21 Dares: A Florida Suspense Mystery (26 page)

Chapter 29

H
olding Dharma’s keys, Abbie ran into the parking
lot. She pressed the unlock button on the fob and searched the parked cars. Lights
flashed on a little red Toyota Prius, responding to the unlock signal. Abbie
rushed to it.

Slipping
in the car, she inserted the keys in the ignition and started to back out. She
almost hit a car behind her. Abbie looked in the rearview mirror. The car was
positioned to block her. Its headlights weren’t on, but the engine was running.
A silhouette shifted in the driver’s seat behind the wheel.

The
car door opened. A man in a tan trench coat and brown hat stepped onto the
pavement.

 
Charlie Hicks.

He
walked toward Abbie’s side of the Prius and tapped on the glass. Abbie scrambled
over the center console to the passenger seat. She opened the car door, fell to
the curb.

“Don’t
come any closer or I will call the police.” She looked up as he rounded the
front of the Prius. He raised his hands.

“Abbie
Reed, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I
want to believe you but… just stay there.” She stared at the edges of his
trench coat flapping in the wind. “Why are you sending me the text messages?
Have you done something to Clinton Reed?”

“No.”
He looked surprised. “What’s going on with your father?”

She
searched his face, looked for any hint of deception. “Tell me why you’re
sending me the text messages?”

“I
haven’t sent you any text messages, Abbie.” He kept his hands in the air. “Tell
me what’s happened to your father?”

“The
messages are coming from your number.”

“My
cell phone was stolen at Gaspar’s Grotto. I followed you in there and someone
took it when I wasn’t looking. So, I haven’t sent you any text messages.
Someone else is.” His voice, though quiet, had an ominous quality. “What’s
happened to your father?”

“Your
cell phone was stolen?”

“Abbie.”
His tone sharpened. He seemed to be losing patience. “Where is your father?
What’s happened to Clinton Reed?”

Abbie
kept her eyes focused on him, debating whether or not to answer his question. “He
left me a voice mail message. He thinks I’m waiting for him at our old home.”

“Is
that where you’re headed?” he asked.

“I
have to get to him.” Her lips thinned with anger. “If you’re telling me the
truth, then Dr. Wachowski is—”

He
held up a hand to silence her. “Abbie, you can’t go there.”

“I
don’t have a choice. Either you can help me or you can get out of my way.”

“Your
father wouldn’t want you to do this.” He remained absolutely motionless for a
moment. “You can’t go back there. It’s not safe.”

Frustrated,
Abbie turned her head, shut her eyes. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

“Like I said before, Abbie.”
He took a step closer.
“I’m here to protect you. Your father hired me to watch out for you.”

She
opened her eyes, looked at him. “Why?”

“He
was worried about you coming back to Tampa, after everything that happened.”

“I
don’t believe it.”

“You
have to, Abbie. And I can’t let you leave.”

“You
killed a girl…”

“I
didn’t kill her. I didn’t hurt her.”

“You
were stalking her.”

“I
was framed. I got kicked off the force because I was framed for stalking and
killing that teenager, but Abbie, I promise you, it wasn’t me. I didn’t hurt
her.”

“Who
did?”

“I
don’t know. I never found him.”

“Why
would someone frame you?” She waited for an answer. He looked away. Abbie tried
to move past him. “I need to go.”

“I
can’t let you leave.” He took another step, blocking her. Abbie raised a hand.

“Step
back or I will call the police.”

“Please,
Abbie. You have to trust me.”

A
warning voice whispered in her head. He continued talking.

“If
you come with me, we’ll check out your old home together, get your father and
I’ll get you both back to Pembroke Pines.” He took another step. Abbie watched
him, thinking about what he was saying. “Abbie, your father hired me. When I
left the police force, I started a private practice, and your father hired me.”

Abbie
shook her head, but she didn’t move. He stepped closer, holding out his hand.

“I
won’t hurt you, Abbie. You have to trust me, like you did when you were a child
hiding in the attic. You were scared then, but you trusted me.” He came closer,
reached for her. A flash of blue and black rushed past her and tackled Charlie
Hicks to the ground.

“Josh!”
Abbie screamed.

“Run!”
Josh yelled as he wrestled with Charlie Hicks in the grass.

At the same moment, two squad cars veered
around the parking lot entrance. Two more cruisers were up on the curb, lights
flashing. The squad cars screeched to a stop in the center of the parking lot. Four
uniforms surrounded Josh and Charlie Hicks. They were well armed.

Josh
released Charlie Hicks, and backed away with his arms in the air. Hicks remained
on the ground, his head raised as an officer placed a knee on his back, pinning
him to the ground. With Hicks subdued, Josh came over to Abbie.

