A Deadly Reunion (25 page)

Thorne.

My stomach sank.

“Hello, who is this?”

“It’s Patti,” I forced myself to say, “now,
listen to me – Annabelle is lying. I never asked any of those
questions. I have nothing to do with these murders. You have to
believe me.”

“Hold on, slow down, what are you talking
about? Patti, is everything okay?”

“
Annabelle. You can’t believe what she
said. She is lying. She is trying to set me up. And as for that
scrapbook at her house, I have nothing to do with it. She made me
look at one of hers last night, and I’m sure my fingerprints are
all over it, but she’s stitching me up.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,”
Thorne breathed hard into the receiver, “you tell me what’s
happening now. You okay?”

I got a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach
that descended right down to my feet.

“
Annabelle... she told Denver—”

“Annabelle has not come to the police.
Patti, take a deep breath and you tell me exactly what is going
on.”

I took a deep breath.

As I did, my mind caught up with me.

There’d been two murders in Wetlake. Both of
rich men.

But both of men.

I’d spent the last two days thinking I was
next, thinking that someone was clearly picking off the most
successful graduates of Wetlake high.

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe I’d picked up the wrong pattern.

Denver.

Denver was the next target.

I skidded as I swerved off the road.

“Patti, what’s going on?”

“Denver. Jesus Christ, she’s after Denver.
He is the next target. Listen to me, Thorne, Annabelle came to
Denver’s room this morning, she told him that she had just called
the police to share information about me. She told him there was
some kind of scrapbook with ghastly pictures of mine at her house,
which I’d conveniently left there last night. She told him that the
rest of the police didn’t have the time to go and look at it. She
asked him to come back to her house.”

There was a long pause. “What were you doing
in Denver’s room?”

“Really? That’s what you got from that? Your
brother is in danger. If I’m right, Annabelle is the serial killer.
Jesus, do something, send in the police.”

There was another long pause. “You keep
yourself safe, okay? Drive into town, come to the station.”

I let out a long breath of relief.

“
She lives in upper Wetlake,” Thorne said
quickly, “we’ll send everything we can. Patti... I’m
sorry.”

I smiled anxiously into the receiver.

He didn’t need to be sorry.

He just had to get to his brother before
Annabelle did.

I headed into Wetlake.

Or at least I tried to.

I kept using the GPS map, and it kept
directing me to the strangest of places, until finally I said to
hell with it and grabbed out the actual, proper, paper map that had
come free with the car and that was stuffed neatly in the bottom of
my handbag.

Unfolding it over the enormity that was my
dashboard, I tried to figure out where I was and where I had to
go.

Tracing my finger along the streets and dirt
tracks, I suddenly stopped.

I saw the area designated Upper Wetlake.

I frowned.

Deeply.

That wasn’t where Annabelle’s house was.

Or rather, that wasn’t where she had taken
me last night.

I was sure of it; it was in completely the
opposite direction.

Shaking a little, I flicked my eyes up and
surveyed the road before me.

It was vaguely familiar.

I’d driven it before.

Yesterday in fact, on the way up to
Annabelle’s.

Shit.

I was close, wasn’t I?

But not to Upper Wetlake – I was in an area
called Heatherton.

I started the car, grabbing the map roughly
and throwing it onto the seat as I reached for my cellphone.

Dear god. Had I just sent them to the wrong
place? Not knowingly, of course. But had I just made Thorne marshal
every squad car in the district only to send them in completely the
opposite direction?

Shaking, I started to drive, and I drew on
every fragmented memory I had of the route up to Annabelle’s.

As I did, I called him back. He wasn’t there
though. Someone else picked up the line. In a desperate, shaky
voice, I told them what was happening and they told me to pull off
to the side of the road, stop, and wait.

I couldn’t.

How long did Denver have?

Annabelle was many things, but she was
quick.

And efficient.

I shuddered at that thought, a tear escaping
my eye and trickling down my cheek.

Pushing it away, I swore hard.

I had to find the house.

The place she’d taken me to last night.
Maybe she’d bought it without telling anyone in town, maybe she’d
inherited it, or maybe she’d done something grisly to the real
owner.

It didn’t matter.

I had to find it.

I was useless waiting on the side of the
road.

Upper Wetlake was a full half an hour away
from here.

Who knew what could happen in half an
hour.

I was usually such a sensible girl, but
right now, I was a desperate one too.

Forcing herself not to cry, whimper, or make
a sound, I stiffened my back, pushed it hard into the seat, and I
drove.

I took every road and every track until I
started to remember.

Until I started to recognize.

The exact sway of the trees, the exact turn
and angle of the road.

Then I saw it.

The dirt driveway that led up to her
house.

I didn’t hesitate.

I drove up to it. But I didn’t drive up
it.

Because while I was a desperate girl, I was
still a sensible one.

I got out of my car and left the door wide
open, but I took the keys from the ignition.

I left my bag in the front seat but grabbed
my phone and pocketed my keys.

Then I started to head up the long dirt
driveway, quickly walking into the thick forest beside it and
keeping low. As I did, I called the police station.

“I found the house,” I hissed without even
saying hello or introducing myself, “I’ve left my car next to the
driveway with the doors open. It’s a blue pickup truck.”

“Stay where you are,” the officer on the
other end of the line snapped.

It was sensible advice. I wasn’t exactly a
commando here. I didn’t know hand-to-hand combat, and my knowledge
of hostage situations was on par with my knowledge of quantum field
theory.

But I couldn’t stay here.

One fact kept repeating around my head:
Annabelle was efficient.

Terribly, terribly efficient.

