1 Lowcountry Boil (17 page)

“What? Why?”

“If you go in, you’ll all three die. You, Merry, and Kristen.”

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t know how I know. I just know. Stay here.”

“Dammit Colleen.”

“I can’t let you go in.”

“You can’t stop me.” I tried to push past her, but I couldn’t. An invisible wall came up. It was like pushing against a big mattress. I beat on it and kicked it. Colleen disappeared, but I couldn’t move past the wall.

“Come back to the window.”

I looked over my shoulder and Colleen was peering inside.

“Why can’t I just shoot the bastard and call 911?”

“Because he will shoot you first. Then he’ll kill Merry and Kristen. You’re not supposed to be here. You cannot intervene.
Trust me.
Come back to the window.”

Because she was a ghost, I did as she said.

“If you promise to stay here, I’ll go in,” she said. “But if you come in there, I’ll protect you first and anyone else second. Got it?”

“What can you do?” I whispered.

“We’re about to find out.”

Colleen walked through the side of the house and went to Merry’s side. Merry was motionless. In shock, Troy and Kristen stood over her, staring. Colleen slid one arm under Merry’s head and brushed her forehead with the fingertips of her other hand.

Screaming, Kristen ran towards the phone, resting on its cradle on the kitchen counter. Troy met her there. He grabbed the phone with one hand and Kristen’s arm with the other. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Now I knew that voice. Troy Causby was The Exterminator.

“I’m calling nine-one-one. She’s hurt,” Kristen said.

“Wait a minute. I need to think.”

Kristen jerked at the phone. “She’ll die while you’re trying to concoct some story where you’re not responsible.”

Troy jerked back. “I’m
not
responsible. You saw what happened. She tripped. It was an accident.”

“I’m not going to stand here arguing with you. Give me the phone.” She grimaced, and looked at her arm. “You’re hurting me.”

His panic took on a layer of threat. “She’s probably already dead. They’ll never believe it wasn’t our fault. Her brother’s the fucking chief of police. I’m not going to jail.”

Kristen hesitated.

Troy let go of Kristen, reached across the counter, and ripped the old-fashioned phone jack off the wall. He glanced back at Merry. He crossed the room, knelt down, and felt for a pulse.

“She’s dead.”

I drew back as if I’d been slapped.

Colleen’s head snapped up. “No, she’s not. Don’t listen to him. He wants Kristen to think that. She’s just stunned.
Do not come in here.
”

Kristen screamed, “No, no, no.” She doubled over and rocked back and forth crying.

Troy went back and stood in front of Kristen, placed both his hands on her arms—gently this time—and met her eyes. “Look, we can’t help Merry now, but we can help ourselves.”

Kristen sobbed quietly and shivered.

The Exterminator rubbed her arms. “You’re upset. I understand.” He kept his voice calm and soothing. “Go to your room and get your purse. You’ve got to pull yourself together enough to drive. Go over to my place and wait for me there. I’ll take care of Merry and get there as soon as I can.”

“What are you going to do?” Kristen choked out.

So intent was Troy on dealing with Kristen that he didn’t see Merry stir, but I did. Tears of gratitude welled up in my eyes. Colleen pressed her fingers against Merry’s eyelids, presumably to keep them closed so Troy would think Merry was still unconscious.

His next words turned my blood to ice water.

“I’m going to hide her body,” the bastard said. “You don’t want to know where.”

Kristen shook her head violently. “No.” 

“Look at me, Kristen. We’ve got to clean this mess up or the boss’s associates are going to be ditching
our
bodies. You get that?” His snake eyes burned into hers. “Remember…you’re the one that told me she wanted to open a camp on the beach. You started this whole thing. We’re in this together…right?”

She raised and lowered her chin twice.

“No one will ever know we were even here tonight. No one is
ever
going to know, right, Kristen?”

Again, as if his puppet, she nodded.

Colleen looked at me again. “Ignore him. Merry’s going to be fine.”

Troy pushed Kristen towards her room. “Go on, now, get your purse.”

Moving like a robot, she did as she was told.

Colleen kept her fingers pressed to Merry’s eyelids, and whispered into her ear.

The Exterminator ran his fingers through his hair and stared at Merry.

Kristen shuffled back into the room carrying her purse.

“Be careful,” he admonished her. “Don’t speed, and don’t run any stop signs. If you get stopped looking like that, the cop will remember it when Merry turns up missing. Go straight to my place and stay there.”

“Okay.” As if in a trance, she floated out the door, closing it behind her. A moment later, I heard the Honda start.

Troy turned his attention to Merry. Ignoring the magazines, pictures, and candles that had been scattered by Merry’s fall, he lifted the coffee table and dropped it in the corner, off the pastel braided rug. He pulled the edges of the rug from underneath the furniture legs.

