Hostile Makeover (40 page)

Lacey was aware that Penfield’s—or Caleb’s—voice was now shifting into a West Virginia accent, sounding a lot like the younger man on the taped show that her mother and Cherise were still watching.

“Tate didn’t associate much with other people, and he was considered an odd duck. But we were pretty close. His folks dropped him off at our house one day when he was just a kid, and they never came back. After we grew up, he lived alone up in the Blue Ridge in his folks’ old cabin. He called me here one night to say good-bye, which was funny, because he never went anywhere. It was after Amanda dumped me and before my surgery. When I finally figured out that he might be talking about suicide, I jumped in the car and drove through the night to talk him out of it. I arrived just as the sun was coming up. He was hanging from the apple tree in the front yard. His body was still warm.”

Questions would only stop the flow of Penfield’s story, so Lacey kept quiet. Perhaps the deeper he got into it, the more he would forget about her. Her gut instinct, in spite of all the confessing-killer scenes she’d seen on TV and in the movies, was that if someone really wanted to kill you, they would just kill you, and not talk your ears off first.

“I cut my cousin down from that tree and I buried him back in the hills where no one will ever find him. That was what the note said he wanted. He wrote it on the back of a paper grocery bag and left it on the kitchen table under his coffee cup. He washed the dishes so there wouldn’t be any unnecessary mess. I think a person’s last wishes should be respected, don’t you?”

She didn’t really know what to answer, so she said nothing.

“After I buried him, I stayed another day or two. I chopped down that apple tree. It was heavy with the smell of rotting apples. I loved my cousin, but he had a side that no one could reach. He claimed he was of no use to the world because his family threw him away. But I saw how he could be useful to me. His Social Security number. His driver’s license. We would even have some of the same DNA passed down through our mothers. I knew everyone he knew, and none of them would be expecting Tate Penfield to be very sociable. As I burned what remained of that tree, I decided to take Amanda up on her offer to change my life. It was very useful to have valid identification that no one would question. So I became Tate, and Tate came out of his shell.” Penfield sighed. “Now, we were discussing the end of the story. I’ll give you your cue, Lacey.” He turned to check on a video camera.

She jumped from her seat and ran toward the door, but Penfield was quick; he closed the distance between them easily. He spun her around and grabbed her hands and pulled her back to the cameras. “No. It’s not over yet. Listen to me: Don’t be afraid; this is your Pulitzer prize, your ticket to the big time.”

“Tate, just let me send my mother and my sister home.”

“They’re not in any danger. Tonight we’ll finish this sad story. And it’ll be your story, too. To tell the world.” He steered her away from any avenue of escape. He didn’t release her; he pushed her back down into her seat and held her wrists firmly in his hands.

What is he waiting for?
Lacey wondered. She could always scream, but she would have to choose her moment carefully. And she would have to yell her lungs out to alert Cherise and Rose, glued to the TV, behind the office door.

“What do you want?” She was determined not to use the words
kill
and
me.
There was one thing that Lacey knew: She did not want her blood splashed garishly on any television screen, pandering to the prurient interest of the television audience, if not on the nightly news, then later on Court TV. In no case was that acceptable. Maybe she could grab a camera tripod and smash him over the head with it; she briefly wondered how much it weighed. She made a move. He blocked her, still holding her wrists tightly.

“You have it all wrong, Lacey.”

“That would be nothing new, Tate.”

He tightened his grip on her arms. “You seem to think I mean to do you some harm. I don’t. Really, really, I don’t,” he crooned, is if to soothe her as one would soothe a crying baby.

“You’re not?”
And that means Mom and Cherise are safe?

“No. It’s time to dispatch the monster. And that’s not you. It’s me. It’s my turn to die.”

“Oh, my God. You’re not planning to commit suicide on camera?”
That’s a mortal sin. But then, so is murder. I can’t look.

“No, no, no, that’s not the scenario for the final scene. The scenario is this: You are going to kill me.”

Chapter 31

“No!” Lacey felt the air escape her lungs in that desperate denial. He released his hold and she jumped up and backed away from him. “No, no, no! I can’t do that!”

“You have to,” Penfield said. “Lacey, please.”

“Please what? Kill you? What universe am I in?”

“I’ve tried and I can’t.”

