Tumbledown (11 page)

“Okay, I am outta here,” Lyssa said, neatly catching the bag of leftover brownies that Sarah threw her. “I’m guessing these won’t see out the shift.”

“Well, hopefully they’ll help keep you awake.” Sarah gave her a hug. “Thanks for coming over.”

“Any time.” They walked out to Lyssa’s SUV. “Keep smilin’, sweetie. She’ll be home before you know it.”

Sarah nodded. “She will. Sorry if I’ve been a bit off today. I’m not used to her being away,” she said, keen to offer a reasonable excuse for her distractedness.

Lyssa smiled, accepting the explanation without question. “Right, I better motor or I’ll be late.” She turned the key in the ignition and blew Sarah an exaggerated kiss. “That’s for Alex.”

“I’ll be sure to pass it on,” Sarah yelled above the rattle of the engine, and Lyssa laughed, narrowly avoiding a hen as she drove away in a cloud of dust and diesel smoke.

Excited by the noise, Tilly chased after the SUV, ignoring Sarah’s attempts to call her back. Deciding to leave her to it, Sarah went into the cabin to wait for Alex to call.

*

Leah heard the vehicle at the same time as Caleb. She looked across at him and saw his uncertainty; the police officer—Alex—wasn’t supposed to be home so early, and the vehicle seemed to be approaching from the wrong direction. He quickly recovered his composure, however.

“My contact must have gotten it wrong,” he said, and then smiled, apparently making a snap decision. “Hell, if they’re both here already it’ll make this a whole lot easier.” He reached across Leah and opened her door. “Go.”

Her body didn’t seem capable of moving, but when she hesitated, he placed his gun to the side of her face.

“Go.”

She shrank away from him and scrambled out of the car. His door clicked open seconds later, and she could hear the snap of twigs beneath his feet as he followed her at a short distance. Sunlight momentarily dazzled her, and she raised her hand to shield her eyes so that she could pick her way up onto the track. As she did so, an SUV rounded the corner, making steady progress. There was a single figure in the front, a woman wearing shades and a cap pulled down low against the late afternoon sun. Leah felt her heart sink as she saw the woman’s uniform shirt and realized that Caleb had been right: she had to be the police officer.

Dust flew up as the SUV slowed; the woman had obviously spotted her. Leah staggered sideways, light-headed with nervousness and despair.

“Hey, are you hurt?”

The hand on Leah’s arm made her jump; she hadn’t been aware of the SUV stopping or the woman approaching her.

“No.” She shook her head, all her thoughts stalling on that one word. “No.”

“It’s okay, you’re okay. I’m a paramedic. Let’s get you sitting down.”

The woman was walking carefully backward, holding Leah’s hands with both of hers and guiding her over to the SUV, and what she had just said took Leah an age to register.

“It’s not you.” She stopped abruptly, knocking the woman slightly off balance. “It’s not you. Oh God.” She pulled her arm away, looking frantically around to warn Caleb to stay out of sight, but he was closer than she had expected, his focus intent on the woman as he darted through the trees to a position directly behind her. Taking advantage of the woman’s confusion, he lunged forward and looped an arm across her throat, applying enough pressure to make her choke.

“Don’t make a sound,” he warned her. He held his knife to the corner of her eye, letting her sense the blade. She froze, her mouth open as she panted for breath.

“It’s not her,” Leah said. “She’s a paramedic.”

“The fuck?” Holding the woman roughly by her collar, Caleb knocked her cap off and then spun her around so he could look at her face. Seeing the knife lowered, the woman took the opportunity to kick out at him, aiming for his groin and connecting solidly enough to make him yell and stumble backward. She shook her arm free and ran, reaching her SUV before he had recovered sufficiently to sprint after her.

The expression of absolute rage on his face was all too familiar to Leah. He no longer cared whether this was the right woman; she was merely a woman who had dared to fight back. He caught hold of the SUV’s door and yanked it open just as she tried to slam the lock down.

Leah’s legs finally collapsed beneath her when she heard the woman cry out in pain. The knife in Caleb’s hand flashed silver and crimson as he raised it and plunged it down again.

