The Killings (An Olivia Miller Mystery Book 1) (17 page)

She hurried along the dark sidewalk, dodging around people who were heading out for the night. Olivia broke into a jog.

Turning off Mass Ave onto a side street, Olivia tried calling Kayla as she ran, but no one picked up. A wave of anxiety washed through her veins. A gust of wind whipped Olivia’s hair into her eyes and she shivered, but she was sure it wasn’t the breeze that was chilling her. She sprinted for a few more blocks, headed down another side street, and searched the numbers on the buildings as she passed. She halted in front of Eric’s apartment building. Olivia stood on the sidewalk staring at it. Blood was pounding in her head. She couldn’t ignore the warning signals her body was sending her.

Sometimes deep in your heart you know something, you’ve probably known it all along, but your head just doesn’t process it.

Olivia’s brain buzzed. She couldn’t deny it.

She knew who killed Christian. And Gary. And Jack.

Chapter 24

Olivia sucked in a breath and hurried up the stone steps to the landing of Eric’s building. She scanned the intercom buttons for Eric’s name and pushed the corresponding button to announce her arrival. She stood shivering on the landing, waiting.

“Yes?” A male voice questioned over the intercom.

“I’m a friend of Eric and Kayla’s. Can I come up?”

The door buzzed and Olivia opened it and entered the building. She walked up the stairs to the second floor landing, found the right number, and knocked. A young guy in a flannel shirt opened the door.

He said, “Hey. I don’t think they’re here anymore. I heard them talking earlier. I think they left.”

Olivia’s heart sank. “Oh.”

“The intercom is broken. I can hear you, but it doesn’t transmit from up here down to the lobby. That’s why I buzzed you in.”

“Thanks,” Olivia said. She had an idea. “Can I knock on Eric’s door? Maybe they’re watching a movie or something? They said they would leave something of mine in his room,” she lied. “Could I just check it out?”

“He usually keeps his door locked but you can see if they’re in there or if they left it open for you.”

“Why does he keep his bedroom door locked? Doesn’t he trust you?” She smiled to make the guy think she was joking.

“Actually, I don’t think he does,” Eric’s roommate said. “I never gave him cause not to trust me, but Eric’s kind of quirky. He’s quiet, neat in the common areas, but he seems a little paranoid. Stays to himself a lot. I don’t have much interaction with him.”

Olivia followed the roommate down the hallway to Eric’s bedroom.

“This is his.” He knocked. It was quiet. He tried the door to see if it was unlocked. It didn’t budge. “Guess he locked it when they left. No surprise.”

“Do you have a key? I really need to pick up my thing.”

The roommate chuckled. “Eric wouldn’t give anyone a key.”

“Oh,” Olivia said. She had to get into the bedroom. “Are there any extra apartment keys lying around? I wonder if there’s a duplicate for Eric’s room.”

“There are some keys in the kitchen cabinet. I don’t know what they open though.”

Olivia was impatient. “Could we try them?” She needed to get rid of the roommate for a minute.

“I’ll get them,” the roommate said.

“Thanks.”

When he disappeared down the hall, Olivia pulled out her credit card, and with trembling fingers, slid it in the crack of the door and jiggled it slightly. She heard the lock pop. During his many renovations, Olivia’s neighbor and father figure, Joe, had learned a good deal about locks and how they worked. When Olivia was in middle school, Joe taught her about locking systems and how to open a simple one with a credit card. You never knew when that could come in handy. Olivia’s Aunt Aggie was none too pleased with Joe for teaching a twelve-year-old how to pick a lock.
Thank you, Joe.

“It’s open,” Olivia called to the roommate.

He came down the hall holding the extra keys. “It seemed locked when I tried it.”

“I jiggled it. It must have been stuck,” Olivia offered. She turned the knob and pushed the door open. The roommate stepped into the dark room ahead of her and flicked the wall switch.

“What the…?” he muttered. “Holy, hell.”

Olivia pushed into the room behind the roommate to see what he was commenting on. Her eyes went wide and her heart hammered as she pivoted taking in the strange sight.

Every available piece of wall space was covered with photographs. It was the same photograph, over and over. Each one of them was of Kayla… with Christian.

