Читать книгу Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe - Nancy Bush - Страница 14

Chapter 6

She kept the gun leveled at him. It wasn’t loaded, but he didn’t know that. She had ammo stowed in her backpack, for all the good it would do her. Not that she wanted to actually hold a loaded gun on someone. For all her words she didn’t think she could hurt him or anyone else. But again, he didn’t know that.

They were driving east, away from Laurelton toward Portland. She felt like she was in some improvisational acting scene where each player just keyed off the situation and made up their own story.

She was crazy. Flat-out nuts. This definitely decided it. This was a crazy thing to do. And yet she wasn’t sorry. They rode in silence. The man—Auggie—seemed intent on the road but Liv could just imagine the thoughts rattling around in his head.

It felt like an eternity, and was probably only a matter of minutes, when he drawled, “Did you have a place in mind?”

“Just drive.”

“I have a quarter of a tank. I can drive for a while, then I’m going to need gas.”

She looked at the gauge, saw he was telling the truth and wanted to rail at him. How could he be so irresponsible? She wanted to scream and cry and pull out her hair, but that made her think of the unfortunate ones at Hathaway House who sank into that kind of behavior and were moved to other facilities. She’d always felt more grounded than they were, more capable, more sane, but maybe she was as wacko as they were. This was crazy.

But right now, she was putting miles between her and her apartment, and for the first time since she’d seen the bodies at Zuma, she felt almost safe. Still, she couldn’t prevent the shudders that wracked her body. Auggie shot her a sideways glance, aware, so she lifted the .38 a bit, just to remind him.

“Would you seriously shoot me when I’m driving?”

She glared at him, resenting his insolence. “Where do you live?”

“Uh . . . not far from here. Toward Portland.”

“Are you lying?”

“ No.”

“You took a while to answer my question.”

“I was just thinking about the exit I need to take. It’s coming up.”

They were driving on Sunset Highway and getting close to the junction at 217. “Do you live alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go there.”

She wanted just to keep driving and driving and driving, but that wasn’t prudent, either. She wondered, for a moment, if she could ditch him and just take his car. But what would she do with him?

He passed 217 and turned off at Sylvan, winding the car up the hill. Liv gave a glance around his vehicle, thinking hard, noting the dark clothes he’d thrown into the back and the toolbox. A length of twine was wrapped around the Jeep’s back hatch, holding it down, as if maybe it popped open unexpectedly from time to time.

They drove in silence for about twenty minutes, taking several side streets until they reached his place, a small bungalow that needed some serious repairs if the cracked sidewalk and sagging gutters were any indication. There was a breezeway between the house and one-car garage. The door to the garage was open and he pulled inside, put the Jeep in park, and switched off the engine.

“Now what?” he asked, pulling the key from the ignition.

“Stay in the car. Hands up. I’ll come around.” She opened her door, the gun still trained on him, then walked around the front of the Jeep and stood outside the driver’s door, her muzzle aimed at him through the window. “Let yourself out,” she said.

Carefully, he opened the door, his hands raised in front of him. She took the keys from his hand.

“Get the twine from the back of your car.”

“The twine?”

She nodded.

“You’re not going to tie me up,” he stated flatly, challengingly.

“Yes. I am.”

“It won’t work. What are you running from? They’ll find you.”

“ No.”

“Don’t take offense. But I don’t think you’re good at this.”

Liv barked out a harsh laugh. “I’m only as good as I need to be.”

He thought that over, then walked around to the back of the Jeep and pulled up the hatch as far as the twine would allow. He untied the twine, gathered it together and put it into Liv’s outstretched hand.

She said, “I’m going to put this gun into my jacket pocket now, but I’ll shoot you through it if you do anything while we walk across the breezeway to the back door.”

He made a movement of acquiescence and then headed out the garage’s man-door, across the breezeway and up two concrete steps. At the door, he said, “I’m going to need the key.”

Carefully, she put the full set in his upturned palm.

“I usually close the garage door,” he told her.

“I’ll do it later.”

There were no neighbors directly across from him. In fact this stretch of road was winding and covered with fir trees, with a wide stretch of sun-scorched lawn beside the cracked cement driveway. If she had to stay out of sight a while, it was not a terrible hideout.

He threaded a key in the lock. Twisting the door open, he stepped inside, but Liv was right on his heels, just in case he planned to slam the door in her face and lock her out.

