Keepsake (43 page)

He rolled her over, then dragged her by her armpits to the love seat and propped her up against the back of it. Dazed, bruised, and in wrenching pain, Olivia fought back waves of nausea as she waited in fearful silence for his next move. Think, think! she told herself. But she tasted blood in her mouth, surely an omen, and her mind kept shutting down in terror.

****

Nudged by a rising wind, Quinn walked against traffic, away from the cottage and toward the rental that he had dutifully parked far from the estate, two blocks away on Pine. Behind him the sky lit up repeatedly and rolled with thunder
... but still no real rain. He was sick with heartache, and angry as well. He wanted the rain, would welcome a downpour. Anything to wash away the dread misgivings which clung to him like sweat on a clammy night.

****

Olivia watched him crawl around on all fours, searching for a turned-over lamp that still worked. In the dark he seemed bigger and more powerful than he had on the field: There, he had paled in size and strength next to the kids he tyrannized. Olivia had always been surprised that they could be afraid of him, this middle-aged man with a gut who often slurred his orders and paced the sidelines with an unsteady gait.

She wasn't surprised anymore.

Finally the coach found a lamp in working order which he righted on the floor. With a grunt he rolled onto his right hip, sitting across from Olivia.

Wide-eyed and still panting with fear, Olivia studied his cruel, weather-beaten face and tried to gauge the depth of his psychosis. Could she pierce through it with logic, with threats, with pleas for pity? Or was he too far gone to be reached?

His own breathing was deep but even now as he said, "You got a lotta fight for a girl. 'Course, I'm not as young as I used to be." He leaned back on his left elbow, stretched out his right leg and, with a grunt, reached into his front pocket.

The knife that he brought out and opened was enormous. Olivia could see that it wasn't new; the blade that gleamed under the lightbulb had been sharpened so many times that it had a hollow.

"Oh, Coach... why are you doing this?" she said in a low wail.

His laugh was no more than an explosion of phlegm. "Why-why-why. I remember that's how you were in school. Always with the why-why-why."

He ran the blade appraisingly across the flat of his thumb and said, "Believe it or not, this wasn't planned. Everything else, oh,
yeah; but not this. This was—hm
m, what's the word I want? You would know," he said, glancing slyly at her from under bushy brows. "Serendipity! That's it." He grinned, flashing a set of big yellow teeth that she found especially repulsive.

"Talk about luck. There I was, poking around the potting shed for a can of gasoline, when in you drive. I figure you're going up to see your mommy—lonely tonight with your dad in Meh-hee-ko, poor doll—so naturally I'm surprised when you pull in front of the gardener's house instead. And even more surprised when the fugitive quarterback comes strolling up behind you."

He gave her leg a little nudge with his foot. Leering, he said, "I figure you two are here for a little slap and tickle, hey? Quinn sneaks in on foot, you close all the shutters, and then you go at it. Because you like it a little on the dangerous side," he added, jiggling the knife in her face. "Am I right?"

Gazing fixedly at the blade, she said, "No, that
... that's not how it was."

"If you're talkin' about that dustup you two had in front of your shop this afternoon, I heard all about it. But weren't you here to kiss and make up?"

She bowed her head and he said, "Oh, well, so I was wrong. Whatever. You know what I'm thinking? This might work out even better than Plan A, burning your mommy's house down. Tell me what you think. Pay attention now. I know you'll find any flaws in this scenario.

"You told Quinn to fu—excuse me—buzz off in front of half the town today. Okay, that much, everyone knows. After that, he follows you here. You fight again and he storms out, maybe after doing a little damage to you. Since he hates this house and all it stands for, he decides to do something about you
and
it. He has an inspiration. The potting shed is right next door. It has gas cans for all the mowers and tools stored there. He thinks to himself, 'Now here's a simple, straightforward solution to my problem.' Or rather, he doesn't think at all. He just acts. Call it a crime of passion. With a good enough lawyer, he might even get off."

Scraping the blade against his chin stubble, the coach said musingly, "It could fly." He remembered that Olivia was there. "Think?"

Oh, God. She wracked her brain searching for a hole in that all-too-plausible scenario. "Why would I risk meeting him under my mother's nose?" she said, grasping at straws.

"Ooh, good one. Thank you. Why, indeed? Uhh-h-h... okay, how's this? You're here because you didn't want to make a scene at your place. You have neighbors. This house don't." He shrugged in apology. "I know it's a little dumb. I'm not as smart as you."

Dumb it was, but it was true. Her heart sank.

"Quinn and I aren't together anymore, Coach," she pleaded in a last-ditch effort to reason with him. "If you're trying to get back at him by hurting me, it won't work
. T
ruly, it won't!"

"Sure it'll work. Besides, this gets back at everyone, not just Quinn. Oh, yeah. Plan B is lookin' better all the time. No kidding; talk about luck!" He looked genuinely happy as he scrambled to his feet and began looking around the room.

While he was distracted, Olivia made a desperate attempt to stand and make a run for it. But the handcuffs hindered her and all she got for her trouble was a brutal kick in the thigh above her injured knee. She nearly passed out from the pain.

"I
said
,
sit." He stood over her. "You're beginning to piss me off, you know that? I guess you're a Bennett after all. Your mother spurns me
... your brother loses me the job of a lifetime at Notre Dame
... your father gets me fired from this shitty one
... and now you're being a real pain in the ass."

All of it was news to Olivia, but one claim stood out more than the others. "Spurned you?"

"She never said? I tried to take her out. More than once. Thirty-seven years ago come June. She wouldn't have no part of me. I guess she'd set her sights higher than the likes of a high-school coach," he said in a sneer. "Her! A baker's daughter!"

