Chapter 23 #2
This is how I die, I thought distantly. In a basement in Maine, and no one will ever know what happened.
No!
Somewhere, I found the strength to push him off me and roll out from under him. I scrambled to my feet, gasping for air, my vision swimming. My face throbbed where he'd hit me. My palms were bleeding. Everything hurt.
But I was alive.
And the table behind me had tools, a screwdriver and a wrench. I grabbed the wrench and when Jeff came at me again, I swung the wrench at his head as hard as I could. He stumbled back in shock. "You bitch!"
I took advantage of his weakened state to hit him again, and this time he went down and stayed down.
I stared at him in shock as I heard banging upstairs, then a crash, and someone running down the steps.
I really hoped it wasn't Tom, because he would probably accuse me of trying to kill his brother.
I raised the wrench, tried to prepare myself for another fight, but my head was spinning, my vision blurring…
"Cassidy!"
Finn rushed down the stairs, his eyes taking in the scene—Jeff unconscious on the floor, me holding a bloody wrench in my hand with more blood dripping down my face.
"I—Jeff," I stuttered. "He was going to kill me. Like he killed Natalie."
"Oh, my God," he said as he came toward me and put his arms around my stiff body. "You're okay now. You're safe."
I was afraid to trust his words, but I was too weak to do anything but sink into his embrace. After a moment, he pulled slightly away to call 911. As he was doing that, I glanced back at Jeff, who was still unconscious, his forehead bloody from my last strike.
"I've never been in a fight before," I murmured. "Never hurt anyone. And definitely never tried to kill anyone." I glanced back at Finn's grim expression. "It was him or me. I couldn't disappear like the others. I couldn't let him win."
"You're saying Jeff killed Natalie?"
"Her locket is…" My voice trailed away as I realized I'd dropped the locket during our fight, then I saw it on the ground.
"It's there. And in that other box are other pieces of jewelry and women's clothing.
There's even some dark hair in an envelope.
He said there were others… I don't know how many. But he killed them."
As I started to shake, Finn put his arms around me again. "You don't have to say everything now."
"If Tom comes here, he's going to try to spin this. He'll say I hurt Jeff. He'll hide the evidence. We have to do something." I felt panicked and desperate again. I'd escaped from Jeff, but Tom might be even more dangerous with the weight of the law behind him.
"I agree," Finn said. "I'm going to call the mayor. We need investigators here who aren't related to the suspect."
As Finn got on the phone with the mayor's office, I heard sirens, the second time this week they'd come for me. But I was still alive, still breathing, and that felt like a miracle.
Several minutes later, two officers came down the stairs who I didn't recognize, but Finn greeted them by name, telling them that Jeff had attacked me, and that he'd admitted to killing at least one of the women who'd disappeared from the inn.
That seemed to surprise both of them, and they exchanged a look of concern, as if they weren't sure what to do with the sheriff's brother being accused of murder. One dropped to his knees to check on Jeff, while the other turned to me.
"An ambulance is on the way. I'm Deputy Mendez," he said. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"Jeff Holloway tried to kill me because I found his stash of trophies that he'd taken from the women he killed, including Natalie Warren."
The deputy cleared his throat. "That's quite an accusation."
"It's not an accusation; it's the truth.
Jeff told me everything because he didn't plan on my being able to tell anyone else.
That locket on the ground over there belonged to Natalie Warren.
Her initials are on it. In that open box you'll find items that belonged to other women, including a bloody scarf and some thick strands of brown hair. "
The second deputy left Jeff's side to check on my claims. He looked in the box, then back at his partner. "It's just what she said—"
His words were interrupted by more sirens, followed by more voices, and then a trail of people came down the stairs, including the sheriff and two EMTs.
The first one to reach the bottom was Tom Holloway, his face red, his eyes burning with anger and what might have been fear.
"What the hell is going on—" He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Jeff on the floor. The color drained from his face. "My God! What did you do to my brother?" He turned to the EMTs. "Help him."
The two men rushed to Jeff's side.
"Jeff attacked Cassidy," Finn said, waving his hand toward my bloodied face. "As you can see, she had to defend herself."
Tom looked at me, then at his brother's unconscious form. "I don't understand," he said with a shake of his head.
"Jeff killed Natalie," I told him. "He admitted it to me. And other women, too, lonely women who had no one to look for them."