They were in a kitchen with a small wooden table and two chairs. “Sit down,” she ordered, holding the length of twine.

He eyed the twine and said disbelievingly, “You plan to tie me to a chair?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, come on. I’m not going to do anything. I don’t really care what you’ve done. Let’s just sit down and talk about it.”

She gestured with the muzzle. “Sit down. Put the keys on the table.”

He eased himself into one of the chairs, set the keys on the table, then slid them away from himself toward her. She picked them up and put them in her pocket.

“This must be a first offense,” he said.

“It’s not,” she lied. “Put your arms behind you.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Just do it,” she snapped.

“So, you’re a hardened criminal? Is that what you’re saying?” He put his arms around the back of the chair, though it was clearly hard for him to comply.

“That’s what I’m saying.”

With his arms behind him, she threaded the twine through the lathed spokes of the chair’s back and around his wrists, tying them tightly, testing the twine’s strength.

“This is gonna get damned uncomfortable real fast,” he muttered.

“Be quiet. Please.”

“First offense,” he said. “You’re way too polite.”

“Shut up.”

She’d set the .38 on the table out of his reach while she tied him up, but if he made a move for it, she was pretty certain she could beat him to it. He might be able to take her down with brute strength, but there was the chance she could get a shot or two off were it loaded, and since he believed it was, he let her truss him to the chair with no resistance though the dark, mutinous look on his face didn’t bode well if he should chance to get free. With that thought in mind, she tested his bonds a second, then a third time until she was satisfied that he was contained.

Finally, she checked his pockets and found a cell phone, which he clearly wanted to protest about but kept his mouth a taut, grim line. She saw that it was turned off, but when she tried to switch it on, nothing happened.

“Out of juice,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Where’s the charger?” she asked.

“Not here. Why? You wanna use my phone? Where’s yours?”

“I don’t own one.” He looked at her as if she were an exotic species, which annoyed her. “Not everyone has to have a cell phone,” she said with a touch of asperity.

He shook his head and changed the subject. “What’s your plan?” She could discern a faintly mocking tone to his voice and decided he wasn’t taking this seriously enough.

“If you try anything, I will shoot you.”

“I’m having serious trouble believing you.”

The image of Aaron Dirkus’s body and the blood—all the blood—crossed the screen of her mind again, and she had to look away, tears welling. She drew a quivering breath and swallowed hard, several times. “I will,” she said with more conviction and her desperation must have penetrated because his expression grew more serious.

Needing to get outside his range of vision, she walked behind him, obsessively testing the twine yet again. When she was convinced it would hold him but wouldn’t cut off his circulation, she backed away until she felt the kitchen counter behind her. Leaning against it, her legs seemed to lose all strength and she sank to the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees, the .38 hanging loosely from her hands. Tears ran down her cheeks and she stared into space, reviewing the scene at Zuma though she’d told herself she wouldn’t.

“What’s your name?” he asked. She could only see the back of his head.

Blinking hard, she cleared her throat. “Livvie,” she said, invoking the name of her younger self.

“Well, Livvie, I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of hungry. I hope you’re not planning to starve me.”

It took her long moments to pull herself together, but finally she got to her feet and wandered to his refrigerator. Inside were some sliced deli ham, a loaf of bread, mayonnaise, mustard and some dicey-looking iceberg lettuce. She put together a sandwich, leaving off the lettuce, put it on a plate, found a steak knife in a drawer—he hardly had any utensils or kitchenware of any kind, she noticed—and cut the sandwich in half.

Sliding the plate in front of him, she asked, “What do you drink?”

“Beer. Coke. Water. Occasionally a semi-nice glass of wine.”

She went to the sink and poured him a glass of water, placing that in front of him, too. They stared at each other and she picked up the sandwich and held it to his mouth.

“Actually, I’d like a drink of water first.”

“Take a bite.” When he pressed his lips together in rebellion, she added, “Please.”

“You’re a very polite kidnapper,” he pointed out again.

“You were right. It’s my first time,” she admitted.

“Wow. I’m shocked.” Then, “The police after you?”

“Probably. By now, anyway.”

“What did you do?”

“Take a bite,” she said again, and he bit into the sandwich with white teeth, his gray-blue gaze never leaving her face. When he was finished chewing, she held the water glass to his lips and he took a long swallow. After that, they sat in silence while she fed him the rest of the sandwich.

