Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
Mrs. Haggerty and her friends directed us down a narrow path through the woods to a small, rustic cabin with a handful of tiny windows and wide front porch. It was nestled deeply in the trees, camouflaged by the thick landscape. If it hadn’t been for the oil lamp burning in the window, I might not have spotted it at all.
“Watch your step,” Kathy said, pointing out a fallen log beside the porch. On second look, it wasn’t a log at all, but a long human-shaped bundle wrapped in green tree netting.
“Keep moving.” Viola nudged me between the shoulder blades with her rifle. The warped wooden planks creaked under us as we climbed the porch steps. I paused at the top to steal a look at our surroundings. The cabin overlooked a pond at the bottom of a hill. Beyond its dark, rippling surface, it was all woods and shadows as far as the eye could see. I wasn’t even sure I could find our way back to the minivan in the dark. And even if we could, these women had my keys.
The rusty hinges on the screen door whined, calling my attention back to the house. Lola held it open as we all filed inside. The air in the cabin was close and musty, as if the place hadn’t been used for a while. A lantern burned on a table, casting a soft halo of light around a low-ceilinged room with warm wooden walls and butter-yellow curtains. It was sparsely furnished but cozy. Or maybe it was only staged to look that way.
“Sit down,” Viola said, pointing out two wooden chairs beside a rickety table. Vero looked to me, but I didn’t see how either of us had much of a choice. We both sat down. Gita and Lola came behind us with bundles of tree twine. It chafed against my skin as the women tied my wrists behind my back. Judging by Vero’s wince, they were rough with her, too. I was beginning to regret making Nick promise to come alone. A little police backup suddenly didn’t sound so bad. And the risk of going to prison seemed preferable to being murdered and wrapped up like a Christmas spruce.
Lola held Vero’s cell phone in front of her face, using the facial recognition to access her home screen. Destiny held mine, and I turned away too late as she waved it in front of me.
Vero leaned toward me. “Is this karma?” she whispered out of the side of her mouth. “It feels like karma. All we’re missing are donuts and bags over our faces.”
Mrs. Haggerty sighed. “I wish you girls hadn’t come here.”
Birdie pulled out another chair and helped Mrs. Haggerty sit. She looked down her nose at us and shook her head. I felt like a student in her homeschool classroom, but I didn’t imagine she’d be giving out stickers for good behavior.
“If you didn’t want us crashing your book club meeting, maybe you shouldn’t have framed my ex-husband for murder.”
“I don’t see what you’re so upset about,” Mrs. Haggerty said dismissively. “All you’ve wanted for months is to be free of that duplicitous, horrible man. What’s wrong with letting him suffer a little? Besides, there’s no death penalty in the state of Virginia, and a few years in prison won’t kill him.”
“She has a point,” Vero whispered.
“Steven didn’t murder anyone,” I reminded them both. “He may have done some terrible things, but killing Penny’s husband wasn’t one of them.”
“You’re right. He didn’t kill Penny’s husband,” Mrs. Haggerty conceded. “But you didn’t know that when you went storming off to her house. You went because you believed the accusations against him could be true. You don’t trust that man, you never have. Because he never earned it. And he’s made you doubt the only people in your life you shouldn’t. So tell me, whose good name are you so desperate to protect—Steven’s or your own?” Mrs. Haggerty fixed me with a piercing stare. It was the first time I had looked at the woman and known with complete certainty she was seeing me clearly. That she knew I was hiding secrets, too.
“If I had known you murdered Gilford, I never would have let you move into my house!”
Mrs. Haggerty sighed and shook her head. “This is not how our book club meeting was supposed to go. Frankly, I’m not sure what we’re going to do now.”
“We have to take a vote,” Lola said. “Those are the rules.”
“I know the rules,” Mrs. Haggerty fired back. “I was there when we wrote them. But before we vote on anything, we’re supposed to discuss it. And it seems we all have some discussing to do.” Mrs. Haggerty turned to us and planted her bony hands on her hips. “Why don’t you two tell us how much you saw before you followed us here.”
“Nothing!” Vero said, shaking her head emphatically. “We saw absolutely nothing. Right, Finlay? And we didn’t follow you. Tell them we didn’t follow them, Finlay.”
Vero’s phone buzzed in Lola’s hand. She narrowed her eyes at the screen.
“What’s wrong?” Birdie asked.
The buzzing continued with a relentless frequency. Lola grimaced as she read. “Someone named Cam is blowing up her phone. He says he knew all along she wanted the eggplant. He says his eggplant is too good for her. That it will never belong to her and he’ll make her regret she ever touched it.” Vero and I exchanged a look while the women’s faces puckered with disgust. Cam must have put a tracer on the Lincoln. He must have realized that Vero’s phone was in the same location as the car, and he assumed she took it.
