk missing the road and driving straight into Keeler Pond.”

  Laurel shuddered. “Melody, there’s plenty of food here. You’re not going to starve. Cool it.”

  Our eyes met. I tried to telegraph my panic to her, but she wasn’t getting the message. She turned away. She thought I was being a brat because I wasn’t getting my way.

  “Tomorrow night,” I said.

  “For sure,” Sam said. He was paging through a yearbook he’d unearthed.

  “Can I see?” I asked, climbing onto the stool beside him.

  Sam shrugged. “There’s not much to see. I don’t even know why I dragged this out. Just a bunch of old memories best forgotten.”

  He closed it and thrust it in front of me, like it offended him. I accepted it. “I love old yearbooks,” I said. He didn’t respond.

  The yearbook was a slim volume, nowhere close to the tomes my high school published every year. I flipped through it until I found his class photo. He was wearing an Ocean Pacific t-shirt and a white puka shell necklace. His blonde hair looked windblown. “You look like a surfer boy,” I observed.

  John snorted from the couch. “Yeah. He used to catch waves on the pond.”

  I ignored him and flipped the pages until I discovered a huge centerfold of Sam and Lauren. He was hugging her from behind. She was wearing a little black dress. Her hair was twisted up into a chignon. Wavy brown tendrils escaped its bindings to frame her face. She looked sophisticated and confident. Sam looked arrogant, the cat that swallowed the canary.

  “What was the occasion?” I asked, pointing at the photo.

  Sam craned his neck. “Homecoming, I guess. Or the Winter Ball. Not prom, that always took place too late to make it into the yearbook.”

  I shut the book. The wind howled outside, rattling the glass in the windows. It was warm and cozy inside, but I was chilled.

  “Was it cold like this the Thanksgiving she was murdered?” I asked.

  “Jesus, do you have to bring that up?” John exclaimed.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I just can’t stop thinking about her, being up here, where she lived, at the same time of year she was murdered. Maybe even the same day.”

  “It was cold, but it didn’t snow. The wind was high. Kind of like it is now.” Sam’s blue eyes stared into space.

  Laurel shuddered. “Creepy! Do you think he might be still out there?” She tittered, like she knew something I didn’t.

  “No,” Sam said. “I don’t.”

  As the night wore on, I kept trying to get Laurel alone, and failing. “Come to the bathroom with me?” I asked, as Sam began breading cutlets for dinner.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Um, no?”

  I wound up alone in the bathroom, sizing up the window, wondering how long it would be before I was missed.

  The wind shrieked outside, reminding me of where I was and how cold it was. I couldn’t leave now. I’d freeze. And I couldn’t leave Laurel, no matter what.

  At least I still had time on my side. Sam and John thought I was clueless, which I could use to my advantage. I just needed to convince them to take me into the village when the snow stopped.

  I got my chance to speak to my sister after dinner. That was when all hell broke loose.

  I followed Laurel into the bedroom she was sharing with John and watched as she started making the bed. “Why bother? You’re only going to get back into it in a couple of hours.”

  Laurel threw me a withering glance. “You just summed up your whole sorry life in that one statement.”

  That stung. I was tempted to walk away and leave her to fend for herself. Then I took a deep breath. We weren’t rivals, we were sisters. We had to act like it.

  “I have something to tell you,” I told her.

  Laurel sighed. “What now? We should have left you home. Everyone’s relaxing and having a nice time. Except you. Bringing up that poor dead girl and worrying you’re not going to get home in time for work in three days.” She rolled her eyes.

  “This is serious,” I said.

  “What?” she demanded. “What is it?

  I sat down on the bed, wringing my hands. Laurel opened her mouth to say something cutting, then she looked at me. Really looked at me. “What’s wrong? Are you pregnant?”

  I snorted with laughter. If only. “Maybe you should sit down,” I said.

  Laurel sat down next to me on the edge of the bed, staring into my face. I wondered what she thought I was about to tell her. That I was pregnant, had cancer, or that we were losing the house, or I’d been fired from my job. Our lives had been plagued by more than our fair share of misfortune, and it was getting worse by the minute.

  “While everyone was sleeping, I watched one of the blank videos by the VCR,” I began.

  Laurel’s eyes widened. “Didn’t you listen to me this morning? The guys don’t like it when you snoop!”

  I waved that aside. “That’s not the problem.” I took a deep breath. “It was a snuff film.”

  Laurel looked blank. “I’m not following. What’s a snuff film?”

