The Bequest (18 page)

Teri formulated her own strategy. She lessened pressure on the
accelerator as she entered the curve. Then came the inevitable surge from
the trailing car. It closed the gap quickly then, just as impact seemed
inevitable, Teri slammed on
her brakes.
She
hoped to surprise
her
assailant. She almost smiled at the thought of him banging his face on his
own steering wheel.

What she hadn’t counted on, though, was her own vehicle’s reaction.
Upon impact, the airbag exploded from the steering wheel. It punched her
in the face like a heavyweight’s fist and drove her back against the seat. She
heard a crackling sound and knew instantly her nose had broken. The
airbag deflated nearly as quickly as it opened. She fought at it with both
hands, desperately trying to get at least one of them back on the steering
wheel.

The sedan maintained contact, pushing now with great force. It
obviously had some kind of super-charged engine, and its aggression was
powerful. Fighting past the airbag, Teri grabbed the wheel and turned
sharply to the left in reaction to what she saw ahead—a sharp turn in the
road, with a steep drop-off. She managed to keep her wheels on the
pavement as she
pushed
against
the
brake
pedal
with both feet,
straightening her legs, her back pressed hard against the seat. The squeal of
tires on concrete filled her ears, smoke from burning rubber obscuring her
vision much as the fires in the nearby hills had done before.

She looked in the mirror again, hoping to catch some glimpse of the
driver’s identity. If she was going off a cliff like Leland Crowell, she at
least wanted to know who had been responsible. Then she saw a second
car, barely visible as the road wiggled in a slight S curve. Another sedan,
much older, much larger than her aggressor. Accelerating, gaining on
them. Then it appeared to pass as it moved side-by-side with her assailant,
between the sedan and the cliffside. Its windows were also tinted, its
driver invisible.

A gasp escaped from Teri’s lips as the second car swerved sharply and
slammed into the attack car. For a few moments, she felt the power of
both cars behind her, surging forward, her own vehicle powerless. Then
the second car succeeded in driving the first completely to the right. Teri
felt freedom as its bumper slid apart from hers. Disengaged, Teri floored
it.

She rounded another curve, headed to safety, as her assailant’s
vehicle slammed through a guardrail, momentarily suspended on air then
disappeared down the mountainside. Teri watched in disbelief as her
rescuer’s car slowed to a near stop, made a Y-turn in the road, and headed
back down the mountain.

Teri exhaled, realizing for the first time that she had been holding her
breath. Then she limped home, her hands trembling as they tried to hold
the wheel and keep her car between the lines.

Teri’s breath came
in ragged gasps. She pulled into her driveway,
retrieved her cell phone, then raced for the house and slammed the door
behind her. She leaned against it and slid to the floor. She knew she must
look like a refugee from a war zone, with blood still streaming down her
face from the cut on her forehead. Blood from her nose had already dried
and crusted around her nostrils. Her tee-shirt was soaked with dark red
splotches, reminiscent of retro tie-dyed clothing from the ‘60s.

She felt her tender nose, surprised to find a complete lack of feeling.
She got to her feet and looked in the mirror on the coat-rack just inside
the entryway. Her eyes had already blackened and her nose was a swollen
glob in the middle of her face. She wiped blood away from the center of
her forehead and looked at her wound, shocked that such a small gash
could cause so much blood flow.

She stumbled to a half-bathroom by the utility room, grabbed a hand
towel, soaked it with water, and wiped at the blood. The flow had ebbed
to a trickle, enough that perhaps she could staunch it completely with a
thick bandage. She opened the cabinet door and fumbled around until she
found a half-empty tube of antiseptic ointment and an unopened box of
bandages. After doctoring her wounds, she stripped out of her shirt and
bra and tossed them in the washing machine, then peeled off her bloody
jeans and tossed them in as well. Once she had the washer going, she
headed, nearly naked, to the kitchen, grabbed the phone, and dialed. After
two rings, Mike’s voice answered.

She hung up and headed for her bedroom to shower and dress. She
stopped long enough to open the curtains over the sliding door, flooding
the room with sunlight. Just as she entered the bedroom door, her bedside
phone rang. She snatched it up on the third ring.

“Mike?”
“No, it’s Chad. Are you all right?”
A wave of dizziness rolled over Teri, accompanied by a churning in

her stomach. Before her legs could collapse, she sat on the edge of the
bed. She breathed in heaping gasps. A panic attack. She hadn’t had one of
these in almost twenty years.

