Oliver’s beefy hand slapped my cheek. “I don’t want to have to carry you, Luke. Stay with me a few more minutes.”
I blinked the world back into focus and found myself amidst lifejackets and pool noodles, broken lounge chairs and shelves full of chemicals for the estate pools. I was stumbling over my feet and knocking into things, even with Oliver’s arm in a death grip around my waist.
“This room isn’t used anymore,” he said breathlessly. “It was for the janitors when the pool was open to the public. There are no cameras…”
Legs trembling and stars flashing before my eyes, the pain in all my limbs, even in my fingers, was just too much. Oliver was a tower of strength, determinedly supporting me, weaving us around stacks of abandoned furniture and piles of umbrellas in a room the size of a high school gym.
“C’mon. Keep moving, Luke,” he huffed, arm tightening. “We’re almost there.”
Where ‘almost there’ was, I didn’t care. I just wanted to lay flat on the floor. He persisted, though. His strength defying logic. He was dragging me, maneuvering to the back of the room through mounds of stuff that seemed endless. When he doubled over to catch his breath, I fell to my knees.
“We are backed into a corner. Nowhere to go.” It took all my energy to talk. Everything hurt. Oliver was frantic, confused. “It’s here. I know it’s here,” he muttered, straightening up and making his way over to a desk that was pushed up against the wall. Chairs piled up around it went crashing into other chairs when he gave it a shove, and he was pleased to uncover a hole in the wall big enough for a man.
“Jackpot,” Oliver said, reaching for me. “You go first.”
“Go where?”
“It’s a laundry chute. You’ll be fine. I promise,” Oliver said. “There will be a hundred old towels at the bottom to break your fall. And if there isn’t, well… that will suck. Now hurry up. I have to go last so I can try and pull this desk back against the wall.”
This seemed like a bad idea. I just wanted to lie down and disappear into the darkness stealing my vision.
“Luke, it’s either take your chances here, or die back in that room,” Oliver said.
Eagerly, I took his outstretched hand and he pulled me to my feet. When I stuck my head into the hole, a tap of my fingers confirmed I was staring into the darkness of a metal tube, and that wasn’t comforting in the least.
Another alarm started ringing, this one louder, and Oliver wasn’t having any of my hesitation. “Listen, it held me up as a kid, so it will hold you too,” he said, then he grabbed me by the back of the pants and shoved me in.
I was falling, then sliding. My arms and legs pushing against the sides did nothing to slow my descent as I sped forward on my stomach. At a twist in the pitch-black tube I’ll be damned if I didn’t stifle a yelp when the metal grazed my back. When a pin dot of light came into view, I was mercilessly launched toward it and onto a mountain of towels.
I had landed and broken neither bone nor fear of dark tunnels.
My heart was beating too fast, though. Lungs choking on a cloud of dust my landing had created. I counted my lucky stars, then I heard it; the rattling of the metal chute as Oliver barreled toward me at breakneck speed. I rolled out of the way and narrowly missed his feet colliding with my face.
“Ha!” he said, bouncing back upward. “What a rush! You all right?”
I was still fighting to breathe, coughing again, and hurting more than ever. I managed a nod but remained on the towels, suddenly not caring about anything except not moving.
“Thank goodness they didn’t disconnect the motion sensor lights, or we’d be—”
Oliver’s elation came to a grinding halt. He was looking at my back. “Oh man. Luke. I’m so sorry they did that to you,” he said.
I tried to get up, but I was so cold, shaking as if I’d dove into a glacier-fed lake. “Ah, it’s not so bad,” I said, collapsing back onto my face.
“Just stay there. Rest right where you are, okay?” Oliver said. “The entrances to this laundry room were sealed off long ago. There’s no way in but the way we just came. You’re safe for now. I promise.”
Beneath my battered body, I imagined the mildewed towels had become the most expensive feather bed. When did I last sleep? When was the last time I had laid down? I noticed a spider scurry out from under a yellowed corner, and I didn’t even care.
“Just rest,” Oliver said, voice fading in and out of my ears. “I got this.”