After he’d swallowed the last bite, he said, “What about you? Hungry? I don’t have a huge selection, but I think there’s enough for another sandwich.”

“I’m going to go close the garage door.”

She was happy to get out of his presence for a moment. Her head was crammed with thoughts. She needed to see the news. She needed to know what was going on.

God, what have I done?

The realization that she was a kidnapper sent a shockwave through her body. What had she been thinking? Now, it didn’t matter what the situation at Zuma was all about, she was a criminal of the worst kind.

Shutting the garage behind her, she looked around quickly and found the source of the twine in a roll in the extremely empty garage. There were no rakes or tools or lawn chairs or whatever else people kept in garages. There was nothing but the Jeep, the twine and a pile of black tarp.

Reaching upward, she grabbed the handle for the garage door, looking out to the road just as an older-model Buick cruised by with an elderly man at the wheel. He didn’t even bother to glance over, but panic filled her anyway as she slammed down the door. She grabbed up the roll of twine.

Returning to the kitchen, she set the twine on the counter, then stood in front of Auggie and asked, “Is this really your house?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It doesn’t feel like anyone lives here.”

He assessed her silently for a few moments, then said, “I just moved here and I don’t have a lot of stuff.”

“Where’d you come from?”

“Canada,” he said.

“Canada,” she repeated with an edge to her voice. “You don’t sound Canadian.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve been oot and aboot all day, eh? That good enough for you?”

She almost laughed. Hysterical laughter, for certain, but the irked look on his face was almost comical. Almost. “Not really.”

“I didn’t say I was Canadian. I’ve just been living in British Columbia a while, that’s all. I’m a fishing guide.”

“Really?”

“Really. What are you, besides a fugitive?”

“I’m . . . I’m . . .” She closed her eyes for a moment, then asked, “You have a television?”

“Basic cable. In my bedroom.”

“Can you walk?” she asked. She hadn’t bound his feet.

“You want me to come watch TV with you?”

“Just the news.”

They stared at each other another moment or two, then he got awkwardly to his feet, carrying the chair on his back as Liv preceded him across the living room toward the west end of the house. Directly ahead was a bathroom and there were bedrooms to the right and left of a short hallway. She could see the television in the bedroom to the right—the room toward the rear of the house—and headed that way. Auggie followed after her, banging the chair into the wall several times and swearing softly in the process.

By the time he’d slammed his chair down near the door and sat upon it and Liv had perched on the end of the bed, it was five forty-five. Had it really only been hours since the attack?

The remote was tossed on the bed beside her. Liv snatched it up and hit the POWER button. The Channel Seven news came up and it was the weather. They both watched in silence as more sunshine was predicted, and more, and more. “It’s been a beautiful week so far and there’s more to come,” the weatherman said with a smile.

“Beautiful week,” Liv repeated as they went to commercial, her voice breaking. She wanted to lie down on his bed and bury her face in the covers and never come up.

“What started this?” Auggie asked her, a note of concern entering his voice, which nearly did her in.

She turned down the volume but kept her gaze on the commercial—something about being ultra-fit with the use of a “miracle product”—but her thoughts were far removed. At length, she asked him, “Do you know about what happened at Zuma today?”

A pause. “Someone shot up the place,” he said carefully.

“I was out to lunch, literally . . . but I came back and they were all dead, dying, injured, shot. . . .” She looked over at him and saw he was staring at the .38 she’d laid on the bed beside her. “It wasn’t this gun. This one hasn’t even been fired . . . yet. I just went home and got it and then I ran out.”

“You work there.”

“I’m the missing employee.”

“You should call the police,” he said immediately. “If what you’re saying is true, then—”

“That’s just it. They won’t believe me. They never believe me.”

“Never believe you?”

“I don’t trust them. I don’t like them and I don’t want them.” She shook her head. On a half-laugh, she gestured to his trussed-up state, “And now, it’s too late anyway.”

“I wouldn’t press charges.”

“Oh, sure,” she said with a snort of disbelief.

“Livvie, they’ll help you. They want to get in touch with you.”

“Of course they do!” she said emphatically. “And they’ll throw me into an interrogation room and try to wring out a confession and use my past against me and before you know it, it’ll all be my fault. And maybe it is anyway!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re not meant to.”

“What did you mean about ‘my past’?”

“Nothing!”

