No One Needs to Know (49 page)

Adam could catch only snippets of the policeman’s conversation with the driver. He said something about them running the stop sign at the intersection.

Adam kept thinking this was his last chance before they took him and his father into the woods to kill them. He could see the cop carried a sidearm. Who else could help them between here and the woods? All he had to do was clear his throat, and the cop would hear him. He could shout a warning, then shift the car into reverse and slam into the SUV. The Mini Cooper probably wouldn’t do any damage to the other vehicle, but it might throw off the driver and the woman in back for a moment or two.

His hand hovered by the gear shift. Then he heard his father’s voice: “Officer, I don’t know these people—or where they’re taking me. This one here, she has a gun . . .”

In the rearview mirror, he could see the cop looking into the back.

“Oh, Dad, be still,” the woman said. “I just told you for the third time that we’re going to Leavenworth. Officer, I’m sorry, but my father has Alzheimer’s . . .”

Adam could see the driver, reaching for something under the front seat. The cop didn’t seem to notice. He was looking at the two people in the back. It sounded like he was asking one of them to step out of the vehicle.

Adam could just make out the gun in the driver’s hand. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered.

The driver pointed the gun at the cop’s head.

“Watch out!” Adam screamed.

A shot rang out. Horror-struck, he saw the explosion of blood. The lean policeman reeled back from the driver’s window and then flopped down on the pavement.

“Oh, my God, what did you do? What did you do?” his father cried.

“Shut up, old man!” bellowed the driver.

Stunned, Adam watched the driver climb out of the front seat. He was muscular—with hair so close-cropped it looked painted on. Tattoos covered both his arms. He grabbed hold of the cop’s lifeless arms and dragged him across the road. Then he tossed the corpse in the ditch as if it were a sack of garbage.

Over the speaker phone, Adam heard his father crying softly. He sounded so confused and scared. The woman kept barking at him to be still.

The driver walked back to the SUV and got behind the wheel. The door slammed.

“All right, Adam,” the woman said calmly. “Let’s get going. And while you’re driving, take a moment to think about what just happened—and what your gun just did.”

He felt sick to his stomach. His hands shook as he shifted out of park. Then he started back onto the rural road.

In his rearview mirror, he saw the SUV pull behind him—and farther back, the empty squad car parked on the shoulder with its flasher still going.

“Listen, ladies, aside from the fact that I’m pretty goddamned uncomfortable at the moment, all that’s happened so far is I’ve had an unexpected afternoon nap and my glasses got broken. The damage is minimal. If you stop this now, I won’t press any charges. I wouldn’t want to do that to my goddaughter . . .”

Laurie was tying Gil Garrett’s ankles to the hard-backed chair’s legs. His wrists were still bound behind him on the other side of the chair back. With the gun in her hand, Cheryl stood over them, watching her every move. Laurie knew she’d double check her work. So there was no point in making the ropes loose.

The baby’s room was dark and had that musty smell Laurie remembered from when she’d initially set foot in the house on that first day of shooting here.

“And you, Cheryl—if that’s really your name—I sympathize, sweetheart. I really do. If you were really here on that night, you couldn’t have been any older than ten. That’s a helluva thing to live with most of your life. If you wrap this up right now before it gets any more serious, I want you to get some professional counseling. I’ll even pay for it, sweetheart . . .”

“Aren’t you generous?” Cheryl muttered. “Will you still want us to cater your wife’s birthday party, too?”

“I’m trying to be a nice guy here!” he retorted. “For Christ’s sake, I’ve already told you, I had nothing to do with Elaina’s murder—or anything else that happened afterward. I was sick with grief—and shock. What more do you want from me?”

“The truth,” Cheryl said. “And so far, I haven’t heard it.”

Through his broken glasses, Gil’s eyes pleaded with Laurie. “Talk to her. I feel sorry for your friend. But there’s a limit. I’m not a well man. I can’t take this . . .”

Laurie finished tying his ankles to the chair legs. She glanced up at him. “Do you really have cancer?”

“The worst, pancreatic, like Swayze had,” he grumbled. “The doctors give me six months—maybe eight if I give up the cigars.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Now, c’mon, darling, my arms are killing me in this chair. I’m counting on you. Talk to your friend, Cheryl, here. Make her understand . . .”

