Wait for Me (22 page)

“Hi. I’m glad you’re still here,” she said, hoping her voice sounded as calm and unperturbed as Johanna looked. She needed time to think, and stepping behind an illusion of normalcy was her only chance. “I was afraid you’d already left.”

“Were you?” One carefully plucked brow lifted in mild surprise.

“Uh-huh. I’m afraid I was rude earlier, and I wanted a chance to apologize—and to thank you for all your help.”

“You were rude,” she agreed passively. “You snapped at me.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” she said, gauging the distance between them, wondering if she could overpower her—or would it be wiser to turn and make a run for it through the open door behind her? “I was tired and upset, but that’s no excuse for biting your head off.”

“I forgive you,” she said, her smile charming and friendly.

“Thanks. Would you like that coffee now? Or tea? We can sit and talk.”

She took a step toward the kitchen, but Johanna stopped her with her words.

“Did you tell him?”

Holly glanced from Johanna to the window with the sudden realization that she had been watching.

“Of course I did. You watched. You saw how hurt and angry he was, didn’t you?”

A frown of confusion furrowed her pretty face. Her gaze darted to the window, hit the floor, then bounced back to Holly.

“I saw that, but then you started to cry and he wasn’t angry anymore. What else did you tell him?”

“I couldn’t help crying, it wasn’t easy for me,” she said, hoping she was showing enough shame and pain in her eyes to be convincing. “And... and I didn’t think Oliver would believe me if I was coldhearted and brutal about it. So when I started to cry, it seemed only natural to try to convince him that we could still be friends if he wanted, but that was all I could give him. And... and you could see he wasn’t real keen on that, so then we talked some more. I told him he was suffocating me and that I had a plan for my life that...” serendipitously, tears came to her eyes with the recollection, “...that didn’t involve him.”

“And that convinced him?” Johanna didn’t look wholly convinced herself.

“Well, I said other things; I can’t remember all of it,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “But, yes, I think in the end, he could see that it was over for us.”

“He wasn’t angry when he left.”

“No. Bewildered and trying to hang on to his pride, but not angry,” she said, sounding a little testy herself. “Not yet, anyway. I think it happened so suddenly that it shocked him. The angry part won’t hit him till later. I need a drink. You want one?”

Johanna allowed her to walk into the kitchen, which amazed Holly. She was frightened and horrified, but not yet terrified to the point of nonthinking. Instantly she started looking for a weapon of her own.

“What if he comes back?” she heard her ask. “What will you do then?”

“I’ll send him away. I don’t need the kind of trouble your mother can give me.”

“What about after you have the grant? Will you take him back?”

Quietly opening and closing drawers and cupboards, all she’d been able to come up with were knives—not much use against a gun unless she could get close enough.

“Did you want a drink?”

“No. What about after you get the grant? Will you take him back?”

She sloshed red wine into a glass and hurriedly returned to the living room with it—the biggest knife in her arsenal tucked carefully into the back of her jeans.

“Why would he want to come back?” she asked morosely, leaning against a wall. “He’s a proud man. He won’t come back to where he’s not wanted. Not when he can have any woman he wants, who wants him in return.”

Johanna seemed to be thinking this over, then she smiled and agreed, “Like me, for instance?”

“You?”

“Don’t look so surprised, Holly.” There was a sharp edge to her voice, even though her facial expression remained sweet and angelic. “Oliver and I were always meant to be together. As a matter of fact, that’s why my mother had to die, my real mother. She had to die so that Daddy could marry Elizabeth and then I could be with Oliver, forever.”

“I... I didn’t know Elizabeth wasn’t your birth mother.”

“Yes you did. I told you we were related only by marriage, that I was as much a candidate for Oliver’s affections as anyone else.”

Holly shook her head. She could vaguely recall the words now, but she hadn’t made the connection at the time.

“And Elizabeth was never any kind of mother to me,” she went on. “She made Daddy send me away to school. And if I got into any kind of trouble at all when I came home, she made him send me away again. To my aunt Corrinne’s in Southampton or to visit my mother’s sister, Jessica, in South Carolina. She never wanted me around. She was always afraid that Oliver would fall in love with me and make his father unhappy.”