He followed her until she reached the shelves, bumping her hip painfully against a sharp edge. “Oww. Back off, Tate.”

“Careful, don’t hurt yourself,” he said, as if he cared. “Lacey, I can’t pull the trigger. Amanda, yes, but I can’t kill myself. The truth is, I’m a god-awful coward. I still remember how lonely it must have been for Tate. I can’t forget cutting my cousin down from that tree.”

“Take a pill! Anything, only don’t do this to me.”

“What I have done demands a blood sacrifice.”

“Not from me! I’m not a judge, jury, or executioner.” She tried to sidle down the wall toward the door.

“I’m a monster and I must die.” There was a tone in his voice, a wildness in his hazel eyes that warned Lacey he was sliding into dangerous territory. She wasn’t sure he was a monster, but certainly he was mad, she thought, and he could transform at any moment. After all, he’d already transformed once.

“You could turn yourself in. Virginia will execute you,” she offered hopefully. “So will Texas,” she added, wondering even as she said it what on earth Texas had to do with it.

“Unfortunately, the District of Columbia will not. Years on death row are not what I’m after. ‘The man had killed the thing he loved, and so he had to die.’ ” Lacey recognized the quotation from Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” He paused; he sounded quite rational. “I have left instructions on how to finish the documentary. It’s all yours. Hansen will be able to help you. Should be a hot property after I’m dead.” The music had stopped, and Penfield fell silent again. She was aware of the buzzing from the overhead fluorescent light. The television in the next room was blaring, “Go with Amanda now as she shops for the fairy-tale dress for her big reveal! Who is this vision of loveliness? And how will her fiancé, Caleb Collingwood, react when he sees the new Amanda . . . ?”
Good God,
Lacey thought,
are they watching the entire series?

“I have only one regret, you know,” Penfield said. “That bastard Spaulding did not die.”

“It was you I saw in the hospital.”

“The Grim Reaper. Yes. I always liked Halloween. I would have finished him off, if not for you. But that can’t be helped. Other than that, your timing on this entire venture has been impeccable. And just so you know, I’m sorry I hurt you, Lacey. I was a little irritated with you at the time.”

“If you planned it, how did you know I would be there when you shot Amanda?”

“I didn’t. That was such a good omen. A sign that everything was going my way. Did you ever get a sign from above?”

Yeah. Mine said, HOT DOUGHNUTS NOW.
“You don’t have to do this, Tate. And you can’t ask me to commit murder.”

“I suppose you’re right.” He sighed; then he bared his teeth in an unnatural smile. “Well, then, there’s always self-defense. Your specialty, right?” He yanked her back to the center of the room. “One way or another, this is my day to die. This is a cautionary tale. It needs a moral. The monster must die at the hands of the beautiful heroine.”

“Are you crazy? You want me to kill you on camera so I can go to prison? That’s your moral?” The illogic of it stunned her. “Turn off the damned cameras,” she pleaded, hoping that he would turn his back on her just long enough.

“Live fast, die young, and I certainly don’t care about leaving a beautiful corpse.” She realized Penfield’s stunning features were beginning to get on her nerves. “Nevertheless, the cameras must stay on. Don’t worry, Lacey.” He reached behind his back and pulled out a gun from the waistband of his jeans as she watched in horror. He offered it to her. “I have written a full confession, including how I coerced you. I figured it might come to this. Actually, it’s a video confession. I’m not much of a writer.”

“No! I’m leaving, Tate. And I’m taking my mother and sister with me.” She could hear
The Chrysalis Factor
winding down back in the office. She turned around and took a step before he grabbed her with one arm and with another thrust the weapon at her, butt first. It looked like a nine millimeter; she had fired Vic’s, and she didn’t like it.

“Take the gun,” he growled at her.

“I’m not going to kill you, Tate.”
As God is my witness.
“And I don’t like automatics.”

“Do it!”

“No!” She struggled to get away from him.

He took both her hands and pressed them around the gun. He looked her in the eyes and spoke very clearly. “I can kill you, Lacey, and your cozy little family, and commit ‘suicide by cop.’ A messier ending, but it works for me. We already know that I’m a murderer. You have no choice. So now it’s either you or me.” Something had switched on in Tate’s face. He was serious.

