Killjoy

Chapter 11

The first hour was a nightmare, and then it got worse.

The crazy woman had almost blown them to kingdom come. Anne's hand was on the doorknob when Carrie tackled her to the floor. She was so skinny she went down hard, and Carrie landed with a thud on top of her. Both of them were screaming. Carrie had her hands full, and it was impossible to get the woman to listen to reason. Twisting and turning, Anne tried to claw Carrie's eyes with her long, tapered, acrylic nails. She made it to her knees and nearly got away from Carrie when Sara grabbed her by her ankles and dragged her from the door.

As thin and frail as Anne appeared, her rage gave her almost superhuman strength, but fortunately it was quickly spent. Panting from exertion, Carrie kept the woman pinned to the marble floor by sitting on her spine. She held Anne's head down with both

her hands pressed against the back of her neck.

"Find something we can tie her up with," Carrie shouted to Sara so she could be heard over Anne's screeching.

Ten minutes later Anne was sitting in a chair at the round table in the breakfast nook. Her wrists were tied to the arms of the chair with two phone wires.

"How dare you treat me this way. You're not going to get away with this. You just wait and see. I'm going to report you."

Carrie, exhausted, fell into the chair adjacent to Anne's. She covered her brow with her hand, her elbow propped on the table,

and calmly asked, "How do you plan to do that, Anne?"

"You bitch," Anne railed. "I'll call the police."

"Be my guest. Use the phone. Oh, wait. You can't because the damn phone's dead."

"You're lying."

Carrie turned to Sara, who was leaning against the counter, watching. "Is she just on another planet? I think her mind's completely snapped."

"Perhaps," Sara said. "Shock will sometimes make a person… irrational."

"What in God's name are we going to do?" Carrie whispered.

Sara pulled out a chair and sat down across from Anne. She folded her hands on the tabletop. "Now, Anne, it won't do for you

to continue to pretend that everything is all right. We're all in trouble here, and we need your cooperation."

Anne's immediate response was a glare. "Leave me alone, you fat pig."

"Charming," Carrie muttered.

"Bitch," Anne shouted at the top of her voice.

"If you continue to scream every word, Anne, I'm afraid I'm going to have to gag you," Sara warned. "Are you going to calm down?"

Anne's glare grew even stronger.

"Anne, where's the letter that was left for you?" When Anne turned her head away, Sara asked, "Are you giving us the silent treatment now?"

"Wouldn't that be a blessing?" Carrie scoffed.

Sara leaned back in her chair, adjusted her silk robe to cover her gown, and said, "You know, Anne, if you didn't get a letter…"

"I didn't," Anne snapped.

"Then you could be an innocent bystander who just got caught up in our… dilemma."

Dilemma? Carrie was about to take issue with Sara's poor choice of words. For God's sake, they were sitting inside a bomb.

But then she caught Sara's eye and decided to keep quiet when the older woman gave a quick shake of her head.

"You see, Anne," she continued in a calm tone. "As a judge, I put away a good number of hardened criminals over the years. I

had a reputation for giving harsh sentences, but in all of those cases, the men and women who came before me were career criminals. I don't have any regrets."

Anne finally looked at Sara with icy disdain. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because it's important. Over the years there have been numerous threats against my life, but I've never given any of them a second thought."

She went into the living room to get the letters she and Carrie had received. She returned to her seat at the table and read her letter to Anne. When she was finished, she held the paper up in front of Anne's eyes so she could see she was telling the truth.

"And you think one of those criminals is making good on his threat?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I think. Either there's an ex-con behind this, or someone still in jail has gotten outside help."

"Where would an ex-con or a prisoner get the money to hire a killer?"

"Who cares where he got the money," Carrie interjected.

"I'm not talking to you, bitch," Anne hissed.

Sara raised her hand for silence. She didn't want Carrie's temper to trigger another tantrum.

"It's a valid question," Sara said. "I don't know how he got the money. Perhaps a relative came into an inheritance or…"

"And maybe you put away an innocent man, and those relatives know it."

"Yes, that might be how it happened."

Carrie was gritting her teeth to keep from interrupting. She wanted to tell both women that right now they needed to find a way

to get out of the house, and then, once they were safe, they could speculate on the who, how, and why until the cows came home.

"Carrie's letter wasn't like mine," Sara said. "Hers was signed."

Anne looked intrigued. "So he wanted you to know how much he hated you before you died?"

"Not 'he,' " Sara corrected. "She."

Carrie nodded. Anne still wouldn't look at her, but Carrie didn't care about that. "My letter was written by my sister, Jilly."

