The Killings (An Olivia Miller Mystery Book 1) (18 page)

Adrenaline pumped through Olivia’s body. “Trying to get Kayla arrested for murder is a strange way of showing your love for her.”

“Shut up.” Eric’s eyes narrowed. “I would have liked to have seen your face when you found the ski mask on your door. Did it scare you?”

“You’re a freak,” Olivia said.

“Toss me your cell phone” Eric ordered.

Olivia’s blood boiled. She pulled the phone from her pocket. Her arm jerked up and she whipped the phone at Eric’s head. He ducked, reached out his hand and caught it. He gave Olivia a warning look as he placed the phone in his pocket.

“No calls for help from you.” He smiled. His lips were thin and tight.

“Did you have fun tracking me around the city? Psycho.”

Color rose in Eric’s face.

Melissa let out a soft moan. Olivia flicked her eyes to her. “Mel.”

“Your bitch friend can’t hear you. I gave her a little something. Something I concocted myself.” Eric brought his left hand around to the front. He was holding a syringe and his eyes glinted with delight when he looked up at Olivia.

“She better stay alive, you son of a bitch.” Olivia’s left hand was clenching into a ball while her right hand tightened on the knife that she held out of Eric’s view.

“Or, what?” Eric snorted. He lifted the syringe and turned to Kayla. “Kayla’s turn for a little injection.” Kayla shrunk away from him.

Fury exploded in Olivia’s veins and she flung herself at Eric with such force that he toppled over in the chair with Olivia falling on top of him. The syringe dropped from his hand. Kayla scooted away from them on her butt and tried to stand.

Olivia slashed at Eric’s arms and upper chest with the boning knife. Eric shrieked and fought Olivia for the weapon. As they tussled for it, the knife fell, clattered across the floor, and slid under the bed.

Eric put his hands around Olivia’s neck and tightened, his eyes savage. Olivia grabbed at his hands. She tried to knee him but he was on top of her now and she couldn’t get enough leverage to do any damage. She scratched wildly towards his face with her fingers, but he pushed hard on her neck and fully extended his arms so that his head was just out of her reach. Olivia gagged. Her eyes bugged.

Kayla’s hands were bound by a length a rope to her feet which hampered her ability to get up. She rolled onto her side and used her elbow to give her body the push it needed to hobble up. The rope was too short to allow Kayla to fully stand. She hunched over, her hands close to her feet. Hopping and shuffling, she crossed closer to the fight.

With one hand, Eric grabbed handfuls of Olivia’s hair, lifted her head and smashed it onto the floor. Again and again, he pounded her head. Olivia’s vision was sparkling, darkness flirting at the edges of her sight.

Like a wild woman, Olivia smashed her fist into Eric’s neck trying to crush his Adam’s apple. The searing pain halted Eric’s attack on her just long enough for Olivia to scramble out from under him and crawl a few feet to where the boning knife lay just under the bed.

He grabbed her legs and pulled her away from the bed as she was about to grab the knife. She yanked her legs trying to loosen them from Eric’s grip. One foot came free from his hold. Olivia kicked with force into his shin making him bend at the waist. Olivia took the moment to roll her body into his legs, toppling him. They both tried to scramble to a standing position. Kayla hurtled her body on top of Eric. Olivia crawled under the bed and grasped the knife.

Eric untangled himself from Kayla and scurried across the floor on his hands and knees to the bedroom door, gasping. He stood and whirled, his chest and arms cut and bloody.

Panting, Olivia struggled to her feet holding the knife and she hauled herself into the middle of the room to protect her injured friends. She lowered her chin to level her eyes at Eric. They flashed like a feral animal. While there was breath left in her body, she would not let anything else happen to Melissa or Kayla.

Eric backed out of the room and pulled the bedroom door closed with a fast yank. Olivia stood in the room, blinking.
What is he up to?
She bent and slashed at Kayla’s binds, releasing her. Kayla pulled the gag off. Olivia knelt and reached for Kayla’s shirt to check her injuries.

In between gasps, Kayla said, “It’s nothing. Just superficial cuts. He was taunting me, said he wouldn’t kill me until you got here.”

Olivia ran to Melissa and touched the side of her neck to check for a pulse. “She’s okay.” Her eyes filled with tears of relief. “Where’s a phone?” Olivia asked. “We’ll call for help.”

“That bastard took our phones.” Kayla rubbed her wrists where the ropes had cut into her skin.