Lacey told herself that she had not been clever enough; she had let her damned curiosity bring her to this point. She had wanted to get the rest of the story on Tate Penfield.
Well, be careful what you wish for.
Adrenaline pounded through her veins, and she realized she would have to do something she hated more than anything in the world. Something that went against every fiber of her being, everything she believed in and held sacred.

God help me. I’m going to have to ask my mother and sister for help.
She was struggling with him, nose-to-chin. The gun was now over her head, pointing at the ceiling, and he was squeezing her hands, wedging her finger in the trigger guard. “You’re hurting me!” she yelled into his face. Penfield pressed his finger over hers on the trigger—the pressure was painful; she felt the trigger move—and together they squeezed off a shot. The report reverberated in the cement-block studio, and the bullet nicked the fluorescent light and set it swinging. It surprised them both.

“Okay,” he growled. “That was a start. Next time aim for my head.” Penfield’s face was gleaming with moisture.

“You’re sick,” Lacey said.

“Yes. Crazy, insane, depraved, vicious, vengeful. All of the above. You have to slay the beast. Come on, Lacey, you’ve been face-to-face with killers before. That’s why I chose you. This part was made for you, damn it; now shoot!”

Lacey could feel a trickle of sweat drip down the middle of her back. And then she heard the familiar voices that always seemed to be there to witness her most humiliating moments.

“Lacey, what the hell are you doing?” It was Cherise, the perfect sister.

Her mother’s voice chimed in, but Lacey couldn’t take her eyes off Penfield. “Lacey Blaine Smithsonian, what in God’s green earth is going on? I never—”

“No time. Help me. Hey! I need some help here!” Lacey felt Penfield turn his attention to the other women, his hands still imprisoning Lacey’s around the grip of the gun.

“Welcome to my good-bye party, Mrs. S. and Cherise. Just to bring you up to speed, I’m a filthy murdering beast and Lacey is going to be a hero for killing me.”

“Oh, my God,” Cherise wailed. “Oh, my God.”

“Perhaps you’ve got more guts than your sister, Cherise. Would you like to try?” He waved the gun at her, Lacey’s struggling arms still attached to it.

“Stop harassing my daughters!” Lacey could see Rose out of the corner of her eye, but was pretty sure Penfield couldn’t.

“Maybe you’d like to take a shot at me, Mrs. S.”

“Maybe I would. Just maybe I would.” Rose’s mother-tiger instinct was rising.

Her arms aching, Lacey concentrated on keeping the gun from pointing at anyone, but with one eye she could just see her mother stride to the wall of props. Rose saw the golf clubs and selected a nine iron. Lacey knew her sister must be somewhere nearby as well.

“Hey, there, Lethal Feet,” Lacey said, mentally urging her to get it. “Where are you?”

“Don’t call me that.” Cherise’s voice quavered. “Oh, man, Lacey, what are we gonna—”

“Give me some of that Geronimo High spirit you’re so famous for, Lethal Feet. Geronimo, remember?”

“I don’t think I can,” Cherise moaned.

“Don’t think, do it,” Lacey commanded her. “Give me a cheer!”

While Cherise squirmed in indecision and Lacey struggled with Penfield, Rose Smithsonian crept up behind them, hefting the nine iron. “Let go of my daughter, you bastard.”

“Oh, I will, as soon as she does what we came here for.” Penfield tightened his hold on Lacey’s hands and swung her around for a better camera position. “Shoot, damn it,” he commanded. He concentrated all his energy on Lacey, but he warned them, “If you interfere with this, Lacey could get hurt. She could die; you could all die!”

“Mom, what are you waiting for?” Lacey asked.

“I don’t want to hurt him.” Rose tightened her grip on the golf club and squared her feet in the correct LPGA position, assuming the golf ball was at shoulder level. Penfield swung Lacey around to put himself out of club reach.

“Hit him, Mom! He wants me to kill him!”

“Why, that’s just insane.” Lacey’s mother squared her shoulders. “I can’t believe this is the kind of person you’ve been getting involved with.”

“Mom! Just do it!”

Rose stepped briskly around behind Penfield and smacked him directly across the back with the nine iron. It knocked the wind out of him, and with a grunt he let go of Lacey’s hands.