The announcement so shocked Anne she couldn't continue her stony silence with Carrie any longer. "Your own flesh and blood wants you dead?"

"Yes."

Appalled, she asked, "What kind of a family do you come from?"

Carrie held her temper. "Dysfunctional, Anne. I come from a very dysfunctional family. My sister's crazy."

"Good heavens," Anne said. "Wait a minute. Are you lying? I mean, if your sister is really crazy, why hasn't she been locked away?"

"I was told years ago that Jilly died in a car accident. The funeral home wanted to send me her ashes. Jilly, it turns out, was

much smarter than I thought. She's waited and planned all these years to get even with me."

"Why? What did you do to her?"

"She thinks I stole her child."

"Did you?"

"No, Jilly abandoned her when she was a baby. My mother and I raised her."

"And your sister never came back?"

"Oh, yes, when Avery was five, Jilly came back with a sleazebag of a boyfriend named Dale Skarrett. She thought she could just waltz in and take Avery away. She'd already used extortion to get money out of my mother. That's true," she said when Anne looked so appalled. "My mother had to pay to keep Avery. I was home when they came, and while I physically tried to shove Jilly out of the house, my mother called the police. When Dale Skarrett heard the sirens, he grabbed Jilly and took off. I moved to California the following morning. While I was off building a career, Avery stayed with my mother. Then, when Avery was eleven, Jilly sent Skarrett to the house to kidnap her. Avery wasn't going to go quietly. She fought him tooth and nail, and he used his belt to beat her within an inch of her life. She was so young… and helpless. I guess I sort of thought of myself as her mother, but when it mattered, really mattered, I wasn't there to protect her the way a mother should."

"What about your mother? Didn't she do anything?"

Carrie looked down as she continued. "The police chief was a friend, and he had given mother a gun, taught her how to use it

too. She was in the backyard and didn't hear the screaming until she came into the house. My mother had become hard-of-hearing," she added. "From what the police were able to ascertain, mother tried to shoot Skarrett. She must have given him warning because he grabbed Avery just as she fired. The bullet struck my niece."

The words came out in a monotone, but there were tears in her eyes. "I left an old woman to take care of my niece, knowing

that Jilly was out there."

"But surely you couldn't have anticipated…"

"Oh, but I did know what Jilly was capable of," Carrie said.

"What happened to your mother?" Sara asked.

"She suffered a massive heart attack. She was dead by the time the police got to the house, and Avery was hanging on by a thread. I caught a flight from L.A. to Jacksonville. By the time I got there, Avery had already had surgery and was in ICU. The first thing the doctor told me was that Avery would recover, but he didn't give me time to rejoice because he said she wouldn't be able to have children. A hysterectomy at age eleven. That has to be some kind of record," she said bitterly.

Sara looked startled, and Carrie assumed she was reacting to her morbid account of that awful day.

"That poor child," Anne said. She sounded genuinely compassionate.

"I remember her," Sara whispered.

"What?" Carrie all but shouted.

Sara nodded. "The names… there were so many over the years; it isn't possible to remember all of them. And I didn't remember Avery until you mentioned the hysterectomy at age eleven. I'll never forget reading the transcripts of the trial."

"I don't understand," Carrie said. "Why would you read the transcripts? Judge Hamilton was the judge at the trial."

"Yes, but Hamilton died before the sentencing date. He had a massive stroke, and the case was given to me. I'm the judge who sentenced Skarrett, and he has every reason to want me dead. I gave him the maximum."

Astounded, Carrie sat back. "So there's the connection between the two of us. Dale Skarrett… and Jilly."

"Jilly was never charged with any of it, was she?" Sara asked.

"There wasn't any proof to go after her. Besides, she had vanished," she explained. "It was Avery's sole testimony that got Skarrett convicted of second-degree murder. A few weeks after his sentencing, I got a call from a funeral home in Key West asking me what I wanted done with Jilly's ashes. That's how I found out she was dead."

"Except she isn't dead," Anne said.

"No, she definitely isn't. I saw her in living color last night," Carrie said emphatically. "She hasn't aged much at all. She's still beautiful… and still frickin' nuts."

Sara went to the kitchen cabinet and took down a cup and saucer.

"I always wanted to have a daughter, but my husband didn't want children. He convinced me that it would cramp our lifestyle," Anne said.

"What was your lifestyle?" Sara asked as she poured the hot coffee.

"Work. Just work. I felt guilty about that," she confessed. "And so I gave in to my husband on all the little things."

Anne considered having children a little thing? "I see," Carrie remarked.

"Eric is ten years younger than I am," Anne continued. "But age never mattered to him. He loves me very much."