Lisa kicked the walls then tugged on her hair and pounded her fists against her forehead as if that would change anything. She said the word ‘no’ over and over with varying degrees of anger, which then gave way to a sadness that cut so deep it bled out onto the rug beside Seth’s body. Slumping down to the floor next to it, her chest heaved in a heart-wrenching shudder. I tried to comfort her.
“Lisa, I’m so—”
She put her hand up to cut me off, not wanting to hear me, preferring instead to hide her face against her knees and rock back and forth. We sat in silence for the longest time. Emergency vehicles rushed past the house, oblivious to our nightmare as their sirens wailed then faded off into the distance. A car door slammed. A kid yelled at another kid from across the street and a stereo boomed. There was so much action outside. But inside? The whir of the furnace was the only sound now. There certainly was nothing coming from Seth, that’s for sure.
Because he was dead.
As a doorknob.
A bullet in his neck. A brief struggle for air before he collapsed, limp and lifeless to the floor and now his eyes were wide and blank; just like Ben’s had been when he died.
It was all I could do not to scream and scream and scream…
The blood spreading out across the carpet had become a morbidly shaped butterfly. The wings reached out, getting close to Lisa. Nipping at my toes. I pulled my feet up off the floor just as a motorcycle next door fired up. Another siren blared, and a dog greeted his owner with an excited bark. Thomas spoke and startled me out of my skin.
“Untie me,” he said.
The butterfly was reaching for him, too.
“Kaya—”
Head pounding, nerves rattled and raw, I felt so betrayed and hurt by him. I wanted to get lost in Lisa’s sadness, focus on her completely. But my name on Thomas’s tongue split me right down the middle.
“I’m sorry, Kaya, so deeply sorry. Please… I’m on your side I promise. Untie me. We can’t just leave Seth there on the floor. If someone comes—”
I gave Thomas my full attention. “I can’t believe you did that to me, Thomas,” I said, absently rubbing the back of my head where the rock took a go at it.
Thomas flinched. “I couldn’t just let you go off and… and—”
“And what?” The combination of fluttering and crushing in my chest was unbearable, so was the unmoving, stunned, and horrified expression now settling over Lisa’s face.
Thomas shuddered. “Risk never seeing you again. Risk you dying.”
“You had no right,” I raged. “If Luke is dead because of this—because of me—I’ll never forgive you. If you are going to try to control me, tell me what to do, or force me to comply with your wishes, I don’t want anything to do with you!”
His dark eyes settled on mine with a ferocious passion. “What would you have done, Kaya, huh?” His cheeks flamed red. “If Luke decided he was going to walk off the edge of a cliff and see what happened, would you let him? Would you take a risk with his life? No. No, I don’t think you would. I’m sorry for what I did, I went about things the wrong way that’s for sure. But I don’t regret it at all. I love you. There… I said it. Dead bodies, crazy messed-up family, and no hope in hell of ever winning your heart, I love you. So, if you can’t deal with that—if you can’t deal with a friend that just wants to keep you alive—then leave me tied up and start running because I won’t stand back and watch you throw your life away!”
His voice rattled the tiny house and shook me right to my toes
. He was staring intently, a dare in his eyes and a prayer on his lips.
“Leave me,” he roared, tears threatening to spill as he motioned to the door. “Now.”
I didn’t know what to say. With every fiber of my very being, I didn’t want to leave him. I was still raging mad, but… something about Thomas pulled and held me tighter than if I was chained to him.
I wanted him in my life. My inability to move and the tears now rolling down my cheeks were words clear enough to tell him that.
“Please, Kaya, untie me,” he begged, voice softening, swallowing hard.
Kneeling beside him, I worked at the knots around his wrists while avoiding his eyes. Finally free, he dropped to his knees before me.
“Look at me,” he said.
I was so angry, hurt, and confused. Worried for Luke, as well as incredibly sad for Lisa.
“Please.”