  I sighed. I was about to lose my mind. We had mere minutes before John came crashing in, looking for Laurel, afraid we were talkin
g about him. Laurel’s airhead act might have been cute when she was twenty, but it was ridiculous for a woman pushing fifty.

  I shut the door, holding a finger to my lips for quiet. “A snuff film is a type of porn that depicts a rape and murder.”

  Laurel considered this, arms crossed, then her eyes grew enormous. “Are you saying that…”

  “Keep your voice down, I don’t want them to hear us!” I hissed. “Yes. That is what I’m saying. It’s a snuff film of Lucy. You know, Lucy? Sam’s murdered fiancée?”

  “Why do Sam and John have a snuff film of Lucy?”

  Laurel was being dense, not wanting to face the truth. “Laurel,” I said, grabbing both her hands and gazing into her eyes, “they murdered Lucy.”

  Laurel yanked her hands out of my grasp and shook her head. “No. Uh-uh. I don’t believe that. That’s bullshit. Melody, I know John very well. He’s not capable of something like that. Now, I don’t know what you thought you saw…”

  “I know what I saw!” I said.

  “No. I’m going to set this straight right now. John! John! Will you come here, please?”

  Shit! “Laurel, please, I’m begging you. Listen to me. You can’t tell him we know.”

  “Don’t you tell me what to tell my boyfriend.” She raised her voice even higher. “John! John!”

  The door burst open. John stood on the threshold, with Sam behind him.

  I walked over to the window, hugging myself. All I could hope for now was a quick end.

  “Melody’s got some crazy idea that you have a snuff film of Lucy next to your VCR.”

  “Really,” John stated. “That’s some crazy shit right there.”

  “Melody, care to join this discussion?” Sam asked, a warning note in his voice. I turned around, unable to bear the intensity of his gaze, instead staring down at his white stockinged feet. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself, you little snoop. After I specifically told you not to.” He made a tsk noise.

  “I want to go home, okay? Take me home.” Tears were close.

  “I can’t take you home. No one is going anywhere tonight. The roads are terrible. It snowed, rained, and then froze. We’ll end up getting killed.”

  “How convenient,” I said.

  Shaking their heads, John and Laurel left the room, leaving Sam to deal with me.

  “I don’t know what you thought you saw, Mel, but I wish you’d talk to me about it instead of freaking out.” He sounded reasonable. “I thought we meant something to each other. I thought you trusted me.”

  “I thought that, too,” I said.

  “Then trust me. That’s all I ask. Trust me.”

  I shook my head violently, tears running down my cheeks. Lucy trusted him. That turned out to be a fatal mistake.

  “Go upstairs and lock the door if you don’t feel safe,” Sam suggested. “I’ll sleep down here on the couch. When the roads are clear, we’ll drive you home. Then it’s over. We’re done. If you can’t trust me, if you can’t believe in me, then we can’t be together. Think about it, Mel. Think hard. You either trust me or you don’t.”

  I brushed past him. A movie was playing in the VCR in the living room. Laurel and John were entwined on the couch. They ignored me as I headed for the stairs.

  As I reached the top step, my blood ran cold. I heard her voice, coming from the TV below. Lucy’s voice.

  I was in even more trouble than I thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I heard them talking from what seemed like a great distance. I was disoriented. Where was I?

  Then I remembered everything.

  The three psychos were standing over me, Sam, John and Laurel, shaking their heads with regret.

  I struggled to a sitting position. My tongue felt like cotton in my dry mouth. “What’s happening?” I asked.

  Laurel smirked. “Really? You’re going to ask us that now?”

  Sam sat down on the end of the bed, squeezing my toes through the blankets. “What’s happening is your time has come.”

  I glanced at Laurel, but she refused to look at me.

  “My time has come?” I repeated. “What does that mean?”

  Sam pulled a tiny oblong shaped object from the pocket of his jeans. “Technology, huh? This, my dear, is a camera. And to think we once had to set up an entire tripod on my desk.”

  “Is this a joke?” I asked. Despite all the drama, I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe that everything I feared about Sam and John was true.

  John guffawed from his spot at the foot of the bed. “Is this a joke, she asks,” he said to Laurel, who rolled her eyes at my stupidity.

  Sam gave my toes a reassuring squeeze. “Your sister, here, planned the whole thing,” he explained.

  “Laurel,” I said, “is that true?”

  She whirled on me, her eyes raking me with contempt. “If you just sold the damn house when I asked, we wouldn’t be here right now!”

  I turned to the men. “And what’s your excuse?”

