33. Scarlett
Scarlett
Music played softly through the speakers as I swept the floor at Daisy Days, a traditional Japanese melody that was soothing and relaxing.
I made a mental note to ask Daisy when she got back what that instrument was that sounded like a harp.
I really liked it, and I liked to think that the baby did too.
The bell above the door jingled, and before I could even turn around, the lights went out.
The darkness closed in around me, the light from outside silhouetting a figure in the doorway.
“Hey,” I yelled. “Excuse me. Turn the lights back on.”
“I don’t think I will, thanks,” the voice said. The click of the lock echoed in the quietness. A chill ran down my spine when he took a step further into the space, closer to me. I held the broom like a staff.
“It’s Tyler, right?” Between Daisy mentioning his name that day he was in here with me and his arrest after he assaulted her at Harpoon’s, I was well aware of his name.
“Scarlett Hart. You’re not the only one who knows names around here.”
“Turn on the lights, Tyler. This isn’t funny.”
His dark laugh made goose bumps rise on the back of my neck. “Mmm. It is a little funny. You should see your face right now. I bet your eyes are all wide and wild.”
My heart was beating at lightning speed, my limbs frozen to the floor. I could hear my breath turning ragged.
“Don’t be embarrassed. I like that look,” he said, taking another step closer.
“Don’t. Don’t come any closer.”
My phone was plugged in behind the desk. Dammit. I really needed to learn to keep it on me at all times.
The sound of ringing made me jump. I looked back at my phone, but that wasn’t right. That wasn’t my ringtone.
“You don’t mind if I take this, right, Scarlett?” he said as he pulled his phone out of his back pocket.
He answered the phone with a huff. “What?… I’m with a friend…” His voice turned sultry as he spoke. I turned, ready to run out the back door. “Uh-uh-uh… I don’t think so.” He sidestepped in front of me, blocking my path. He was closer now, and I could hear a voice on the other side of the call.
“We’ve got trouble. Where the hell are you?”
“I told you, I’m with a friend.”
“ Help !” I yelled. “Call 9-1-1. He’s at Daisy Days Flower Shop. Help me.”
I had no idea who was on the other side of that call, but if Tyler didn’t want them here, then I probably did.
“Fuck. Stay where you are,” I heard the man say.
Tyler pocketed his phone, tsking me with a shake of his head. “That wasn’t very nice, Scarlett. I don’t think you really want to piss me off, do you? ”
He advanced on me, making me feel like his prey. Even the way he moved was pure predator. I backed up another step.
“Stay back, Tyler. I don’t know what you want, but stay away from me.”
It wasn’t just me I needed to protect. I had a brand-new life growing inside of me. I couldn’t let anything happen to it.
“You don’t know what I want? I’m surprised. With what a nosy little bitch you are, I would think you would have figured it out.”
He lunged forward, reaching for the broom. I swung it wildly, connecting it with his wrist. A shriek sounded, and I wasn’t sure if it was from him or me. I pulled the broom back and lunged at him, backing him away a few steps.
“Fucking cunt.” In a flash, he pulled something from his pocket. A quiet tink , and metal glimmered in his hands from the light of the windows.
He feigned a lunge, causing me to stumble back with a scream.
His laugh could only be described as evil. “You’re so much fun to play with, Scarlett. I should have done this sooner.”
I went to take another step back, only to find that I had backed myself into a corner.
The checkout counter was on my right, the display table against the side wall to my back, and Tyler blocked my path in front of me.
I couldn’t get around him to the front door or past him to the other side of the counter in order to access the back door.
Fuck.
Noise rose from the back room. I had no idea if it was friend or foe. Someone who’d heard me scream and was going to help or whoever was on the phone with Tyler a minute ago—an ally of his .
“Christ. What are you doing, boy?”
Captain Langston turned from the back room into the showroom, his eyes focused on Tyler. Thank God. Someone must have heard and called the police. I couldn’t lower my guard yet, but just knowing he was here lightened the fear that coiled in my chest.
