Broken Places (14 page)

Chapter Forty-five

Rachel shook her head, wincing at the burst of pain from the movement, willing herself to stay alert. The heat and stale air inside her dark little prison made her woozy, fear exhausted her, and she longed to surrender and slip into unconsciousness.

How much time had passed? She had no idea. The staff at the animal hospital would worry when she didn’t return for her appointments or answer her phone. They would call around, trying to find her. But would they call Tom? Even if they did, he would never think to look for her in Pauline McClure’s abandoned house.

She had only herself to rely on. She couldn’t count on Lindsay to help her. If Meredith decided to kill her, she would have to open the door. Rachel would get one last chance to save herself. She had to be ready. But how could she escape from a woman with a gun?

You can do it,
Rachel told herself
. You can.
She went over everything she’d learned in the self-defense class she’d taken two years before.
Use your feet. Bite. Use your fingernails. Go for the eyes. Grab her hair.
You can do this.

Rachel heard Meredith’s voice again, strengthening and fading like a bad cell phone signal. “…Scotty’s idea…forced me into it…left me here…in love with me, he wants me to go away with him.”

“You’re saying he did it all?” Lindsay asked. “You didn’t kill anybody?”

“Of course I didn’t! I’m not a murderer.”

“All right then. Let’s call Tom. You can explain everything to him.”

“No!” The rest of Meredith’s answer was too faint to make out.

Don’t walk away,
Rachel silently begged.
Come closer, come closer.

Lindsay said something Rachel couldn’t make out, then Meredith’s voice became clear again. “…know how hard your father was to live with sometimes. He thought I might inherit something when Dad died, and we’d have enough to keep the paper going. He was furious when I didn’t get a cent. Then he thought I’d get a lot of money when Aunt Julia died, because she’d helped me before. Cam blamed me when she left all her money to charity. He said I should have sucked up to her when I knew she was dying.”

“But she left you all that jewelry. I’ve seen it, Mom. It’s worth a fortune. If you wanted to leave with Scotty, why didn’t you just sell the jewelry and take off?”

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I thought I might just leave by myself and start a whole new life. If Cam or Scotty knew about the jewelry…I wasn’t going to turn it over to either of them. Whatever I got for it was
mine
, not theirs.”

“But you let Scotty believe you were going to leave with him? The two of you were making plans?”

Meredith’s answer was a mumble.

“Why did Scotty kill Dad? And Karen Hernandez, and Lloyd Wilson—Why did Scotty do such a crazy thing?” Lindsay sounded as strung out as her mother, close to breaking. “Was he the one who tried to kill Rachel?”

Rachel shifted, sat straighter, flexed her cramped legs. The sound of her own labored breathing echoed in her ears.

“Yes,” Meredith said. “He went over…the house fill up with gas, then set it on fire…would have exploded.”

“How did he get in?” Lindsay asked.

“I gave him a key, God help me. We used to meet there sometimes at night, before she moved in.”

“Why did he want to kill Rachel?”

“She saw him in the woods with Cam. He had to get rid of her.”

I didn’t. I didn’t see anything.

“According to Tom,” Lindsay said, “she didn’t see anything,”

“That’s what Tom wants you to believe. She saw Scotty, and she told Tom.”

“Then why didn’t Tom arrest Scotty?”

“Because he knows I’m alive too. He’s pretending to believe I’m dead, but he’s really searching for me so he can lock me up. Scotty must be staying away because he’s afraid Tom will follow him. But he’s coming back, he’ll find a way—”

“Scotty’s not coming back. He’s in jail. He got high on meth and attacked Tom and Brandon Connelly. He’s been locked up ever since.”

“Oh, no. Oh, dear god.”

“Mom, if you’re innocent, why—”

“Of course I’m innocent!”

Rachel heard nothing more for a moment and thought they’d moved away. When Lindsay spoke again, her voice sounded weary, placating. “Okay, I didn’t mean to upset you. We don’t have to talk about it anymore. We need to get more food into you. Do you have your testing supplies with you? Let me check your blood sugar.”