Thomas’s breath caught. His hand cupped my chin and he tilted my face up to his. I could tell he wanted to pull me close, and I hoped the glare I was forcing was a warning not to.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “Truly I am.”
I wanted to scream at him, slap him and scratch his eyes out—and melt into him and cry against his chest with his arms tight around me. So, I inched away. I had to remain angry at Thomas. It was easier than dealing with the chaos of feelings he kept pulling to the surface. Or the heartbreak of Seth’s staggering betrayal.
“Lisa?” I reached out to touch her arm. She was fixated on the gun discarded on the floor next to her.
“I’m okay,” she said, suddenly leaping to her feet and clearing her throat. Tossing a grungy blanket over Seth’s body, she wiped angrily at her eyes. “What are we going to do with him?”
I had to be strong. For her.
“See if there’s a deep freeze in the basement,” I said to Thomas.
He was eager to escape the room. “On it.”
Lisa put her hands on her hips. “What about the rug?”
I held back the urge to throw up. “Pretty sure there’s no cleaning it. See if you can find a knife and a garbage bag. We can cut out the stained parts at least.”
Lisa turned to head for the kitchen, then stopped abruptly. “I’m not a very good friend,” she said, her back to me, her tiny shoulders bearing too much weight. “I wanted you to have your way, but only because I wanted Luke back. I put your life above his, Kaya. He would hate me for that. And Seth—” she could barely say his name. “I had a feeling. I saw… things. But I ignored them.”
“You did what you thought was best. I won’t hold it against you.”
“So, now what?” she said with a gulp.
I felt wicked saying it: “We clean up this mess and dispose of the evidence.”
Lisa nodded. “And then what?” she asked, hand over her heart as Thomas began dragging Seth’s body across the room and down to the basement freezer.
“We get Luke back. Whatever it takes.”
We cut out the stained parts of the rug, focusing on the task at hand to avoid talking. Silence crackled with tension, and when Thomas dumped an armload of TV dinners on the kitchen counter, it really hit home that he had done so to make room for the body he’d stashed in the freezer—of a man I’d thought of as a friend. My mouthful of mashed potatoes suddenly tasted like acid. Swallowing them became impossible when Seth’s phone started to ring. Lisa rose, reaching for it as I reached for her.
“How well do you know Regan?” I asked, certain that was who was calling.
“About as well as I knew Seth,” she said dismally. “Which apparently was not well enough.”
I let her go.
“Hello Regan,” Lisa said into the phone. She leaned against the stove wearily and pushed food containers out of the way. “No. Seth’s out for a walk, checking the perimeter as he always does. I have Kaya with me and we are working on a—what? No. Oliver went on his own and… Don’t yell at me, Regan! We are—” Lisa was fighting tears. “Stop it, Regan. We are working on it and—”
There was no resistance when I took the phone from Lisa’s hand. I braced myself, putting it to my ear with a deep breath. “Regan, calm down or I’ll hang up on you,” I said.
A heavy intake of air. A long, forced sigh. “What is going on, Kaya?” Regan asked with a razor-sharp tone.
I pictured his anxious face and those freckles dotting his tanned cheeks. His hand—minus a few fingers, courtesy of Rayna—was probably pressed against his temple or fidgeting with his thick red hair. If Seth had answered the phone, he would have addressed Regan as ‘Dr. Death,’ which was a term that brought back a not-so-good memory of having my heart restarted after an overdose of sedatives.
“We’ve had some complications,” I said, realizing I had that same metallic taste in my mouth that I had when I’d woken up slung over Seth’s shoulder in the forest. Had I been drugged again? “Lisa is just a bit… upset.”
Regan’s temper was barely restrained. “As am I. Yesterday Seth said he had a plan, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. Now I hear that Luke still isn’t free. What are you guys doing about it?”
The food in my stomach wasn’t sitting well. “I’m not sure yet,” I said honestly.
“Seth doesn’t have a plan, does he? He’s just saying that to keep me quiet. Tell me Kaya.”
“How is Louisa?” I said, changing the subject.
