Something About Sophie (20 page)

Who
was
she? Truly, she was beginning to think she'd passed to another realm altogether. Sticking up for a defenseless, unconscious Billy was one thing. This was more. More than
flint,
more than rabid teacher. Snapping, prodding, baiting, and screaming at a man intent on killing her was . . . well, crazy. Was that it? Was it more than fear and confusion? Had she lost her mind?

She glanced at Frank Lanyard. It was dusk; the dash lights cast shadows over his face, flashed across the surface of his glasses. He appeared distracted—thinking—or perhaps
rethinking
.

Gradually she began to speculate on the possibility that she wasn't recklessly pushing her luck after all—but that her limits had been extended. He was allowing her to be mouthy and rude because . . . why? He owed her that much? Because it wouldn't last much longer as she was about to die? Or maybe . . . was he beginning to see that he'd made a huge mistake, that she hadn't killed his friends?

No. He already
knew
she didn't kill them because
he
killed them. Obviously. When she showed up looking so like Lonora, he panicked; and thinking his friends would rat him out, he killed them. And now, she was the last bit of evidence to be eliminated.

He seemed pretty certain that he hadn't fathered her—that meant one of the others did. Not that that mattered now. He was there. He knew. He was guilty. And she was going to die.

Her mind raced as she slowed to take the first bend in the zigzaggy road to the top of the hill, and didn't speed up again.
I like my steaks medium rare—pink not bloody. I want four babies—maybe eight.
I've never been to an aquarium. I prefer blue ink to black and socks to slippers when my toes are cold.
Those things needed to be in Drew's book. She needed more time . . . a lot of it. A lifetime worth.

Using a soft, tentative tone that she hoped would sound like his inner voice, she said, “I've jumped to the wrong conclusion about people before. We all have, right?” She listened to herself swallow and forged on—feeling her way, not at all sure where she was going. “Usually, because we don't have all the information about them. Or we have wrong information. Somehow that seems worse, doesn't it? Maybe because it infers some sort of lie, I guess, but it doesn't have to be . . . a lie, I mean. Just misunderstanding a word or an action can create wrong information.” A quick glance showed him listening but nothing more. “I think we've all rushed into situations without thinking them through, too. Impulsively. Emotionally. Especially if we've been under a lot of stress.” She kept stopping and checking him, anticipating an explosion. “Boy, you sure would qualify for that, wouldn't you?” He looked at her. “I get it. I do. I remember high school. The peer pressure and all. Maybe . . . maybe you weren't there; maybe one of your pals did it and bragged. The stress of keeping a secret like that all these years must have been unbearable for you.” In her ears, her voice wasn't sympathetic—she adjusted. “I get it. I show up, looking like her, you get anxious. You're afraid the truth will come out; afraid your friends will say something. You snap under the pressure and start killing them. And I'm still a reminder so—”

“You did that! You killed them.”

“I didn't. Why would I—how could I? I didn't even know about Lonora until tonight. But you knew, your friends knew. You killed them and now you're going to kill me.”

“I didn't!”

She didn't believe him for a second. He was, after all, intent on killing her. “Then who did?”

“I don't know.”

She heard doubt and fear in his tone.

“And they're not friends.”

“Oh. I thought—”

“Not since high school.”

“Right. You moved away. To Roanoke, which is what? . . . a couple of hours away and that would make it difficult to—”

“I moved to get away from them.”

This was interesting. “Why?”

He shook his head. “I couldn't stand to look at 'em anymore.”

“You fought?”

Another shake of his head as the road opened to a large gravel parking lot. “Pull up over there. There by those fire bushes.”

Did he mean the
green
fire bushes that wouldn't turn flame red until fall? Was he so familiar with the park that he could tell one bush from another . . . in the dark
?

Oh. Right.
November 12, 1985,
she recalled. He was remembering the season. Is that where it happened? There by the fire bushes. So close to the parking lot? Well, that was dumb. Why was the scene so important to him if it was out in the open?

Two seconds later she got her answer. A third, much smaller sign came into view off to their left, marking a nature trail; and on their right was a loose gravel utility road blocked off with an orange chain and a metal flag instructing them not to enter—both were considerably more conducive to murder.

