Evil In Carnations (32 page)

Iris!
I squeezed Marco’s arm as the lantern light grew bright again. Now we were really trapped.

“For God’s sake, Iris,” Mrs. Frey called, “you scared the living daylights out of me.”

“There’s a car parked up the road, and I saw light in here. . . . Why do you have the shotgun?”

“I heard something and came to see what it was. Go on, now; get out of here. I can handle it. Go back to the house.”

In a voice heavy with suspicion, Iris said, “Who moved the ladder? Were you up in the loft?”

“Don’t worry. Your secret hidey-hole is safe. Now get out of here.”

Footsteps came closer to the stall. I held my breath and curled my body into a tighter knot behind Marco. “Is that my blanket on the floor?” Iris demanded.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” her mother cried. “I knew I should’ve burned this barn down and put an end to your perverted pleasures.”

Iris marched past the stall, grumbling to herself. Then something hit the floorboards with a loud thunk. “My binoculars? You took them from the loft? I told you to leave my things alone!”

“I didn’t touch your damn things.” Shuffling footsteps came toward us; then she was standing at the open stall door, pointing the muzzle of the shotgun at us. “They did.”

A moment later, Iris was gazing down on us, too. “Abby? What are you doing?” She turned to gaze at her mother. “What the hell’s going on here?”

Marco signaled for me to follow his lead by quickly squeezing my hand, then prompted me to rise with him, hands in the air.

“My name is Marco Salvare,” he said in that quiet, confident voice of authority. “I’m a private investigator looking for Hank Miller. Abby came along only to keep me company. I removed the blanket and binoculars from the loft because I thought they belonged to Miller. No harm done, though.” He put his arm around me to lead me out of the stall. “We don’t need them. So we’ll just be on our—”

Mrs. Frey blocked our path. “Get down on your knees, hands behind your head. Iris, go get that gray duct tape off the shelf.”

As her mother set the lantern on the floor, keeping the weapon aimed at Marco’s chest, Iris gazed first at us, then at her mom, as though in a daze. “What are you doing, Mother? Didn’t you hear what the man said? No harm done. Let them go.”

“What I’m doing is trying to protect you, Iris. Now, they have to be dealt with, so go get that tape.”

Iris grabbed the gun’s muzzle and shoved it to the side. “You’re not going to
deal
with anyone. What’s the matter with you?” To us she said, “You can leave.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

We’d just stepped out of the stall when Mrs. Frey tried to yank the muzzle of the shotgun out of Iris’s grasp. “Stupid girl! You can’t let them get away. They’ll ruin everything.”

As the women struggled for the weapon, Marco took my hand and we ran. But before we could reach the door, a shot rang out, and this time thick pieces of wood from the rafters rained down on our heads. Before another shot was fired, Marco pushed me behind a fat post, doing his best to shield me with his body, while Iris screamed, “Mother, have you lost your mind?”

“They have to be stopped, Iris. They know about Jonas.”

“What are you talking about?” Iris cried. “What about Jonas?”

“Don’t question me now. Just get the tape.” Then to us Mrs. Frey yelled. “You take a step out that door, and I’ll blast you to bits.”

“What do they know about Jonas?” Iris ground out.

“Not now, Iris!”

“I’m not moving until you give me an answer.”

There was a sharp sigh; then Mrs. Frey said in a tone of exasperation, “I made sure Jonas wouldn’t hurt you anymore. But these people will, Iris, if we don’t stop them.”

“Wait a minute,” Iris said, her voice registering confusion. “What do you mean, you made sure he wouldn’t hurt me? What are you saying?”

What the heck
was
Mrs. Frey saying.
She
killed Jonas?

“Make a run for it while they’re arguing,” Marco whispered, his voice so faint I could barely hear it. “Wait for my signal.”

“You don’t need to know everything, Iris! Isn’t it enough that we’re free of the misery now? Free of their abuses?”

“Whose abuses?” Iris cried. “No one abused us. Are you talking about Father again?”

“Are you gonna help me or are you gonna stand there with that stupid look on your face?”

“Answer me first!” Iris demanded, stamping her foot.

“For pity’s sake, where have you been, Iris? Didn’t we suffer enough hell from that man?”

“From Father?” Iris cried hysterically. “What did he ever do to me? You’re the one who made my life hell!”