“God,” Olivia whispered. “God.” The strangeness of the display nearly choked her. She turned in a slow circle taking it all in.

The blinds were pulled down over the windows. One small dresser stood up against the wall space between the two windows. All the drawers were half open with clothes spilling over the tops. A mattress was near the far wall, on the floor, a sheet and a thin blanket crumpled on top of it. A musty, stale smell permeated the space.

“Kayla was here tonight?” Olivia could barely get the words out. “She saw this?”

“Yeah. At least I thought so. I didn’t see them. I was in the kitchen. I just heard Eric talking and a woman’s voice. They were in here.” The guy stood dumbfounded in the center of the room.

The apartment smoke alarm shrieked. Olivia jumped.

“My food’s burning!” The roommate ran from the room.

Olivia turned to look at a long table that ran almost the length of one wall. Eric was using it as a desk and had computer equipment and displays covering most of the space. Some of the displays were on and one was showing a map of Cambridge. A small green dot was blinking. Olivia leaned close. The dot was located on the map on Eric’s street, over Eric’s building. Above the dot, was an “O.”

Olivia’s stomach felt like it was filling with ice water. Her temples pulsed like they were about to explode. She ripped her phone from her pocket and stared at it. She lifted her eyes to the computer display. “Son of a bitch.” Fury rose in her chest and she balled her hand into a fist. She swung her arm up and punched the display with her hand sending it crashing against the wall.

Olivia’s chest rose and fell, her breath came in gasps, in and out, in and out, as rage consumed her. “He’s been tracking me!” she roared. She glared at the phone in her hand and was about to smash it against the desk, when it buzzed with an incoming text from Kayla’s number.

Guess who this is? Hint: it’s not Kayla. Get home. Do not call the police. Keep the phone with you so I know you aren’t making any stops for help. Don’t speak to anyone. There’s a cab outside. Take it home. I’m timing you. Follow these instructions or they’re both dead.

Olivia’s stomach roiled. Her hand holding the phone dropped limply to her side. Her eyes shifted to the wall in a haze. There was a cork board on the wall above Eric’s table. A push pin was stabbed through the middle of a picture holding it in the center of the bulletin board. It was a picture of Kayla with Luke. Olivia’s vision blurred. She placed her hands on the desk to keep from falling over. Her right hand touched something. She shifted her gaze to it. Several black ski masks were scattered across the desk.

Chapter 25

Olivia raced up the stairs, two at a time, to her sixth floor apartment. The exertion of climbing six flights in a state of anxiety and fear made her breath catch in her throat and it nearly gagged her.

She was about to jab the key in the lock but stopped, realizing that she had to compose herself before facing whatever Eric had in store. She needed her wits about her if she and Melissa and Kayla were going to emerge from this confrontation alive.

Olivia moved away from her apartment door, leaned against the wall, and focused on breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. She had to be ready for whatever Eric was going to throw at her. She needed to take all of the tension and terror flowing through her veins and concentrate it into energy that she could use against him
.
Straightening her shoulders, she turned back to her door. She had to help her friends
.

Olivia abruptly halted.
How would Eric know if I called the police? Damn.
She mentally berated herself for being so stupid. She pulled out her phone to make the call, and then hesitated.
But would he know? Does he have something on this phone that monitors my calls and texts? Is that even possible?
What if I call the police and Eric knows I did it. He’ll kill Melissa and Kayla.
Her heart sank. She couldn’t take the chance.

Even though she knew that Eric was tracking her, Olivia inserted her key into the lock as quietly as she could. She pressed her hand against the front door to open it. Her auditory system was on high alert. The living room was dark, the few furniture pieces draped in menacing shadow. She wouldn’t chance flicking on the overhead light. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears.

Olivia shifted her feet two steps into the room trying to remember which parts of the wood floor always squeaked. She slid her feet, slow, inch by inch, over the floor, heading for the hall. She stopped. The tiny blond hairs on her arms stood up. She stood at the edge of the living room, at the corner of the wall. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so she held her breath and leaned her head forward just a tiny bit in order to peer down the hallway. Olivia edged into the hall, shuffled several short steps and moved into the small kitchen.