She regained her breath and found her voice, though she knew it
sounded weak, as if in a tunnel. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“Peggy, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. What happened while
ago? You got cut off. It sounded like a wreck.”
“I—”
The doorbell sounded before she could finish her sentence.
“I think that’s Mike at the door. I’ve got to go.”
“First tell me you’re all right.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’ll call me later and let me know what’s going on?”
“I will. I promise.”
She hung up, grabbed a pair of shorts and a replacement tee-shirt,
and then ran to the front door. Mike must have already been on his way
when she called. She knew that her battered face would be shocking to
him, but there was no way to prepare him for it other than to simply let
him see it for himself. She just hoped that Doug Bozarth was not in tow.
For reasons that she couldn’t articulate even to herself, she felt that he had
something to do with the car that tried to run her off the road. She also
believed that he had something to do with the events of last night,
including the attack on Mona, though she had no proof. It was simply a gut
feeling, a hunch that she had gone from an asset to a liability as far as he
was concerned.
She opened the door without checking through the peep-hole first,
shocked to see that her guest was not Mike, but Annemarie Crowell. This
time, though, Teri felt as if her own face might top Annemarie’s in the
bizarre category.
Teri’s second shock was seeing the car at the curb: a dark, older
model Chevrolet sedan.
With a crumpled fender on the passenger side.
Could it be? Annemarie Crowell was her savior? And if so, why had
she been following Teri? There was no other reason she would have been
back there. Los Angeles was too big and spread out for this woman to have
coincidentally been in the neighborhood when someone tried to run her
off the road. She had to have been there by design.
“What are you doing here?” Teri asked, after opening the door.
“May I come inside?”
“I asked why you’re here.”
“I wanted to see if you were all right.”
“You were in the second car.”
“Don’t you think that entitles me to an invitation inside?”
Teri was torn. On the one hand, she owed this woman her life. On
the
other, she
was just
too strange, too bizarre, for Teri to feel
comfortable in close quarters with her. Yet Teri had to admit that there
was something irresistibly compelling about the woman. She never smiled,
not even a smirk. Her eyes betrayed no emotion, yet they locked with
Teri’s, and Teri found it difficult to avert her glance. It had been barely
two years earlier when this same woman sat in her house, following the
death of her son, and gave Teri the screenplay that promised to resurrect
her career.
And
speaking of resurrection, did
Annemarie
know
about the
resurrected Leland and his subsequent demise last night? If so, she was part
of the scam, whatever it might be. Could she also have been the driver of
the SUV that the thin man had gotten in? Surely not. She was odd, but
capable of putting a bullet in a man’s back? In her own son? If indeed that
even was her son.
Teri stepped aside from the doorway. “Please come in.”
As soon as Annemarie stepped across the threshold, Teri felt as if the
breath had been sucked out of her lungs. Her fingers tingled, and it felt as
if a fist squeezed her heart. Obviously she had not completely gotten over
the panic attack, but it had lurked in the shadows and now reasserted
itself. Or was it simply an alarm going off, alerting her that the fox was in
the henhouse.
She closed the door and led Annemarie to the den. Annemarie stood
rigid in the middle of the room and stared at the sliding doors.
“My eyes are sensitive to light,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” Teri pulled the cord to close the curtains, leaving them
open about a foot so as not to plunge the room into complete darkness.
Annemarie went to a Queen Anne chair across from the couch,
maybe even the same one she had sat in before when she clutched her
son’s screenplay in her talons. Teri remained standing. To sit might
encourage the woman to stay longer, something she didn’t want. Her goal
was to get her out of the house as quickly as possible.
“You’re in pain,” Annemarie said. “You’ve been injured. Please sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re out of breath. The injury to your nose must make breathing
difficult. You really must sit.”
The words, spoken in a low monotone, seemed to have a hypnotic
effect on Teri. Almost unconsciously she sank into a couch cushion. Her
breathing eased instantly.
“Please be calm,” Annemarie said. “I mean you no harm.”
“You were in the second car.”
“Yes.”
“Why were you following me?”
“Because you are in danger,” Annemarie said. She still spoke in a low,
hushed tone, with no inflection, no emotion. She pronounced that Teri
was in danger as if she were commenting on the weather.
“Danger from who?”
“If something happens to you, who stands to gain?”
Yeah, Teri had been wondering that, herself. The answer was Doug
Bozarth. Not only because her death would help skyrocket the box office,
even if the movie sucked, but also because the two weak links in the chain
of title—the scraggly-haired man and Teri Squire—would have been
eliminated. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to articulate that fact.
“Nobody,” Teri said.
“Are you sure?”
“You tell me.”
“Who controls your rights in my boy’s screenplay? If something
happens to you, that is.”
“My partners in the production.”
“Including your partner Mona?”
“Yes, but—”
“But she’s been injured. I know. Someone tried to get her out of the
picture. Who are your other partners in the production?”
“The investors.”
Annemarie nodded, the first movement she had made since sitting.
She would have made an excellent statue.
“Yes. Your investors. How much do you know about them?”
That was just it: she knew nothing about them. She had reached a
dead end in her research. She didn’t know what Mona had found, but—
Oh, my God! Had that been what had triggered it? Had someone hacked into