Her heart jerked and shifted gears; she felt dizzy. This was so wrong. She wasn't ready to die. She had too many things left to do—get married, have babies, ride in a hot air balloon, scuba dive in Aruba, vacation in an ice hotel . . . Aunt Leslie promised to teach her how to knit! Clearfield and a senior trip to Montreal with her French class were the farthest she'd ever been from home and she wanted to see all the castles in Germany, climb Machu Picchu and . . . be there for her dad, because he shouldn't have to lose her, too.

Tears came and spilled down her cheeks but she wasn't crying, not really—she couldn't afford to yet. She needed to stay angry, stay strong, stay
flint
.

“So, um, if Cliff Palmeroy and Maury Weims weren't your friends anymore, why did Maury go to see you after Cliff was murdered?”

“Damn fool lost it, came over to my house half-cocked and hysterical saying you knew and were plannin' to kill us all.” He stopped to nod at the steering wheel. “Back 'er up now so the light shines that way.”

“At the path?” So he wouldn't have to kill her in the dark?

He nodded and continued on, “Now this whole damned thing is going to blow up in
my
face. The two of them together never did have the sense you could find in a bag of hair. Now cut 'er off and get out.” He lifted the gun off his lap once more. “And don't try anything.”

Or what? He'd kill her? Didn't seem like much of a threat until she remembered Billy in the backseat . . . and honestly, she didn't consider him for very long. She had her own life to save now and she suffered no regret. She'd done what she could for him.

Still and all, she had no plan aside from
RUN LIKE HELL.
She was about to use Billy to stall Frank for a moment by checking his condition, but changed her mind at the last moment. Lanyard may have forgotten about him for the moment; she couldn't see any real benefit to reminding him. Besides, the sooner she got out of the car, the sooner she could run—and Billy would slip even farther to the back of Frank's mind.

She used her left hand to verify that her cell was tucked deep in the back pocket of her denim skirt, and it wasn't until she reached for the keys in the ignition that she took in the fact that her car—with Billy in the backseat—was Frank Lanyard's only way back to town.

It was just one thing after another!—and all she wanted was to run.

Well, he wasn't taking her new car. Period.

Closing her right hand over the key, she turned the engine off and made it seem a reflex to cut the lights at the same time. When he barked at her to leave them on, she used the sound of his voice to remove the key and pass the remote and the two keys attached to it to her left hand, where she held them firm and noiseless against her palm while she turned the lights back on.

“Sorry,” she said, quickly scanning over Frank's shoulder the wooded area on both sides of the path and the half-lit road they came up on. Her best option was to run away from the light, of course, but not down the utility road, she told herself. She'd head into the woods.

Her strategy was to lock the car doors on the run; and if he was close enough that he might catch her, drop the keys—somewhere she could find them again if she could get back . . .
when
she got back.

She moved to get out.

“Hold on.”

“What?” she said, short and shocked, so deep into her getaway she'd all but forgotten him. “What. You didn't say to get out?”

“I changed my mind.” He opened his door and backed out sideways while she peered through the pale light at the nose of his gun, hoping to see his hand shake with uncertainty—or just nerves for that matter—anything but the unwavering determination she saw in it now.

“Look, I know—”

He slammed the door and advanced around the front of the car to her side, his glasses glinting in the headlights. Was this it—her chance? Lock the doors? Were her windows bulletproof? Who thinks to ask
that
at a car dealership?

That was all she had time for before he yanked open the door, grabbed her arm, and tugged for her to come out. Tears were spontaneous and disregarded by them both. He was as settled on killing her as she was on living—but they shared their terror like a palpable thing. A burden neither of them wanted.

She took her time with the seat belt. Her voice cracked when she spoke. “Look, I know you don't want to do this. I feel it. And you know I don't deserve it. Maury Weims jumped to a wrong conclusion about me and you reacted. That's natural . . . excessive, for sure, but still something we've all done.” The belt came loose and rolled back into place. “And . . . and you say you didn't kill anyone, so you haven't done anything too awful yet. Kidnapping and assault. That's all.” Her cheap, flat sandals hit the ground. “And I won't press charges. I promise. I swear. It's just assault on Billy and . . . and I bet people beat him up all the time. He can be a real jerk sometimes, you know, and I doubt it's a secret.”

