Twisted: A Tracy Turner Murder Mystery Novel (The Tracy Turner Mystery Series Book 1) (25 page)

“You’re right,” I said with deliberate anguish in my voice. “I was completely wrong.”

“Damn straight.” His crooked smile told me that he enjoyed my subservience. I was on the right track.

“You can use me as your bargaining chip, but for that I have to stay alive.” I looked at him with a doe like gaze.

“You’re trying to trick me.” The gun was still at my head and his hands trembled.

“Look, they know we are here. My phone, they are tracking my phone. See it’s in my pocket.” I moved my hip and shifted my eyes toward it.

With the gun still at my head he reached into my bulging pocket, took it out, and flicked it on.

“It’s dead. Water damage, there’s no signal, you’re lying.” His voice was high-pitched.

I bit my lip.

“They can track it anyway. Besides, yours is still working.” I stared at his pocket, careful to keep my head still.

“What are you saying?”

“You’re… we’re sitting ducks.” Closing my eyes, I swallowed. My heart thumped as his agitation escalated.

“They are tailing me using this?” He dug his phone out of his pocket and flung it across the room.

“And they are coming… did you hear that?” I exhaled slowly through my mouth, willing myself to keep calm.

“Hear what?” His hands shook violently.

I held by breath. “The sound of a helicopter.”

“No… you are lying.”

“I’m not. Listen…” Thankfully the rain had passed and the helicopters were in the air again.

“Don’t play with me,” he said as he tightened his grip on the gun.

“I’m not. I swear. Shh… Listen.” I heard the hum of a helicopter that sounded like it was hovering just above the tree tops.

He heard it too and began to pace around the room. Placing the gun in his pocket, he ran his fingers through his hair over and over again.

“It told you. I have no reason to lie.”

He gulped.

“They will figure out you are here. Millie talks about this place all the time. Brett will bring the police. Your best hope is out there.”

“No… No…”

“You know it better than them. You found me so easily.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I do.” His head was going back and forth like it was on a spring. A second helicopter swooped over. This time the sound was louder.

“You are better off out there than in here. The helicopters can’t find you under tree cover. With your injury, you will need a head start.”

His brow furrowed, and he continued to pace.

“They’ll surround this place.”

“So you want me to go and leave you here? Think again, you’re going with me.”

“Yes, take me with you. They can’t get you as long as I’m with you.”

He nodded profusely now. Despite his drunken state, he seemed open to my logic.

“You know this place,” I repeated like a soothing mantra. “You grew up here. You come here all the time. This is your backyard. You know that.”

“They will never find me out there.”

“The longer we stay here, the easier we are to find.”

“They are coming.” He ran to the window and peered out. “We must get out of here.”

“You’re right, we must.”

He went across to the table and poured the contents of the bottle into his hip flask. His hands trembled. There was more of the liquid on the table than inside. He tucked his flask and gun back into the back of his jeans, rubbing his palms on his legs. He picked up the knife from the counter top.

I felt my eyes widening as he approached, and he sensed my fear like a rabid dog who had smelled blood. He knelt down over me, and with a light hand traced the knife along my jawline.

“You are gorgeous, especially when you look at me like that.”

There was no difference between the look of fear and lust. Both were wild, raw emotions marked by the same widening of the pupils. Oh Lord, I had given him the wrong signal. He worked his knife down into the crevice between my shirt. The knife was so close I swore he could hear the mad beating of my heart. I knew that he was preying on my fear. That was what he got off on.

“They are coming. We can do this later. We have time.” I wondered where the words were coming from.

He snapped out of his lecherous reverie.

Looking up at my face, he pressed his slobbering lips on my gaping mouth. Saliva gathered in my mouth. I wanted to spit it out but that would have meant more trouble. I shut my eyes and gulped. I had not seen that side of him before. His drunken stupor seemed to have made him forget his fear of germs.

He moved his arms over the closest wrist and cut the cord. Then he moved up and across my body and cut the cords on the other side. He took his time about it. His gun gleamed and dangled out of his pocket and over my face. Could my free hand snatch it? Even if I could, what would I do with it? He had a knife. He could kill me in an instant. It was not the time to change track. I had a plan and I was sticking to it.

The sound of the choppers overhead spurred him to get on with it. It had been a long and difficult day, but I thanked God for the good weather and the festivities in the town center that day.

He pulled me off the bed. I tried to muster my strength, but my body felt like pudding and refused to cooperate. He hoisted me up and I was on my feet for a moment. The ankle that had tangled with the root refused to hold me up. I crumpled to the ground and felt the dry, wooden floorboards against my calf as he dragged me along toward the door.

“Get up. You are slowing me down.”

“I’m tired. I’ll try.”

He stared down at my weak form trembling on the ground.

“I need to tie your wrists. Where’s that rope?” He walked to one of the cabinets in the kitchenette.

This was it. This was my moment. I pulled myself up and dashed outside. My ankle complained, but I didn’t listen. My heart thumped but I ignored it. Adrenaline numbed the pain and carried me out of the house before Mike realized what had happened.

“Hey,” he yelled and fired. A shot whizzed past my ear and he shouted again and cursed.

I zigzagged my way through the clearing and toward the trees. The footsteps behind me were getting closer now, and I heard a muffled groan followed by the sound of a falling tree come from his direction. Looking over my shoulder, Mike lay spread-eagle on the forest floor. I continued to run in a wide circle with the goal of running back into the house.

He was down for a few moments because I soon heard him calling out in a sing-song voice “Oh, Tracy, give it up.” He fired an occasional warning shot, but I was sure that he no longer had eyes on me.