Laurie straightened up, and backed away from him. She turned to Cheryl. “Please, can’t we stop this now?” she asked under her breath. “He’s right. No one has gotten hurt yet. Listen to him. He’s trying to give us a break . . .”

Cheryl brushed past her, and then crouched in front of Gil to tug at the ropes around his ankles. Then she walked behind him and tested the rope around his wrists. She sauntered around the chair until she was almost face-to-face with him. “Your goddaughter has a lot of—”

All at once, Gil slammed his head into hers.

Laurie heard a crack.

With a sharp cry, Cheryl lurched to one side and fell to the floor. The gun flew out of her hand.

“Christ, that hurts!” Gil roared. His glasses had flown off his head. He frantically nodded at Laurie. “Get the gun! Get the goddamn gun!”

Paralyzed, she gazed down at Cheryl on the floor. She was moaning. Blood oozed from her left eyebrow, and she looked dazed. She sat up and blindly groped around for the gun on the floor—still out of her reach.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you stupid bitch?” Gil yelled. “This is your chance! Grab the gun!”

Laurie gaped at him, and then she looked at Cheryl. She hesitated. Suddenly, she didn’t know who she should help.

Cheryl found the gun, grabbed it by the muzzle, and scrambled to her feet. She started toward Gil and raised the weapon over her head.

“No!” Laurie lunged toward her, and grabbed her arm before she could hit Gil with the butt of the gun. “God, no, please!” she cried. “Don’t make it any worse . . .”

Gasping for a breath, Cheryl stepped back and jerked her arm away from Laurie’s grip. Blood was dripping down into her eye, and she kept blinking.

“Stupid bitch,” Gil muttered again and again. He had a bright red mark on his forehead from hitting Cheryl. He slumped over in the chair. If not tied to it, he would have fallen to the floor.

“You’re bleeding.” Laurie gently took Cheryl’s arm. “Come on, let’s take care of that. He—he’s not going anywhere.”

She picked up Cheryl’s bag and led her out to the hallway. Laurie could almost feel the ghosts up here. Just down the shadowy corridor were Elaina and Dirk’s bedroom and the room where Gloria Northrop had slept.

Laurie found a bathroom one door down, and flicked on the light. Only three bulbs worked among the eight above the long mirror. The fixtures were white and the walls were a pale green marble. Someone on the crew must have used this room as a combination lavatory and janitor’s closet. A slew of cleaning products and a couple of rolls of paper towels sat on the sink counter.

Laurie lowered the toilet-seat lid and sat Cheryl down. Cheryl was obviously still a bit stunned. She no longer had the gun pointed at her. Laurie figured she probably could have snatched it away from her without much resistance. But she didn’t try. She’d already killed someone once in a struggle; she didn’t want to risk it happening again—not with Cheryl. She ran a paper towel under the faucet and then carefully dabbed it on the cut above Cheryl’s left eye.

“Listen to me,” she said. “You need to call this off, Cheryl. There’s still a chance he won’t press any charges . . .”

“Yeah, he’s a real sweetie pie.” Cheryl winced as Laurie cleaned the cut and applied a little pressure to it. “Look at this cut. And did I hear wrong or did your dear godfather just call you a stupid bitch a couple of minutes ago?”

“How do you expect this to work out?” Laurie asked. “What if you’re wrong about him? What if Trent was lying about Gil? Or maybe somebody lied to Trent. I’m sorry, but I think Gil’s telling us the truth.”

“Well, he isn’t,” Cheryl said, pointing the gun at her again. “I confirmed it with someone else. The order to kill Elaina and Dirk came from one of Gil’s people. Now, we probably have less than an hour before the police figure out we’ve come here. I’m getting a confession out of that bastard before then—even if I have to kill him. I have a small recorder in that bag. I’ll get the whole thing on tape—or digital or whatever you call it. I’ll have it for the police. And don’t worry, Laurie. I’ll make sure they know you weren’t a willing accomplice in any of this.”

“And you think they’ll believe you?” Laurie retorted, stepping back from her. “We’ll both be arrested. Your grand scheme, it’s going to backfire, Cheryl. Even if Gil says that he orchestrated
everything,
the police will still say his confession was coerced. We’ll end up in jail, and they’ll take Joey away from me. They’ll put my son in foster care. I can’t let that happen. Cheryl, you’re not a mother. You don’t know what it’s like to lose a child. You have no idea how devastating that would be . . .”

