Taking the Fall (16 page)

We paused for a second, waiting and listening. There were no more screams of terror. We heard people saying, “Where is she?” and “Can’t find her!” When the shouts turned to, “Must’ve been some punk kid pranking us!” I knew we had to go.
Now.

We moved through the brush at a crouch, as soundlessly as possible, then wriggled through a hydrangea bush and into someone’s backyard. We found cover behind some low-growing evergreens and Blythe entered the name of the beach in her phone. Once we saw the route, it was clear there was no way we were going to get there in half an hour backyard hopping.

“We’ll just use the sidewalk,” Blythe said. “I think we’re less likely to draw attention that way than sneaking through every backyard in Bonney Bay.”

“Yeah, that will get the police called on us—or somebody’s dog on us—for sure.”

“Try to act casual. If any cars come by, we’ll look the other way.
 

“Right. We’ll be deep in conversation.”

We slipped around the side of the house, and out to the sidewalk. We sort of speed-walked away, following the directions on Blythe’s phone. I tried not to think about who might be waiting for us on this deserted beach. I tried not to think about how the police might take it if they discovered we’d slipped the building before I got a chance to show up as promised at the station. Most of all, I tried not to dwell on how screwed we’d be if this all got us nowhere. No closer to the killer. No closer to ending this ordeal.

24

We stood on the ocean side of Bonney Bay, on the south end of town, brushing sweaty hair out of our eyes, trying to catch our breath, and staring at the dead end in front of us.

“You have reached your destination!” Blythe’s phone informed us, for the third time. Though I could tell we were close to the water, I couldn’t see a beach anywhere. We’d tried backing up a couple of steps in the list of directions, and each time the phone had led us here.

“GPS fail,” I muttered. “Now what?”

“Wait! I see a sign!” Blythe pointed toward a chain link fence at the end of the road. Blackberry brambles threatened to overtake the fence.

I could imagine the whole thing disappearing underneath them in the thick of summer, after the leaves had time to fill in. I followed Blythe, at a run. There was a narrow chain link gate in the thicket, bearing a small brown and white sign. Instead of
Keep Out
, or something along those lines—which would’ve been quite fitting in such an abandoned-looking place—the sign said,
Watson Point Beach
.

I gave Blythe a grateful squeeze. “Let’s go.”

I opened the gate to reveal plain wooden stairs, flanked by more chain link fence, which served as a sort of rail. The stairs descended the rocky, brambly cliff. We were a third of the way down before the beach came into view. There was no sand here, just very dark, smooth rocks and pebbles—a stark contrast with the bright desert sands I was used to in Arizona. The beach was nearly black, and completely deserted. It had a desolate, almost post-apocalyptic feel. And we were meeting with someone associated with a murderer here. Maybe with the murderer herself. I turned and looked up the cliff. I could hardly see the houses above, with the rocks jutting out so far beyond them. Would anyone hear us if we cried for help?

I fought the urge to grab Blythe’s hand like I had when we were little girls. “I don’t know about this, Brenna,” she whispered, as though the stones were listening.

“There it is.” I pointed at an octagonal covered area a couple hundred yards away. “That’s where we’re supposed to meet her.”

Warily, we approached the covered area. It was bigger than it looked, built of strong but weathered wood, gray like the beach. Benches encircled a central fireplace, complete with a chimney.

“This is nice,” Blythe said. “It looks like you can barbecue—Ahhh!” Someone leapt out from underneath the bench behind us, and Blythe screamed.
 

Instinctively, I jolted toward the figure. I caught myself before I actually laid hands on the skinny adolescent girl. She screamed too. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she scrambled backward and fell on the seat of her trendy cutoff shorts. Her shoulder-length dark hair sported a bright green stripe.

“Do
not
do that again!” My whisper was a near hiss.

The girl pointed a shaking, bony finger at Blythe. “She’s the one who almost got us busted, screaming like that.”

“I’m not the only one who made a bunch of noise!” Blythe countered.

“Only because
she
looked like she was going to kill me!” This time I was the target of the pointing. “You’re not really going to kill me, are you?”