I peered around the post just as Mrs. Frey hit Iris on the side of her head with the butt of her shotgun. “Don’t talk to me like that,” she sneered, as Iris crumpled to the floor, holding her head. “I’m the one who always protected you. I’m the one who put an end to his abuse. No more suffering for us, Iris. No more misery.”

Iris appeared dazed as she stared up at Dalva. “
You
set the fire? It wasn’t an accident?”

I clapped my hand over my mouth in shock.

“I did what I had to do to protect you, Iris, just like I did with that no-good Jonas Treat.”

Iris began to sob, rocking back and forth in misery, holding her injured head. “You killed Jonas! Oh, my Lord! You killed him! You killed the man I love.”

“What was I supposed to do, let you keep stalking that idiot?” Mrs. Frey shouted, as Iris keened in grief. “Watch you throw yourself at him? Flirt like a hussy every time he came into the shop? Go through his pockets, making believe he was in love with you while he ridiculed you every time your back was turned?”

“Stop it!” Iris screamed. “Don’t say that! He loved me!”

“He didn’t love you, and you know it. I saw you that night, huddled in the car crying while he smooched his date outside that model home. You sat there like a whipped puppy, wishing it were you with him. What a pathetic sight you were. I had to put an end to it.”

Mrs. Frey had to be talking about Jonas’s date with Nikki.

“You followed me!” Iris cried.

“You think I was about to let you throw your life away for a shallow little man who’d treat you like a slave and use you up until you were nothing but a dried-up old crone?”

With a roar of fury, Iris leaped at her, and the two began to struggle. I glanced at Marco, expecting him to give me a signal, and saw him sagged against the post, blood streaming down the side of his head.

“Marco,” I whispered in fright, as the women battled just yards away. “You’re hurt!”

He touched his fingers to his temple, then looked at them as though he couldn’t understand why blood was there. “Go, Abby,” he said weakly. “Now.”

“I’m not leaving you here!”

“Do it!” Then he slumped over.

I started to reach for him, only to feel the barrel of the shotgun between my shoulder blades. “Don’t move,” Mrs. Frey commanded in a snarl.

Trying to keep the fear out of my voice, I said, “He’s wounded. I need to help him.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ll both be dead soon anyway.”

I swallowed hard and glanced around for Iris, only to see her out cold on the floor.

“Mrs. Frey, please,” I begged, as panic rose in my throat. “I love him.”

“Love,” she said with a scoff, then jabbed me in the back again. “I’ll be right back. Stay there.”

Without seeming to shift position, I turned my head enough to keep her in my peripheral view. With the shotgun aimed at me, she backed toward a shelf stacked with supplies, a roll of gray tape among them. If she tied us up, we’d be at her mercy, and I couldn’t let that happen. I desperately groped for the right words to keep her mind engaged, even as I prayed that Reilly had received my message and was on his way.

“You fell in love once, Mrs. Frey. You got married, had a baby. You loved that baby, didn’t you?”

She felt along the shelf for the roll of gray tape, never taking her eyes off me.

“You love Iris, don’t you, Mrs. Frey? Look how you’ve protected her all these years. Only a good mother does that. Only a mother who loves her child goes to those lengths.”

“Like she ever appreciated me,” Mrs. Frey said snidely, snatching the roll of tape.

I cast a glance at Marco and saw blood pooling beneath his head and a sickly pallor coming to his face. Moving very slowly, I reached for his wrist and found a pulse, weak but steady. I had no way of knowing how badly he was injured, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t about to let him die.

“I’ll bet Iris just never told you she appreciated you, Mrs. Frey. That’s how it is with me. I appreciate my mom but I forget to tell her. She protects me just like you protect Iris.”

“Iris didn’t understand,” the woman said, shuffling toward me. “She was too young to know how cruel her father was to me. I suffered until I couldn’t stand it anymore; then one night I found a candle burning in Iris’s bedroom, and it came to me just like that, how to make Bill’s death look like an accident. It almost didn’t work, though. The damned firemen got there too fast. Iris doesn’t know how lucky we were that the old bastard died anyway.”

She was standing above Marco now. “Pull his hands behind him.”

My mind raced. I had to do something fast. “He’s unconscious. What’s the point of tying his hands? He can’t hurt you.”