“Jesus, oh Jesus,” Leah gasped. A dog barked close by, but the woman had fallen silent. Leah glanced up to see Caleb standing over the woman’s unmoving form.

“Get the fuck over here and grab her legs,” he said, trying to drag the woman back up into her SUV.

“I can’t.” Leah held up her bare hands; he was the only one wearing gloves.

“You useless fucking bitch.” He was struggling with his burden, but she couldn’t help, couldn’t do anything but stare at the blade sticking out from the center of the woman’s chest. He had stabbed her so violently that the handle had snapped off the knife. Blood covered her white uniform shirt, and her face was gray and slack. Leah willed her to twitch, to wake up and struggle, but she didn’t move, didn’t even take a breath.

“Caleb, we have to go,” Leah said. He gave no indication of having heard her, so she repeated herself more forcefully, pulling at his hand.

He shook her off and heaved again on the woman’s body. “No, nothing changes. We can leave her in the SUV. If the cop sees a body, she’ll freak. But if she just sees the SUV, she’ll stop to check what’s wrong.”

“Look at her,” she insisted, sensing a way to end this before anyone else got hurt. “She’s dressed for work. When she doesn’t show, they’re going to wonder why. If she told anyone she was coming here, this will be the first place they’ll look.”

He was listening now, trying to figure out the logic, whether they had time to wait for the cop before someone came to ask about the woman he had just murdered. He snarled, slamming a fist against the SUV, and then dropped the woman like discarded trash, leaving her in a heap on the ground. A key fell from her shirt pocket and he knelt to scoop it up.

“Gate key,” he said, and Leah nodded, relieved that he wouldn’t have to pick the lock again, that they would be able to get out sooner. Not wanting to alert anyone to their presence, he had re-locked the gate behind them when they first arrived.

Her lips moved in a silent prayer and tears stung the raw skin on her cheek as she waited for him to stand. She felt his fingers close around her bicep, and somehow managed to keep up with him as he hauled her back to their car. Curling herself into the hot leather seat, she hid her face in her hands, trying not to breathe in the thick stench of blood that filled the air. He ignored her, concentrating on the track as he drove at a speed far too great to be safe. She closed her eyes, her hands moving instinctively to protect her abdomen, and wondered dully at what point he would kill her too.

*

Sarah was standing on the porch, waiting for Alex’s voice mail to begin its message, when she heard the noise. She ended the call and strained to listen. She had no idea what it had been or where it had come from, only that all the hairs on the back of her neck had prickled in response. Within moments, she heard it again. It was clearer this time, carried along on the strengthening breeze: a terrible prolonged howl that she instantly recognized as canine.

“Shit.”

She slid her phone into the back pocket of her shorts and swapped her flip-flops for sneakers. Only a few minutes had passed since Tilly followed Lyssa’s SUV down the path, which meant she couldn’t have gotten far. Sarah set off at a slow jog, not wanting to miss her, pausing every hundred yards or so to call her name and listen for any indication that she was close by. Ten minutes down the track, she heard barking, constant and distressed.

She increased her pace at once, sprinting toward a sharp corner and almost blundering into Tilly, who met her on the curve and began to leap up at her, still barking wildly.

“Hey, girl. Hey, hush.” Sarah put a hand out to her collar, trying to calm her, but she bounded away. Muttering a stream of curses, Sarah followed her.

“What the hell?”

She stopped so suddenly that her feet skidded in the dirt. Just ahead of her, Lyssa’s SUV was parked at a slight angle, as if she had braked hard enough to kick out the rear end. The driver’s door was ajar and Sarah could see something dark lying beside it. Walking in agitated circles at the side of the SUV, Tilly let out a howl that made Sarah’s skin crawl.

“Lyssa?” She meant to shout but managed only a whisper. Then she was running, reaching the SUV in seconds, having already realized what it was that she had seen at the door.

“No, no. Oh fuck, no.”

There was so much blood soaking into the dust that she immediately knew Lyssa was dead, even as she knelt in the dirt and turned her onto her back. When she tilted Lyssa’s chin to open her airway, she felt a hint of residual warmth beneath her fingers. Abandoning common sense, she pinched Lyssa’s nose shut and breathed into her mouth, fighting not to gag on the blood that coated her lips. After two breaths, she went to start chest compressions, but saw for the first time that there was a blade protruding from Lyssa’s sternum, right where she needed to position her hands. The metal was so firmly lodged that she couldn’t move it, despite her efforts. Instead, she placed her clasped hands close below it and pushed down hard, counting a rhythm in her head, heedless of the razor-sharp edge that carved into her fingers.

