Dead Ringer (23 page)

By then Cindy was back on her feet. She was breathing heavily, her normally neat and tidy hair wisping out in all directions. Her eyes were colder than ever, her mouth pinched with anger. She leaned in toward me and pressed the point of the letter opener to my neck as her husband held me down in the chair, one hand on each of my shoulders.

“That is the last time you will ever interfere with one of my plans.”

The venom in her voice chilled my blood as it pounded through my body.

“Finish tying her up,” she ordered McAllister.

He obeyed, using more rope to bind my torso to the back of my chair. Out of rope, he used scarves from a costume rack to tie my ankles to the chair legs.

“What are you planning to do?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice from quaking with fear. “Even without my help, the police will eventually figure out that you killed Jeremy. And if anything happens to me and Susannah, they'll know you're responsible for that too.”

“Gag her, will you?” Cindy said to her husband. “I'm sick of listening to her.”

“The police know I'm here. They'll come looking for me.”

McAllister stuffed a scarf in my mouth. I gagged and tried to spit it out, but he tied it firmly in a knot at the back of my head.

A cruel, satisfied smile spread across Cindy's face. “Much better.”

I squirmed against my restraints, but that only made her smile more.

“Nobody will connect me to anything once you're out of the way,” she said with unnerving confidence. “I'll simply tell everyone that you and the little brat were helping my husband search for some suitable props for the upcoming youth group play. Tragically, a fire started and you weren't able to escape.” She smirked. “This old building is full of fire hazards, and the door to this little room has a rather unfortunate tendency to stick. I'll be upstairs in my office at the time, completely unaware of what's happening below me until I hear the sirens or smell the smoke. By then it will be too late for you and I'll be free to start a new life.”

I shook my head. I wanted to tell her that she wouldn't get away with it. Not that she would listen to me. I didn't think she was giving the police and fire investigators enough credit. More likely than not, it wouldn't take them long to figure out that her story was fabricated, particularly if there was enough of Susannah and me remaining for them to figure out we'd been restrained.

Of course, the investigative skills of the police and fire departments weren't exactly of much help to Susannah and me right at that moment. They might help to get us ultimate justice, but they wouldn't save us from a fiery, unpleasant end.

I tipped my head back, looking up at McAllister, using my eyes to plead with him once again. This time he met my gaze, and I thought I detected a hint of uncertainty.

“Help us!” I tried to yell through my gag but all that came out was a desperate but indistinct noise.

Cindy understood me well enough. She laughed, reaching out and grabbing a frying pan off a shelf laden with props. “Don't bother looking to him for help,” she said. “My darling husband is going to perish in the fire right along with you. That way I can pin the theft on him and be free of his idiocy.”

My eyes widened. Maybe McAllister's did too, but I never found out. As I jerked my head back to look at him, Cindy swung the frying pan at his head.

I heard a sickening thud and McAllister crumpled to the ground behind me.

Susannah screamed against her gag. I craned my neck around to get a look at the reverend. He lay in a heap, unmoving.

Cindy dropped the frying pan on the floor. “And now it's time for me to exit stage left.” She dug into the back pocket of her pants and withdrew a lighter. She smiled with a crazed glint in her eyes. “Goodbye.”

She backed out of the door and slammed it shut. A moment later I caught my first whiff of smoke.

 

Chapter 25

T
HE PAIN IN
my arm chose that inopportune time to vie for my attention. With my mouth gagged, I had to take deep breaths through my nose to help direct my thoughts away from the agony. A second, stronger waft of smoke did more than my steady breathing to sharpen my focus. Susannah must have smelled the smoke too. She squirmed in her chair, crying and trying to scream.

We had to get free.

I wiggled my wrists. The restraints weren't tight but they weren't loose enough for me to slip out of them. Not yet at least. Maybe I could work my way out of them in time, but time wasn't something I had.

I shifted my body weight from side to side, giving my chair an experimental rock. It felt rickety beneath me, and I hoped that would be the key to my freedom. I was only a ­couple feet from the nearest wall but I needed to get closer. By shuffling my feet and making bouncy, jerking motions with my body, I managed to inch my chair toward the wall.

When I thought I was close enough, I gripped one of the slats of the chair back with my bound hands and lifted the piece of furniture up off the ground as I tried to stand on my feet. It was awkward but the scarves restraining my ankles shifted up my legs enough that I was able to stand, bent over at the waist. I pivoted my body as hard as I could and slammed my chair against the wall. Wood cracked, but I remained strapped to the piece of furniture.

My arm protested with a fierce cut of pain, but I steadied myself and repeated the action, again and again. The third time was the charm. As I smashed the chair against the wall, it shattered, legs and slats breaking off the seat. The various pieces fell away from me, and I kicked and shimmied until the last bits clattered to the floor. The entire process had taken less than a minute, but I didn't have a single second to spare.