“Are you dead yet?” I snapped. She was lucky she wasn’t, jumping out at me like that. Her lower lip quivered, and guilt overtook my anger and annoyance. She was just a kid. “I’m sorry. Look, neither of us wants to hurt you. But there’s a killer out there. It’s not a good time to be jumping out and scaring people. If this whole thing is some kind of prank—”

“It’s not a prank! And I have more to be scared of than either of you. I just didn’t want anyone to spot me here. I heard you walking over here, but I didn’t want to come out until I was sure who it was.”

“You might have said something once you saw that it was us,” I pointed out.

“Well, what’s done is done.” Blythe smiled. I managed not to roll my eyes at her attempt at diplomacy.

I decided to get to the point. “So, you have my phone?”

“Look, I know you’re not the killers, okay?” the girl said. “But neither is Stacey.”

I played innocent. “What does Stacey have to do with this?”

The girl gave me a look like,
Come on, really?

I guess I need to work on my acting skills.

“How do you know Stacey?” Blythe asked.

“I walk her little boy, Leo, to school every morning, and he comes home with me after school. I watch him for Stacey when she works on Saturdays too. Leo loves his mom. He
needs
his mom.”

I tried a different tack. “Maybe we could help the police eliminate her as a suspect. Just tell us how you know Stacey isn’t the killer.”

“Because, I think someone else is, that’s all.”

“Her boyfriend, maybe?”

A flash of panic showed on the girl’s face before she said, “I don’t know. But you should figure it out. I don’t think you should go to jail. And I think someone should stop him, that’s all. And if I give this to you, you have to tell them Stacey didn’t do it either.”

I hate to break it to you, honey
, I thought,
but I know plenty of ways to get my phone out of your scheming little hands
.

The girl said, “If you just take it from me, I won’t give you what you really want.”

“And what do we really want?” I asked.

“That picture of Stacey breaking into Eric Doyle’s apartment.”

My eyes widened. So, I had managed to get the shot, and this brat had seen it.

“It’s a great pic. Real clear. You can see that the window frame’s been pulled out, and she’s trying to climb out the window. It looks very suspicious. The police will definitely have some questions about why she was doing that instead of going through the front door. I mean, she has the alarm code and everything. She’s his girlfriend, but I guess you know that.”

“We found out yesterday,” Blythe said.

“Plus, there’s some pictures of green paint. I guess those are evidence too.”

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t mention that now that Stacey had put the paint can in my bag, it would just look like I’d tried to frame her with those pictures too.

“Okay,” Blythe said. “Why don’t you give us the phone, and we’ll give this information to Officer Doyle right away.”

Her eyes got huge. “No! No, he’s … he’s the one who put Stacey up to it. He
has
to be. We have to find proof of it before we tell anyone!”

“Why would he do that?”

“Uncle Eric hated Ellison Baxter. He always has. He cost him his career in the FBI. That’s what Eric always said anyway. And you know what? Guess what he’s talking about doing again, ever since Ellison died? Applying for the FBI.”

Blythe and I exchanged looks.
Uncle
Eric? “How could Ellison cost Eric Doyle his future career?” I said.

“I don’t know. I heard them arguing. I really didn’t understand all that stuff. But Uncle Eric did something a long time ago, and Ellison had proof, and Eric was saying, ‘Come on, it was a long time ago. I’ve had enough of this.’ And Ellison said, ‘Well, the FBI still cares. You just stay right here in Bonney Bay, and keep being a good source, and I’ll keep keeping it quiet, like I’ve done since high school.’”

“High school!” Blythe said.

“Yeah. Ellison must’ve really hated Uncle Eric in high school. He picked on him, I guess. I don’t think he would ever let it go, whatever it was. It made him happy to see Uncle Eric so mad.”

“He liked having the bully under control,” I said.

The girl nodded. “Maybe that’s why Uncle Eric was so mad all the time. All he ever wanted was to be in the FBI. He was tired of this small town stuff. Maybe that’s why he … ”

“Why he got Stacey to kill Ellison?” I thought out loud.

“No! Stacey wouldn’t do that. You aren’t listening!”

“We are,” Blythe assured her. “We’re listening. What’s your name, sweetie?”

“I’m not telling you that!”

I looked the girl in the eyes. They were pale gray, with lashes almost as pale. The dark hair was definitely just as much a dye job as the green stripe. “We’re going to look it up as soon as we get home. We know you’re Eric Doyle’s niece, and you’re about ten years old—”

“I’m eleven-and-a-half!”

