44: Book Six Page 13
He opened up another can of beer.
“Give her a message for me,” he said as I walked out the door. “Tell her she and Romeo can rot in hell!”
The clouds hung low, heavy with snow. It was just a matter of time now.
I walked quickly to the Jeep, wondering if I should stop over at the Community Center. But I knew that by now, even on Christmas Eve, it would be closed.
There was only one place left to go, one place where I knew I would find her.
The place that had been calling out.The place that was waiting for us. Waiting for April, waiting for me.
CHAPTER 49
As I sat in the cold gripping the steering wheel, I wondered if I should call the police. But there was really no point. April’s death wasn’t a crime, at least not yet. And as for Sutter, being a creep wasn’t a crime either.
I couldn’t believe it was him. He struck me as obviously unstable, but in a harmless kind of way. And he sure didn’t seem April’s type either. He was at least 20 years older than her. And that was the least of it. I couldn’t believe that April would leave Logan for him. But maybe this was exactly the type of man she was drawn to. Maybe it was low self-esteem, maybe it was something else. Whatever it was had her trapped in a vicious circle. A vicious circle that would kill her.
I called April, finding the number from when she had called about the survey. No answer. I called Ty, but it went straight to voicemail. I didn’t bother leaving a message. I then remembered him saying something over breakfast about a party he was thinking about going to tonight. As far as I knew David was still out of town, so I couldn’t count on him for any help either. And I wasn’t going to call Kate. I wasn’t going to put her in danger. I had decided to start my New Year’s resolution early. After all, I might not be around for New Year’s.
I had sent her a text apologizing that I wasn’t going to make the party after all. I said I was meeting Ty. She would be mad but I would deal with that later. If there was a later.
I hadn’t heard from Jesse. I guess he couldn’t help me either.
I stepped out of the Jeep, zipped up my parka, and pulled on the hood. It wasn’t all that cold for late December in Bend, maybe somewhere around 30 degrees. But I knew that you couldn’t always measure the cold with just a thermometer. There were many different kinds. It was almost as if the cold had fingerprints, each instance unique. And as the cold wrapped its fingers around me now and squeezed, I knew I had never felt colder.
I was starting to feel a little like Gary Cooper at the end of High Noon. All alone. I reached inside my pocket and fingered the gun, nervously humming the theme from the movie.
Time couldn’t be stopped. And it couldn’t be turned back. And once something happened, that was it. You had to live with it. If you could.
I had just over an hour now, the minutes flying by on the wings of a hummingbird.
I wasn’t so sure about fate. Or if there was such a thing. Was it Jesse’s fate to die up by that lake? Was it mine to drown and come back to life and see ghosts? Was I destined to die here tonight? Maybe it was foolish to think that I could stop something that was written in the stars.
The stars. I looked up. I couldn’t see them through the clouds. But they were up there. Out of reach.
I walked down the alley and stopped at the spot where it would happen. I swallowed hard, my throat still intact. And then my legs suddenly turned to rubber. How could I be so stupid? Sometimes I had trouble making a cup of coffee. How could I think now that I could change something this big? I couldn’t save Ty and me. I couldn’t save April. And I couldn’t save myself. Not if I stayed here in this horrible place, this place of blood and death.
All I could think at that moment was that I didn’t want to die.
I would never see Kate again. Or Ty. Never find out if we could overcome our problems and find love again. Never another Christmas. Or see the sun again and feel its warmth on my face on a summer day. Or kick a soccer ball and watch it ripple the net. Never hear David wheeze again. Or Mo curse. Never see if I had what it took to follow my dream.
Never.
I didn’t want to die.
Forgive me, April. God, forgive me.
“I want to live,” I said out loud.
“I want to live.”
And then I started walking. On wobbly knees, slowly at first and then faster, leaving the alley behind. And then I started running. I ran and ran and ran. I ran past the library and my dentist’s office and the Old Mill with its three smokestacks. I ran past the movie theater, through the parking lot, down Brookswood.
I ran fast and hard, down side streets and neighborhoods I had never been to before, the black and white Christmas lights dancing at the edges of my vision.
I finally stopped, blown out, at a small park overlooking the dark Deschutes. The water moved fast here. But not as fast as the tears rolling down my face.
I felt the gun in my pocket, useless, weighing me down, leaving a bruise on my hip, and pulled it out. I didn’t need it anymore. I reached back and flung it into the black water like the stones Jesse would skip.
I stood there crying for what felt like forever. Until the snow started falling.
CHAPTER 50
The snow began to stick to the ground at my feet. April must only have minutes to live now. Maybe she was already dead.
I had failed her.
For a moment all I could feel was a great emptiness inside. And then I felt it begin to grow. Slowly at first and then in waves. The shame. The guilt. It came flooding in like the water behind a broken levee. I would have cried then, again, for April. For myself. But I was all out.