“Are
you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m
okay.” Still, a sensation of intense sickness and desolation swept over her.
Time was running out.

He
hugged her, holding her tightly. “It’s over now. We got him.”

 
“Where’d you go? You weren’t in the
apartment.” She buried her face in his chest.

“I
was looking for your landlord.”

She
broke from his embrace and looked up at him.
“In the middle
of the night?”

“We
knew we’d get Charlie Hicks here. I needed to let him know what was going on,”
he said. “But I couldn’t find him.”

Abbie
looked surprised. “What?”

“He
didn’t answer his door.” He seemed to notice her concern, and took her hands in
his. “Abbie, listen to me. It’s over. We’ve got Charlie Hicks and the police
found his hotel room. They’re raiding it right now. It’s over.”

That
really didn’t process, and Abbie looked at the crowd of people who’d emerged around
them. Neighbors came out of their apartments and were standing on the grass in
bare feet and slippers, watching the police place Charlie Hicks in handcuffs.

 
“No, wait! Josh!” Abbie squeezed Josh’s hand
.“
Clinton Reed left me a message. He’s—”

Josh
didn’t let her finish. “Charlie Hicks was positively identified in a couple of
the pictures you took on your phone. He was stalking you, Abbie. But you’re
safe now.”

“No,
Josh. You don’t understand.”

 
“Give me a minute and then we’ll talk about
it.” He moved his hand, releasing her. “I need to help with crowd control.
Don’t move, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Abbie
nodded and watched him head back toward the crowd. Charlie Hicks was still
lying on the ground. A cop was reading him his rights. Josh addressed the curious
neighbors, telling everyone to go back into their homes. Abbie listened,
folding her arms across her chest. Her phone suddenly rang in her hands, and
she saw that it was Clinton Reed.

She
answered the call.

“Where
have you been? I’ve been calling you all night,” Abbie said. There was no
answer. She looked at the cracked screen to see if it had disconnected.
“Clinton Reed?”

“Are
you ready for the next dare?”

“Who
is this?” Abbie didn’t recognize the voice rippling through the speaker. She looked
back at Charlie Hicks,
then
focused on the caller. “Dr.
Wachowski?”

“I
asked you a question. Are you ready for the next dare?”

“Okay,”
Abbie whispered. “Go on.”

The
voice on the phone chuckled. “I dare you to save your father.”

The
line clicked and the call ended. Abbie dropped her phone. She trembled a second,
thinking. He had Clinton Reed.
He had her
father.
The worst case scenario raced through her head. Then she remembered
Clinton Reed’s voicemail.
I just got a
message from your therapist. He said that you’re not doing well and wants me to
pick you up at our old house.

She
looked at Josh.
Looked at the four officers arresting Charlie
Hicks.
Looked at the surrounding crowd.
Looked at the parking lot and the flashing lights on top the two
cruisers.
Charlie Hicks’ car was still behind Dharma’s Prius. His car was
running. The engine hummed, waiting for her.

Abbie
jumped in Hick’s car and slipped behind the wheel. She flipped the gearshift
into drive,
then
maneuvered around Dharma’s vehicle.
She didn’t bother with the seat belt as she rolled past the officers busy placing
Charlie Hicks in a squad car. Gunning the accelerator, she headed for the
highway.

Chapter 30

T
he old neighborhood waited for Abbie Reed as if she’d never left. Her
childhood home remained standing, abandoned, and she pulled to the curb in
front of the house.

Clinton Reed’s old station wagon was parked
there too. She parked behind it.
He’s
here
, she thought. She looked around. There were no other cars. About ten
feet behind her, a dead dog lay on the side of the road. The carcass was stiff,
but one black ear fluttered in the wind. The other houses on the street were
dark, the people inside fast asleep.

Abbie felt utterly alone as she turned off
the engine.

“I’m here,” she said into her phone. “Clinton
Reed’s car is here too.”

“You don’t know what he’s doing there.”
 
Josh’s voice crackled in the phone’s speaker.

“Yes I do. Dr. Wachoski is using Clinton
Reed’s phone. He stole Charlie Hick’s phone at Gaspar’s Grotto.”

“Abbie, you’re not making any sense. The
police are at Charlie Hick’s residence right now. He’s been stalking you and
your friends.”

“And you’re not listening to me. Charlie
Hicks was following me, but not in the way you think. He was trying to protect
me from Dr. Wachowski.”

“He stalked and murdered that teenage girl.”

“He was framed, Josh. Someone framed him
then, and someone is framing him now.”

“And you think it’s this doctor?
Your therapist?”

“Yes,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.
“I think so.”

“Then let my dad handle it, okay?”

