Dying to Read (24 page)

“Don’t sound so shocked. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“What do you mean? We maybe . . . did some stuff we shouldn’t have. We pulled some scams. But we never killed anyone.”

“Oh, c’mon, babe. Remember the old dairy farmer we were working for? You really think he slipped and fell off that barn roof all by himself?”

“You’re telling me . . . you pushed him?” Willow sounded as if she choked over the words. “Coop, I don’t want to be involved in anything like that. Not ever. I won’t do it.”

“You didn’t seem to mind grabbing the cash he had hidden in the attic.”

The words zapped Cate like a fist to the belly. Coop had just admitted murder. Murder not just contemplated, murder accomplished. And murder gotten away with. She touched her lips to cut off the gasp or yelp building there.

And in doing so, she let go of the sack of cat food . . .

It leaned. Tottered. Cate lunged for it. Too late—

Crash!

 17 

Cat food blasted out of the sack as it hit and broke. Cat food on the floor, cat food hitting Cate’s face, cat food bouncing off the wall! A veritable explosion of cat food.

Frantically Cate looked around for some way to scoop it back into the sack. Then she realized that was the least of her worries.

“What was that?” Coop’s voice, knife-hard and dangerous.

She couldn’t let them catch her here! Run! No, she could never make it out the front door in time. Hide! Behind the drapes? Under the table?

Cate lunged for the drapes. Too late, because there was Coop staring at her from the doorway, Willow right behind him.

“I, uh, forgot the sack of cat food Willow gave me. I came back to get it, but I guess I . . . dropped it.”

“You were listening to our conversation?” Willow’s forehead creased in dismay.

“No, I couldn’t hear anything—”

“She was listening.” Coop stepped up beside her, looming over her. Cat food crunched under his boots. It sounded like old bones breaking. “She heard.”

“I’m sorry about the mess.” Cate eyed the doorway. She stood up. “I’ll just get a broom and—”

Coop barred her way with the single thrust of a muscular arm.

“It’s okay.” Willow stepped over and touched Coop’s arm. “I did give her the cat food. I’ll help her put it in a plastic bag and—”

“Forget the cat food,” Coop commanded, his gaze never leaving Cate. “She heard.”

“I couldn’t hear anything,” Cate insisted, but even to her own ears the words sounded shrill and phony.

“So she heard us talking about the ridiculous deal on the apartments.” Willow threw up her hands and kicked the tattered cat food sack across the room. “It’s just another of your lamebrain, get-rich schemes that would never work.”

“She heard the part about the farmer’s fall off the barn.”

“No, I didn’t,” Cate said, but these words sounded even worse. She put her hands behind her back, trying to keep them from shaking, and clenched her lips to keep them from trembling. But she knew what showed on her face. Her mouth might deny it, but her face made a banner headline of it.

“She’ll turn us in.” Coop’s big hands clenched into fists. “Then the cops will know it wasn’t an accident and nail us.”

Willow rubbed his arm in a soothing gesture. “No one’s going to pay any attention to some wild story about a dead farmer way back when.”

“Two years isn’t that long.” Coop’s fists flexed. Open. Shut. Cate’s throat thickened, no breath passing through, as if those hands were closing around her neck. “With new information, they reopen cases that are two decades old.”

“But Cate isn’t going to say anything, are you, Cate?” Willow’s face had paled under her sprinkling of freckles, but she gave Cate a nod of encouragement that plainly said “Tell him!”

Cate shook her head and stuttered agreement at the same time. “I-I don’t know anything t-to say to anyone. I just came for the c-cat food.”

“One thing you better remember, babe. If they nail me for pushing that old farmer off the roof, you go down too, as an accomplice. You want to spend the rest of your life behind bars? Or waiting to sizzle in the electric chair?”

“But Cate’s my friend,” Willow protested. “She rescued me from a tree once. I can’t—”

Cate’s heart hammered. Can’t what? What did Willow think Coop had in mind?

“Look at it this way, babe. It’s her survival or ours. I vote for ours. How do you vote?”

Plain enough. Cate’s life or theirs.

“We can’t take any chances. We need to make sure she can’t talk. Babe, you better be with me on this,” Coop warned. “But I’ll do it alone if I have to.”

At the moment Cate surely couldn’t talk to anyone about anything. Her mouth felt as if the exploding cat food had filled it. Her tongue was trapped, immovable.