I called her number again. Maybe she would listen. Listen to this final warning. Again no answer.
At that moment I wished I could take it back. Take it all back. All the running away. I would stand there in that alley and face it.
But I knew it was a lie. A coward’s lie. I was safe here. Miles away. It was easy to wish things that could never be.
I wiped my face and pulled up the sleeve on my jacket, checking the time.
11:32.
The snow had come early.
There might still be time.
***
As I ran back toward town, through the falling snow, I thought about how sometimes it snows in one place and not another. It could be snowing up on Pilot Butte and not down in the city.
I hoped that was the case here. That somehow it wasn’t snowing yet in Tin Pan Alley. I sucked in the cold air and fought the urge to check the time again. I focused instead on going as fast as I could and finding the most direct route back.
My chest ached and my knees throbbed from the effort. But I didn’t have time for the pain. At one point the snow, instead of coming down harder like in the vision, let up and then stopped. Maybe I was staying ahead of it. Maybe there was still time.
Hurry.
I was getting closer now. Back past the smokestacks, lit up with lights. I prayed I wouldn’t hear those bells. Not yet. Hurry.
Hurry, Abby.
Hurry.
CHAPTER 51
I turned the corner. There it was. The alley.
I checked my watch. 11:58.
I had made it. Somehow, I had made it. There was still time.
I walked now, couldn’t have run another step.
The snow began to fall again.
I stumbled toward the theater seats, still breathing hard. A thin layer of snow was already beginning to cover them. I sat down anyway.
And then I heard her. Her screams.
“Fire! Help! Fire!”
It was smart. They say people are more likely to react to a fire than to help a woman being attacked. It was smart, but it wouldn’t save her.
Suddenly she was running toward me, like in the vision, coming down the alley. And then I saw him. Sutter.
“I only stopped by for a drink!” she shouted, her words bouncing off the bricks. “I told you that already. Get away from me!”
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“Come on, April,” he said sweetly, grabbing her arm. “Come on back. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I could only make out his silhouette, but I could imagine those eyes and the sick thoughts behind them.
“Let go or I’ll call the cops!” she said, pushing him back.
He lost his balance and slipped, falling on the ground.
She started walking away from him.
“Run!” I shouted.
He was right behind her now.
They were coming toward me. But this time I didn’t hide behind the chairs. Instead, even with the fear inside me stronger than ever, I took a step toward her.
Her shirt was ripped open, her bra exposed. Thick black streaks of mascara ran down her face. Her left eye swollen and dark, her lip cut with a small amount of blood dripping from it.
He caught up to her under the light.
“Leave her alone!” I shouted.
He turned, still holding her, and for the first time I could see his face. But it wasn’t Sutter’s face I saw.
“Abby? From Back Street?” he said, his voice sugar sweet again. “Is that you?”
He came closer.
The professor from the college.
Elliot Beverly.
“It is you,” he said. “Merry Christmas, Abby.”
Black energy rose off him in waves. Somehow I had missed it before. The evil that was there. There all along. But I could feel it now in my bones.
“Let her go,” I said again, my hand in my pocket. “I have a gun.”
“No need for violence,” he said, smiling. “April here and I just had a slight misunderstanding. But we’re good now. Right, April?”
I could see him digging his fingers into her arm. She struggled to break free.
“Let her go,” I said, pointing my index finger at him through my coat.
“Let’s see it then,” he whispered. “You don’t have a gun.”
I stood there staring, trying to convince him with my eyes that it was the truth. But he could see through me.
“You don’t have a gun,” he repeated. “But I have this.”
Through the falling snow I saw the reflection, shiny and metallic.
The knife.
And then I heard the bells.
He held the blade up to her throat.
“I’m sorry, Abby,” she cried. “You were right. I should have listened to you.”
“Right about what?” he said, looking right at me with the eyes of a monster.
More bells.
We were out of time. He was going to kill her. And then kill me.
I pulled my empty hand out of my pocket.
He smiled.
“Right about what, Abby?”
I saw him pull back the knife slightly. I couldn’t think of what else to do.
“About the bells,” I said, lunging toward him with all my might.
I felt the warm spray on my face. April fell to the ground, clutching her neck. The blood squeezed out between her fingers. He turned to face me.
“Your turn, Abby,” he said, his eyes glowing in the snow.
The bells had stopped.
I backed up toward the wall.
He took a step toward me. And then another. He was on top of me.
“Your turn.”
This was the end.
CHAPTER 52
Suddenly I saw a dark shadow, like a blur, out of the corner of my eye. The ghost, I thought. Come to bear witness to another death.
A moment later it plowed into Beverly like Clay Matthews bringing down a defenseless quarterback.
I saw the knife fly through the air, heard it crash into the bricks.
Stunned, Beverly got up and tried to run. But the ghost pulled him back. Fists rained down on his body and head. And then he slumped down into the snow.
“Abby? Are you all right?”