"I'm sure he does."

"He's taken over operations. You know, the mundane office managerial tasks, and he's so clever. He found a new health insurance carrier with a group rate that was less than half of what we had been paying."

Carrie couldn't understand why Anne wanted to talk about this now. Sara untied Anne's left hand and placed the cup of coffee

in front of her. "There isn't any milk," she said. "But I found some sugar if you want it sweetened."

"No, thank you."

Carrie couldn't put up with the nonsense a second longer. The two were acting as if they were at a tea party. "What the hell

are we going to do?"

"Find a way to get out," Sara said. "We're three smart women. We should be able to think of something."

Anne didn't seem at all interested in that topic. "Sara? What did you mean when you said I could have been an innocent bystander?"

Sara refilled her cup and sat down. "If you didn't have a letter on your nightstand…"

"I didn't," Anne rushed to assure her.

"Then I think I know what happened. Your plane landed just a few minutes before mine did, remember?"

"Yes."

"And didn't you tell us that you were irritated because the driver from the spa was waiting for me at my gate, but there wasn't anyone waiting for you? In the car you said that if you hadn't seen the man holding up the sign for Utopia, you would have had to carry your own luggage and get a taxi."

Anne nodded. "Yes, I certainly do remember, and I was extremely put out. I'm still going to register a complaint with the manager. There should have been a driver waiting for me at my gate."

"Therefore," Sara continued as though Anne hadn't gotten sidetracked, "perhaps you weren't meant to be part of this. However," she hastened to add before Anne could interrupt, "the fact remains that you are going to die when this house blows up."

"But why? I didn't do anything wrong."

"And we did?" Carrie asked.

Anne shrugged.

"Answer me," Carrie demanded. "Do you honestly think we deserve to die like this?"

"I don't know," Anne said. "You must have done something pretty awful to make your sister so mad, and, Sara, you might have sent an innocent man to prison."

Carrie had thought that Anne was going to be sensible, but her comments indicated she was still in Lala Land.

"I still don't understand why he brought me here," she said.

"Because you saw his face," Carrie muttered. "How could you have run a business? You ask such stupid questions."

"I don't like you." Anne took a dainty sip of her coffee after making the childish remark.

"I don't give a damn if you like me or not."

"Ladies, this isn't getting us anywhere," Sara interjected. "Anne, the killer couldn't leave you behind. You had also met me, and

if you had gone to the spa, you would have complained to the management, and that would have signaled an alarm… since

they obviously didn't send a driver to the airport."

"You also could have given a description of the man to the police. It was much too risky for him to leave you behind," Carrie explained. "And you could have told the police where he was taking us," Sara added.

"Oh, I'm sure he lied about where we were going. He lied about everything else, didn't he?" Sara asked. She suddenly looked weary, and her voice trailed off.

"No, he didn't lie about that."

Both Sara and Carrie frowned at Anne. "How do you know?" Carrie asked.

"Because I saw the sign. It was a tarnished brass plaque in the center of the iron gate. The driver pushed the button on that remote control gadget, and I read the sign as the gate was swinging open. Land Between the Lakes. So he didn't lie about that."

"That was very observant of you," Sara said.

"For all the good that does us," Anne said. "We can't tell anyone."

Carrie's head snapped up. "Oh, my God, I did tell."

"What did you say?" Sara asked.

"I called my niece from the airport. I was in the ladies' room, and I remembered I had my cell phone in the pocket of my blazer, so I called her. Her voice mail picked up and I left a message telling her where we were going to be spending the night. What a fool I am. I went on and on about the famous guests who had stayed here before. Monk-if that is his real name-must have done his research." Tears flooded her eyes as she whispered, "That's why he was telling those stupid stories about movie stars. He knew I'd be impressed. I'm such a shallow fool."

"He played all of us," Sara said. "Did you tell your niece the name of the property?"

"Yes," Carrie answered. "I don't know if she got the message because she might have already left for the airport. What if he

was there waiting for her?" Her voice broke on a sob.

Sara reached across the table and patted Carrie's hand. "If he had been waiting for her, wouldn't he have driven her here?

Maybe that's what they're waiting for," she added. "Maybe that's why they haven't…"

"Haven't what?" Anne asked.

"Killed us," Sara said bluntly.

"But you said they left us food in the pantry and in the freezer, so they obviously want to keep us alive a little while longer,"

Anne argued.

Sara disagreed. "The food… that's what's so alarming. Doesn't it seem more frightening to you that they didn't empty the cabinets?"

Carrie hadn't thought of it that way, but now she agreed with Sara. "I think that means they're going to blow the house soon. They're not going to let us sit in here until it's all gone. They left the water on too," she pointed out. "We have to get out of here."