At that moment, Marco groaned. Quickly, Mrs. Frey raised the butt of the shotgun, ready to slam it down on his head. Every hair on my body stood on end as I imagined the outcome, and at once I was filled with an almost blinding rage.

Before she could act, I lunged at her, lifting her off the floor with newfound strength before taking her down, landing on top of her with a hard thud that drove the air out of my lungs. As I gulped for breath, she used the heels of her hands to shove my chin up, then with startling might wrestled me onto my back and pressed the shotgun barrel across my throat until I thought my Adam’s apple would be crushed.

I pushed frantically against the weapon, trying to break her hold as my strength waned. In the background I heard Marco groan again. With one last burst of adrenaline, I slid my hands along the woman’s bare legs until I could pinch her thighs hard. As she bellowed in pain, I broke her hold on the weapon and pushed her off. Dragging air into my starved lungs, I got to my knees and reached for the shotgun just as she grabbed the other end. Then we began a deadly tug-of-war I was not about to let her win.

Suddenly, gravel crunched outside as vehicles came toward the barn, with a multitude of red and blue lights flashing through the slits in the boards. I wanted to shout for joy. The police had come! Reilly had received my message. It was my third stroke of luck.

When Mrs. Frey realized what was happening, her eyes widened in fear. She let go of the shotgun, sending me sprawling backward onto the straw as she glanced around in a panic. Her gaze focused on the small wooden door at the far end of the barn. And then she fled, half loping, half shuffling, toward it.

I scrambled to my feet to stop her, but as she passed her daughter’s prostrate form, Iris’s hand shot out and grabbed her ankle, causing her mother to fall on her face. Before Dalva could get up, Iris sprang on top of her and began pummeling her back, sobbing, “Murderer! You killed the only men I ever loved! You’re going to rot in hell for what you did.”

At once the room was filled with shouts, and thundering feet, and the beams of many flashlights, as the cops swarmed in, weapons drawn. I immediately put the shotgun on the ground and raised my hands, but they ignored me and aimed their guns at Iris.

With a gasp, she raised her hands, her crooked mouth agape in terror. “Don’t shoot me! I’m innocent!”

As the cops took control of both women, I quickly ran to Marco’s side and knelt down, smoothing back his dark hair, sticky now with blood, trying to see where he was hurt. Talking soothingly even while I trembled in fear, I said, “Marco, the cops are here. We’ll get you to the hospital now. You’ll be fine.” But there was no response.

And then Reilly was beside me, feeling Marco’s neck for a pulse. At the sight of our cop buddy, tears of relief spilled out of my eyes. Reilly waved over the EMTs, then glanced at me. “Marco’s going to be fine. Are you okay?”

I nodded, wiping the wetness off my face, as the medical technicians checked Marco’s head for injury and took his vital signs. “How is he?” I asked them, sniffing back tears.

“Seems to be a superficial wound,” one of them said, as the other began wrapping his head with gauze. “Scalps bleed a lot. He might need a transfusion, but he’ll be okay.”

As the cops brought Iris and her mom past, both in hand-cuffs, I pointed out Mrs. Frey to Reilly. “She murdered Jonas. She planned the whole thing. The blue bike over there is what she used to get to Jonas’s office and back. Her daughter didn’t know anything about it. Don’t let them put Iris in jail, Reilly.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said.

The techs lay Marco on a rolling stretcher, raised it, then wheeled him out of the barn toward the ambulance waiting farther up the driveway. I followed behind, exhausted emotionally and physically. As we walked, Reilly asked questions. I told him everything I could remember; then, before climbing into the back of the ambulance, I said, “I’m going to stay at the hospital until I know Marco’s okay. Would you call his family? And my parents?”

“I’ll take care of everything,” he promised; then the doors were shut and we were off.

By midnight, Marco was sitting up in his hospital bed, sipping water and making jokes about wimping out on me. He had two stitches on his head, cuts and bruises on his face and hands, and a headache, but his color was good and so were all his vital signs.

“Come on, Sunshine, smile. I don’t look that bad, do I?”

For at least the twelfth time that evening, I put my arms around him and leaned my head on his shoulder, sitting beside him on the bed. “I’m sorry, Marco. I’m just so relieved you’re okay. You don’t know how close you came to not being here.”