  Sam looked pensive. “I guess John and I are a little psycho,” he admitted.

  “A little?” John laughed. “That’s like saying a six-hundred-pound man is a little fat!”

  “It’s serendipitous the way we wound up getting adopted by the same family,” Sam said. “What are the odds of that?”

  “A partnership. The key to a successful serial killer is a partnership,” John said pensively, as if he’d given the matter a lot of thought.

  I gaped at Laurel. “Please tell me this is a joke,” I said.

  Sam squeezed my foot again. I stifled the impulse to kick him.

  A slideshow was clicking through my mind, snapshots of Laurel snuggling in bed with me on Christmas Eve, awaiting Santa Claus. Arranging her bachelorette party before her disastrous marriage to George. Cuddling up beside her while she read Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

  Granted, we hadn’t been close in years. I spent more time with Laurel in the past six months than I had in the last two decades.

  She was all I had. But I wasn’t all she had. She had Caleb and Nathan, so I was disposable.

  Laurel’s face blackened in anger. “All you had to do was agree to sell the house,” she said again, like everything was my fault.

  When had she become so mind numbingly selfish? She wasn’t like that growing up. A failed marriage, the struggle to raise two kids with an asshole ex husband, and dating a few freaks had morphed her into someone I didn’t recognize. Or I was just kidding myself. Maybe this was always who she was, and I’d just been in denial.

  “Okay. Let’s sell the house,” I said.

  The room fell silent as everyone digested this new development. Sam rubbed his chin. It was like we were playing a game and I’d just swept all the pieces off the board.

  “It’s too late for that now,” Laurel said almost gently. “Six months ago, that would have been fine. Now there’s no going back. And why should I settle for splitting the money when I can have it all to myself?”

  I recalled the conversation I overheard that morning. They were talking about emptying the house for sale. No wonder my sudden appearance startled them.

  I sagged. Then it was true. This was not a delusion conjured up by my wild imagination. The two people I trusted most in the world wanted to kill me.

  I looked up at Sam. “Did you ever love me at all, or was I always just a pig being readied for slaughter?”

  He squeezed my foot again. I looked down at his hand, confused. It was like he was trying to communicate something to me. Trust me, he’d said downstairs.

  As if belying this thought, he laughed and said, “Pig. Good comparison. Very fitting.”

  “Answer me!” I didn’t want to know the answer, I was just stalling. Events were marching towards an inevitable conclusion. In a short time, I’d be left to rot in the woods, food for the forest creatures. Maybe someday some hiker would stumble across my skull. Perhaps the police would match it to some database of missing women and then pres
ent Laurel with my remains. Would she cry, I wondered, staring at her hard face. Yes, I decided. Crocodile tears. In private, she would laugh.

  Agnes’s voice said, There’s a way out. You just need to think of it.

  Thanks, Ma. Great advice. Why don’t you think of a way out and tell me?

  “I love all my women,” Sam replied, gazing into my eyes. “I love Lucy with all my heart, and I mean love, present tense, because she’s still here with me. After this you’ll always be with me too. You won’t be able to leave.”

  Crazy talk that made no sense.

  Laurel was leaning on the windowsill, staring out at the black sky, a darkness more total than any I’d ever experienced. Was it dark where I was going? I hoped not.

  The window, Agnes whispered.

  I pictured the porch. The window must open onto the roof of the porch. I could climb out it, shimmy down to the railing, and from there drop to the ground. Then I could flee into the woods.

  The frigid, freezing woods filled with coyotes, bears, and God knew what else. But I’d have a much better chance of survival out there than in here.

  “Are you going to kill me now?” I asked in a trembling voice while calculating my next move. I had a feeling they wanted to keep me alive a little longer, to relish my terror. Psychos got off on that sort of thing. Well, that was fine. I just needed a few minutes alone to break the window and escape.

  Sam shrugged, stroking his chin. He glanced at John. “I don’t know if I’m ready to do her yet.” His eyes sparkled as he drank in my fear.

  Laurel sighed. “I know I’m not ready. I need more time to say goodbye.”

  Say goodbye? I wasn’t dying of natural causes. My death was a choice she made. The hypocrisy was stunning. Was there any situation where Laurel did not make herself an object of sympathy?

  John fingered his ridiculous mustache. “Yeah, we should wait. The roads are shitty. We do her now, we’ll be stuck here until the roads are cleared. I like to vacate the area immediately after a body dump.”

  “Agreed,” Sam said. “Guess you got yourself a temporary stay of execution, Melody. Such a lovely name for a plain, dumpy woman.”