“Well, why the hell did you say it was your fault? I believe you, that you didn’t shoot those people at Zuma,” he added.

“I didn’t.”

“Why were they shot? Do you have any idea?”

She shook her head slowly.

“You do have an idea, Livvie,” he argued, watching her closely.

“It’s just Liv . . . please . . . and, yeah, someone’s after me.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but it’s always been there. I’ve always known it, felt it. I think this—massacre—has something to do with me.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “I can’t explain it. I don’t have any proof. I know you won’t believe me. Why would you? But it’s a feeling I have, and it’s real.” She paused, then added, “I’m not . . . completely nuts.”

He was studying her in a way that made her extremely uncomfortable. She was about to say something to break the tension, when he said, “We’ll go to the police together. I’ll take you and we’ll tell them—”

“NO!”

He drew in a breath and exhaled it slowly. “If you would just—”

“Shhh.” The news had come back on and Liv turned up the volume. The anchorwoman was saying, “—just learned that there are two confirmed dead at the Zuma Software shooting this afternoon, Paul de Fore and Aaron Dirkus.” Liv made a sound of pain. Aaron. She’d known he was dead. She just hadn’t wanted to believe it! Turning away, she curled up on the bed like she’d wanted to before. But her ears could still hear: “Zuma’s owner Kurt Upjohn has been taken to Laurelton General Hospital in critical condition as has Jessica Maltona, one of the company employees. Police are looking to question Liv Dugan, another Zuma employee who was apparently not at the scene at the time of the shooting and appears to be missing. They want to talk to Ms. Dugan. If you’ve seen her, please call the authorities.”

A picture of a much younger Liv flashed on the screen. Her hair was shorter and she recognized the steps of Hathaway House in the background. She realized the picture was one that her father had from her teen years. Lorinda, she thought, swallowing hard. Lorinda had given the police her picture.

“They’ve got my picture,” she said.

“Doesn’t look much like you. How old were you? Thirteen?”

“Sixteen.”

“Was that your high school in the background?”

“Something like that,” she said tiredly.

They watched the rest of the report and then Liv dragged herself to her feet and headed back to the kitchen where she sank into the other kitchen chair, laying the gun on the tabletop in front of her. Auggie followed after her, clomping along with the chair on his hunched back. He banged it down, and they stared across the table at each other.

“Looks like someone wanted to take out Kurt Upjohn,” he said. “This was about Zuma Software, not you.”

“You’re wrong.” She wanted to believe him. She really, really wanted to believe him. But the timing of the package. . . and Dr. Yancy saying she’d buried the truth . . . and something about Hathaway House.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“Because I just know. I’ve always known.”

“What have you always known?”

“Stop humoring me. I know what you think. That I’m crazy, or deluded, or misinformed. And you think I’m wrong about these killings. That I’m egocentric, maybe, that it has to be about me, when it’s obviously not. That I’m a drama queen. That I have to make this about ‘my stuff’ when it’s clearly a different matter entirely.”

He didn’t respond, which was a telling admission in itself.

“They’re after me,” she said in an unsteady voice. “That’s why I jumped in your car.”

Phillip Berelli was slouched in a chair inside D’Annibal’s unoccupied office. He’d needed somewhere to sit outside of the squad room, which, though mostly empty, had a feel of interrogation and criminal processing that scared honest citizens and felons, hopefully, alike. Those under arrest were brought in through a back door to a general booking area that led to several holding cells and then the squad room, holding some of the more raucous accused felons away from those at the station for other reasons, but that didn’t mean much to Berelli.

He’d called his wife, then barely said another word on the ride over, looking for all the world like he might pass out at any moment. Since they’d been at the station, he’d mostly just sat, staring straight ahead. After half an hour Gretchen had left them and gone to find someone to complain about Guy Urlacher, the man at Laurelton PD’s front desk. Guy took his role seriously enough to piss off everyone. He wasn’t really wrong to make everyone identify themselves; he was just too eager and had turned following regulations into an art form. The good news? Guy’s attitude was the only thing Phillip Berelli had reacted to thus far. Berelli said that Paul de Fore, who’d been hired at Zuma as a kind of security guard, suffered from the same overzealous need to control. Since that admission, the man had simply sat in a blank-staring funk, so September had left him for a few moments and just returned.

“Here,” she said, handing the man a cup of coffee strong enough to melt steel.