Willow folded her arms across her chest. “So what do you have in mind?”

Coop’s gaze flicked to the window. Cate knew what he saw. The stairs.

“Falls seem to work.”

Willow flung her hands in the air again. “That’s crazy.
Two
people getting killed on those stairs, and the cops will investigate like there’s a maniac serial killer on the loose. And who’ll they investigate?
Me
.”

“So you tell ’em the old lady was murdered and who did it. And then you don’t know anything about clumsy-footed Ms. PI here stumbling down the stairs.”

“And you just waltz on out, free as a bird, while I’m stuck here taking all the risk!”

“You have a better idea?” Coop challenged.

Tell him, Willow. Tell him a better idea is to take his crazy schemes and get out of your life!

But what Willow said, her eyes avoiding Cate’s, was, “A fall is . . . good. But not here.”

“Where, then?”

“Over on the coast. There are lots of places to push someone off a cliff into the ocean.”

Cate managed a dry-mouthed gasp. “Willow!”

“It’s a long ways to drive, but, yeah, that might work.” Coop’s eyes narrowed as he studied Cate as if she were merely a problem in logistics. “We put her in the trunk of your car. I drive. You follow in her car. If anyone sees, they’ll think it’s her driving.”

Willow picked up the plan. “We get to the coast and find a good spot. We leave her car parked there. It’ll look like she just got out to look at the view and stumbled off a cliff. People fall off those coast cliffs all the time.”

Not all the time, Cate objected. But often enough that it probably could look like an accident.

Coop had a sudden second thought. “Yeah, but if someone knows she came here, they’ll wonder why she suddenly decided to rush over to the coast.”

Willow eyed Cate as if expecting her to volunteer a useful explanation. Then she remembered. “She thought she was going to get back together with some old boyfriend, but then he broke up with her again.”

“Smart guy,” Coop muttered. “So if anyone questions you later, you tell them she was here, but she was upset about the guy and said she was going over to the coast to get away and think about it. Where’s your car?”

“In the garage.”

“How much gas is in it?”

“I filled the tank yesterday.”

“Good. Let’s get going.”

Cate planted her feet on the cat food. She couldn’t think what to do, but no way was she helping with a cooperative trot out to the car.

However, it was not as if she had a choice. Coop simply threw her over his shoulder as if she were an oversized sack of cat food and headed for the garage. She pounded his back with her fists and battered her knees against his chest, she yelled and screamed, but she may as well have attacked a bulldozer, and there was no one to hear her in the garage. Willow, following, also ignored Cate’s flailing and yelling. Coop carried her past Amelia’s Mercedes and dumped her upright beside the trunk of Willow’s Toyota. He instantly wrenched her arms around behind her body. A jolt of pain shot through her shoulders.

“We need something to tape her hands and feet. And her mouth. We don’t want her yelling and somebody hearing. Duct tape’ll do it. You got some duct tape?”

“Duct tape!” Willow indignantly planted her fists on her hips. “Why would I have duct tape? And what’s the point in tying her up if she’s going to be in the trunk? What’s she going to do? Tap Morse code messages on the lid and some satellite will pick them up?”

“I heard about somebody in a trunk managing to rip out the lights and stick out a hand, and somebody saw it.”

Willow rolled her eyes. “I’ll be right behind you. If I see her making obscene gestures at passing cars I’ll let you know.”

Willow’s objection to tying her up gave Cate momentary hope. If she could just get Willow alone for a moment . . . Willow might have moral deficiencies in the pulling-a-scam and blackmail departments, but she was no killer. Cate had heard the horror in her voice when she realized what Coop had done to the farmer.

“I’m not taking any chances,” Coop insisted. “Just our luck she’d let out a banshee yell and some busybody would hear her. Now get something to shut her up. And there’s a gun in the left saddlebag on my bike. Get it.”

Willow disappeared back into the house. Coop yanked Cate with him when he went around to the driver’s side door to click the trunk latch, yanked her along again when he went back to the trunk.

Willow returned with a mean-looking black gun and a roll of narrow white tape.

Coop grabbed the gun but he muttered an oath when she handed him the tape. “That isn’t duct tape. It’s masking tape! Nothing but sticky paper. Nowhere near strong enough.”