She took one last look between the seats at Billy—just his knees and some of his hands in truth—and irrationally wished he'd wake up and hug her before she went any farther with Lanyard. The yearning for compassionate and comforting human contact was overwhelming, like a raging fever that made her bones ache and her body shiver.

Lanyard swung the door closed.

Chapter Thirteen

“P
lease. Don't do this.”

Sophie gave Frank another chance to back down while she let him lead her, passive at the moment but crouching like a lion inside, toward the nature trail. “I haven't done anything. You know that. You know I don't deserve this. We can both walk away right now. Never speak of it to anyone. Never think about it again. Please.”

She squeezed the tears she couldn't stop from her eyes and glanced down at the hand he had wrapped, not so tightly, around her right upper arm—saw the gun in his other hand in the same visual frame, held with familiarity and aimed in the vicinity of her head and neck.

“We—We should be trying to figure out who really killed your . . . those men. Maybe whoever it was set us up, you know? You're not the only person who thinks I'm guilty. So does the sheriff.” He turned his head to look at her. Her nose was stuffy from crying—she took a deep, raggedy breath through her mouth. “Maybe they knew you'd be scared enough to try and kill me. We could make this backfire on them—figure out some way to expose them. Together.” He continued to stare—she felt no acquiescence. “Please. You have children. I'm all my father has left. He—”

“I don't.”

“What?”

“I don't have kids.”

“But you said—”

“I said I knew about dads, not that I was one.”

“Oh.” Now where was she . . . ?

“Sister gave me mumps,” he muttered, low and private. “In high school. They went down on me.”

“Oh.” From far, far away she heard her mother's voice reminding her to be grateful for the little things.

The ridges on the keys in her fist dug into the skin of her palm. Run. Lock. Toss.
Now? . . . Now? . . . Now?

“My old lady's got a kid. A teenager. He hates me.”

There didn't seem to be anything she was willing to say about that. She hated him, too.

The nature trail took a slight dip downhill—this was it. He was overweight and older; she could run up the path with no trouble at all.

“Do—Do you love him?”

“Maybe. For a while when he was a kid. Not so much now.”

Really? He could turn his love on and off like a gas grill? “My dad has always loved me. My mom, too. She died of cancer last year. My dad needs me.” He looked her way but said nothing. This time she didn't even hazard a guess as to his silence and/or what he was thinking. She didn't care. She'd only been biding her time.

Until now.

“Wait.” She stopped abruptly. “What is that?”

“What?” He perked his ears and looked around.

“That! Listen.” It was the oldest trick in the book—and as he listened intently the full head of steam she'd been building since she first turned around to face Billy and their captor at the hospital exploded.

She used the right side of her body to ram his like a wrecking ball. The terror, the anger, the desperation were enough to shock his grip open and stagger his bulk. He fell. She ran. She ran to save her life.

No more than six yards away, she already felt as if she'd sprinted a mile. She heard him curse; the free gravel on the path rattling as he thrashed around to get back on his feet.

The incline leveled off and the headlights from her car were brighter though not yet directly point on. Could she get to the car, get in, start it and be far enough away to be a blurry target after all? Better yet, was there time to get there, get in, get going and squish him like roadkill? The light would be in his eyes . . . he'd be out of breath . . . was there time? How far behind was he? Could she make it?

The only crunchy-gravel steps she could make out were her own. She strained to listen for the sound of his but still couldn't be sure of the distance between them. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed nothing. Her heart was skipping, fluttering, aching inside her chest. She was nauseous, couldn't gulp enough air—and running had little to do with it.

The bright beam of headlights hovered along the ridge of the next rise. She had to decide. The woods? The car? She thought she could hear his labored huffing, his heavy steps, but where
was
he? How much time did she have?

One more, slightly longer look over her shoulder—she saw the dark figure of the big bad boogeyman of her childhood, at a distance, and that gave her hope.