He took the cup reluctantly and cradled it in his palms. Not an encouraging sign.

“So, Paul de Fore,” September said. “Tell me more about him.”

“Paul . . .” he murmured, shaking his head dolefully as his breath caught on a sob.

“Take a drink, Mr. Berelli,” September said.

As if he needed someone to tell him what to do, Berelli obliged, sucking in the dark liquid and coughing a bit as it went down his throat.

“I know you want to go home, and we want to take you home, too. We just need some help. A little background. That’s all,” she said.

“I don’t know anything. Kurt . . . Mr. Upjohn . . . he’s . . .”

“He’s in surgery,” September told him. “Miss Maltona, too.”

“Paul’s dead,” he said, as if trying the words out, disbelieving them.

“Yes.”

“So’s . . . Aaron . . .”

September nodded. “But Mr. Upjohn and Miss Maltona are still alive, and the other employee, Miss Dugan.”

“She called 911.”

“Yes,” September said. The security tape had captured Olivia Dugan’s return, shock and phone call. If it was an acting job, it was a damn good one.

“She’s lucky she wasn’t there,” he said. His face crumpled as he added, “She and Jessica didn’t like Paul much.”

“She and Jessica were friends?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You said Paul took his job too seriously?”

He nodded. “He kinda wore his own uniform. No one asked him to,” he added softly, as if by saying it quietly he could keep from maligning the dead.

“His duties were . . . ?”

“Nothing specific, I guess. He would go upstairs a couple of times a day and just patrol around. And he’d go outside and check the grounds. Mostly, he stood by the door.” He stared down at his shoes and admitted, “Nobody much liked him. He kinda took things on himself.” He made a face. “I overheard him tell Kurt that Jessica took off on her break. She left the building.”

“That’s not allowed?”

“Well, you can’t really stop anyone from leaving on their break, legally. Kurt just likes to know where every employee is at all times. He wants the girls to go at noon and be back at one.”

“The girls . . . Miss Maltona and Miss Dugan?”

“Liv musta gone to lunch late,” he said. “I was upstairs. I came down and she wasn’t there and Aaron had unlocked the side door.”

When he trailed off, September encouraged him, “The side door’s generally always locked.”

“Yeah. But Aaron got the key and unlocked it, and Kurt found out and they had words.”

“Why did Aaron unlock the door, do you know?”

“Like I said, he just likes messing with his dad. His mother and Kurt don’t get along. She uses Aaron to get to Kurt, and Kurt doesn’t really know what to do with him. Aaron’s kind of a slacker and . . .” He cut himself off, his eyes filling with tears.

“Can you tell me a little more about Olivia Dugan?” she asked as Gretchen returned, her mouth a grim line.

“Liv is quiet. Keeps to herself. I think Aaron likes her, but she’s careful.”

“Careful, how? With his feelings?” September sipped from her own cup of coffee, hoping Berelli would drink up as well. He needed something to keep him going.

“Careful in every way,” he said, looking into his coffee cup. “Afraid to say too much.”

“Afraid?” Gretchen jumped on the word.

“Not . . . like that . . .” he said. “She’s just . . . quiet.”

Gretchen frowned. “Was there anything different in the last few days? Something you can think of that might have precipitated this event?”

Berelli turned to September. “Can I go home now? I can’t think of anything else. I’m just . . . tired.”

Gretchen looked irked, but she gestured to September and said, “Detective Rafferty will give you a ride home.”

“My car’s still at Zuma,” he said.

September said, “I’ll take you to it.”

Berelli tossed a look toward Guy Urlacher as he and September passed by the front desk and pushed their way through the two sets of glass doors that led outside. “Liv isn’t involved in this,” he said. “I know she took off, but she was just scared, y’know.”

“Uh huh.”

“She’s just lucky she wasn’t there. Really lucky.” When September didn’t respond, he added, “I mean it. I’m right about Liv. She’s just one of the meek ones, y’know?”

September nodded.

Liv stared at her gun, which rested on the table beside her left hand. She was still seated across the table from Auggie. Each of them was working through their own thoughts, but it had been quiet a long time and Liv finally could stand it no longer.

“What do you do down here?” she asked him.

“Down here?” he repeated, as if he weren’t really listening.

“In the States.”

“A fishing guide. Same as Canada.”

“Where’s your boat?” she asked.

“At a marina on the Columbia River,” he said, frowning. “You think I’m lying to you?”