It was Ty.
He helped me to my feet.
“I think so,” I said, still unable to believe it. “But April…”
We turned and ran to her.
She was still alive, still conscious, still holding her neck.
Ty pulled out his phone.
“Let me see,” I said, prying her fingers away from the wound.
There was a lot of blood, but not as much as in the visions. Maybe the cut wasn’t so deep. Maybe it hadn’t hit an artery.
I covered her with my jacket and applied pressure to her neck.
“Paramedics are on their way,” Ty said.
“Hang on, April,” I said. “You’ll be okay.”
When the paramedics arrived, they wrapped the wound with a large bandage. Her vital signs were stable. I held her hand as they loaded her into the ambulance.
“Thank you, Abby,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
CHAPTER 53
“Looks like someone had their Wheaties this morning,” I said, kissing Ty’s battered knuckles. “You were amazing.”
The police had Elliot Beverly in handcuffs over by the row of chairs. They were giving us a moment before they brought us in for questioning.
“I don’t know,” Ty said. “Something just took over.”
“But how did you know? To be out here?”
“I didn’t forget what you said about the snow, in your vision,” he said. “I saw that I had missed your call, and it wasn’t snowing yet but I made my way down here anyway. Just in case.”
“And you didn’t even have any constellations to guide you,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“No, nothing. Just what you said that time about you not being my hero, my Perseus,” I said, looking up into his eyes. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”
I hugged him before they put us in the back of the squad car.
***
They didn’t keep us too long.
Ty and I repeated the story we had come up with while we waited for the paramedics. I was walking around and had called him. He showed up and saw a man with a knife coming after me. I left out the part about my visions, but we were careful not to say anything that was an outright lie.
When they talked to her, April would probably punch some holes in my story. But I would deal with that later. For now, she was on her way to the hospital and Elliot Beverly was behind bars.
The detective in charge seemed to accept our version of things. He appeared to be in a hurry to get home.
“Nobody needs this on Christmas Eve,” he said, seeing us out. “I’m sure we’ll have more questions for you in the coming days. But for now, Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
It was all white outside, like in the first visions.
The snow had finally come.
CHAPTER 54
They released April from the hospital in the morning.
She called me. The doctor had told her she had been lucky. A quarter inch more and she would have probably died.
“I’m back home with my parents,” she said. “I just wanted to say thank you again, Abby. You saved my life. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to what you were trying to tell me.”
“Well, it was a crazy story,” I said. “I’m not sure I would have believed it either.”
I wasn’t sure that I had saved her either. I don’t know what would have happened if Ty hadn’t shown up. But maybe I had knocked Elliot Beverly off balance enough to prevent the wound from being fatal. Maybe I had done enough. Just enough.
“Anyway, thanks again,” she said. “And Merry Christmas.”
“You too,” I said. “Merry Christmas.”
Kate later found out that Elliot Beverly had been a person of interest in the murder of one of his college students in Ohio. He admitted to having an affair with the young woman and was believed to have been the last person to see her alive. But investigators couldn’t find enough evidence and had to let him go. Soon after that, he moved to Bend and got a job at the college here.
The victim’s name was Emily Richards. The ghost.
I thought back to the wet-looking hair and the cold feeling that came off of her whenever I saw her.
“They’ll probably reopen that case,” Kate said. “Maybe they can link the knife. Or maybe the bastard will confess to it now. And he’s facing sexual assault and attempted murder charges here.”
I nodded.
“He’s bad, Abby. Really bad,” she said. “He seemed to prefer a certain type. The woman in Ohio and April look like they could have been sisters. You might have saved a lot of people. Women you don’t even know.
“He might have just been getting started.”
CHAPTER 55
It had snowed nonstop all day.
The night was magical. Like Christmas should be.
The guests started to arrive at four.
Erin. Dr. Krowe. Paloma and Rosie. Lyle. Some reporters and former reporters from The Bugler. Even Mo showed up. And David.
Somehow he had made it back from Portland and through the pass just before they closed it. The part of Detective Slocum had gone to someone else. But as he had suspected, the producers were creating a special character just for him. There were still details to work out, but it looked like he might have a recurring role in the series.
“That’s just incredible, David Norton,” I said, giving him a big hug. “I’m so happy for you!”
“So, Abby Craig, here’s your present,” he said later, slipping a small box into my hand as I stood by the stove, stirring the soup.
I put the wooden spoon down and opened it. It was a silver necklace with an image of a small hand, a labyrinth inside it with a tiny stone in the middle.
“David, it’s so beautiful,” I said, taking it out of the box and looking at it. “Thank you so much.”
“It’s for protection. You know, from all those nasty demons you keep attracting. I figured you needed a little good energy around you at all times. See? The hand is like, ‘Stay back, you bad things.’ And then the little stone symbolizes water. ‘Cause it’s not like you’re a mermaid or anything, but you’re kinda from the water.”