their computers to monitor their research? Surely not!
“Are you saying my investors are trying to kill me?”
“I’m saying you should keep all your options open. With you gone,
and my boy gone, and Mona gone, who’s left to challenge ownership?”
Teri had already connected those
dots. “All you do is answer
questions with more questions,” she said.
“It’s a time-honored tradition. Some say it was perfected by Socrates,
but I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Well, I have a question for you,” Teri said.
“And I will answer if I can.”
“Is Leland really gone this time?”
For the first time in two meetings, Teri saw emotion on Annemarie’s
face. It was slight, as if any facial movement would crack the thick makeup, but there was an unmistakable smile.
“Leland has always been full of surprises.”
“Who went off that cliff two years ago?”
“My son.”
“Then who went off that cliff last night?”
“My son.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re just talking in riddles.”
“Am I?”
“You don’t seem too upset about losing your son. Twice.”
“I grieved over Leland’s grave a long time ago. But I have another
question for you: If you can’t inherit from the victim of your murder, who
stands to gain the most to see to it that you are never convicted so that you
can inherit?”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Let’s just call it a hypothetical. The way I understand the law, you
can’t inherit from someone you murder. So, if you go to trial and are
found guilty, a murder conviction would invalidate a bequest. But if you
never are tried, or are even arrested, there can be no conviction. That
means the bequest is not in doubt. Who stands to gain the most from such
a circumstance?”
“I do.” She paused, as she let her thoughts wander down the Socratic
path Annemarie was leading her on. “And my partners.”
“And what is the surest way to ensure that you are never so much as
charged with the crime?”
Teri remained silent, refusing to state the obvious: A dead person
can’t be charged or tried.
“So I repeat my question,” Annemarie said. “How well do you know
these partners of yours?”
A
sudden thought hit Teri. “Then again, who benefits if I’m
convicted? Who inherits if I can’t?” She stood and paced. Annemarie
watched her, seemingly without moving her eyes. “The screenwriter’s
mother, that’s who; the alternate beneficiary. Where were you last night,
Annemarie? Did you drive Leland up to Big Sur and put a bullet in his
back?”
“Don’t be absurd. Leland died years ago.”
Teri’s breath grew labored again. Her head pounded, more than just
the pain from a broken nose and a cut. She felt as if her brain were about
to explode. Just what in the hell was going on?
“Please, Ms. Squire, sit. Relax.”
“I don’t understand all this. Who was that in the diner last night? Was
that your son or not?”
“You must relax. There is nothing to gain by being agitated. Please,
sit.”
Teri went back to the couch and sank down. She made eye contact
with Annemarie, as if trying to look inside, to see what made her tick. She
barely noticed that Annemarie swayed slightly, perched on the edge of the
chair. It was very slight at first, but gradually grew more pronounced,
both
in
length
and
momentum.
Teri
followed
the
movement,
subconsciously, with her eyes, back and forth.
“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” Annemarie said. “Please relax.
Slow your breathing. Take deep breaths, count to ten, and breathe out.
Nice and slow.”
Teri did as she was told and, surprisingly, the panic ebbed. Her
breaths
came
more
easily, her
heart rate
seemed
to decrease. The
pounding in her head subsided, and the tingling sensation left her fingers.
She felt drowsy, as if on the verge of sleep. Just watching Annemarie sway
and listening to her oddly soothing voice.
“Breathe deep,” Annemarie said. “Nice and slow. No reason to get
upset. You’re safe now.”
Teri fought to keep her eyes open. Her head nodded, a quick jerk
down and up, as if she were falling asleep on an airplane or while driving.
“See?” Annemarie asked. “Isn’t that better?”
Teri nodded again, slowly this time, in response to the question.
“You may not believe it, but I’m here as your friend,” Annemarie
said. “I’m here to warn you. These people you have surrounded yourself
with are not your friends. They do not have your best interests at heart.
You’re a problem to them. But they’re a problem to you, as well. And
what do you do to problems?”
Teri shook her head, fought to keep her eyelids open. She felt
another nod coming on, almost as if in slow motion. She struggled to keep
her head straight. She leaned it back against the couch cushion, hoping for
support. But to no avail.
It jerked forward, her chin touching her chest.
The crack of a gunshot sounded in the hills outside, followed almost
instantly by the shattering of glass in the sliding door. A bullet slammed
into the couch cushion where Teri’s head had been just an instant before.
The sound snapped Teri from her trance. Instincts kicked in. She had
grown up around guns, and she knew their familiar sounds. She dove
forward onto the carpet and covered her head with her arms. No second
shot followed.
After a moment, she deigned to look up at the sliding door, with
shattered glass sparkling on the floor in front of it.
Then at Annemarie, who had not moved. She still sat rigidly perched
on the edge of the Queen Anne, her head swiveled to the left so she could
see the broken glass in the gap left by the partially open curtains. For just
the second time, emotion threatened to break out on her face. It started as
a mere look of disgust, but Teri watched it transform into something that
bordered on rage, as if darkening clouds had suddenly gathered on
Annemarie’s personal horizon.
Wordlessly, Annemarie stood, straightened her skirt, and walked to
the front door.
After a few seconds, Teri heard the door open and close, and
Annemarie was gone.
What the hell?
Staying on her hands and knees, Teri crawled for the phone in the
kitchen and hit three digits.
“Nine-one-one,” the operator’s voice
said. “What is your
emergency?”