“So I’m not a tape expert. It’s all I could find in the storage room.”

Coop grumbled as he wrapped the tape around Cate’s wrists. He might consider it of inferior strength, but it felt all too sturdy to Cate. The tape was too narrow to cover her mouth shut with a single length of tape, so he used short pieces crisscrossed from cheeks to chin.

Willow watched him, and Cate’s blood chilled when Willow unexpectedly giggled. “That looks like a four-year-old did it.”

“Sorry. The Boy Scouts didn’t offer a badge in mouth taping.” Coop sounded grumpy, but Cate also heard the tease in his voice. They were making a fun outing of this. What next . . . pack a picnic lunch to take along?

“Are you going to do her feet too?” Willow asked.

“You think I should?”

“Nah. She won’t be doing any hiking in there.”

Coop picked Cate up and stuffed her in the trunk. Her feet dangled over the edge, and helpful Willow stuffed them in too.

“What about your bike?” Willow asked. “Should we bring it inside the garage?”

“It’ll be okay. Let’s get this show on the road. Just go out there and get her car started.”

“Her purse is in the car. I looked when I went to get the gun out of your bike. But there’s no car key.”

“So it must be on her. Look for it.”

Cate, stuffed in the car trunk with tape over her mouth, was in no position to object when Willow extracted the keys from Cate’s pocket.

“I need to change clothes and get a jacket,” Willow said. “The coast can be chilly.”

“Okay. But hurry up.”

They were hauling Cate to a cliff to shove her into the ocean, and Willow was worrying about her wardrobe.

The trunk lid slammed shut. The blackness of a cave engulfed her. Instant claustrophobia pounded the blood in her ears. Her throat closed. Bands of fear cinched her chest. She couldn’t breathe. They wouldn’t have to push her off a cliff. She was going to die right here, right now.

Lord, help me! I don’t know what to do. I can’t do anything!

A moment later the car door slammed. The garage door rumbled open. The car vibrated with the start of the engine.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.

A death drive to the coast starts with the first roll of the wheels.

The car started rolling.

 18 

The car rolled down the sloped driveway. Hands bound, Cate skidded across the hard floor of the trunk and banged into the wall. The rough carpet burned her cheek.

Helpless. Like a nightmare from which she couldn’t awaken. A big swoop when the car reached the bottom of the driveway and turned to head down the street. A turn to the left at the corner. A few blocks and a swerve to the right. Then more turns, and she was totally disoriented, all sense of direction lost.

She started praying, sometimes a conscious prayer, sometimes like a program on a computer running continuously in the background. She lost track of time there in the cave of blackness. The ride was rough, the rumble of tires on the road close to her ears, the floor of the trunk unyielding bedrock against her bones. A sour scent of something once spilled on the carpet rose around her. A seasick nausea fluttered in her stomach.

Coop turned on the radio. Sound vibrated from the backseat speakers when he hit a hard rock station. Boom, boom, boom! Thankfully he moved on, finally stopping on the last music choice Cate would have expected. Coop liked golden oldies? Somehow she’d never imagined that she’d spend her last hours on earth listening to Tony Bennett singing “Fly Me to the Moon.”

She managed to roll onto her side, and then her neck crinked as her unpillowed head flopped sideways to the floor. The arm under her went numb. She rolled to her other side. Would her body show carpet burn and incriminating fibers to alert the police?

Now there was a cheerful thought.

The ride went on and on. The sway of curves, the bump of a stretch of potholes, a smell of oil or grease rising from the underside of the car. The roar of a truck passing, a honk. Neil Diamond warbling “Song Sung Blue.” Fuzz from the carpet tickling her nose. She sneezed, one, two, three times, cramping the muscles across her stomach. The tape across her mouth shrink-wrapped her lips. Bruised muscles, crick in her neck, sore bones.

She’d be sore for days from this—

No, she realized. She wouldn’t.

In spite of that bleak thought, a peculiar sense of indignation unexpectedly welled up in her. This wasn’t fair. Perhaps she shouldn’t have muddled around in Amelia’s murder. Both Uncle Joe and Mitch had warned her not to. But here she was . . . helpless in the trunk of a car, mouth and hands taped, headed for an appointment with a cliff . . . and it had nothing to do with Amelia’s death. It was all because of a murder she hadn’t even known existed until today. That and her dropping a sack of cat food.

