Page 53 of Gone in the Night (Detective Morgan Brookes #16)

FIFTY-THREE

The footsteps came back into the garage, and Morgan realised they were louder this time.

Whoever it was had a heel on the bottom of their shoes or boots that made it echo around the open space.

She wondered if it was Marie; it sounded like a woman walking around up there.

Opening her mouth to shout, she stopped herself, pausing a moment to make sure she was ready to fight.

She managed to get herself onto all fours so she could spring up the moment the door was opened.

Her head was a bit fuzzy, but she could worry about that when she was out of here.

Sucking in a deep breath she began to shout. ‘Help, help me.’ Over and over again.

The footsteps hurried towards where she was which proved to her that whoever it was they knew about this pit.

‘Hello, is someone down there?’

‘Yes, let me out. Please.’

Morgan thought she recognised Beth Montgomery’s voice and prayed it was her and not Marie. The sound of stuff being dragged around above her filled her with hope.

‘Hang on, I just have to move this blasted lawn mower.’

Then the sound of the rug being dragged away and a bolt being worked free was like music to Morgan’s ears. The door was thrown open, and the light that filtered down hurt Morgan’s eyes. She lifted her hand across them to shelter them from the brightness.

‘Morgan, how did you get in there? Did you fall in? Here, let me help you up.’

Beth reached down and gave her hand to Morgan, who clutched hold of it tight. She felt Beth yank her up and she clambered out of the pit. Onto her hands and knees.

‘Oh my, you’re bleeding. Your head is cut. We need to get you to the hospital.’

‘I’m okay, give me your phone, please. I need to ring my boss.’

Beth nodded and patted her designer jeans for her phone.

‘Oh, crap, it’s in the house, let’s get you inside and you can ring him there.

I don’t know what’s happened, but it looks as if a bomb has exploded.

There’s broken glass in the hallway and everywhere is a mess, and I can’t find Marie or Stefan.

Has he done something to Marie? Did he kill Sharon?

What the hell is happening?’ Those last words were a strangled cry of fear and angst that made Morgan feel terrible for Beth.

Morgan didn’t know what had gone on either but if there were no officers around clearly everyone had gone back to the station, and she wondered how long she’d been unconscious.

Beth hooked her arm through hers and helped her across the landscaped courtyard up the steps and into the house.

She was right, it was a mess in here. The crunching of the glass from the broken hall table under her boots as she walked over it towards the kitchen an indication that all had not gone as planned when Ben and the team had searched the house.

Beth sat her on one of the high stools at the breakfast bar.

‘I have a first aid kit, let me clean you up.’

‘Thanks, I’m okay. I’ve had worse. Can you get your phone for me, Beth? They’re going to be looking for me, and my partner is going to be beside himself with worry.’

‘Of course, it’s in the office charging. I’ll go grab it. Here.’

She took a huge green plastic box out of a cupboard and passed it to Morgan, who opened it and began to rip open some packets of gauze to press against the cut on the back of her head.

When she lifted the first pads away and saw the deep red blood that was covering it, she felt a little queasy.

She hadn’t even realised she’d hurt her head, but she’d hit it off the wall as she fell into that awful pit in the garage.

Lowering her head onto her arms, she sucked in some deep breaths of air.

There was no way after all of that was she passing out on Beth’s kitchen floor. It wasn’t happening, not now, not ever.

‘Here you go, Morgan.’

Beth’s voice sounded so far away. She lifted her head off her arms unable to turn to look at Beth because of the wave of sickness that was hanging over her like a dark cloud. She waited for her to come closer.

‘If you want it, you have to come get it.’

Beth’s voice was different; it had lost all its gentleness and was cold.

Morgan straightened up. She shivered as a chill ran down the entire length of her spine.

Forcing herself to turn around, she saw Beth leaning against the kitchen doorway with an iPhone in one hand and a shiny steel chef’s knife in the other.

‘What are you doing, Beth?’

‘What are you doing, Morgan?’ She mimicked her with a gleeful look in her eyes.

Morgan looked around for a weapon to defend herself with – that was the biggest, sharpest knife she had ever seen.

There was a knife rack on the wall above the huge range cooker, but it was too far for Morgan to reach before Beth had buried the one she was holding into her chest or neck.

The only thing she had to hand was the first aid box with what was probably the world’s bluntest pair of safety scissors inside of it.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You don’t need to, it’s none of your business.’

‘But Sharon was your daughter.’