Two breaths to thirty compressions; she repeated the cycle continuously, though she could feel her back and arms beginning to cramp. Something cracked beneath the heel of her hand and the next time she gave a breath cool blood flooded into her mouth. Unable to stop herself, she turned her head aside and vomited until her stomach ached. As the spasms relented, she wiped her mouth and bent low to give another breath, but Lyssa’s face was now cold to the touch, and when Sarah looked at her eyes she saw that both pupils were blown.

Too distraught to think logically, she closed Lyssa’s eyes and crawled away from the SUV. The grass at the edge of the road was cool beneath her sticky hands; she wiped them slowly at first and then with growing urgency, until the grass was flattened and stained. She drew her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead against them. It was only as she shifted her position that she remembered the phone in her pocket. It took her three attempts to dial 911, and when the operator answered her call, she couldn’t remember what it was she needed to say.

“Caller, what is your location?” The man’s voice was composed and insistent. He stayed on the line, patiently repeating the same question. He didn’t dismiss the call as a prank, and she slowly realized that it was because he could hear her crying. She swiped at her face, streaking blood, tears, and mucus along her bare arm.

“The old Gardner place,” she said. She coughed, tasting copper and bile, and tried to speak more clearly. “Off Quick Edge Road. Lyssa’s been stabbed and I tried to do CPR.” She was hyperventilating now, unable to get her breathing under control, and the words spilled from her between snatches of air. When she shook her head, tears splashed into the dirt. “I can’t help her. I tried, but she’s dead. Please send someone, please.” Her voice dissolved into sobs. She heard the man asking her more questions, but in the end, he stopped trying to coax information from her and began to just murmur reassurances. A vague sense of etiquette made her listen for a few seconds before ending the call.

The second number she dialed came easily to her, her fingers automatically seeking out the name from the top of the directory.

Alex answered on the first ring, sounding fraught. “Sarah, are you okay? I only just got your message. I’ve been trying to call.”

Sarah’s teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak.

“Lyssa’s dead,” she whispered. “Please come home.”

The blare of the horn warned Alex to pay attention. She over-corrected her steering, swerving away from the oncoming truck, and felt the tires vibrate as she hit the rumble strip marking the shoulder of the freeway.

“Fuck,” she muttered, blinking against the glare of the truck’s headlights. She would be no use to Sarah if she wiped herself off the road.

More than an hour had passed since she had spoken to Sarah. Using hands-free, Alex had kept her on the line, trying to get her to piece together what had happened and, when that failed, just trying to prevent her from falling completely apart. Little of what Sarah told her had been coherent. After only a few minutes, Alex had heard sirens in the background, and moments later Larry Tobin—his voice taut with stress—had assured her that he was taking care of Sarah and then disconnected the call. She had been averaging seventy-five miles an hour ever since.

She had locked the doors of the Silverado and kept a keen eye on her rearview mirror for anyone attempting to tail her. Her holster dug into her hip, reminding her that her Glock was within easy reach. She drew comfort from its presence. Sarah hadn’t been in a fit state to tell her much about what had happened, but she had repeatedly begged Alex to be careful.

*

The first police officer to arrive had told Sarah that his name was Tobin and then wrapped his jacket around her shoulders. He looked at the body only briefly before giving the area around it a wide berth and coming to sit beside Sarah on the ground.

“Paramedics and more officers are on the way,” he told her. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, shying away from his flashlight. At some point, unnoticed by her, dusk must have fallen.

“Okay, that’s good,” he said. “Do you know what happened to Lyssa?”

She shook her head again and the motion caused his jacket to slip from her shoulders. When she raised a hand to adjust it, he caught hold of her wrist.

“How did you get these?”

He aimed his flashlight at her wrist and she stared at the wounds blankly; she had forgotten they were even there. His finger touched one of the deeper slashes, the discomfort making her stiffen and then attempt to pull away.