Holding a wadded up piece of paper towel to her eyebrow, Cheryl stared back at her. “Don’t I?” she said.

Baby Patrick became her child that night.

She’d rescued him from that house of death. She felt obligated to honor Elaina Styles’s last wish, and make sure no harm came to that baby boy. Natalie resolved never to let him out of her sight. She called him Buddy.

In the farmhouse’s living room was a portable black-and-white TV with a bent hanger for an antenna. Between the TV news reports and what she heard over her transistor radio, Natalie learned that the police were getting closer and closer to finding the killers in what was becoming known as the Styles-Jordan murders. JT, Moonbeam—and her mother, especially—were worried. But Trent assured them that the news reports were bullshit. Gil Garrett’s people would make sure they’d never be arrested.

One week after the murders, Natalie accompanied her mother into town on a grocery run. She took Buddy along. Her mother had been a wreck ever since the night of the murders. Natalie had wanted to run away from Biggs Farm, but her mom was certain Trent would hunt them down. After all, they were witnesses. So her mother’s solution to this crisis was staying stoned or drunk most of the time. But that afternoon, she was lucid enough to drive to the store—and do all the shopping.

Natalie remained in the very backseat of the Vista Cruiser with Buddy. She didn’t want to take any chances going out in public with the baby. Besides the murders, all they talked about on TV was the search for Baby Patrick. He was pretty easy to spot with the birthmark over his eye. So Natalie didn’t want to take a chance bringing him into the store—even though it would have been fun to sit him in the baby seat and push him in the cart.

Her mother was clearheaded enough to remember everything on the grocery list. When they returned to the farm, she saw—before Natalie did—that something was seriously wrong.

About halfway down the long, gravel driveway, she stopped the Vista Cruiser.

A black Cadillac was parked in front of the farmhouse. Everyone sat at the picnic tables by the garden—including the two children, Fawn and Thunder, and a young teen hitchhiker JT and one of the women had picked up the day before. Ernestine, who owned the farm, was there, too. For Trent to have an impromptu rap session out there was nothing unusual—especially on a warm sunny afternoon like this. Sometimes, the adults would sit at the picnic tables and take acid. In fact, some of them already looked pretty out of it—at least from what Natalie could discern at that distance. Everyone helped themselves from a big cooler of lemonade she’d made earlier. There was nothing unusual about that either.

But three men stood beside Trent as he addressed the group, and they definitely didn’t belong there. They wore nice slacks with sport shirts. One had a handlebar mustache and wore a suit jacket over his sport shirt. A fourth man, younger than the others, wore a white shirt and tie. He stood over by the Cadillac.

Watching them from the backseat of the car, Natalie wondered if they were plainclothes policemen. Or maybe they were “Gil Garrett’s people,” the ones Trent had mentioned a few times.

“Hide. Get down on the floor,” Natalie’s mother told her. “Keep the baby quiet.”

Natalie wrapped her arms around Buddy and crouched down on the floor—in the very same spot she’d hidden on the way to the movie star’s house that night a week ago.

“Hey, you in the car!” one of the men called. Natalie could hear him through the open window. “Come join us!”

Natalie raised her head just enough so she could peek out the side window. She saw the mustached man in the suit jacket waving at her mother. He motioned for her to come toward the picnic area.

“Stay down,” her mother whispered, switching off the engine. “Don’t let them see you.”

Natalie heard the car door open—and then a paper bag rustling as her mother retrieved a sack of groceries. The car door slammed shut.

“Hold on! What do you have there?” the man yelled.

“Just food,” her mother replied.

Natalie could see her mom headed toward the picnic area, where the two children were slumped over the table. The closer she got to the group, the more her mom slowed down—until she came to a stop.

The children’s mothers picked them up and laid them on the ground. Their little bodies looked lifeless. Both women curled up on the grass beside their children, as if they were getting ready to nap with them. At one end of the picnic table, Ernestine tipped over her glass of lemonade and fell off the bench. Moonbeam was arguing with Trent about something—until JT interceded and slapped her across the face. He yanked her over to the table, grabbed the pitcher of lemonade, and forced her to drink from it.