From the car window, Abbie looked at her childhood
home.
Despite
the deterioration, the house looked as it had when she was five, before she
went to live with her grandparents. It stood empty for years now, and was
slowly rotting away. Shingles were missing on the roof. Boards were nailed
across the front windows. Weeds grew tall around the foundation. The wood was
rotten, with flecks of paint coming off it. It looked nothing like she remembered,
yet somehow, nothing had changed.

Josh’s voice caught her attention and she
looked back at her phone.

“I’m calling my dad, okay?” he said. “Okay?”

“Just
get here as fast as you can.”
She
was about to say more when a
n incoming call interrupted her. The name “Clinton
Reed” flashed on her broken screen. She accepted the new call and disconnected
Josh.

“I’m
here.” She answered the call with quiet, but desperate, firmness. The voice on
the phone chuckled.

 
“Are you just going to sit in the car? Or are you
coming inside?”

“What’s
Clinton Reed doing here?” She studied the house. The windows upstairs were
dark. There didn’t seem to be any movement whatsoever. “Why did you tell him to
meet you here?”

“I’m
waiting.” It was all he said.

“Listen,
Doctor. If you’re trying to make some point about what happened to us back when
I was kid, you’re going about it all wrong. This isn’t right.”

 
“Oh, tssk, tssk.”
His
voice grew heavy with sarcasm. “Do you really not know? Have you not figured it
out yet?”

“Please.
Don’t hurt him.” She lost her cool, and fought back tears. Her heart slammed in
her chest. “Do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Pretty One.”
His words chilled her.
She almost dropped the phone, but found her courage. He continued, his voice
rippling through the phone speakers. “Now c’mon inside,” he said. “I dare you.”

Abbie
looked away,
then
thought of Charlie Hick’s concealed
weapon. It had to be in here. She opened the glove box and sorted through
insurance papers and folded napkins.
Nothing.
She
looked in the center console, found spare change and
breath
mints.
Nothing.
She felt beneath the seat. Her fingers
gripped something hard.
Something cold.
She lifted up a
black semiautomatic pistol.

She
had no idea how to fire it.

Trembling,
Abbie climbed out of the car. Holding his handgun, she ran to her father’s station
wagon, looked in the windows. The car was empty. She looked at the rotting
house. Clinton Reed was in there, waiting.

With
the phone clutched between her shoulder and ear, she gripped the pistol and marched
across the dead lawn. A muddy “FOR SALE” sign stood crooked in the yard, viny
stink weeds weaving up its wooden post. She approached the house,
stepping onto the porch. Her footsteps
sounded like a funeral drumbeat on the weathered boards. She approached the
front door, reached for the doorknob. It almost seemed to be receding from her,
receding into the black soul of the house. Her fingers closed around the knob.
She didn’t want to do it, but she had to do it. She pulled the door open. The
hinges creaked.

She
stepped inside and darkness engulfed her.
Her bottom lip trembled when she realized where she was.
It had
been sixteen years since she set foot in this room.
He’d carried her down that staircase, across the living room. Heather’s
body laid face-up, motionless on the floor, beneath the large bay window. Her
head angled back, her eyes open, staring empty toward the ceiling. Her neck was
exposed, as was the angry gash that ran from her left ear across her throat.
Abbie shuddered.
The room was so
full of Heather’s presence that it felt haunted. Without thinking, she reached
for the unicorn pendant. She gently tugged the necklace. Behind her, the open door
allowed a little light to filter inside. She didn’t close it.
A
quicker escape
, she thought.

She
looked at the staircase, and remembered standing on the upper steps with
Heather, watching the man rummage through the roll top desk that used to be in
the corner. He ripped pictures off the walls. The memory made her heart pound.
Her legs stiffened with tension. She stepped deeper into the room. Moonlight filtered
through the window, although there were no drapes. A two-by-four stretched
across the pane.
 

Abbie
paused, took a breath. She thought of Buffy.

On
her eighteenth birthday, the Vampire Slayer lost her powers and was forced to
find her way through an old, abandoned house, alone. An ancient vampire hid in
it, and Buffy had to find the creature and stake it. She fought as a regular
teenage girl. Just like Abbie. Buffy made it through that night. She survived
without her powers, and she defeated that ancient vampire and made it out the
house alive. But that was a TV show. This was real life.

The
man on the phone chuckled. She’d forgotten he was still on the line and his
voice was an affront to the silence. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m
inside the house.” She forced confidence behind her words. It’s what Buffy
would’ve done. “Where are you?”

“I
bet you’re thinking about that night,” he said. “That night the boogeyman broke
in and attacked you and your sister. Is that what you’re thinking about?”

“Where
are you?” she asked again. Her voice wavered slightly, betraying her, and she
wondered if he noticed.

“Are
you remembering what happened that night?” He sounded like he was getting
pleasure from all this. “Are you remembering how he came upstairs? Crept into
your bedroom?”