A fierce look on her face, Colleen appeared to be whispering the same thing, over and over into Merry’s ear. She turned her head slightly and met my eyes. She raised her voice so I could hear. Soothingly she said, “One chance to escape. Wait for it. Focus on staying limp.”

Troy stood over Merry and Colleen and took a deep breath. He lifted Merry and laid her down at the edge of the braided chenille rug. Colleen and I stood helpless as he folded the end of the rug over Merry, tucked it underneath her, and rolled her across the floor, wrapping her in the rug as he went. He looked relieved once she was fully concealed in the rug.

Colleen bent over the rug and chanted, “Stay still. Stay still. Stay still…”

Troy strode to the front door and left the house, closing the door behind him.

Merry must have heard the door close, or maybe on some level she heard Colleen shout, “
Now!
”

Merry flopped like a fish out of water, trying to loosen the rug. She rolled herself backwards, opposite the way Troy had wrapped her up.

“Help her,” I hissed.

But Merry tumbled, still dazed and unsteady, out of the rug and scrambled to her feet. She bolted for the back door.

“No!” Colleen shouted. A silver aura appeared around her body.

I stepped back in wonder.

The light shimmered and tiny sparks of gold flew from Colleen’s fingertips as she reached towards Merry with both hands. “He’s driving around back. He’ll catch you there.”

Merry stopped and turned.

“She can’t hear me,” said Colleen. “She thinks the thought occurred to her. Stay quiet.”

My instincts were screaming at me to shout at her, but I didn’t know what the consequences might be.

Wildly, Merry’s eyes searched the room. She took in the ripped out phone jack. She lunged for the fireplace poker, grabbed it, and dashed to the french doors that led onto the back deck. She peered out.

“Lock the door,” Colleen said.

Merry threw the deadbolt, and darted away from the door.

“Where’s my cell phone?” I whispered. “Tell her to call Blake.”

“She left it on the porch at your house with a note.” Colleen looked at me hard. “Stay put.”

Grasping the poker in both hands, Merry flattened herself against the wall beside the front door. When he came back in, she’d be ready for him.

TWENTY-ONE

Colleen stared out the french doors. “He’s pulled the Expedition around back. He’s unloading a bunch of crap onto the deck. Looks like he didn’t plan on having to dispose of a body this evening. We got golf clubs, a gym bag, a toolbox, dirty clothes, and a bunch of wadded-up fast food bags.”

For what seemed like hours, we waited. Colleen watching, and Merry and I straining to hear, each rooted to our spot. Then, footsteps on the deck. Troy crossed the deck and tried the back door. He cursed quietly, but emphatically
.

Cursing non-stop, he backed off the deck.

Seconds later, I heard a car door out front. Footsteps clicked on the walk. Colleen spun towards the front door, a question in her eyes.

The door opened.

Kristen stepped in.

Merry brought the fireplace poker down on her head.

Kristen crumpled to the floor.

Merry stared down at her in horror. Then, thinking astonishingly fast on her feet for someone with a gash in the back of her head, Merry grabbed Kristen by the feet and pulled her over to the rug. Adrenaline—or possibly Colleen—now in the driver’s seat, Merry rolled Kristen up in the rug exactly as Merry herself had been only moments before.

Without a backward glance, Merry picked up Kristen’s purse and slipped out the front door. Seconds later the Honda purred to life.

TWENTY-TWO

“Why did Kristen come back?” I hissed at Colleen.

“I don’t know.” Colleen stood in the middle of the room, ears perked. She turned slowly around in a circle. “A better question is what happened to Troy. Stay there. He’s armed. If you try to leave now, he’ll see you when he comes back around the house. I don’t understand what’s taking him so long.”

“He probably heard the car and waited.”

Colleen nodded. “He probably thought it was a neighbor and didn’t want to be seen.”

Praise God, Merry had made good her escape.

Footsteps on the front porch.

Colleen’s eyes glowed red. “Remember—
no matter what
—do not come in here. If you come in here, you die tonight.”

The front door opened. Troy came inside and closed it behind him. The silencer made the gun in his hand look huge. I held my breath and ducked a little lower.

Later, I wished in my bones I’d gone inside, regardless of Coleen’s dire predictions and freaky eyes.

A muffled moan came from the rug.

Troy’s eyes riveted to the bundle.

The middle of the rug heaved then both ends jerked wildly. Muffled screams fought their way through chenille.

Troy crossed the room in two long strides and stood over the mound.

The rug rocked and rolled forward.

Troy pointed the pistol at the end of the rug, squinted, and recoiled as far from the gun as he could.

