Chapter One Hundred Kiersten
Chapter One Hundred
Kiersten
He stumped around the room with a cane, looking at the shelves and the hole in the ceiling where a black tube now protruded.
“Let me go, Dickie,” Kiersten pleaded.
He froze for a long moment, then turned to stare at her. “Dottie was the only person who ever called me that,” he said softly. “It was her pet name for me. A nickname. Odd that you should use it, too, just before you die the same way she did.”
A hyperawareness filled her body, like a useless superpower. The dank smell. The sweat on her upper lip. The papery folds above Richard’s eyes. “I won’t tell anyone. I’ll pack up and go back to Minnesota. You’ll never see or hear from me again.”
He tilted his head, eyes wide behind his bifocals.
“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who would overlook a murder.
That’s why you read all of Dottie’s boring diaries.
Went to the library. Did your homework. Tried to figure out what happened to her.
I very much doubt you would retreat to your dairy farm and forget this ever happened. ”
“What are you going to do with me?” Her voice came out shrill, an octave too high.
“The same thing I did with Dottie,” he said simply. “Margaret was right to demand that we leave this room exactly as it was back in 1965. Who knew it would come in handy again, all these years later?”
“It won’t work.” Kiersten swallowed, tried to sound calm. “We know what you did. We know what Chip and Trey are doing with the houses, how they’re trying to scare us into selling.”
“And you can prove nothing without the diaries,” Dickie said. “Which we now have.”
She forced herself not to glance at the pile of board games stacked on the lower shelf.
“If I’m not home in an hour, they’ll come here looking for me.”
“And you’ll be dead by then.”
She needed to stall for time, to keep them talking. If she hadn’t returned by lunchtime, they’d look inside her car and realize she’d never left. Piper would know something was wrong.
“Is Aspen in on this too?” she asked.
“Aspen is a useful and beautiful idiot, like my own wife.” Dickie jutted his chin in Peggy’s direction. “Like most women.”
“They’ll know what you did,” Kiersten repeated.
Trey snorted. “It won’t matter, because they can’t prove it. And in an hour you’ll be buried under the concrete foundation we’re pouring for the second house next door.”
Keep them talking. Stall for time.
“We have you on video. Entering our houses. Vandalizing the construction site.”
“That wasn’t us,” Chip sneered. “And you know it.”
“Who was it then?”
“Our business partner, Bruno Orlov.” Dickie smiled.
“Dynamo Development,” Kiersten whispered.
Chip smiled. “You’ve been paying attention. We launder his money through our building projects.”
“He’s got a son named Alex Orlov,” Trey said.
“Talented kid, especially considering he’s only fourteen years old.
We hired him to harass Caitlin Mondello.
And to pick a fight at school with your son Luke.
And to bully that weird girl with blue hair who’s always wearing a cape.
And to show up at the Harvest Festival and plant the idea that his family was going to move in next door.
You were supposed to get so frustrated that you’d move to a different school district.
I never thought you’d start homeschooling. ”
Kiersten’s eyes narrowed as she struggled to understand so much evil. It was one thing to target adults . . . but children too? “All in an effort to drive us away.”
Chip nodded. “The bloody papers nailed to the tree. The noose on Lillian’s porch.
The cockroaches and sex ads on Craigslist. You guys were supposed to become so scared and anxious to get out of here that you’d take the first lowball offer that came your way from a buyer who is actually Dynamo Development. ”
“Then we tear down those old houses you guys live in and build three new McModern Farmhouses on each lot,” Trey said. “And make millions.”
“Where does Aspen come into all this?” Kiersten asked.
“Aspen documents the construction process on Instagram. She picks out the tile and the flooring and the fixtures, all that dumb stuff. In a couple months, she signs her HGTV contract for her new show, Happy House Life Block Party. By the time those houses are finished, we’ll have millions of views on Instagram and a season’s worth of free advertising on HGTV. ”
Chip nodded. “People will get into bidding wars to buy a home on the block she made famous. And then we do it all over again in a different neighborhood. Orlov gives us dirty money. We launder it through our building projects, and it comes out clean. We sell the houses. Aspen gets a TV show and makes even more money, which adds an aura of legitimacy to the whole thing. It’s a win-win-win. ”
“For everyone but you,” Trey added. “Sometimes getting to know your neighbors is deadly.”
“C’mon, Margaret, time to go,” Dickie said, attempting to pull his wife up from the cot.
Kiersten froze as the blanket shifted, leaving the bottom edge of her phone visible.
Peggy brushed his arm away. “I’m not leaving.”
Dickie rolled his eyes. “This? Again? Sixty years later?”
She shook her head vigorously. “I’m not leaving. Not this time. If you kill her, you have to kill me too.”
Dickie rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself.”
Chip’s eyes widened in horror. “I am not going to murder my own mother.”
He went over to Peggy and took her hands. “Please, Mom. It’s time to go.”
“Peggy, you need to go with them.” Kiersten wanted to pull her up from the cot, but she couldn’t with her hands zip-tied behind her back. “Aspen and those little girls need you . . . given what the men in this family are like.”
Peggy shook her head. “I’m staying with her.”
Trey heaved a sigh, then strode across the room and picked up his tiny grandmother and carried her out of the room.
Dickie turned and left the bunker. “Let’s finish this.”
The door slammed. Kiersten was alone.