She thought about the passing traffic. Who would guess Willow’s innocent-looking Toyota held a trussed-up captive inside? She’d never look at passing cars the same. She’d always wonder, is someone in there, bound and helpless?

No, she wouldn’t wonder that, she realized as the raw reality slapped her again. She kept missing the important point here. This was her final ride.

She thought of many other things there in the darkness. The deep and profound: Lord, I believe in you. I believe there’s an eternity beyond whatever happens to me here. Will I be seeing you soon? I’m so glad I know you. I trust you. But I’m so scared.

The mundane: Her parents. Uncle Joe and Rebecca. Octavia. This would hit them all hard. Maybe even Mitch and Kyle would have a few regretful thoughts about her.

And there were regrets about things undone in her life. Blonde. She’d always intended to try being a blonde for a while. Not now. So, big deal. There were more important things undone. Marriage. Kids.

Sometimes her muscles went rigid with panic as the reality of what was happening . . . what was going to happen . . . rolled through her. Once a shiver grabbed hold of her like a live thing with tentacles and claws that wouldn’t let go. She pictured herself taking that plunge into space . . . heard the air whistle in her ears as she somersaulted downward . . . saw the horizon revolve like some strange new rotation of earth and sun.

Her face itched under the tape. Her dry mouth and throat screamed for something to drink. A memory of the iced tea she and Mitch had shared in Uncle Joe’s backyard surfaced. The icy tang, the sweetness. Oh, how she longed for a sip of that tea!

And Mitch.
I’m sorry I never got to know you better. I hope you’ll find your way, all the way, to the Lord.

Yet sometimes, incredible as it seemed, her brain slumped into boredom. Her muscles numbed. The hum of the road lulled her. Nat King Cole soothed her with “Unforgettable.”

Eventually, even in the enclosed trunk, she sensed a change in the air. A scent of sea mingled with the sourness of the soiled carpet and the reek of her own scared sweat. A difference in temperature too, a cool freshness. Willow was right about needing a jacket over here. She could use one herself. Though she had to admit that was the least of her troubles. Once she thought she heard the boom of surf on a beach.

And she could really use a restroom about now.

Then a pull to the side of the road. Was this it, the place they’d chosen to fling her off a cliff? Her stomach clenched and started to lurch into reverse. She battled it down. Voices murmured right outside the trunk as her captors apparently got out of the cars and met there.

“What’s going on?” Coop’s voice, muffled by the lid of the trunk. “Why were you blinking your lights at me?”

“I needed to tell you I’m going to have to stop and put gas in this car. I’ll go on ahead, and you can follow when I pull into a station.”

“I can just keep on going down the road, and you can catch up with me.”

“No, I don’t want to go in there alone!”

“Okay, okay, don’t panic. I’ll be there. Should we check on her? There’s no one around to see.”

“It’s not as if her comfort is any big deal,” Willow pointed out. She laughed. “Considering what we have planned.”

A hint of chuckle from Coop too. “Yeah, right. Is there a credit card in her purse?”

“I don’t know. I can check.”

“Use it if there is. That’ll back up your story of her saying she was driving over here.”

Slam of car doors, the car moving again. Swish and rumble of traffic, pavement rolling beneath her. Ten minutes? Twenty? Then a swerve as Coop apparently followed Willow into a gas station. Although her car needing gas was odd, Cate thought. She’d filled the tank only three or four days ago. How come the car was getting such poor mileage? She’d have to check—

Yeah, right. As if mileage mattered now.

The car stopped. Engine off. Radio volume turned down. Sounds of kids squealing and yelling. A playground next door? A McDonalds, maybe? She felt a huge yearning for something she’d never have again, a Big Mac. Strange. She’d never been a Big Mac fan.

And squid. She’d never had the nerve to try squid. She’d never climbed Mt. Hood or learned to scuba dive or painted her toenails blue . . .

Waiting, sounds of cars coming and going, voices. Then Coop, sounding annoyed, saying, “We didn’t need to stop. The gas tank only took nine gallons.”

“I guess I was looking at the wrong gauge or something. I’m dying of thirst anyway. Go inside and get me something to drink, would you? I need to walk around out here and stretch my legs a little.”

“Sure Coke?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

A Coke. Suddenly there was nothing Cate had ever wanted more in her whole life than a cold Coke.

