Page 131 of The Lie Maker

Lighting it would probably be the stupidest thing I could ever do. Except, maybe, for staying in this trunk and letting Gwen kill my dad.

Sixty-Nine

Cayden was on edge. Jack’s dad’s surprise appearance had unnerved him. He was breathing rapidly and flexing his fingers, as if preparing to take action, but he didn’t know what it should be.

“Cayden, send her out!”

“Good, okay, okay,” he said to himself, relieved that there was finally something for him to do. He turned to Lana and said, “Okay, sweetheart. This is it.”

He grabbed the pruner from the table and moved in her direction.

Lana’s mind was racing. Were they really going to make the trade? Were they really going to let her go?

No, never, not a chance.

Gwen and Cayden might go through the motions. They might make it look like they were going to keep their end of the deal. But they couldn’t. There was no way.

They have to kill me, too. They have to kill Jack.

Cayden got behind the chair and knelt down. Lana’s hands were still coiled into fists.

“Hang on a second here,” he said, sliding the pruner over the zip tie and squeezing. The tie snapped apart. Lana brought her arms around in front of her, rubbed her right wrist with her left hand, but kept her right hand closed.

“Okay, let’s go,” Cayden said, coming around the chair, his back to her for about a second.

She opened her fist, moved the lipstick tube to between her thumb and index finger, and quickly removed the cap with her left hand, exposing the inch-long blade.

She bowed her head and said, “I feel a little light headed. I don’t think I can stand.”

Cayden turned and leaned over to get his hands under her arms at the same moment Lana shot to her feet.

She was worried about being able to hold on to the lipstick knife. It didn’t have much of a handle. A dagger this wasn’t. There was no rubber grip to grasp. So she squeezed it between her thumb and two fingers as firmly as she could, fully aware that she was probably only going to get one shot at this.

She drove the knife into the underside of his throat. Hard. Cayden had started to raise his hands defensively, but he wasn’t expecting it and was too slow. She felt the blade penetrate the leathery, whiskered skin under his jawbone.

She jumped back after that first strike. Cayden made a gurgling noise and slapped his hand over the wound, blood pouring out between his fingers. He lunged forward, and Lana swung, the knife catching the palm of his hand, plunging right into the center of it. She still managed to hold on to it as blood bubbled out from between his lips.

Cayden dropped to his knees, flailing at Lana with one hand while pressing down on the neck wound with the other.

Lana, panting, heart pounding, didn’t want to risk getting too close to him again. The lipstick knife was great for a first strike, maybe even a second, but it was a close-contact kind of weapon, and now that Cayden understood her intentions, she needed to keep her distance.

At least for as long as he was alive.

She scanned the room, looking for something else to use as a weapon, something to bring him down for good. Her eyes landed on the chair she’d just been tied to. She grabbed the back of it and swung it at Cayden, the legs catching him on the side of the head.

Cayden went down.

He lay writhing on the floor, blood continuing to pour out from his neck, between his lips, and his hand.

“You fruckin gunt,” he said.

“Hey, Cayden!” Gwen shouted from the porch. “Let’s go!”

Lana looked at the door and remembered that Gwen had the gun.

Lana didn’t have much time.

She got down on her knees next to Cayden. He was too near the end to care much that she was digging into the front pocket of his jeans.