Until she took a misstep, veered off the path into the woods and the decision was taken out of her hands.

Tripping and stumbling through the underbrush, she wanted to kick herself for taking her attention off her goal for even that one moment, but simply didn't have the time— every instinct she had was screaming,
Forward!
There could be no turning back if he was behind her. The nature trail was no longer an option.

Her eyes adjusted quickly to solid black objects inside the shadows cast by the now dim headlights as she bobbed and weaved around trees. Holding her arm straight in the air she pressed lock on the remote, over and over, until the short honk echoed in the not too far away—locking the doors and giving her a general bearing of where she was. She ducked behind a tree, took a good hard look in the direction from where she'd come, tried to memorize it in a heartbeat, then pressed the keys to the base of the trunk of the tree. She
would
be back for them. She bolted away—farther from the path and downhill—but when she recalled his age and shape, she swerved to go up hill again. Blindly. Toward the park road? Or back to the parking lot and her car? She had no idea. But moving was her only defense; moving meant safety and it meant she was still alive.

It wasn't long before the frenzied chaos in her head broke momentarily to let in Frank Lanyard's thrashing and cursing behind her. She doubled her efforts—and the effort doubled her adrenaline; her lungs were screaming but all she could hear was the rush of her heart. Her muscles trembled. Slipping, falling, she felt her skin rip and tear, puncture and bruise, but there was no pain. Only
forward, forward, forward
.

She came across a rock, barely waist high but not one she could jump over. That's when she realized there was more light in the woods than her car would provide; looked up and saw a giant full moon that was both enemy and benefactor at the moment. With the briefest of inspections, she couldn't tell if she could go around the rock so she started to climb; topped it without incident—despite the slippage of her sandals—to find it was a short drop off to a steep tilt on the hillside. So steep, she was afraid to continue her ascent upright. She bent at the waist and scrambled like an animal with four legs, head down, feeling her way through brush and over rocks and roots and branches.

She was sure it wasn't a good thing to be so loud—the tornado sounds of air coming and going through her lungs; her heartbeats echoing throughout the park, and the noise of her clumsy climbing had to be making her easy to track. Could she risk a breather to catch her breath and quiet her heart enough to check on him? Salty saliva pooled in her mouth and her stomach roiled. She groaned and spit, refused to vomit, and used her arm to wipe spittle off her chin and the unstoppable tears from both cheeks.

Her vision cleared and promptly went black as she plowed, head down, into something solid.

Her scream petered to an injured cry that resonated from one end of the woods to the other as she slowly realized her skull was split wide open . . . but she was still alive. She could move, too, though flailing wasn't meeting the urgency triggering her muscles.

Her eyes were open, but not seeing. She focused, tipped her head to make out dark beyond darker as her head began to throb. Putting forth a shaky hand she touched the darker—rough, solid . . . a tree! She remembered and understood immediately.

Forward! Forward!
Panic broke back into her mind even as she touched the point of impact on her head—sticky and stinging and rolling into her eyebrows—even as she started to scramble again.

“Whoa!” A heavy boot landed in the middle of her back. Her belly hit the ground and her legs sprawled.

“No. Please.”

He said nothing—couldn't if his rapid wheezing was any indicator. They were both spent and breathless—though Sophie believed she could go farther given the chance. Not that she saw another one coming any time soon. The surprise hit-and-run wasn't likely to be unexpected a second time.

“Please. Don't do this. Don't kill me, please. I don't want to die.” She cried full on, without pride or caution—there simply didn't seem to be a need for it anymore. She was caught.

Tears and blood and dirt mingled in her eyes and on her face while his breathing grew slow and quiet again and he was ready to move on.

“Come on,” he said, his tone more resigned than harsh. He reached down and found her arm—the pressure under his boot pressing the remains of her air from her lungs. She knew a moment of suffocating alarm before he grabbed her upper arm and stepped back, pulling lightly, helping her to her feet. She kept slipping—the pitch of the hillside, the disorientation from the grunge in her eyes making it difficult to see. He was patient with her, steadied her, waited for her to right herself. “Don't do this again. Come on.”

She could only assume he knew where he was going. She was aware only that it was downhill, away from her car; away from the parking lot and the road, away from safety.