“I don’t even care if you are,” she said. “Unless there’s someone else coming to this house.”

“Look in the other bedroom. I live alone,” he stated flatly.

“I need to figure this out,” she said.

What had precipitated the attack on Zuma? Maybe Auggie was right and it had something to do with Kurt Upjohn and his war games, or his finances, or maybe even his personal life. Or, maybe it was somebody else at Zuma? One of the geeks upstairs? But the upstairs hadn’t been compromised. At least she didn’t think so. She hadn’t gone up there herself, but the door at the top of the stairs wasn’t easy to breach. It was everyone downstairs who’d been gunned down.

Maybe Jessica or Paul or even Aaron had some desperate enemy willing to kill innocent people to get to them.

But why now? She was the one who’d gotten the package from her long-dead mother.

But what would the package have to do with anything? It was benign, really. A few photographs, a message from her mother, her birth certificate. Yet . . . yet . . . there was something there.

The pictures . . . the zombie stalker . . . it felt like there was a door cracking open inside her mind. Dr. Yancy had told her she’d buried her memories.

Who knew about the package? Hague. Della. Her father. Lorinda . . . the lawyers at Crenshaw and Crenshaw . . .

Was it about the package? Was it? How could it be?

How could it not be?

Last night she’d told her father and Lorinda and Della that she was going to look into the past. She’d declared and/or intimated that she was going to learn more about the serial strangler who’d been killing women in their area about the time her mother committed suicide. That she wanted to know who the people were in the photographs. That she might follow up with her birth parents.

Hague had called the man in the picture the zombie, the man who was always there, just out of the corner of his eye. But then Hague had mentally disappeared. He knew something. Something that had sent him away from reality.

Kill you.

And then today the gunman had come to Zuma.

“What?” Auggie asked when Liv suddenly jumped to her feet.

“I’ve got to go talk to someone.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to leave me tied here,” he warned her.

She pulled the keys from her pocket. “I’m going to have to.” She looked around, yanked out a drawer, then another, until she found a small knife, then cut off a hank of twine from the roll while he tried to reason with her as she lashed his legs together and to the chair. “There’s no need for this. Take me with you. I want to help you. Do you hear me?”

She wasn’t listening. It was all just noise in the background as her mind moved ahead. She tested the ropes and ignored his darkening expression as she grabbed her backpack from where she’d left it by the kitchen table, stuffed the knife inside, and, more gingerly, her gun, then gave a last look around the kitchen. The oven was freestanding with a bar for the handle. Following her gaze, he said, “No.”

With all her strength Liv dragged a struggling Auggie in his chair to the oven and then tied the chair to the handle of the opened oven door.

“This is dangerous,” he said through his teeth.

“Yes, it is.” She went through his pockets. Nothing. His cell phone was on the counter. “You don’t have a wallet,” she said, wondering where that was.

“Yes, I do. I—” He cut himself off, thinking hard. Swearing beneath his breath, he said, “If it’s not in my back pocket, I must have left it at the coffee shop. Damn.” He threw her a fulminating look. “Maybe you can get it for me?”

She tightened her lips, silently telling him that wasn’t possible, then she opened the back door, keys in hand. The last thing she saw was Auggie, glowering at her, clenching his teeth as if to keep himself from blasting her. She closed the door behind her, listened for the satisfying sound of the deadlock shutting tight and the ear-blistering sounds of Auggie swearing a blue streak. Then she headed to his Jeep with a length of twine to tie down the back hatch.

My brain is full of worms. It is failing me. What I did today . . . crazy. Crazy. Like fuckin’ Rambo . . .

My heart is pounding triple-time. I have to hide the gun. Hide my clothes.

Hide.

But she has to die. She knows too much. It’s planted deep inside her.

I have to kill her. I have to find her and kill her.

I can feel the need overtake me. Hot and smothering. My hands reach into the darkness, and I dream of that soft, white neck. Crushing the hyoid bone at her throat is almost like sex.

But what I did today! Fuckin’ Rambo. Too desperate and reckless and she wasn’t even there!

I’ve let her live too long.

Too long.

I need a new plan. Something less BIG, but it’s getting harder to keep my thoughts in order.

My brain is full of worms . . . it’s failing me.

I must finish what I started . . . accept who I am . . .

Before it’s too late . . . and little Livvie catches up to me.