She heard a groan come from Melissa’s room. Her blood froze. Her body shook and she gripped the counter with both hands trying to collect herself. Tears welled in her eyes. Her body felt like it was floating, her senses buzzing. Olivia was afraid she was about to pass out. She looked at the wall in front of her. The knife rack.

She lifted her hand and removed the smallest knife. A boning knife. The handle fit well in the palm of her hand. The blade was small, only two inches long at most, but it was sharp. And sharp was what she needed.

Olivia turned back into the hallway. She moved her feet,
quiet, quiet,
while clutching the handle of the knife in her sweaty hand so that the blade pointed behind her.

She paused at Melissa’s bedroom door for just a moment, steeling herself to what she might find inside.

“Hello, Olivia.” Eric’s voice spoke from behind the wooden door.

Olivia sucked in a deep breath, grabbed the knob and flung the door open with such force that it thunked against the bedroom wall.

The overhead light flashed bright in her eyes, blinding her for a half second. When she saw what was in the room, something between a gasp and a sob caught in her throat.

***

Eric sat in Melissa’s chair. He had pulled it away from the desk and positioned it in the middle of the room close to the bed. His left hand dangled behind his back. His right hand was bloody. A knife with a long serrated blade was stuck between his legs into the wooden seat of the chair. His lips were turned up in a grin.

Kayla sat on the floor between the bed and the chair. She was gagged and her hands and feet were bound. There were patches of blood on her shirt where Olivia could see the fabric had slices in it. Her forehead had a wide gash with blood running down the side of her face. Rage flashed in Kayla’s eyes.

Melissa was on her back, unconscious, on the bed, her hands and feet bound by heavy rope which was also tightened around her neck. Streaks of blood stained the pale skin of her arms and face. Olivia knew she was alive because she could make out the slight rising and falling of her chest.

Olivia’s stomach clenched. Her vision was swimming. Her fingers squeezed around the handle of the knife she was holding. She wanted to plunge it into Eric’s heart.

“Took you long enough,” Eric sneered. “I thought they might both be dead by the time you got here. Now I have the three meddling bitches in one room.”

Olivia took a step into the bedroom her eyes blazing. “Bastard.” She moved two steps towards Kayla.

“Stand right there. Don’t you move.” Eric’s voice was hard, and then it turned taunting. He leaned back in the chair. He nodded his head towards Kayla and kicked her in the back. Olivia winced. “This bitch is nothing but trouble,” he said. “Just like you.”

“What do you want, Eric? What the hell is wrong with you?” Olivia asked. “She’s supposed to be your friend.”

“I didn’t want a friend, Olivia. I loved her. But I was always just the friend.” Eric’s eyes narrowed. His face muscles tightened. He tipped his head towards Kayla. “Christian was never good to you. He deserved to die.” He looked back at Olivia. “But even with that scum bag out of the picture, I wasn’t right for her. She doesn’t want me. Now she wants Luke. That coward. I only wanted to make her happy. I’m going to make her happy. She can go join her dear, sweet Christian. I won’t stop her. I’ll help her.”

“This isn’t how you treat people you love.” Olivia tried to stall for time to figure out what she could do.

“Loved,” Eric said. “Past tense.”

“Lots of people get rejected in love, Eric. You aren’t the first one it’s happened to.”

“Oh, shut up, Olivia. Spare me.”

Olivia took another step forward. “What I can’t understand is why you would try to pin the murders on Kayla. You knew she was going to Christian’s Halloween party that night. You knew what she was wearing. All black, the ski mask. So you wore the same thing. And you must be the anonymous caller who told the police that Kayla was at Christian’s the night he was killed. You even told us that she was arrested for assault. You made sure everything was pointing at Kayla.”

Kayla looked at Eric out of the corner of her eye.

“I thought you were smart, Olivia. You need an explanation?” He snorted. “If the cops suspected her, if she was in trouble, wouldn’t she go to her dear friend Eric for comfort? Wouldn’t she come to me to help her? Wouldn’t she see that I was the one who loved her? The cops might have arrested her, but they never would have been able to build a case against her. I got rid of her love interest and set things up so suspicion would fall on her. Accused and alone, she was supposed to run to me.” Eric’s face hardened. He glanced at Kayla, his eyes full of hate. “But that didn’t happen. She preferred the company of the coward.”