“
Stay there...” the officer repeated, but
her voice began to crackle with static.

I plucked my phone away from my ear and
stared down at it. The reception bar had dropped to zero.

Fuck.

Seriously?

I just stood there wordlessly, staring at
it.

My heartbeat thumped and rocketed through my
body, my clenched teeth shaking with every thud.

Then I forced myself to pocket my phone and
continue.

I tried not to make a sound, but my breath
was choppy and sharp.

The house was on top of a steep hill, and
when it came into view, I could have crumpled to my knees in total
fear.

I didn’t though.

I kept on walking.

I locked my gaze on that three-story,
ostensibly beautiful weatherboard house, and I kept moving
forward.

Be alive, I begged him silently in my
mind.

I couldn’t take walking into that house to
find... what?

Annabelle standing over him with a knife in
hand? Blood tracked through the once-pristine halls and rooms? A
body – his body – under the white and pink roses by the fence?

I shook my head.

Now was no time for imagination.

It was time for action.

I slowed as I neared the house.

I was suddenly thankful that Annabelle had
no pets.

If she’d owned a dog, at this point it would
have barked its lungs out, revealing me to the world as I hunkered
low against her fence.

I needed a weapon or something...
right?

Or maybe what I needed was a
distraction.

I was a sensible girl, after all, and I
realized my chances of taking Annabelle on, one-on-one, were
non-existent. She was unhinged, desperate, and had a row of
glittering knives above her kitchen sink.

With my back still pressed hard into the
white picket fence, I turned sharply on the spot and searched for
something.

Anything.

She had a shed and a pile of wood stacked up
in a shelter against the back of the house.

She also had gardening equipment strewn in
front of the back door.

I was no MacGyver, but I headed over to
them, pressing my fingers into the gravel as I crawled my way
there.

This was categorically the most fraught
experience of my life.

I had never and would never feel fear like
this again.

This went beyond my own personal safety; the
thought of what Annabelle could be doing to Denver wound around and
around my mind, strangling it like a python.

I reached the gardening equipment.

My back bristled as I stared at the house.
Keeping every move silent, I surveyed what was on the ground.

A rake, a spade, some gloves, a mower, and
some gasoline.

I glanced at the gasoline then over to the
woodpile.

Now that would be a distraction.

I hesitated.

Could I be making this up?

Did my imagination have the better of
me?

Was Denver in Annabelle’s house right now
having a cup of tea and chatting about me and definitely not being
murdered? Or was he not even here? Had Annabelle taken him to her
other house, the one in Upper Wetlake?

I doubted it; her car was parked just a few
feet away from me.

I could hear noises in the house too.

Low, thudding ones.

She was here. But was Denver with her, and
was he in the kind of mortal peril that would legally justify what
I was about to do?

If I was wrong and I was about to set
Annabelle’s whole woodpile on fire, then I was going to prison.

Then I heard it.

Someone screaming.

It was a male voice.

The scream was a long and tortured one.

The blood drained from my cheeks.

I grabbed up the gasoline can and started to
dowse the woodpile with it.

When I was done, I searched desperately for
a match.

Plunging into the shed, I practically
trashed the place until I found a packet of old, wet matches.

Praying to God that one would work, I struck
four until the fifth one lit.

Then I chucked it on the woodpile.

The fire spread with a great whoomph.

The back of the woodpile leaned onto the
back of the house.

It wouldn’t take long for the house to catch
fire.

And that would be one hell of a
distraction.

Taking several steps back and staring
open-mouthed as the woodpile crackled and spat, I turned on my foot
and I ran.

Not to the back of the house, but to the
front.

Before I did, I leaned down and I snatched
up the rake.

It was hardly an ax and it wasn’t exactly a
chainsaw, but it would do.

I reached the front of the house just as I
heard the back door slam open and someone swear in disbelief.

I tried the handle to the front door.

It was locked. I ran around to where I knew
the kitchen was, and without hesitation slammed the rake into the
glass of the French doors.

It shattered.

I plunged in, my arm cutting against several
of the ragged shards still lodged in the wooden frame.

By now I could hear the fire.

It was roaring.

I could also hear Annabelle screaming.

Jesus Christ, I hoped I was right about
this. Denver had better be in here otherwise I had just set fire to
Annabelle Shaw’s house. Annabelle, who was indisputably the nicest
person in all of Wetlake.

I ran through the kitchen.

It was empty.

I ran into the corridor; it was empty
too.

I made it into the lounge room.

There was blood.

He was on the floor.

There was blood covering the side of his
face from a deep gash in the back of his head.

I collapsed next to him.

My hands were shaking.

I couldn’t stop them from shaking.

In fact, my whole body convulsed with
fear.

I couldn’t bear to whisper his name, yet he
wouldn’t have been able to hear me over the crackle and burst of
flame as the woodpile engulfed the back of the house.

Smoke seeped in from every crack and every
corner, and I started to cough.

I leant down, clutching a hand to his
shoulder.

I expected the worst.

I tried to turn him over.

That’s when he snapped up, swinging at me
wildly.

Before his hand could connect to my face, he
stopped.

For a brief moment, he looked into my
eyes.

“Patti?”

“We have to get out of the house,” I
screamed, and I caught him just as he flopped forward.

“
What’s...” he mumbled, voice becoming
indistinct as his head lolled onto my shoulder.

What’s going on?

Oh, that would take far too long to
explain.

Instead, I tried to help him to his
feet.

He was like a dead weight, but somehow I
muscled him up and started dragging him towards the door.

Though he was bleary eyed, he wasn’t out
cold. Thankfully he managed to support himself even slightly as I
forced him to walk as fast as he could.