“Stop
it,” she said. “Just tell me where you are. Where’s Clinton Reed?”

“He
wasn’t there that
night,
was he? Your father left two
little girls alone, like little unprotected lambs. And the wolf knocked on the
door, didn’t it? And Daddy wasn’t there to protect you—”

“Stop
it,” she cut him off. “Stop doing this.”

“You’re
angry. But you’re not angry at me. You’re angry at him, aren’t you? You’re angry
at your father.”

“Stop
it or I will hang up this phone.” She listened for his voice. She hoped to hear
him and identify where he was hiding. “I will search every room in this house
until I find you. And, I swear to God, I have a gun and when I find you, I will
shoot you.”

“Fine.”
He laughed. “I dare you to walk upstairs.”

“Is
that where you’re hiding?”

“I
think you know where I’m hiding.”

“I
told you, I’m not playing anymore games.” She hung up the phone. Holding the
gun, she stepped up the staircase. One step at a time, she ascended.

Stopping
at the upstairs landing, she hesitated. It was utterly dark. All the bedrooms
doors were shut. Still she could see where the table lamp once stood beside the
wall. She remembered the caution sign that hung on Heather’s bedroom door. She
saw Clinton Reed’s room.

She
walked slowly toward the master bedroom.

Quietly,
cautiously, she opened the door. It squeaked, just as it used to, and the noise
made her jump. Moonlight came in through the bedroom windows, and Abbie’s eyes
adjusted to the dark. There were no drapes, no dresser drawers. There was a
naked mattress where her father’s bed once butted against the wall.

Two
bodies lay side by side.

A man and a woman.

They
lay face up, arms at their side, legs straight. Their faces were covered by
grinning, grey Gareth the Ghoul masks.

Rocky and McKenzie
, Abbie thought.

She
ran to the mattress.
 
She kneeled beside
the female body dressed in the red Qipa. A small business card rested on the
woman’s chest. She picked it up. It read: CHARLIE HICKS, HICK’S PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS.
She threw it on the floor,
then
looked at the corpse. Abbie
removed the mask. McKenzie’s frozen face stared back at her.

McKenzie’s
eyes were open, but empty. Blood saturated the front of her neck where a deep
gash stretched from her left ear across her throat.

Abbie simply stood there, staring at
McKenzie’s face. It took a second for the scene to fully register. When the
horror sunk in, Abbie’s mouth pulled back in dreadful agony.
Bile rose into her mouth
and burned her throat. She forced back the urge to vomit.
She
dropped to the floor, suddenly weak,
not wanting to look. But she couldn’t keep from looking.
She
wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She didn’t.

She had to get control of herself. Clinton
Reed needed her. He was here, in the house, somewhere, and he needed her to be
calm.

Abbie took a breath.
Held
it.
She thought of Buffy again.
Buffy
defeated the ancient vampire. Buffy got out of the abandoned home alive.
Slowly,
Abbie stood, but her legs were like rubber. She stumbled backwards toward the
wall and grabbed
the door frame for support. Her heart racing again, she tumbled through the
bedroom door and pressed her back to wall in hallway. She caught her breath
again and considered bolting downstairs and out the front door.

But
she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Clinton Reed needed her.

Her
phone rang, startling her. She answered it.

“Why?”
she screamed. “Why did you kill them? You slit their throats? McKenzie and Rocky,
they were my friends. They did nothing to you.”

“Did
that bring back some bad memories?” The voice was calm, methodical.

“Why?”
she screamed again, unable to stop the tears. “Why are you doing this?”

“Did
their bodies remind you of something? Of someone? Of your sister?”

“You’re
a monster! You’re evil. Sadistic”

“Pretty
One…”

She
didn’t let him speak. “Where’s Clinton Reed? Where is he? If you hurt him—”

“I
can’t talk to you when you get all emotional on me.”

“Where
is he?” She held the phone in front of her face and screamed into it.

“Take
a deep breath and relax.” He paused, as if giving her a second to catch her
breath. “Now then, are you ready for the next dare?”

“You’re
sick,” she said. “You are sick and you won’t get away with any of this.”

“Pretty
One, I asked you a question. Are you ready for the next dare?”

Abbie
could barely breathe. “What?”

“The
next dare,” he said. “I dare you to look in the attic.”

“No.”
Abbie shook her head. She trembled. “No. I’m not going up there.”

“I
dare you,” he said. “I double-dog dare you. Isn’t that what the kids say these
days? I triple-dog, stick-a- thousand-needles-in-your-eye dare you to look in
the attic.”

Abbie
couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She struggled to comprehend. He was
still talking, but she barely heard him.

“Just
draw down the ladder, and climb up. Peek into the attic, won’t you?
For old time’s sake?
Just give it a quick peek.”