"There must be a mistake."
"There's not. There's evidence in that box, and probably on the locket on the floor, which belonged to Natalie."
"She's right," the deputy next to the box said. "There's a bloody scarf, human hair, and a bunch of other jewelry."
"It's not possible," Tom said. "No, this is wrong. She's trying to set Jeff up, tell a story to sell her podcast. She's a liar."
"Stop," Finn ordered, his commanding voice shutting down Tom's panicked ramble. "You need to step back, Tom. You can't investigate this. Jeff is your brother. It's a conflict of interest."
"I'm the sheriff. I decide who investigates."
"Not this time," another man said as he came down the stairs. "Deputy Mendez will be running this investigation, Tom. I want this scene secured. Every piece of evidence needs to be documented, and we'll need statements from everyone here." He paused, then turned to me. "I'm Mayor Brennan."
"Cassidy Clarke."
"You look like you need medical attention, Ms. Clarke."
"I'm okay. I just want to make sure that Jeff Holloway is arrested and that his brother can't let him go, that he can't bury evidence, can't try to pin this on me."
"I will make sure this investigation is run by the book," the mayor said. "Can you tell us what happened?"
"Yes, tell us what the hell happened," the sheriff said forcefully.
"Tom," the mayor warned. "Stay out of this."
"I came down here with Dorothy. She was going to give me photos of my family, but then the doorbell rang, and she went upstairs.
While she was gone, I looked around for the photos.
I opened that box, and I saw Natalie's locket.
I had it in my hand when Jeff came down the stairs.
Her initials are engraved on it, and she was wearing it in photos that I saw of her.
I knew it was hers. And when Jeff saw me holding it, he knew I'd figured that out. "
I waited for Tom to interrupt, but he was surprisingly silent.
"There are other items in the box," I continued.
"And Jeff told me that there were other women.
" I paused, feeling sick and in pain, but I had to get the words out.
"He was preying on lonely women who had no family, who could disappear without anyone asking questions.
I think Dorothy was giving him some information, but he said she didn't know what he was doing with that info. "
My breath caught in my throat. "He was going to kill me. I was going to disappear like the others. But I couldn’t let him get away with murder. We fought, and, somehow, I was able to grab a wrench and hit him over the head with it a couple of times. Then Finn showed up."
"This can't be," Tom muttered. "This is wrong—all wrong. There's been a mistake."
"No mistake," I said forcefully. "Your brother is a killer, and he said it's always been women who look like Natalie, like me, and most importantly, like Lily. He said he was in love with your high school girlfriend, and she rejected him, and she left him."
"She killed herself," Tom said. "This is crazy. Why are you talking about Lily?"
"Because Jeff was talking about her,” I told him.
"And you know I'm not lying. Jeff also said other things, too, that you and my grandmother have been trafficking women for years.
He figured out where you moved them to be picked up, and he intercepted them, picking off the ones he wanted to fill the void in his life. "
Tom opened his mouth, but no words came out. "None of that is true."
"It's all true." I leaned forward, putting my hands on my knees as the pain in my head sent a wave of nausea running through me.
"That's enough, Tom," the mayor interrupted as the paramedics came down the stairs. "We'll get a complete statement after someone takes a look at you, Ms. Clarke."
Jeff suddenly groaned as his eyes flickered open, and he took in the scene in confusion. One of the paramedics moved to him, while the other came to me.
"Why don't we go upstairs?" the EMT suggested to me.
I was afraid to leave, still terrified they'd cover up this crime like all the others.
"I'll make sure nothing is tampered with," Finn assured me.
"Okay," I said, allowing myself to be taken up the stairs as I heard Jeff telling them that I attacked him.
That almost sent me back down to the basement, but I told myself that Jeff couldn't lie his way out of this. It wasn't his word against mine. There was proof of his crimes, and he was going to have to answer for them, and there was no way his brother was going to be able to cover for him.
I sat down on the couch in Dorothy's living room as the EMT tended to my cuts.
"Looks like you have some older scratches, too," he commented.
"I was in a car accident two nights ago."
"Not your week, huh?"
"Definitely not," I said.
"How's the pain in your head?"
"Pounding. He slammed me into the wall and onto the floor."
"Did you lose consciousness?"