I held back a smile. My trick had worked. It was nice to know I was still smarter than a sixth-grader.

Blythe eased her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “It’s okay. Just go ahead and tell us your name.”

“Sammi,” she mumbled. “With an
i
.”

I leaned a little closer and said, “Okay, Sammi. We’re going to do our best to help you, as long as you help us out by giving me that phone.”

Blythe gave me a warning look.
Too pushy.
Okay, okay.

“I’ll give you the phone, but those pictures aren’t on there.”

“What?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you. I deleted them.”

“You did what?” I said. Blythe’s mouth was clamped shut, as if she was afraid of what she might say.

Sammi crossed her arms and affected a smug look. “Don’t worry. I sent myself a copy of everything first. So all you have to do is find a way to prove Stacey’s innocence, and then I’ll send them back to you.”

I was going to throttle her. I was going to strangle this little punk of a girl. But wait! What cell phone possessing eleven-year-old would go anywhere without hers? Blythe and I would have no problem shaking her down.

“Don’t get any ideas.” Sammi sneered. “I left my phone in a safe place.”

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t smarter than
this
sixth-grader. I racked my brain for ways I could make her tell me—you know, ways that weren’t completely illegal.

“You wouldn’t hurt a kid,” Sammi said in a sing-song voice that had even Blythe taking a sharp breath. “Eric killed Ellison Baxter, and you’re going to prove it.”

“So … you don’t have any proof?” Blythe said.

Sammi shook her head. “But I know it was him. He just got Stacey to help him frame you. Stacey’s going to be so mad I told you about Eric, but how are they ever going know it’s not her fault if nobody thinks it could be Eric? The right person should go to jail. That’s what’s right. Besides, Eric wouldn’t even care if Stacey took the fall. All he cares about is becoming an FBI agent.” Sammi pulled my phone out of her back pocket and held it out to me. “So here’s your phone.”

I took it, and resisted the urge to shake her.

Blythe said, “I know you want to do the right thing, sweetie. I’m sure it’ll all get sorted out. Just come with us to the police station.”

“No police! They’re Eric’s friends, and he’ll find out!”

I said, “I’m not so sure about that. Not all the officers are his friends. In fact, I think one of them might be glad to help us, and glad to see Eric go, if it comes to that.” Ok, so I wasn’t entirely certain of any of that. But I had come to believe that Will Riggins really wanted to do right by his investigations.

“
You
have to do it!
You
have to prove Eric did it,” Sammi insisted.

Now, how the heck did she expect us to do that, anyway?

Sammi said, “You caught Stacey helping Eric, right? You can catch Eric.”

“But the crime is done,” I said. “So is the coverup. There’s nothing left to spy on. And we’ve gotten ourselves into a lot of trouble trying to follow Stacey.”

Not to mention the fact that I wasn’t so sure this girl was right about Stacey’s innocence. If Stacey noticed she’d taken the phone, what would she do if she feared the girl would talk? If she found out I had my phone back? I doubted she knew the pictures had been deleted. For that matter, what about Eric? I couldn’t just let this child go back to spending her days with potential murderers.

“You said it yourself,” I told Sammi. “All your uncle cares about is his career. If he’d kill Ellison, what would he do to you if he thinks you know too much?”

A hip-hop tune interrupted the tense silence. It came from Sammi’s pocket. A panicked look animated her thin features. She dove away from me, but as she did so, I slipped my hand into her back pocket and grabbed her phone.

I just about dropped it when I saw the caller’s name—Uncle Eric.

25

Sammi lunged back toward me, but Blythe stood in her way. She shook her head. “I don’t think so, Sammi.”

“It’s Eric,” I told Blythe.

Sammi started to cry quietly. The call went to voicemail, and dear, crazy, Uncle Eric left a message. I played it on speaker. “Sammi? Sammi, you better answer this phone! Where are you? What have you done now? You’re going to pay for this!”

Sammi shrieked, then crumpled into a ball.

Blythe knelt down to comfort her. I took the opportunity to scroll through her phone, find my pictures, and text them to myself, and to Blythe, for good measure. Then I called Riggins. I told him how Sammi had lured us out of the apartment, that she had my phone, and that we all had a lot to tell him. “But not at the station,” I said. “Somewhere private.”