For a second, Holly imagined she heard movement on the stairs outside her door, and in the hallway. Her heart fluttered with relief. If she could get someone’s attention and stall Johanna long enough for someone to get help... She spoke quickly to conceal the noise from Johanna.

“Why, uh, why would Oliver’s falling in love with you make his father unhappy?” she asked.

“He never liked my daddy. He didn’t think he was good enough for his precious sister, Elizabeth. He hated me too. He was in on it with Elizabeth, sending me away all the time, sending me away from Oliver so he couldn’t fall in love me. They always kept Oliver home, but me they sent away.”

“Maybe...” she stalled. “Maybe they would have sent Oliver away, too, if he wasn’t such a bad boy? Maybe they didn’t think it was safe to send him away?”

“He was never really a bad boy,” she said, smiling. “All he ever needed was someone to love him. I think that deep down he knew I loved him. But they kept sending me away, and he would rebel. It was only natural. I don’t think even Oliver knew why he was doing all those things he used to do.”

“No. He probably... didn’t,” she stammered, as Oliver’s large form filled the doorway. The door blocked the view between him and Johanna. She couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see that she had a gun. Now Holly was terrified. “You know, Johanna,” she said impulsively, turning a bit to set her glass on the table, hoping beyond reason that Oliver would catch sight of the knife in her waistband, guess at the situation, and go for help. “Adults do so many unthinking, unfeeling things to children. They run around living their own lives and never think about what it’s doing to their children. Look at me and Carolann. She was
crazy,
” she said, emphasizing the word for Oliver’s sake. “Using all those drugs. She might as well have put a
gun
to her head, for all the good it did her... and me.”

Johanna made a regretful grimace.

“Yours is a sad story, too, Holly. And I’m sorry for that. I liked you. I thought you had a lot of potential. You could have made something of your life if you’d been given a chance.”

She felt the ominous change as her life slipped from the present to the past tense as Johanna spoke. Her fingers started to ache and her palms were clammy. Her heart was throbbing in her throat, and tears were backing up behind her eyes. Johanna was planning to kill her. She knew it as well as she knew that Oliver was still at the door, that he hadn’t yet gone for help, that her time was running out.

“Why are you doing this, Johanna?” she asked quietly, not wishing to disturb her serene disposition. “I thought we were friends. I trusted you. I did everything you asked of me. I sent Oliver away. I didn’t confront your mother. Why this? Why the gun?”

“Like I said, yours is a sad story. You were always going to die, whether you sent Oliver away or not. You were always going to be another statistic, another poor young woman shot and killed in her own apartment. This really is a terrible neighborhood, Holly.”

“But why? I haven’t hurt you.” Her peripheral vision caught Oliver motioning her back. Back toward the bathroom or the kitchen? The kitchen would put Johanna’s back to Oliver—if she followed. “I won’t hurt you. I’m your friend.”

“I don’t have friends,” she said simply. “I have people who like me because they think I have money, but no real friends. I’ll be sorry to lose you, Holly. I’ll cry when I read about it in the papers. I’ll cry on Oliver’s shoulder at your funeral. And I’ll be sorry. I truly will be, but you couldn’t have stayed here. I’ve seen the way Oliver looks at you. He never would have given up. He would have been hurt and then angry for a couple of weeks, during which time you would have been brutally killed, of course, but then I thought that as long as I was here...” She shrugged and the gun in her hand wavered unsteadily. “I mean, why come all the way back?”

“Johanna,” she said, her tone reasoning. She took a tiny, baby step back toward the kitchen, and Oliver stepped to one side of the door, still watching and listening intently. “You don’t want to do this.” She took another minute step backward. “You’ve never killed anyone before, and... and I hear it’s really ugly.” Another small step. “I hear it’s something that lives with you forever, that never leaves your mind. I hear it haunts you. You don’t want something like that to ruin your life with Oliver, do you?” One more shaky step. Her heart jumped when Johanna took one forward. “I... uh... I’ll move away. I’ll leave. I’ll disappear, out of Oliver’s life.”

“What about your mother?”

“Who? Carolann? I’ll take her with me. I’ll transfer her to another facility. I can do that. I’m her legal guardian, you know.”