Rachel couldn’t hear the rest. She leaned her throbbing head against the door.
Please, Lindsay, get your phone away from her and call Tom. Do the right thing for once.

***

Tom braked hard at the fork in the road, and Brandon pitched forward in the passenger seat, straining his seat belt.

“Where the hell did he go?” Tom motioned at the choices ahead of them. “I should’ve stayed closer behind him.”

Everything had gone smoothly until now. Kevin and Keith Blackwood had dropped Ragsdale off at his house, and the minute they were out of sight Ragsdale jumped into his car and tore off in the opposite direction. Tom and Brandon had followed in the sheriff’s personal car, an unmarked green sedan, and the Blackwoods and Dennis Murray trailed in Sheriff’s Department vehicles.

Tom blew out a breath and grabbed the radio from its hook. When he raised a signal and connected with the two cars behind his, he said, “We lost him at the junction of Albemarle and Dunkirk. Brandon and I are heading east. The rest of you head west. Let me know if you catch sight of him.”

He swung the car onto Albemarle Road. “You know whose house is out this way, don’t you?” he asked Brandon.

“Oh, yeah. Meredith could hide there for a long time without anybody seeing her.”

***

What’s happening?
Rachel was sure she’d heard—
Yes!
There it was again, a man’s voice. She couldn’t make out words, but a man was in the house. Who? She didn’t care. She had to take a chance.

She pushed herself to her knees and banged her fists on the door. “Help me!” she screamed. “Help me! I’m locked up in here! Help!”

“What the hell—” a man said, close enough now for Rachel to hear him clearly. “What’s going on?” Heavy footfalls approached.

“In here!” Rachel pounded on the door. “Under the stairs! Let me out!”

“Who is that?”

“No, don’t open it!” Meredith cried.

The latch clicked. Rachel shoved the door open and tumbled into the hallway on her hands and knees. Meredith’s dog trotted over to her, tail wagging.

“What’s she doing here?” the man exclaimed.

Rachel scrambled to her feet. The corridor was dim, shadowy, but so much brighter than the dark space she’d escaped that she blinked, trying to make her eyes adjust. The dog huffed and sniffed at the blood stains on her slacks. “Meredith locked me up. She was going to kill me. Help me, please help me.”

But when Rachel looked up at the man’s face, she realized she had made a terrible mistake. This was Scotty Ragsdale, Meredith’s friend. The man who tried to kill her and Holly.

“We have to get rid of her,” Meredith said.

He scowled at Rachel, then at Meredith. “If you think you can get away with doing it like this, you’re crazy.”

Meredith exploded. “Who are you calling crazy? She wouldn’t be a problem now if you’d done your part right. How could you dump me here and desert me, with nothing but dog food—I could have died while you were off getting high.”

“Shut up!” Ragsdale roared. He swung his arm and struck Meredith in the face so hard that she staggered backward.

Meredith let out a wail. The dog howled.

“Stop it!” Lindsay cried. Rachel hadn’t spotted her before, but suddenly she was there, beside her mother. “Leave her alone!”

“What’s your daughter doing here?” Ragsdale demanded. “How many more people did you tell?”

Rachel backed away, into the empty, darkened dining room. If she could get to the kitchen while they were distracted, if she could get to the back door—

“Why did you hit me?” Meredith sobbed.

“Did you kill my sister?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

His sister?
Rachel didn’t understand what he was accusing Meredith of. She didn’t care. She had to get out of here. She kept moving backward. Where was the pistol? Who had the gun now?

“I read what you wrote.” Ragsdale loomed over Meredith, his hands fisted at his sides. “I read it in your own words, telling how you pushed Denise out in the snow in the dark and left her to freeze to death. You wrote it all down, every detail.”

“Scotty, no, you don’t understand—”

“Karen guessed, didn’t she? That’s what she was about to tell me. That’s why you shot her, to stop her from telling me what you did to my sister.”