“Captain, thank God you’re here. This guy is crazy. Keep him away from me.”
He didn’t even look at or acknowledge me. The relief that I had felt a moment ago dissipated when he opened his mouth.
“It’s too late, Tyler. He already knows. We need to get you out of here.”
“What does he know? He can’t know everything. You said you were taking care of it. You said it would be handled,” Tyler yelled back. His deranged eyes no longer focused on me as he shot his venomous stare at Captain.
“I know what I said. I had handled it. They just kept digging. It isn’t just the murder either. They have you linked to the break-ins as well,” Captain griped.
“What is happening right now?” I hadn’t meant to ask the question out loud. I should have just kept my mouth shut because now they were both looking at me. “Captain? Do you know him?”
“Scarlett, you were never supposed to be involved in this. You should have just stayed out of it.”
“Stayed out of what?”
“There’s Scarlett, listening in on the other side of the doors.
There’s Scarlett, fiddle-fucking around with the evidence logs.
There’s Scarlett, making copies of the case file to bring home to her perfect little boyfriend,” Tyler mocked.
“It’s all I kept hearing. I warned you though.
I told you that if you didn’t back away, you were going to end up just like her.
And look at you now.” He twirled the knife around his fingers, playing with it.
“ You left that note on my car? You broke into my apartment too, didn’t you? I know someone had been in my apartment that night. It was you, wasn’t it?”
“What—” Tyler started.
“Shut up,” Captain yelled. “Shut up, the both of you. Let me think.”
My heart thundered. The noise around me muffled as the sound of my own blood flow drowned out everything else.
“No. No. Captain, I don’t understand. How does he know about those things?
How did you know?” My brain was slow to make the connection, focused as much as I was on just staying alive, but it was clear that whatever Tyler knew, it was because of Captain Langston.
He was the dirty cop. The one keeping Ryan locked up on Alana’s murder so that Tyler could walk free.
“There isn’t a spot in that building that I don’t have a feed on, Hart.
You think I didn’t see you making copies of our internal case file and leaving it for Wilder in your desk drawer or taking pictures down in the evidence room?
If Monroe hadn’t walked in when he did, you would have been down there all day.
You would have noticed that Monroe’s name signed out the cigarette, but it was my email address attached to it. ”
This couldn’t be happening. It didn’t make any sense. I asked the only question on my mind. “Why?”
“Why? My idiot nephew told me he left the butt behind. I needed to intercept the results, otherwise it would have ruled Redmond out. I didn’t frame the guy. I just left it ambiguous enough, hardly a crime.”
What? He didn’t think that falsifying records was considered a crime? He didn’t feel the least bit guilty knowing Ryan was in jail for something Tyler— his nephew —did?
“You didn’t listen, Scarlett. You kept inserting yourself where you had no business being. Getting rid of you was the safest thing—for all of us.”
A momentary slap of indignation flared within me. He specifically fired me because he thought I was a threat to his nephew—the murderer! The gall!
And then I remembered that now was really not the time to worry about that. A literal murderer was still blocking my path to the front while his corrupt uncle stood in the way of my escape out the back.
I needed to keep him talking until I could figure out a plan. I said the first thing that came to my mind. “You fired me but not Luke? How does that make any sense?”
“I couldn’t fire Wilder. He’s the best cop we’ve got.
He has a spotless record and an impeccable reputation.
Firing him over a tiny indiscretion would raise too many questions.
You, on the other hand, no one would bat an eye.
Besides, his feud with Monroe was keeping him plenty occupied for a while,” he said.
Now that he had started talking, he kept going, like he needed to get it off his chest. “When Monroe asked me to meet him for pizza, I thought he might have had questions about the veracity of the case, but then he told me to expect some fallout from his affair. The timing of that couldn’t have been any more perfect.
A distraction to keep them both occupied enough to lose focus.