This threw him. All anger left his voice. “Huh? Oh. She is perfectly fine. Whining for Lisa constantly but that`s to be expected. She has a rash on her arm, but it’s healing. I’m keeping an eye on it.”
“Good. And you?”
Regan paused. “Me? Uh… I’m fine, too, I guess. Still can’t move with this bloody cast on my leg. My fingers that aren’t there are throbbing all the time and I’m worried sick about my best friend but other than that, I’m all right. Wait, you’re distracting me, Kaya. What’s going on? Is it Luke? What aren’t you telling me?”
I cut him off. Barely able to speak. “I don’t know how Luke is. Oliver went off on his own to try and get him out, but now… I don’t know about him either.”
Regan spoke softer. “Oliver won’t get caught, he’s too smart for that. And Luke… well, Henry won’t kill him,” he said, trying to appease both of us. “Luke is too valuable. Henry knows he’s the one thing he can use to get to you and it wouldn’t be a smart move to kill him. Not yet, anyway. I honestly believe that, given those factors, we have a small window of time, Kaya.”
I held on to Regan’s words. “Thank you,” I said, closing my eyes and praying feverishly it was true. “Regan,” I started, then paused.
“What?” he asked.
“How well do you know Seth?”
Lisa and Thomas froze.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Well, sometimes I’m just not sure if he’s, um, on the same side as us. I wonder if I can trust him.”
“Oh.” Regan seemed to give it some thought. “He’s got some issues. I know he can come across as a little rough around the edges and sort of odd. But hey, aren’t we all?”
I couldn’t ignore the shredded carpet. “Yeah.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Kaya?” Regan asked intuitively.
“Well, he kept—uh, keeps checking his watch.”
“Why?”
“No idea.”
“So, Seth is acting a bit more strange than usual? Is that what you’re saying?”
I coughed nervously. “Yeah. You could say that.”
“Huh. I mean, I like the guy, but between you and me, I’ve had my reservations about him since day one. Just a feeling, ya know? I’ve never had an actual reason not to trust him. I mean, he saved my life when he fished my dumb ass out of those falls, and he went back to that mountain to save you and Luke, so I think he has your best interest at heart. Besides, doing anything to jeopardize getting Luke free would really tick off Lisa and he’s fallen madly for—”
“He tried to shoot her,” I interjected.
Silence. Regan struggled to regain his ability to speak. “Please tell me she is okay.”
“Yes. Physically.”
I could sense Regan’s relief, and then his rage. “Whatever the hell his reason was, I’m going to kill him for that. Lisa is… well… dammit, you tell that bastard to phone me the second he gets back.”
My throat went dry. “I can’t. He’s out for a walk.”
Silence. “I see. One of those walks you sometimes get lost on?”
I had no reply. But it was reply enough. We both knew only so much could be said through a cell phone connection.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted.
I could hear Regan thinking. His brilliant mind clicking in time with the clock on the stove. “You must bring him here to me. Understand? I’ll deal with him and set things straight. And I’ll make sure that his friends in frightening places don’t get involved. This must be handled carefully, or a hornet’s nest of epic proportions will hit the proverbial fan. Okay?”
I felt a massive surge of relief knowing Regan would help us. “Yes.”
“And tell Lisa I’m sorry. She deserves better. And that there is a child here that loves her with all her heart and needs her to come back soon.”
I didn’t have to tell Lisa that. She could hear Regan’s soaring voice plain as day in the quiet house and her posture crumpled at his words.
“All right,” I said, close to tears.
“So, for now, what can I do for you on my end?” Regan asked, and I could hear Louisa talking to Brutus in the background. I let the sound of the child’s voice sit in my ears a moment before answering.
“Pray.”
The candle flickering on the table smelled like jasmine and didn’t mix well with the turkey and cranberry sauce leftovers in the garbage can, or the bleach lingering in the living room. My fluttering stomach threatened to get the best of me, but I couldn’t allow it. I had people to take care of. A monster to deal with.
I shoved aside my dinner and began dialing Henry. Thomas lunged for my wrist.
Rhapsody Page 4