He walked out into the clearing, and I paced around the trees, waiting for him to move in. We stood close together. He puffed like an angry buffalo and I was as quiet as a hamster. I picked up a stone from the ground, careful not to rustle the leaves. I threw it away from me and into the tree as far as I could manage. He heard the commotion and followed the sound.

Once I headed back into the house, I lifted up the rug and threw it aside. It was just as Millie said—a wooden trapdoor beneath. A discolored metal latch held it in place. It had not been opened in years. I bent over and pulled on it, but it didn’t give. I looked up toward the trees, but Mike was not insight.

I knelt down and tried again, rattling it and pulling with every bit of strength I could muster and after some trying I got lucky. Lifting up the door, I spied the wooden stairway, just as Millie had described.

How could I get him back into the house? I’d have to make a sound to attract attention to myself. Just then he reemerged into the clearing. I stood at the entrance and he saw him.

“You damn fool,” he screamed. “Of all the places to go, you decided to go back there?”

Shutting the front door, I quickly opened the cellar door. My plan was to make him think that I was down there, so I got down on my knees in case he saw me through the window and crawled as fast as I could under the bed which I was tied to just moments ago.

I lay flat on my belly and raised the edge of the duvet cover and watched. The dust on the floor tickled my belly. About to sneeze, I held my nose and stopped myself just as he flung the door open and yelled my name. He saw the open cellar door, his eye grew wide, and he smiled. Just as I hoped, he limped down the steps into the space underground, still calling my name and yelling random curses.

In moments I was at the cellar door. I pulled the door up on its hinges and shut it with a bang. I heard him running up the stairs. I pulled on the latch to lock it, but it came out of its nails and into my hand. The door shuddered as he heaved against it. I sat on top of the opening and he began to bang on it. Standing up, I reached across to the old-fashioned wrought iron love seat beside the door and pulled it over the trapdoor. He shot through the door and barely missed my foot.

A second shot rang through, and I jumped aside. Red velvet, wool, and dust flew up into the air as the bullet pierced through the cushioning. I began to pull every piece of furniture I could carry and placed it over the door, taking a deep breath in and a long breath out.

I picked up Mike’s phone that was in a corner of the room. Peeping outside through the open window, I saw something or someone moving in the bushes. Ducking my eyes in line with the window frame, I watched uniformed policemen emerge through the trees. Brett was with them.

I stood on the porch and he ran up to me.

“Tracy, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Really I am.”

“Thank God. Your foot…”

“I’m okay, Brett.”

“Is Mike still out there?”

“Nope, down there. He stopped firing a little while ago.”

“Firing?”

“I’m guessing he’s out of bullets.”

“What? How?”

“Long story.”

“Did I say thank you, Tracy?”

“Yes, Ryan, only a hundred times.”

“So did you ever find out why me?”

“Not really, Ryan, but I don’t think you should lose sleep over it.”

“I’ve been a victim all my life, Tracy. It’s no fun being the scapegoat, you know.”

“He probably picked you because you were one of the last people who went into the room before Frank was killed. He had access to the live security feeds. He could watch whatever went on at the resort. He used what he could to get away with what he did. But seriously he was not right up here.” I twirled a finger in the air close to my temple. “Don’t take it personally.”

“What’s with the look? It seems like you feel sorry for him.”

“It’s not that, Ryan, but these things are not that cut and dry. Even a killer has a story.” I ignored the eye roll. “Tell me, how are you going to celebrate your freedom?”

“I’m gonna party till it hurts,” he said with a wink. “My phone’s been ringing nonstop since my release. Turns out I’m quite the celebrity.”

He flipped open a mini tablet and showed it to me. “Check it out.” The headline read:
Walters’ Killer Revealed, Socialite Ryan Evans Released.

“Nice picture, Ryan,” I said, looking at an old photo of Ryan hand in hand with his ex-partner.

“He called me today, you know.”

He looked so happy. I didn’t want to remind him of their messy breakup and burst his bubble.

“And your debts?”

“How did you know?”

“It does not matter how I know, I just do.”

“Millie… Millie told you.” He hung his head down.

“Things happen and they happen to the best of us, and it’s okay to ask for help. I may not be able to do much, but I’m handy with a calculator and I can help you crunch some numbers.”

“You’re a woman of many skills, Tracy Turner.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a yes, thank you.”

“There’s Millie.”

Millie waved us over from across the poolside.

“Frisky reappeared this morning and insisted that I follow her. She led me to this lot.” She showed us an old shoe box filled with soft fabrics and five perfectly formed kittens with their eyes shut tight. In the new mamma’s mouth she carried a miniature version of herself by the scruff of its neck. “She won’t let go of that one.”

“So, Frisky’s been living up to her name.” I giggled, looking at the ones in the box who looked quite unlike their purebred mama.

“Tracy, Brett here has been filling me in on all the details of your little adventure.”

I blushed and said nothing. I didn’t want to think back about what happened, not yet anyway.

“But I’d like to hear the story from you.”

“Before that, Millie, I must thank you. If not for you I wouldn’t be here now.”

“What do you mean, child?”

“If you hadn’t told me about the cellar under the old cottage, who knows what would have happened.” I shivered.

“Nonsense, Tracy, you would have found another way.” I felt the pride in her voice and smiled.

“Doug Mitchell resigned when he found out about Mike’s arrest. I always knew about the illiteracy, but he was a diligent and honest worker, so I convinced Maxwell to let him stay on.” Her smile was sad. “Oh well, that’s that.” Her face brightened up again. “I have so much to do with my new babies I will leave you two to chat,” she said with a wink and a nod at Brett. “Come on, Ryan.” Millie grabbed Ryan’s arm.