His voice dropped into a sudden, savage growl. "The bitch—it all started with her! I could have been someone
... done something with myself!"

"You killed Alison!" Olivia said suddenly. "You killed her to try to frame my brother and hurt my mother. You knew Rand was boycotting the senior party that night and didn't have a decent alibi. But you didn't count on my father to line up doctors to testify that Rand wasn't strong enough yet to stage the crime. You hate us all," she cried, "and you killed Alison
, didn't you?
"

"Ah, what're you talkin' about? I didn't kill shit."

Disappointed, Olivia seemed to collapse in place: she would not even have the small comfort of knowing he was the murderer.

She closed her eyes, blinking back tears of defeat, and then forced herself to engage him again. Anything to stall for time.

"
It's ...
not Quinn that you've had the grudge against all this time?"

"Him, too, goddammit! Him more than your brother! Leaving me with my thumb up my ass just when scouts are swarming the field, when I've had my first interview, when we're
that
close to a championship. So
yeah,
Quinn, too! All of 'em! It's all their faults! Nobody's had the shitty breaks I've had! Nobody! My whole life
... one after another—"

He stopped abruptly. "Ah, what the hell. I'm wasting my time here."

He grabbed the fringed silk shawl that Olivia's mother had draped so artfully over a chair, and he tied it tightly around Olivia's mouth. She shook her head and tried to mumble a protest as Bronsky walked away; the scarf was making her gag. In seconds he was back, this time with a tieback tassel from one of the drapes. He bound her feet with it.

"Okay, that should do it," he said, almost bemused as he looked down at her. "Sorry we don't have a railroad track handy to tie you to. You stay here, now. I'll be right back."

****

When the rain came, it came suddenly and horizontally, raking Quinn's back like shotgun spray and plastering his clothes to his shoulders and legs. He sprinted toward the rental that he'd parked on Pine, confused for a second by an empty space where a van had been. The white Camry—that was his, right? Grateful that he hadn't locked it, he made a dive for the front seat and slammed the door after him. He slicked back his hair and started his engine, then turned on the lights and glanced in the rearview mirror as he got ready to pull out.

His soul turned to ice.

The car parked on the other side of the empty space behind Quinn—surely he'd seen it before. A pickup with a headlight bashed in
;
surely he'd seen it
....

Parked in front of
a chain-link fence that had a Beware of D
og sign half hanging on it.
Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus Christ.

He swept e
very thought aside except one: g
et to the cottage
now.
His mind, his hands, the feet that pushed the pedals, all were locked on a single, imperative goal:
Get to the cottage now!
He peeled out of the parking space and turned down Main, bound for the cottage that was a block away in the next galaxy.

Olivia shook her head at the coach so violently that she became dizzy. He misinterpreted her as he tipped the gas can and carefully trickled its foul-smelling contents on the rug, over the love seat, and across Olivia's black tights.

"I know what you're thinking," he said, "and you don't have to worry. I'll knock you out before I light the match. What do you take me for, an animal?"

But Olivia wasn't thinking as far ahead as the match. It was the smell she was focused on; the smell of gasoline made her sick, so sick that she always tried to breathe through her mouth when she filled up her car. And she didn't want to throw up—oh, God, not now, she couldn't. If she did, she would choke and die.
And the baby
—
oh, she
is
a girl, she is
,
and her name will be Jessica
—
Jessica would die
too.  D
on't throw up, don't throw up, do
n't.

"Oh. One other thing. I need your key. I'm going to have to lock you in, naturally, to slow people down." He went out into the hall where she had dropped her handbag in the initial scuffle.

In a profound state of disbelief, Olivia watched him fish out the keys and try several different ones in the deadlock before finding the one that fit.

She continued to take shallow breaths. She was about to be immolated, and yet the number-one problem she faced was nausea. If she could beat the nausea, if she could just hold on...

As it turned out, she got a little help in that regard. Coach Bronsky came back into the parlor, stood over her, and said, "Have to leave this lamp on, I'm afraid. I don't want to risk a spark, turning it off. I'd blow myself up—and how much fun would that be? 'Course, you won't know if the light's on or not," he said.

And he was right. After the sharp blow to the back of her head, Olivia's world became all black, all white, all the time.

The iron gates were still locked. Quinn turned wide and gunned the Camry, crashing through them and setting off a pompous alarm. Forget the element of surprise. If Bronsky was around, Quinn wanted him scared and running. He roared up to th
e house that once had been home
and slammed on the brakes in front of it.

The wind and most of the rain had eased off now, and he was able to make out the coach, standing outside in front of a single square of light—an open parlor window. Quinn jumped from the car and was instantly wrapped in the reek of gasoline, which solved the puzzle of why the coach was poised by the window.

Jesus.

Too late. Quinn saw the single, tiny flame erupt at the end of the matchstick
... saw the match arc, in seeming slow motion, through the open window
... and then the
whoomp
...
and then the horror of flames everywhere, reaching out and clawing at the coach, who let out a howl of pain and began slapping wildly at himself, then dropped shrieking and rolling onto the wet grass.

Olivia! In the house or not? Quinn hardly had time to spare the coach a glance before lifting a huge pot of geraniums and smashing it through a second window in the back of the parlor, sending the inside shutters flying open. He climbed through the window, ignoring the shards stuck in the glazing, mentally thanking God that a lamp was lit in the room, making a search possible.

He found Olivia unconscious behind the love seat, a few feet away from approaching flames. Holding his breath, he scooped her up and ran, desperately aware that she had been turned into a human wick by the psycho outside. He carried her through the dark bedroom that used to be his, stumbling into furnishings set in unaccustomed places, his mind reeling from the horrific possibility that Olivia could burst into flames in his arms.