Hearing a sloshing sound in the hallway, Olivia and Kayla pivoted their eyes to the closed bedroom door. Olivia hurried to the door and pressed her ear up against it. The smell of oil or lighter fluid flooded her nostrils. She turned the knob and opened the door a crack, clutching the knife tightly in her hand. The hallway floor was wet.

Eric stood in the living room at the end of the hallway. His arm came up and he threw something towards Olivia. A lighter hit the floor and sent a wall of flames roaring into the air. Olivia slammed the bedroom door, stumbled back, lost her balance and fell onto her butt, gasping. The angry flames snarled and cracked at the hallway walls.

“Gasoline. He set the place on fire.” Olivia scrambled to her feet.

“Son of a bitch.” Kayla hurried to the window facing the front of the building and looked out. It was a six story drop to the sidewalk.

“Melissa.” Olivia stumbled to the bed and shook her friend’s shoulder. Melissa moved a bit but did not open her eyes. Olivia used her knife to cut the ropes away from her friend’s hands, neck, and feet.

“Eric injected Melissa with something,” Kayla said, still peering out the front window. “She isn’t hurt. The blood is from me. It got on Eric’s hands and it got smeared onto Melissa.” Kayla turned away from the window. “There’s no fire escape this way.” She cursed and rushed to the window that looked out onto the side of the property. The fire escape’s metal flooring was broken off and did not reach to Melissa’s window. It stopped at the end of the other sixth floor apartment.

“What the hell!” Kayla slammed her hand against the wall. “There’s no goddamn fire escape here either. You need to sue the owner of this building.”

“I’ll put that on my list of things to do.” Olivia ran to the bedroom door and placed her palm against it. She yanked her hand back. “It’s red hot already. We can’t go out this way.” Despair pulled at Olivia’s muscles and turned them to rubber. Her panicked eyes flashed about the room.
The window. It’s the only way out.
“Bed sheets. Let’s pull the sheet off the bed. There must be others in the closet. We’ll tie them together and go out the window.”

Kayla’s mouth was open. “You’re nuts. Bed sheets won’t hold us. And, what about Melissa? How are we going to get her down some bed sheets?”

“Is there a better idea? If there is, let’s do it.” Olivia stared at Kayla and when she didn’t respond with a suggestion, Olivia hurried to the bed and pulled back the blanket. She tugged at the sheet on Melissa’s bed, pulling it gently off of her friend.

The air in the bedroom turned hazy as smoke poured under the door. The angry roar of the flames growled at the walls and Olivia wondered how long it would be before they crashed into the room.

“A few stupid sheets won’t be long enough to tie to the bed and use to climb down to the yard.” Kayla’s voice shook. Sweat ran down the sides of her face.

“Just tie one end to the leg of the bed. Tight. We are
not
dying here,” Olivia muttered as she moved through the haze to the closet and flung open the door. She rustled through the plastic bins on the floor of the closet searching for more sheets, and finding some, dumped the contents of the bin onto the bedroom floor. Reaching for one end of the sheet to start to tie the ends of the clean ones to the one she pulled from Melissa’s bed, something on the floor of the closet caught her eye.

Thundering snaps and cracks could be heard in the hall.

“Hurry!” Kayla backed towards the bed, her face white. “Olivia! The flames! They’re breaking through the door!”

Olivia stepped inside the closet and bent to pick something up. She nearly wept with gratitude.
Crazy Melissa.
Olivia smiled and backed out of the closet, turning to show Kayla what she had in her hands.

“What the hell?” Kayla gaped.

Olivia stood holding the axe that Melissa had brought back from her visit home.

“Forget the sheets.” Olivia kicked the plastic bins out of the way. “We’re going to bash through the closet into my room. There are metal rungs attached to the side of the building outside my window.”

Kayla didn’t need to hear it again. She rushed to the closet and pulled the clothes off the bar that ran the width of the space. “Here. I’ll make room for you to get at the wall.” She flung the clothes onto the floor of the room. Smoke streamed around and under the bedroom door. Kayla pushed the clothes across the floor, close to but not touching the space at the bottom of the door to try to stem some of the advancing smoke.

Olivia took the axe and swung it with all her might into the back wall of the closet.

“Pretend it’s Eric’s face,” Kayla shouted to Olivia. “Bash it in!”

A few more swings and Olivia was through the wallboard. Panting, she pushed at it with the end of the axe handle scraping away plaster and board. “We can get through.” She backed out of the closet.