Beth shrugged. ‘Semantics she was a pain in the backside. Fawning over Stefan like he was her lover and not her stepdad, it made me sick to the stomach watching them. Do you know why she was so angry with Leah when she caught them together?’

Morgan shrugged.

‘I’ll tell you why, she was jealous of them.’

‘But that’s sick, she had a boyfriend. She wasn’t in love with Stefan.’

‘Excuse me, did you know her? No, you did not so don’t go telling me that I’m delusional and it was all in my head. I’ve heard it too many times from that shrink who kept telling me it wasn’t real.’

Morgan realised that nice, seemingly quiet Beth was most likely a ticking time bomb that had been building up to these murders for years.

‘What about Lydia Williams? Did you think she was sleeping with Stefan or wanted to?’

‘No, don’t be absurd. They didn’t know each other.’

‘Then why?’

‘She fit the profile, I mean I wanted it to look like there was a crazy, sick serial killer on the loose. She had to go.’

‘What did you do with Lydia’s dog?’

Beth tilted her head. ‘It ran away; obviously I would never harm an innocent animal.’

Morgan felt as if she’d stepped into an alternate universe, this was so fucked up.

‘Jack White, why kill him?’

‘Jack was a convenient scapegoat, and he didn’t love Sharon. She certainly didn’t love him, not when she was pining over Stefan. He was a minor distraction in her wicked games.’

‘Why me?’

‘You were a huge mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking except you were about to find all of Sharon’s camera equipment in that toolbox you were about to search, and I know I was reckless and stupid but I did what I did.

Look I chipped my nails when I tackled you and dragged you to that bloody pit.

Three hours that manicure took because the stupid cow was gossiping to the nail tech next to her about her cheating boyfriend, and that’s all I have left to show for it. ’

She held up her hand and sure enough she was missing two nails on her right hand, and the others were scraped and chipped.

‘Beth, listen to me, it’s over. You can’t kill me and get away with it. My colleagues will be onto you, they know I’m here and are on the way.’

‘I know that, silly, I’m not a total flake. I’m going to be a good girl and let you take me to the station. I’ve been feeling a bit funny. I don’t think my meds are working properly.’

Morgan noticed her take a step closer, towards her, the knife still clenched in her fingers.

The contrast of those Barbie pink nails clasped around a steel blade that she was willing to use to kill her wasn’t lost on Morgan, who gripped hold of the first aid box handle and slowly turned all the way to face Beth.

‘You’re not going to let me take you in, are you?’

Beth was giggling. ‘Honestly, what do you think? You have a fifty per cent chance of getting it right.’

Morgan didn’t know if this was going to work.

She lunged for Beth, swinging the plastic box as hard as she could at her head at the same time as Beth thrust the knife towards Morgan.

The knife caught the box and fell to the floor with a clatter; Morgan kicked it away from them as Beth launched herself at her, screeching like a wild woman.

She took Morgan to the floor and the pair of them were fighting.

Morgan managed to throw her off and swung her leg back so her Doc Marten boot connected with Beth’s midriff, knocking the wind out of her.

Beth was sucking in air, and Morgan didn’t stop.

She raised her foot again to stamp on Beth’s head when she heard Ben’s voice as he rushed towards her.

‘Morgan don’t, it’s over.’

She felt him grab hold of her, wrapping his arms around her and dragging her to safety away from Beth who was reaching for the knife.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you, put your hands above your head.’ Amber’s voice was calm as she aimed her taser at Beth’s chest in the exact position she’d aimed at her husband’s two hours earlier.

Beth stopped what she was doing and began to giggle. ‘Well, this was fun, wasn’t it?’

Lunging for the knife, she grabbed it with both hands and drew it straight across her neck. As she kneeled on the floor the knife clattered to the ground, and she stared into Morgan’s eyes as the blood began to spurt out of the huge cut.

As if realising what she’d done, she grabbed her neck with both hands to try and stem the blood.

Marc ran in with four officers and cried out, ‘Holy hell, get a medic here now.’

He ran to the cooker, grabbing a tea towel from the rail then was kneeling next to Beth, wrapping it tightly around her neck to try and stem the bleeding. She opened her mouth, and an air bubble of blood popped over her lips.

Morgan watched in horror as Amber dropped the taser and grabbed another towel to wrap around the woman who was bleeding out in front of them.

They knew it was too late, the paramedics would never get here in time to save Beth’s life.

The puddle of blood was spreading too fast all over the sparkling white Italian marble tiles, and they watched helpless as the light faded from Beth’s eyes, leaving her staring up at the ceiling as she took her last gasp of breath.