“He sounds like a disgusting jerk,” Birdie said.
“If we get rid of the eggplant guy for them, maybe they’ll swear not to tell anyone what they saw tonight,” Gita suggested. “We can make them part of the club.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Kathy agreed.
Destiny checked her watch. “Maybe my sitter can stay for a few more hours.”
I tried to get up but I was tied to the chair. “No one’s killing the eggplant guy! He’s practically a child!”
The horrified women gawked at Vero.
“I didn’t touch his eggplant!” she cried. “It belongs to Mrs. Haggerty!”
Mrs. Haggerty smacked the table. “Forget all that nonsense. We have far more pressing problems to deal with.”
“Um… Guys?” Everyone turned to Destiny as she scrolled frantically through my phone. “Finlay texted our location to someone named Nick. It looks like he’ll be here any minute.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Haggerty said. “That’s a shame. I liked that one. He always did smell nice.”
“Who’s Nick?” Birdie asked.
“He’s a detective,” Mrs. Haggerty said, rising stiffly from her chair.
A wave of panic rippled through the room. Sally’s lower lip began to tremble.
“What do we do?” Destiny asked.
Birdie peeped through the curtains toward the road. “I say we shoot him.”
“No!” I wrenched my wrists and bounced in my chair. “That would be a very bad idea!”
“A very, very bad idea! He’s a really good cop!” Vero called out over the women as they started to argue. “The best! He’s like John McClane in Die Hard, but with better hair. And a lot more backup!”
I shook my head and whispered to Vero, “I made him promise to come alone.”
“What were you thinking!” she cried.
“You were the one who said I was stupid for calling him!”
Viola grabbed her rifle and shoved Kathy and Birdie toward the door. “Put Robert under the porch. The rest of us will deal with the cop.”
“Stop! Wait!” I shouted. Panic took hold of me as the women rushed out of the cabin, leaving Vero and me lashed to our chairs. I called after Mrs. Haggerty as the screen door slammed behind her.
We had to get out of here. We had to stop Nick before he made it to the cabin, or the three of us were going to end up in a grave with Sally’s husband. All I’d wanted was to prove that Penny had lied about Steven—that she’d known Mrs. Haggerty all along—and Penny wasn’t even here.
“What are you doing?” Vero asked me as I started bouncing in my chair. It thumped over the floor as I steered it toward the kitchen. “There must something sharp in here. Maybe we can cut the twine.”
Vero bounced up and down in her chair and thumped into the kitchen beside me. “The knife block is empty”
“Help me look for something else.”
She followed my lead, using her teeth to grab the knobs and open all the drawers. “There’s nothing here!”
“What about the pruning scissors you took from the truck?”
Vero’s eyes widened. “They’re in my belt, under my coat. Maybe you can reach them.”
Vero and I bounced in our chairs, rotating ourselves inch by inch until we were back-to-back.
“You’re too far away,” I said, stretching my fingers behind me. “Push yourself closer.” There was a soft screech as Vero’s chair slid backward into mine, close enough for my fingers to brush the hem of her coat. “I’ve got it,” I said, prying the tool from her belt loop. “Hold still. I’m going to try to cut you free.”
“If you accidentally kill me and join their creepy book club cult, I swear to god, Finlay, I will never forgive you.”
“Shh! I’m concentrating.” I gripped the scissors and felt around for the twine. “I really hope this isn’t your finger,” I said, wedging something long and thin between the blades.
“There’s no dismemberment coverage on my cheap-ass HMO, Finlay! Please do not cut off my—”
I squeezed my eyes shut and snipped. When no one screamed, I opened one eye.
Vero leapt to her feet and shook off the last of her twine. She knelt and took the scissors from me. With two quick snips, I was out of my chair.
“What do we do?” she asked, peeking out the window. The women were huddled in a circle, their raised voices muted but clear as they argued with one another at the bottom of the porch.
“I vote we shoot him,” Birdie said. Kathy raised her hand. So did Gita.
Sally wrung hers. “This wasn’t in the bylaws of the membership agreement.”
Lola crossed her arms and paced. “We don’t have time to wait for a fucking quorum!”
Viola clutched her rifle. “Whatever we’re doing, we need to decide quick. You heard Destiny. He could be here any minute.”
Vero crouched under the window beside me. “We need to call Nick and warn him.”
“We can’t. Destiny and Lola have our phones.”