Kayla went to the bed to move Melissa. “Come on. We can carry her.”

“Here, Kayla. Take the ropes.” Olivia bent down to spread one of the sheets on the floor. “We can lie Melissa down on this. Then we can each take an end and lift her. Like a stretcher.”

The girls could barely see through the haze in the room. Olivia coughed and hacked on the choking smoke. They moved Melissa from the bed and carefully placed her on the sheet. Each girl grabbed an end and lifted her from the floor. Olivia put the axe under her arm. They shuffled towards the closet. Kayla pushed backwards through the hole in the wall.

“The smoke’s heavy in here, too,” Kayla wheezed. “We need to hurry the hell up.”

Maneuvering the makeshift stretcher through the hole, Olivia hunched over and crawled through just as flames crashed through the door to Melissa’s room. The girls lowered Melissa to the floor.

“How are we going to get Melissa down that ladder?” Kayla’s voice was high-pitched. She hacked on the smoke filling Olivia’s bedroom. Their eyes stung.

Olivia flung open her closet door. She pulled scarves and belts from the hooks and tossed them on the floor. “Use the ropes to tie Melissa to my back. If there isn’t enough, then use the scarves and belts.”

Kayla stared at Olivia.

“There’s no other way. I’m not leaving her. Help me get her up.”

They pulled Melissa from the floor to standing position, holding tight to her arms. Olivia hunched over and shuffled her back up against the front of Melissa’s body. She reached back for her arms and pulled her forward like she would give her a piggy back.

“Tie the ropes and belts around us,” Olivia said. “Wind them tight.”

“How is this going to work? You’re not strong enough to do this.” Kayla wound and tied and hooked the ropes and belts into place.

“We don’t have a choice. What else can we do? We’ll have to make it work. It’s a good thing she’s small. Open the window.”

Kayla pushed the window up as far as it would go. She grabbed the axe and bashed at the window glass and the frame to make the space bigger. Kayla knocked Olivia’s dresser over and slid it close to the window so that Olivia could step up onto it and get through the window more easily.

The bedroom door cracked, flames licked into the room and flashed up to the ceiling.

“Oh, hell,” Kayla shouted.

Olivia stood frozen at the window, hunched over with Melissa on her back, her left hand reaching to hold Melissa’s dangling arm and her other hand clutching the sill.

“Go,” Kayla yelled.

Olivia looked at her. “I’m … afraid.”

“Get the hell out that window or I’ll push you out,” Kayla ordered Olivia.

Olivia swallowed hard. She leaned out of the window keeping her eyes on the escape ladder to avoid looking down. Her heart hammered at her chest.
Please let this work.

“Here we go, Mel,” Olivia whispered. She reached for the metal rungs, trying to correctly balance Melissa’s weight to keep from being pulled down backward. She grabbed the first rung. Kayla leaned over the window sill and held onto Melissa by the ropes as Olivia swung her feet onto the rungs.
We’re on! We’re out!

“Come on, Kayla! Get out of there!” Olivia wiggled her feet down from rung to rung, feeling with her toe for the next one. Her hands, wet with sweat, slipped on the metal ladder, but she held tight. Her muscles were screaming from the load she carried on her back. Down, down. The last rung was positioned above the first floor windows, so Olivia would have to let go and drop from the bottom of the ladder. She held her breath. When she released her hold on the rung, Olivia tried to crunch forward to keep from falling backwards on top of Melissa.

They plummeted to the ground with a crash that knocked the wind out of Olivia’s lungs. The side of her head cracked against the ground and pain shot up her leg and into her back. She was flat on her side with Melissa still tied to her.
We’re on the ground.
Relief flooded Olivia’s body. Through the black edges of her sparkling vision, she watched Kayla drop from the ladder and land beside her.

They heard the screams of the fire truck tearing down the street.

Olivia turned her head to Kayla. “
Now
they show up.”

Chapter 26

Sirens. Feet pounding on the ground. Shouts.

Firefighters pulled hoses from the truck as another emergency vehicle tore around the corner. A police officer ran to the women and knelt beside them.

“Goddamn Eric Daniels did this.” Kayla struggled to push herself to sitting position. “He set the fire. He kidnapped me.” She waved her hand towards Melissa. “He injected her with something. He fucking tried to kill us. He set the building on fire. He killed Christian and Gary and Jack.” Sucking in a gasp, she gripped her right arm with her left hand. “I think I broke my arm.” Kayla leaned back on the grass.