I dropped to my knees behind Susannah's chair, my back to her, holding my bound hands against hers. I couldn't speak to tell her what I wanted her to do, but I didn't need to. Her fingers fumbled against my wrists until they found the knot in the rope. We were lucky that Reverend McAllister wasn't great at tying knots. He must not have ever been a Boy Scout. Susannah had my wrists free in a matter of seconds, and I spun around to untie her.

As soon as she was free, I yanked the gag out of my mouth, and she did the same with hers. The smell of smoke had grown stronger as we worked, and the first wispy tendrils slithered through the crack beneath the door. Somewhere off in the distance a fire alarm rang a shrill, unceasing note. I hoped help would come, but at the same time I knew it would be too late.

I stumbled over pieces of broken chair to get to the door and placed my palm against it. It was warm.

“We can't go out that way.”

“But it's the only exit!” Susannah sounded frantic.

I couldn't blame her.

I yanked two frilly gowns and a soldier's coat off a rack of costumes and shoved them at Susannah. “Try to block the cracks with these.”

She did as she was told, stuffing the costumes into the cracks beneath and around the door. It helped to slow the influx of smoke, but I knew that time was slipping away from us, the seconds ticking in my head like a metronome turned up to full speed.

McAllister moaned on the floor, but his eyes only opened halfway. I ignored him. I had to if I didn't want us all to die from smoke inhalation in the next few minutes. I cast my eyes around the small room, searching for something strong and sturdy. I considered the frying pan at my feet for half a second but then pounced on an electric guitar. Its body was scratched and it had no strings, but I wasn't interested in making music.

I grabbed the instrument and hurried to the wall opposite from the door. I knocked against it with my fist, working my way from left to right and listening to the change in sounds. Satisfied that I'd located a spot between studs, I held the guitar by its neck with both hands.

“What are you doing?” Susannah asked.

I didn't bother to waste time answering. Instead, I swung the guitar as hard as I could. It broke a hole through the drywall.

Hope gave me greater strength, and I swung the instrument over and over again, smashing it against the wall, opening a wider hole with each impact.

Behind me Susannah coughed. “The smoke! Midori!”

“Help me.” I dropped the guitar and ripped at the jagged drywall with my hands.

The sharp edges cut and scratched my skin, but I hardly noticed.

Susannah joined me, and we soon had a hole big enough to squeeze through.

And not a moment too soon.

The smoke had thickened, and flames crackled and popped on the other side of the door. Even across the room I could feel the heat. It pressed against my face, urging me to flee.

“Reverend!” I screamed at McAllister, my words ending with a coughing fit.

He moved one arm but did nothing else.

“Go!” I shouted to Susannah before turning back to McAllister.

I grabbed him under the arms, but knew right away that I wouldn't be able to move him on my own. He was too heavy. Somebody joined me in the murky dullness of the smoke-­filled room and took some of McAllister's weight.

Susannah.

I wanted to scream at her again to leave, to save herself, but my coughs and protesting throat wouldn't let me. There wasn't time to argue with her anyway, and I needed her help to move the reverend.

Together we hauled him to his feet. He swayed and lurched but shuffled along, making our job easier. When we reached the wall, Susannah climbed through the hole first and half caught McAllister when I pushed him through. I climbed out after him and secured his arm around my shoulders.

I coughed and blinked as I took in our new location. We were in an unfamiliar hallway, but an exit sign glowed with a dull red light in the distance. With toxic smoke billowing out of the hole behind us, the three of us set off down the hall, Susannah and I supporting the reverend between us. We pushed through a heavy door and found ourselves in a shallow concrete stairwell, our heads just above ground level.

A symphony of light and sound greeted us. Rain pelted against the street and parked cars, a siren wailed in the distance, and a fire engine rumbled to a stop in front of the church. The lights on the emergency vehicle flashed brightly and voices called out over the jumble of other sounds.

Susannah and I only made it up one stair before McAllister's weight became too much for us. The three of us crumpled down into a heap, struggling to draw in cool fresh air between harsh coughs.

“Is there anyone else inside?”

I looked up at the firemen looming above us. “Not sure,” I croaked.

A male voice shouted out orders and several firefighters raced past us. Another fixed an oxygen mask over McAllister's face as an ambulance turned onto the street, cutting its siren.

The next few minutes passed in a daze, but I was aware enough to notice that they felt like an eerie repeat of the scene that followed the previous fire. Someone helped me up the steps and away from the building. I sat down on the curb, leafy tree branches above me providing some shelter from the pouring rain. A female paramedic checked me over just as before, but this time tended to my arm rather than my hand.

“It's not bad enough to need stitches,” the paramedic said as she cleaned the cut on my upper arm, “but I'll put a bandage on it for you.”

I nodded, aware of her words and the pain in my arm but far more focused on what was happening around me. An ambulance pulled away from the crowd of emergency vehicles, carrying Reverend McAllister off to the hospital. At almost the same time, police officers arrived on the scene. A ­couple of them set to work herding the growing crowd of onlookers back from the church property and others conferred with firefighters.

A commotion at the front of the church drew my attention. A fireman held a hysterical Cindy McAllister by the arm. As he led her down the steps, past the hoses and away from the church, she screamed and clawed at his arm.