I ducked, turned, and braced my back against the house.

I covered my face and slid down the side of the house to the ground.

Pfft-pfft.
I barely heard the shots.

TWENTY-THREE

Maybe he’d hit her in the arm. Through the rug, it would be hard for him to tell. Shaking, I peeked over the windowsill. The rug wasn’t moving. Troy unlocked the deadbolt on the french doors and opened both sides. He heaved the rug over his shoulder and staggered out. As soon as he cleared the doors, Colleen shouted, “Run,
now.
Go home. Merry’s there. Let Blake handle Troy.”

Then Colleen went wherever Colleen goes.

I sprinted back to the Escape, made a u-turn, and sped home.

Kristen’s Honda was in the driveway. I pulled in behind it and ran up the steps. Merry was curled in a ball on the porch by the door. I knelt and crushed my sister to my chest. Then I got us both inside and bolted the door.

Since that was not the time—if ever there would be a time—to explain to Merry I’d been consorting with spirits, I listened as she sobbed out what happened. “I thought I saw your car down the block,” she said at one point.

I shook my head. “Someone else must have one like it.”

“I don’t know what made me think to lock that door,” she said. “I started to run out back. But something just told me not to, you know?”

While she talked, I hugged her for dear life. Then I dialed Blake.

He made it from his houseboat in record time. The three of us sat huddled together in the sunroom. Merry and I on the loveseat, Blake on the adjacent sofa, as Merry repeated the story. Rhett paced the room like a sentry, sniffing corners.

“What does Troy drive?” Blake asked.

“A white Expedition,” Merry said.

Blake reached for his cell phone and radioed Rodney Murphy. When he finished giving the description of Troy and his vehicle to Rodney, he turned back to us. Blake leaned in and spoke gently to Merry. “Troy’s dad is a shrimper. I know he has access to several boats. Do you know if any of them was docked here tonight?”

“Sometimes he’d use his dad’s speedboat to come from Shem Creek,” Merry said. “But then I’d pick him up at the marina. He was driving the Expedition. He came over on the ferry.”

Blake said, “We’ve got to find him before he dumps Kristen somewhere. You probably just stunned her with the poker, but she needs medical attention. If she wakes up before he gets where he’s going… Do you have any idea where that might be?”

I couldn’t tell them she’d been shot. It wouldn’t have changed anything anyway. Troy still had to be found.

Merry shook her head. “No, all I heard him say is that he was going to get rid of the body.
My body
.” She dissolved into violent sobs.

I tightened my arms around my sister and rocked her back and forth. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Blake stood, eager to join the hunt. “Look, I don’t know where this asshole is, or what his plans are, but if he finds out that’s not Merry rolled up in the rug, he’s going to come looking for her.”

Visions of The Exterminator still danced in my head. “I know.”

His eyes bored into mine. “If Kristen regained consciousness, he may already be looking for Merry. The first place he’ll come is here, then Mom and Dad’s. I’ve got to go find him. I can’t leave the two of you here alone. Please don’t ask me to do that.” Blake knew me well enough to know I would not take kindly the idea of being run out of my own home.

I muled up. “I installed a security system. We’ll lock up behind you, and you can have somebody drive by every now and then.”

Blake got loud. “Liz, be reasonable. This is a small island. I don’t have a fleet of patrol cars at my disposal. Right now, I need everyone I have to hunt this asshole down.”

“Be sure to call when you find him. I can’t wait to get my hands on that—”

“I can’t leave here until I know that the two of you are safe. Please, for once in your life, listen to me.”

Merry asked, “Where do you want us to go? You said yourself he’ll go to Mom and Dad’s if he doesn’t find me here.”

“But there’s safety in numbers, and Dad has a nice collection of shotguns. You’ll be safer there than you are here.”

I wasn’t happy about the idea, but the beseeching look on Blake’s face won me over. “I’ll pack an overnight bag. It’ll just take a minute. Go on…I’ll call when we get there.”

Blake said, “I’ll call Dad and let him know you’re on your way.”

I gently extricated myself from Merry and tucked the afghan around her. “What about Kristen’s car? That’s the first thing he’ll look for. Even if we put it in the garage, the doors have windows.”

Blake thought for a moment. “I’ll park it at the ferry dock. If he finds it there, he’ll think she caught the last ferry over.”

“The keys are on the coffee table,” Merry said. “But it’s nearly out of gas. I didn’t think I’d make it here.”

Was that why Kristen had come back? Did she need money for gas? She’d taken her purse, but maybe for whatever reason she didn’t have money.

Blake picked up the keys and turned towards the kitchen. “There’s some in a gas can in the garage.”

“Blake?” I said.

“Yeah?” He stopped and turned, impatience on his face.