She’d taken three more small steps. Johanna had taken two. The apartment felt as big as the Taj Mahal. She was beginning to think she’d never reach the kitchen. Then she felt the doorway behind her.

She must have looked surprised or relieved or glad that she’d reached the opening, because Johanna smiled at her with great sympathy and understanding. “Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be, Holly.”

Without looking, she reached out and pushed at the open door. Only Holly saw Oliver’s fingers suddenly gripping the jamb to keep it from closing completely.

“Hiding in the kitchen won’t help, you know.” Her laughter was pleasant and unnaturally natural. “A liberated woman like you wouldn’t want to die in the kitchen anyway. No. You deserve better. You should die like a real heroine. Burned at the stake or... well, how do they kill heroines these days?” She paused. “I do admire you, Holly. You’re everything I always wanted to be. You have everything I always wanted. And Oliver. Don’t you see that I can’t let you stay?”

Holly shook her head. She couldn’t see it. And she’d run out of words. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and the tears finally broke loose and began to trickle down her cheeks. She was no heroine, she thought, as she questioned the wisdom of falling to her knees and begging for her life.

She stumbled back into the kitchen and found herself pressed tight against the counter, next to the sink. Johanna took one last step to point the gun directly at her. There was nowhere else to go. No place to hide.

The door to the hall swung open, and Oliver’s face was both heavenly and devilish. Tight. Focused. Malevolent. Holly averted her gaze to keep from telegraphing his presence to Johanna.

“You’ll see. This is best for all of us, Holly,” she was saying. “Maybe you should turn around. It’ll be easier for you if you don’t watch.”

“E-easier for you too,” she stammered, taking her last stubborn stand. She looked straight into her eyes. “So you won’t have to see. I want you to see, Johanna. I won’t let you forget what you’re doing.”

Johanna cocked her head to one side, as if struck by a sudden notion. She smiled. She raised her hand slightly, taking careful aim.

At Holly’s head! Don’t shoot me in the head, she kept thinking. Mama won’t recognize me. Oliver will be disgusted. Not my face. Not my head. Not my mind.

They all heard it at the same time. Oliver had taken several steps into the room and was within reach of Johanna’s arm when his final step disturbed the aged floorboard beneath his foot. It whined and squeaked as if it were in pain; a noise generally unnoticed or ignored was now louder than the screams from hell.

The next second crawled by in the space of an eternity.

Johanna turned, the gun aimed straight at Oliver’s heart. Holly screamed and took a mad, wild dive at Johanna from behind. Oliver ducked out of the way even as he tried to reach out and grab the gun. When the gun fired, with so quiet and benign a sound, like a rush of air that was heard and gone in the same instant, no one even realized it had gone off. But suddenly there was blood, and the three of them grappled for the gun. The blood, the horror, the screams, the grunts, the cries...

And then it was over.

The clocks started again and time moved on.

The gun fell to the floor and Johanna broke loose, knocking Oliver to one side and down to his knees, dropping Holly to the floor behind her. She’d vanished through the door before Holly could look up, and then all she saw was Oliver’s blood—on the wall behind him, on the floor, on his face. Part of the left sleeve of his ski jacket was missing.

“Oliver!” she cried as he got to his feet and turned to follow Johanna. “Oliver! You’re hurt. Stop!”

“Call the police,” he shouted back at her with what seemed like his last breath. “Now! Stay here. Wait for me.”

“What?”

“Stay here. Wait for me.” He repeated his words from several feet down the hall.

Holly staggered over to the telephone. It was so queer... The entire incident with Johanna didn’t seem nearly as strange to her as Oliver’s parting words. Not the “stay here,” but the “wait for me” words. They rang like bells in the back of her head as she dialed 911.

“Wait for me. Wait for me. Wait for me.”

She disengaged the “please hold” and redialed.

“Wait for me. Wait for me.” The words were
so
familiar, and yet she was sure he’d never said them to her before. It was like... like a dream, like a memory... like déjà vu, or simply a mental souvenir to jog her memory of some great event or precious moment.

When the operator answered, she quickly told her the information she needed and then dashed to the door to follow Oliver, without hanging up the phone.