I mean, Monroe never even questioned why the forensic report came through me instead of directly to him. ”
The sound of a phone ringing seemed to capture all of our attention. Langston glanced down at it, the streetlight outside highlighting his one raised brow.
“And if it isn’t your partner in crime,” he said. His choice of words would have been laughable, given the current predicament.
“I bet he’ll be so cut up about her death he won’t have the energy to worry about anything else,” Tyler said.
He clearly didn’t know Luke. If there was one person on this planet that I could count on to avenge my death, it was Luke.
By the sounds of it, he had already put together the pieces that I was just figuring out.
He already knew that Tyler had murdered poor Alana.
I had no doubt that he would go to the ends of the Earth to get justice for me and his unborn baby.
Not that I was going to allow that to happen.
It wasn’t an option, and I needed to focus if I wanted any chance of making it out of this unharmed.
The text alerts sounded next. A minute later, another call.
“You can’t take another life, Tyler. This town won’t stand for it. I won’t be able to cover it up for you this time. There’s no one else to let the blame fall to. We need to get you out of here.”
Tyler sneered at Langston. “You didn’t cover it up the first time either, otherwise Wilder wouldn’t be on my ass.
” He twirled his knife again, his eyes bouncing between Langston and me.
“You know what I’m thinking?” His voice was eerily calm.
He pointed the tip of the knife at Langston.
“I think you’re about to go down for corruption.
And she—” With a flick of his wrist, the knife was pointing directly at me now.
“—was the reason it came to light. You needed to silence the witness before she could talk. Sad, really. She was kind of hot.” He shrugged, a callous smirk tilting the corners of his lips.
“But you were so cut up about it you had to take your own life too.”
This was not how I saw my afternoon going.
My only thoughts turned to an escape plan. I needed to get out of here, away from the both of them. I needed to protect my child. Langston was yelling at Tyler, keeping him distracted. This was my best chance to make a move.
“You ungrateful like fuck. You want to threaten me? What’s your plan, you imbecile? That I ran into your knife after I killed Scarlett? Just plunged it into my chest like some fucking Shakespeare shit?”
I carefully put the broom down, leaning it against the display table behind me.
Reaching back without turning around, my fingers connected with the cool touch of ceramic.
I traded my original weapon for something with more heft, wrapping my fingers around the neck of the vase and oh…
so… slowly… moving it around to the front of me.
Tyler’s attention was focused on his uncle.
I took stock of my situation and surroundings.
I would essentially have to slip past both of them to get out the back while the front was really only guarded by Tyler.
The door was locked though, and although it locked from the inside, it would take precious seconds with my shaking hands to unlock it.
I couldn’t just make a run for it, but if I created a big enough scene, caused enough damage to just hold him back for a moment, I could do it.
I had to.
I took a breath, trying to calm my rapid pulse, to no avail.
This was the best chance I had with Tyler distracted fighting with Captain .
Fuck it.
I pulled my arm back and sailed the vase across the room, hitting Tyler in the shoulder and spinning him around. The vase clattered to the ground, broken pieces scattering around. A sunny array of delphinium, aster, and roses lay sadly at his feet.
He cursed loudly, but before he had a chance to process, I hurled another arrangement at him. Then another.
A battle-worthy scream left my lungs with every attack. I stepped backward toward the door, picking up every vase I could lay my hands on. I never let up, giving him no time to counter my attack. The front door was behind me now.
I spun around to find the lock in the dark room, twisting it to the right as fast as I could.
My hand wrapped around the doorknob, my blood screaming for the freedom that lay on the other side of the door.
I was ripped backward, Tyler’s fist closing around my sweater, yanking me hard.
Langston was yelling, but I couldn’t process what he was saying. Was he yelling at me or Tyler?
A crash sounded from the back room. Tyler looked up toward the noise.
I didn’t hesitate. I couldn’t. The heel of my hand connected with his nose with as much force as I could muster. His hands came up to block his face.
I ripped the door open, running out onto the sidewalk, oblivious to the cold November air, and ran into the brick wall that was Wes.