Page 39 of A Sublime Casualt

Hang on, Phoebe. I am coming to get you.

Whatever you do—save Neil for me.

Phoebe

Tennyson Hills is murky, engulfed in a vacuum of darkness, its own dying star, save for the lighthouse of illumination streaming from Neil’s cabin. You could see this place from the moon.

I camped between the bushes out back, waiting to see if either Ashley or Neil would be heading back to town, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

Ashley. It was her I saw seated on the sofa with a dark-haired woman seated next to her, each with a cup of something steaming hot in their hands. I couldn’t see Neil, but I heard his voice. It sounded as if they were having a perfectly amicable conversation. Nothing riotous, nothing out of the norm, if the norm concerned a woman who’s been missing for the better part of a year—if indeed it’s Lizzy.

A sharp cry comes from the house, and my heart thumps right into my ears. I hop up on the porch once again, avoiding the area of the creaking plank altogether, and lean back against the logs that line the outside. Shouting ensues. Something has clearly disrupted their friendly tête-à-tête. Maybe Neil was tipped off about the fact Theo and I were onto him?

The sound of glass shattering explodes from inside, and I struggle to inch my way to the window. My knee knocks into something and sends it clattering to the ground. The damn plank! My entire body freezes. The sound of a door rattling open startles me, and I jump from the porch, setting off the floorboards like a squeaky alarm.

“Well, well”—Neil belts it out as my eyes meet with his—“looks like we’ve got guests.”

I dive into the shrubbery just behind Ashley’s car and then scamper back to my feet, thumping my way through the meadow like a heartbeat.

The world around me disappears in its own blackness, the light from the house quickly defusing. I just need to get away so he can’t find me. My eyes strain as I try to make out the landscape. If I can get to the woods, I can climb a tree, better yet, I could hide between the boulders that are scattered around the area. My feet keep moving at a decent clip, tipping over twigs and rocks that give me away with each displaced thump.

A wash of light floods in from my left, and I dart into the heart of a scrub oak, nearly putting out an eye in the process. The light drifts to me slowly, exposing the branches still wagging unnaturally in my wake, and I can hear his measured footsteps falling fast this way.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he sings into the night, his voice high and cheerful. I’m guessing his weapon is drawn, but I’ve got Lizzy’s gun myself and it’s pointed in his direction. Although, I’m willing to bet good money he’s a better shot than I am. And no offense to the knives I’ve brought along, but they’re not doing much other than warming my back at the moment. I have to move—get out of striking range. I edge my way to the left and don’t stop until I’ve crested the woods and bury myself in the overgrowth. I’m smaller than Neil. Theoretically, I should be able to get into some nook and cranny where he can’t reach or see me, but then he’s got both a flashlight and a gun. I’ll be the fish in the proverbial barrel.

The sound of gunshots rings out, unreasonably loud as the scrub oak I just maneuvered out of shakes and rattles.

Holy hell. My breathing is erratic. If I keep this up, I’ll pass out in fear within a minute flat. I have to keep my head about me. Think. The only way out of this alive is to be quick on my feet. Neil might think he’s clever, but I’m here to shut down his show and prove him wrong.

If I didn’t see the third girl—the one I’m thinking might be Lizzy, I might have left. Finding Neil and Ashley having a tryst in the woods wouldn’t be worth my time or my life. But if that girl turns out to be Theo’s sister, it was worth the effort. And now that Neil knows someone is up here, he’ll undoubtedly move her in the night. Or, I could be entirely wrong about everything and Ashley has simply enlisted someone to have a threesome with her and the randy detective. That’s possible but doubtful. Whatever is going on in that cabin is sinister, and I’m convinced it involves Charlize Hartley—alive—in the flesh. If I can incapacitate or kill Neil, would I still have Ashley to contend with? Lizzy and I could overpower her together, right? I shake my head, still uncertain of everything. I shouldn’t have come. I’ve played right into his hands. But then, Neil more than likely set up Theo for Miles’ murder, and without a doubt I was next. I had become a liability to him. Face it, I was nothing more than the next Karen Gilroy. I don’t think he’d bother to house me for a year unless the process involved torture, and after seeing Karen for myself, it more than likely does.

The soft sound of footsteps heads in this direction, and a flash of light washes the forest white as snow.

“There you are, you happy little hooker,” he sings.

My feet struggle to break through a root system eating up the path as I dive deeper and deeper into the woods. The lights cut out, and I can hear him running in the other direction. I spot a series of boulders to the right, and my body slaps onto it as if my limbs were made of glue. I scamper up a sheer incline and manage to crawl into a fissure. Just as I’m about to bolster myself onto the next oversized rock, my right ankle gets caught on something. I glance down and note three pale fingers wrapped around my boot.

A horrific scream howls from my vocal cords without my permission, and Neil unleashes a violent laugh. I glance back and catch the whites of his eyes bulging with glee. Lizzy’s gun flails in my hand. My fingers rub as I steady it with both hands and point wildly in his direction.

It goes off with explosive thunder, the blowback causing me to hit my head against the boulder behind me.

“You little bitch!” He knifes the air with his words.

I step right out of my boot and catch my foot on a ledge as I boost myself onto a neighboring rock. The wind howls through the woods, screaming like a cat on fire as I roll to my left and let gravity pull me to the ground.

Another gunshot goes off. That’s four. But it’s not simply a handgun like the one I’m shooting. It’s most likely a semi-automatic like the one Theo carries. The magazine has potential for fifteen rounds or more and is changeable in seconds. I should know. I’ve researched the hell out of it. I’m guessing with thirty shots, Neil can turn my body into Swiss cheese and still have bullets to spare for the fun of it.

My body moves stiff and numb as I bolt over the frozen ground without a shoe, and I don’t feel a thing. The woods end abruptly as I face the meadow again with no hope of shelter from the hail of gunfire Neil is capable of. If he killed me, he could say I was a burglar. He’s already proven the fact I’ve stolen Lizzy’s identity. If I die, Neil will get away with it. I have absolutely nothing to lose, and that makes me the most dangerous person on this hill with or without the weaponry to back it.

The sound of grunting comes from the right. He’s moving slower. Hopefully, injured and bleeding out. His breathing is labored, and that cantankerous wheeze is working for me. My only alternative is to run back toward the cabin. I’ll duck behind the cars and slide down the ridge that leads to the road where I left Theo’s truck. Maybe the best thing to do is take off with breath in my lungs and tip off the cops anonymously.

“Phoebe!” he growls into the night. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

I pause for a second before picking up my pace again. It’s a trap. He gets me to listen, then blows my brains out. A clearing comes up, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I run full force toward the cabin and duck underneath the porch, panting out a laugh at this seemingly hard-won victory, and then it hits me. I’m right back to being a fish in a barrel. The ceiling sits at about five feet from the slippery ground, almost affording me enough height to stand, and I keep moving until I hit the edge of the house.

“Phoebe!” he calls into the night as if I were his missing child, his missing cat.

I go to launch myself out into the open and my right foot slips in the mud, dropping me to my knees, and I hit my temple on a metal pylon on the way down.