“What about your keys?” she suggested. “If we can get to the van without being seen, maybe we can intercept Nick at the road.”
I searched frantically around the room and found my keys hanging on a hook beside the door. I stuffed them in my pocket. “Maybe there’s another way out,” I said. “Come on.”
Vero scurried after me down a short, dark hall. There were only two doors, both of them shut. I tried the knob on the first one, but it was locked. I could have sworn I heard rustling behind it. My heart skipped a beat as I wondered if one of the women might still be inside.
“Hurry!” Vero whispered. “Try the next one.”
The next door opened easily. Vero and I slipped inside the bedroom and locked the door behind us. I ran to the window on the back wall.
“It’s kind of small. Sure you can fit?” Vero asked. “What? I’m just saying.”
“Go!” I wedged it open and gave her a boost. She shimmied through it, grunting when she hit the ground.
“Come on!” she whispered.
I put both arms through the opening, then my head. Vero grabbed my hands and pulled. The window scraped the sides of my coat. I wriggled as she tugged.
“This must be what a farmer feels like when he’s delivering a cow.”
“Shut up,” I hissed as my hips got stuck. “Pull harder!”
Vero gave one final pull, and I came tumbling out. My body hit the ground, the force of it knocking the wind from my lungs. With a wince, I forced myself to my feet.
“I think the minivan is that way. If we cut through the trees, maybe they won’t see us.” Vero pulled me behind her as she broke into a run.
We rounded the corner of the house. I slammed into Vero’s back as she skidded to a stop.
Viola leveled her rifle at us. The rest of the book club stood behind her.
They were all holding knives.
I grabbed on to Vero and started walking us backward. “That explains why the knife block was empty.”
Vero put up her hands. “I saw those things in a TV commercial once. They cut through tin cans. And firewood. And blocks of frozen spinach. These ladies are not fucking around, Finlay.”
“There’s more tree netting in the truck,” Gita told the others.
“Wait!” I held out a hand as Kathy and Birdie started toward us. “No one has to die tonight.” Vero tugged my sleeve. She jutted her chin at a human-shaped imprint in the dirt where Robert had been a few minutes ago. The ground cover had been scraped away, leaving a trail that disappeared under the shadows of the porch. “No one except for Robert has to die tonight,” I corrected.
“You have a better idea?” Destiny asked.
“Yes, she does!” Vero called out. “She has a much better idea! A brilliant idea! Tell them your awesome idea, Finlay.”
“Right… “I said, struggling to come up with a plan that did not involve tree netting or chopped spinach. “Nick will be here in a few minutes. He’ll be driving onto private property, outside of his jurisdiction, without cause and without a warrant. Which means all three of us are trespassers, and you are completely within your rights to point that gun at us and threaten to shoot us—”
“That’s your brilliant plan?” Vero cried, taking another step backward as the women closed in on us.
“But if you let us go and give us our phones, we can call Nick right now and stop him before he gets here. Vero and I will get in my minivan and leave, and this can all be explained away. As far as anyone needs to know, the only crime you will have committed here is confronting two trespassers on Viola’s property, and everyone makes it out of here safely. We can all go home to our families and pretend this never happened. But if you harm one of us— any of us,” I said, making eye contact with each of them—“there is no going back.”
The women cast uncertain glances at each other.
“How do we know you won’t double-cross us?” Lola asked.
These women didn’t trust me. And for good reason. If Vero and I were lucky enough to walk out of here with our lives, I was damn sure going straight to Nick to tell him what I’d seen tonight.
“We won’t say anything. Right, Finlay?” Vero elbowed me in the ribs.
“They won’t say a word,” Mrs. Haggerty answered for me.
“How can you be sure?” Birdie asked.
“Because these two are as guilty as we are.” She pointed a knobby finger at us. “I’ve been watching both of you for months. Don’t think I haven’t seen a few things.”
Vero tensed beside me. I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Detective Tran was very interested in my neighborhood watch diaries,” Mrs. Haggerty continued. “There’s one in particular I’m sure he would be very eager to see right about now, considering how curious he is about the two of you. I’ve been keeping that notebook someplace safe. Didn’t figure you’d want the police getting hold of it.”
I couldn’t be sure how much Mrs. Haggerty had seen the night Harris Mickler died in my garage, or what she knew of Vero’s criminal charges in Maryland. But I wasn’t willing to take any chances, and, judging by the calculating gleam in Mrs. Haggerty’s eyes, she knew it.
“What will you do with it?” I asked as headlights swept across the cabin.
“I suppose that’s up to you,” she said. “But if you don’t want to dig your own graves, you’ll keep your mouths shut.”