“Scotty, please, let me explain—”

“You played me for a fool,” Ragsdale said. “I let you drag me into this mess, I almost killed those two women for you, I shot Cam, I shot that old man—And all the time, you were lying to me, laughing at me.”

“No, Scotty, no. Please, please listen to me—”

“I ought to kill you right now.” Ragsdale lunged at Meredith.

The gunshot exploded through the empty rooms. Rachel froze, watched Ragsdale fall to his knees, clutching his abdomen. Meredith stood over him, gripping the gun with both hands, disbelief and astonishment on her face. “Oh, my god! Scotty!”

Panting, Ragsdale folded forward, his head almost touching the floor, then he tilted sideways and collapsed.

Meredith knelt beside him, one hand on his head, like a frantic mother with an injured child. “Scotty, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. I need you! You have to help me—”

“Mom,” Lindsay said, “he needs a doctor. You don’t want him to die, do you? Let me call 911.”

Meredith pointed the pistol at her daughter. “You don’t understand! You’re just like your father.”

“Mom, no, please—” Lindsay raised her hands, and they shook so violently that she might have been waving at her mother.

Rachel spun and ran, through the dining room to the kitchen. She flung the back door open. Outside. Sunshine. Birds singing.

The dog rocketed past Rachel, bumping her legs and almost knocking her off her feet. She grabbed the door jamb to regain her balance, then she started after Cricket, toward freedom.

Meredith’s voice stopped her. “If you move one more inch, I’ll shoot you. Get back in here.”

A second later Rachel felt cold metal pressed against the back of her neck.

“Lindsay, get hold of her,” Meredith said.

“Mom—”

“
Get her.
Do what you’re told.”

Lindsay appeared beside Rachel, her movements jerky as a robot’s. She didn’t meet Rachel’s eyes, but caught her by the arm and pulled her back into the kitchen.

Stay calm,
Rachel told herself
. Don’t panic. There has to be a way. There has to be. Wait for it. Watch for it. Be ready.

Lindsay let her go and stepped away. Meredith reached for Rachel’s arm. With one hand Rachel grabbed Meredith’s wrist and twisted, with the other she chopped at the hand holding the gun.

For a second Meredith’s arm dropped, but she held onto the gun. Rachel struck her arm again, at the same time she dug her thumb into the nerves at the base of Meredith’s other hand. Meredith screamed and her face contorted with pain. Then she raised the gun again, aimed at Rachel’s head. She shoved Rachel away and held her injured wrist against her body, grimacing as she tried to flex her fingers. “You little bitch. I’ll kill you right now.”

“Mom, wait!” Lindsay said. “You don’t want to leave her blood in the house. We’ve already got Scotty to clean up after. You ought to take her out in the woods. We could bury her and she might never be found.”

Rachel stared at Lindsay, at the yellow hair glued to her cheeks with sweat, her trembling hands, the frantic gleam in her eyes, and she couldn’t tell whether Lindsay was trying to buy time or trying to help her mother get away with murder.

It didn’t matter. Meredith intended to kill Rachel regardless of what Lindsay said or did. Something broke loose inside Rachel, and she felt rage boiling up, swamping her fear.

“Will you help me dig?” Meredith asked Lindsay. “I can’t do it alone. And we might have to bury Scotty too.” The gun drifted away from Rachel.

Now!

Rachel sprang forward, caught Meredith’s hair with one hand and yanked her head back. She thrust out her other hand and scraped her fingernails across Meredith’s eyes, digging in with her nails. Meredith screamed. The gun fired and a window shattered, raining glass into the sink.

Rachel clawed at Meredith’s eyes again. The gun clattered to the floor as Meredith raised both hands to her face.

Rachel and Lindsay both dived for the gun at the same time. Rachel got to it first, seized it and turned it on Lindsay.

Meredith sank to her knees, hands over her eyes, keening.

“Mom! Oh, god.” Lindsay knelt beside her mother.