“My husband's still in there! You have to help him!”

I jumped up from my spot on the curb, startling the paramedic as she finished bandaging my arm, and marched toward Cindy.

“Your husband's on the way to the hospital,” I corrected her.

Her eyes widened at the sight of me. Fear flashed across her face but it was quickly replaced by fury. “You!”

She spat the word out, and I was glad I was far enough away to avoid her spittle. The distance between us was good for another reason. Her face contorted with rage, Cindy lunged at me. I leapt backward, out of her reach. She lurched toward me again, her fingernails ready to rake down my face.

Cindy's fireman escort grabbed her from behind. “Ma'am, I need you to calm down.”

She struggled against his strong grip, her screams wild and high-­pitched.

Three police officers ran over to help the fireman. Even when surrounded, Cindy continued to flail and fight, her angry eyes locked on me.

My heart jumped around in my throat as the police officers pushed the reverend's wife to the ground and cuffed her hands behind her back. Finally, the fight seemed to go out of her and she sagged into the wet grass, her body shaking with sobs.

Two of the police officers pulled her to her feet and the third stepped in my direction.

“Are you all right?” he asked me.

I nodded, unable to take my eyes off the sorry, sopping wet figure that was Cindy McAllister. “She started the fire.” My voice was rough and I paused to ward off a bout of coughing. “She tied up Susannah and me and knocked out her husband.”

The policeman looked at me with an odd expression. “And why would she do that?”

I hugged myself, only then realizing that I was soaking wet and chilled to the bone. “She's a murderer.” My words came out heavy with exhaustion. “I think I need to speak to Detective Bachman or Detective Salnikova. They'll want to know about this right away.”

I reached for my purse, only to discover that I didn't have it. “My purse is inside still. And Cindy McAllister took my phone.” I didn't mean to sound as upset as I did, but the events of the past hour had caught up with me. “All my identification . . . And how will I call the detectives? Can I get my phone back?” I swiveled around to watch the other two police officers escort Cindy toward one of the parked cruisers.

“Hold on a moment,” the officer at my side said in a calming voice. “If she's got your phone, we'll make sure it gets back to you. As for your other belongings, we'll have to wait and see if they've survived the fire.”

I closed my eyes in disappointment. I knew he was right, but I didn't like the thought of having to replace my credit cards and identification. At least I hadn't had a whole lot of cash in my wallet.

I opened my eyes and tried to focus on what was most important. “And the detectives?” I gestured in Cindy's direction as an officer guided her into the backseat of the cruiser. “She's done far more than cause a ruckus on the church lawn, you know.”

“I'll get in touch with the detectives for you.”

I hugged myself again. Rain still pelted down from the sky, soaking my clothes and plastering my hair against my head. My arm felt as though it had a knife—­or a letter opener—­stuck into it, and my recently healed throat was scratchy and sore.

All I wanted to do was go home, or at least to JT's house. With Cindy safely in custody I could go back to my apartment, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be without company right away. It was a moot point anyway. I needed to speak to the detectives before I could go anywhere.

Another thought struck me.

“My students.” I put a hand to my head and groaned. “I really need my phone,” I said to the police officer. “My violin students will start showing up at my studio. I need to cancel their lessons, and all my students' contact information is in my phone.”

The officer nodded with understanding, and I noted that he had kind brown eyes. He probably wasn't much older than I was. “Why don't you go take shelter under a tree,” he suggested. “I'll see what I can do about your phone.”

“Thank you.”

As the officer walked off toward the cruiser where Cindy was sequestered, I wandered back toward my spot at the curb. Susannah wasn't far off. She stood huddled under one of the many large trees lining the street. She was crying, and a female police officer had her arm around her. I considered going over to help comfort her until a familiar voice called my name.

“Dori!”

Relief whooshed over me, and I rushed over to JT and hugged him. He returned the hug and a sharp pain shot through my injured arm. I yelped and jumped back.

“You're hurt? What happened? Not another fire?”

The worry in his eyes was touching.

“I've got a cut on my arm. Nothing serious. And yes, there was another fire. Deliberately set.”

“Dori, this is like some weird déjà vu experience. What the hell is going on?”

Déjà vu was right. But this was an experience I definitely could have done without repeating. “When I came looking for Susannah, the McAllisters snatched me. I think Cindy must have used Susannah's phone to lure me here, or forced her to text me, because they already had her tied up. After the reverend tied me up too, Cindy whacked him on the head with a frying pan and set the fire. She meant for us all to burn to death.”

JT ran a hand through his damp hair. “Are you saying she's the murderer?”

“That's exactly what I'm saying. And an arsonist twice over. She's also the one who trashed my apartment.”

“And she even wanted to kill her husband?” JT sounded incredulous.

I couldn't blame him. It was a lot to take in. “Yes. She doesn't seem too fond of him, and I think he figured out that she was the one who stole the money from the church.”

“So the whole gambling thing was relevant after all?”