She staggered. Often. He'd stop and stabilize her, not unkindly, but didn't loosen his grip.

Her breathing was more like raggedy sobs, and in a surreal moment it passed through her mind that she was admirably well hydrated to still have tears wetting her cheeks. And then, and again oddly, she was reminded that both major and minor facial wounds were notorious for bleeding profusely—and she had an instant 3D-HD flashback of the moment she learned that fact in the first first aid class she'd taken in Girl Scouts . . . at the fire station . . . before they ate the brownies that were made by one of the firemen . . . that weren't even burnt on the bottom like Mommy's. . . . Daddy.

“Please,” she repeated, her voice a raspy whisper. “Don't. Don't do this.” A despondent thought: “I . . . please . . . Do you have a cell? A cell phone? I only want to call my dad? That's all, only my dad. To say goodbye? Please? I need to tell him that I love him.” She swiped at a fresh deluge of tears. Her own phone, snug in her back pocket, was a temptation, but also still her last best chance of being rescued. “I'm begging you. Please.”

Without warning he shoved her to the ground and snapped at her. “Stop that!”

They were in a ditch or a gully; she sensed enclosure—but perhaps it was simply the anticipation of a grave. She sat up. The moonlight wasn't enough to make certain.

“I'm sorry.” But she wasn't. At all. She smacked the palm of her hand over the blood spout on the top of her head to stem the flow of blood. “If you have to do this, if you're going to kill me, let me talk to him first.”

“Shut up and let me think.”

About the phone call? Lord God, he was human after all. “I won't mention your name or—or what's happening. I promise. I just need him to know I love him. It'll only take a second. I promise.”

“Forget that. And stop talking! I need to think!”

About what? The mistake he was making? About letting her go? About how best to do it, to kill her? She held her breath. Disturbing any molecule in the humid night air might sway a lenient thought.

He paced in short distances. It was an eon before he stopped to look at her and another before she sensed he was staring straight through her. What
a weird man,
she thought, distracted by his behavior. What was he thinking? What was he seeing in his mind? Why was he so far away? And then . . .
how
far away was he? Was this a miracle, another chance at escape? Which direction gave her the best odds? Oh! And maybe the old-dirt-in-the-face trick would hold him an extra second or two to—

“It wasn't my idea, you know,” he said, out of the blue, his tone petulant and rather juvenile—as if he'd gone back in time. “I told them not to do it. Jeremy and I both did. But once Cliff got something in his head, there was no stopping him. And that fool Maury did everything Cliff told him to do.” He paused, focused more intently on wherever he was in his recollections. “I guess we all did.” He shook his head in what looked like regret, the moonlight bouncing off his glasses. “I knew. The second he took his foot off the gas and I looked up and saw her walking up ahead, I knew what he was going to do. He talked about it all the time. Not right out, not in words exactly. But you could tell by the way he looked at her all the time. He'd say he thought she was pretty but you knew . . . in my gut I knew he meant something else. But I never thought he'd do it. I never thought . . .” He took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. “That's it, isn't it? I never thought. Kids don't, though, do they? They don't think.”

He didn't seem to want an answer—which was good because she was toying with the idea of making another break for it.

She lowered her hand from the stinging wound on her scalp, waited, let it drop to her lap when she realized the river was dammed up.

“Or they think too much,” he went on. “Like in daydreams, so that sometimes the lines between what they think about and what they know they can't really do get blurred. You know what I mean?”

“No.” Short responses to keep him talking—the more he blathered the less air he'd have to chase her with.

“Oh.” Stymied, he paced some more. “I'm just saying that maybe I knew what Cliff was thinking because I thought about it, too. Once in a while. Not like Cliff. I always knew it was wrong; that I'd never do it. I knew even thinking about it was wrong . . . but, hell, I was just a kid.” She caught the expectancy in the air but said nothing. Her reticence was making him anxious and jumpy. He heaved a sigh. “That's not a good enough excuse, is it? It's not. I know that. I've always known that. That's why Jeremy left, and why I left. I couldn't look into their eyes anymore. I kept seeing the way we were that night.”