She buried her face in her hands and whispered, "I've got to get to Avery. If that monster has her…"

"Concentrate on finding a way out, Carrie, so that you can help your niece."

Anne straightened in her chair and nodded. "As long as you both agree I'm innocent, I'll help and I won't do anything crazy, like opening a door. I promise, but you have to say it."

Carrie lifted her head. "Say what?" Anne straightened in her chair. "That I'm innocent."

She was, of course, implying that Sara and Carrie weren't. It was infuriating, her holier-than-thou attitude, but Carrie caught

Sara's nod and decided she had to get along with Anne if she wanted her cooperation. "Yes, you are innocent," she said.

After Sara concurred, Anne turned to Carrie. "You should try to make amends with your sister, fix the wrong you did."

Oh, how Carrie hated the woman. She held her tongue as Anne preached on. "Family is the most important thing of all. I recently learned that truth. Being able to lean on someone… like my husband when times get difficult… that's very important. I'm very fortunate," she continued. "My husband adores me."

She was excited when she turned to Sara. "He'll sound the alarm. My husband calls every single day. He's never missed. I told him not to bother while I was at the spa because I'd be doing all those treatments, and it would be difficult for him to get hold of me, but he wouldn't listen. He said he couldn't go to sleep at night unless he talked to me. So don't you see? If we can just wait it out, my husband will have the police tearing Colorado apart looking for me." "We can't wait," Carrie objected. Sara shook her head at her for losing her cool. "You sound like you have a wonderful marriage," she told Anne.

"Yes, I do. We're blissfully happy." There was a note of defiance. "And he will search for me."

"Yes, I'm sure he will," Sara placated. "But we might not have time to wait for the police to find us. Colorado's a big state."

Anne nodded. "Yes, you're right. We have to help ourselves. All right," she said as she untied the cord around her right arm. "What can I do? I don't know that I can be much help because I'm just getting over a long bout of illness. I've lost weight, and I don't have my strength back yet. I'm an excellent cook, though. I could fix us something to eat."

"That would be wonderful," Sara said. "Thank you, Anne."

Carrie wasn't as trusting. Maybe Anne had come to her senses. Then again, maybe she was simply playing them. The stakes were too high to trust her. Carrie decided that either she or Sara had to keep an eye on the woman at all times.

"Is anyone hungry now?" Anne asked as she stood.

"I am," Sara said.

Anne didn't seize the opportunity to make a sarcastic remark about Sara's weight this time. In fact, she apologized for what she had said earlier, and damn if she didn't sound sincere.

"I never should have called you a fat pig. I was overwrought, but that is a poor excuse for hurting your feelings."

"Sara, why don't you stay here and keep Anne company while I search the house again," Carrie said. "I'll start at the top and work my way down. I've got to be missing something."

She was actually beginning to feel a little optimistic as she ran up the stairs. She hurriedly dressed in her designer sweats and

then methodically rechecked each opening. There was a tiny window high up in the corner of her bedroom. It took her a long

time to move the bureau over to the wall and then climb up, but she still wasn't tall enough. She ran downstairs to get one of the dining room chairs. She noticed Sara was standing on a chair in front of the double-pane living room windows. She had a lipstick and was printing the word "help" across the glass.

Carrie stopped her. "If Monk, or whatever the hell the bastard's name is, has put a triggering device outside…" She didn't have

to finish her thought.

"The house will blow when help arrives."

"It's a possibility," Carrie said as she lifted the chair and started back up the stairs.

"I'll stop," Sara said. She got off the chair and went to get a towel to wipe off the letters she'd just written.

"What about trying to cut through the glass?" Carrie heard Anne ask as she continued on up the spiral staircase.

Carrie's arms ached from the exertion of lifting the chair on top of the bureau. It took her three tries, and she was panting

because she was so terribly out of shape. She fell trying to climb to the top, but fortunately, she landed on the bed. She propped the chair against the wall and tried again. When she was finally able to reach the window, she burst into tears. The son of a bitch had wired that tiny little egress too.

She wouldn't give up, no matter how hopeless their situation was. Maybe Anne's suggestion would work. Maybe they could cut through the glass without disturbing the wires. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she gingerly scraped her diamond ring against the sliding glass door. Fifteen minutes later she stopped. All she had managed to do in that time was make a small scratch on the glass.

Carrie walked down a flight to the next level and proceeded to examine Anne's room and then Sara's. She spent hours trying one thing and then another before she finally gave up. She'd wasted the afternoon and part of the evening on the impossible.