The trunk lid flew open. Cate blinked at the light. Misty here on the coast. And chilly. She flinched when she saw Willow’s face looming above her.

“Don’t make any noise!” Willow whispered fiercely.

In spite of the command, Cate yelped as Willow yanked the strips of masking tape off her face.

“Get out!”

“What?” Cate asked blankly. She had to struggle to make her lips move.

“Get out! Out, out, out!”

Cate struggled to fling her numb legs out of the trunk. Willow grabbed her shoulder and yanked. She heard something rip and floundered to her feet. Then she saw the knife in Willow’s hand and fresh panic jabbed icicles in her veins. Was Willow going to end it right here?

Willow whipped her around and sawed at the tape with the knife. Cate’s hands swung free. They felt peculiarly detached, as if they might fly off into space. Her mind felt equally unattached. Willow thrust something at her.

“Here’s your purse. Run! Hide! Over behind the building. Go! Before he comes back!” She shoved Cate between the cars. “Don’t call the police until I can get away from him. I’ll call you. Go, go, go!”

Cate ran, dodging vehicles, stumbling, blindly heading for the back side of the building. Behind her the trunk lid slammed.

Then she spotted the door on the side of the building. Familiar stick figure with a skirt. The women’s restroom! She dove inside. Two stalls. She lunged into one and slid the bolt on the door. Her face burned where Willow had ripped the tape away. The slashed tape dangled from her wrists.

The outer door opened. Coop! Frantically she leaned her weight against the door.

No, not Coop. A woman and little girl came in and used the other stall, the girl wearing red leggings and chattering about a starfish on the beach.

Cate leaned her forehead limply against the door. Shivering. Dizzy. But thankful, oh so thankful.
Lord, you did it! Thank you!

The woman made sure the little girl washed her hands before they left.

Weakly, Cate made use of the facilities. She yanked the tape on her wrists loose and crumpled it into a ball. When she finally opened the stall door, a wild woman stared back at her from over the sink. Matted red hair, pale face crisscrossed with reddish stripes, eyes like oversized marbles.

Me, Cate realized as she blinked at the mirror. A couple of hours bound and gagged in a car trunk was not a beauty treatment.

Something clattered to the concrete floor. Cate picked it up, surprised. A paring knife, the wooden handle decorated with a red flower. Willow must have shoved it into a pocket of Cate’s purse to get rid of it. It took her a moment to realize what else this meant.

Willow must have grabbed the small knife from the kitchen when she went back to change clothes.

This hadn’t been an impulse rescue, a last-minute surge of conscience. The stop for gas had been a phony. Willow had agreed to help Coop with his plan to kill Cate on the coast because he’d said he’d do it without her if he had to. She’d planned all along to help Cate escape!

Maybe not the most efficient way of handling the situation. Certainly not one that had spared Cate pain and panic. But a burst of gratitude flooded through her. Blackmailer, scam artist, whatever, Willow had still come through when the chips were down.

Thank you, Lord! Thank you for doing this through Willow!

Yet what happened when Coop found out what Willow had done?

Was her life in as much danger as Cate’s had been?

Cautiously she opened the outside door and peeked out. She wasn’t sure where the cars had been parked. Over there by the chain-link fence?

The space was empty now. She saw the children she’d heard laughing and yelling. Not a playground, just a ramshackle fenced yard around an old house, with three children kicking a ball in the weedy grass.

Cate closed the door and sank back against the wall. It took all her strength not to slide bonelessly to the floor. Free! Safe!

Now what? Send the police to arrest them both? Or to rescue Willow? But Willow had said not to call the authorities until she could get away from Coop. And he had that gun. Her mind felt trapped in a blender on high speed.

A name bannered across her mind. Mitch.

No, she couldn’t call him. She barely knew him. He’d be full of I-told-you-so’s about this latest mishap.

He was also dependable and trustworthy. Reliable as the distant boom of surf.

With shaky hands she dug in her purse and pulled out her cell phone. But she didn’t have his number—

Yes, she did. She’d never put it on her contacts list, but she’d almost dialed it so many times during that week after talking to Kyle that it was tattooed on her brain. If she could just peel back the layer of fog in there. . . She squeezed her eyes shut. Yes, there it was!

Her hands shook so badly that it took three tries to get the number punched in. She waited, breath caught in her chest.