Chapter 17 #3
“No,” Amie said, trying to appear calm. “I mean, yeah. I should talk to him. But don’t let me take up any more of your time. It was nice seeing you!”
“You too!” Raina gave her a hug, and Amie felt a wave of relief wash over her. Now she just had to find David—
At first she thought the breeze had penetrated her cardigan again. Her relief rapidly ebbed as she registered the cool metal pressed against the small of her back. Raina pulled one arm away, leaving the other wrapped around Amie’s waist.
“Or we could spend some more time together,” Raina suggested.
She seemed nervous, and without any other context, Amie could have been convinced that the other woman was flirting with her.
But by now she was almost positive Raina had murdered Savannah, which was supported by the knife she seemed to be threatening Amie with, so Amie assumed Raina had more pressing matters on her mind than trying to ask her out on a date.
Amie stammered out something that was just as unintelligible to her as it was to Raina.
“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” Raina said, pulling Amie into the throng of people passing by.
She lowered her voice, speaking into Amie’s ear.
“The alternative option is that I stab you here and leave you bleeding on the ground. Which you might survive, but it’d be painful.
I think we can figure out an easier way to deal with this. Would you prefer that?”
Amie nodded, trying to keep up with Raina’s quickening pace. She was worried one trip, one jostle, any sudden movement might provoke Raina to opt in for the alternative option.
“Where are we going?” Amie asked as she was led around a corner.
“I need to think,” Raina replied. “Just keep moving while I think.”
Trying not to move her head, Amie glanced around, hoping to catch sight of David. They were already moving away from the food area, so unless David had taken a detour to get his face painted, she knew her chances of running into him were lessening with every step.
“Amie?”
“Shit,” Raina muttered. “Act normal. Be quick.”
How does one say “actually, I’m not feeling ready to talk to my ex-girlfriend who just re-broke up with me yesterday” to someone holding them at knifepoint?
Amie couldn’t come up with an answer fast enough as Raina turned them around, which is how she found herself face-to-face with Ziya and two of her friends.
“Hey,” Amie said weakly, hoping that any strain in her voice would just be chalked up to their recent re-estrangement. “Enjoying the festival?”
Ziya was looking at Raina’s arm wrapped around Amie’s waist, which for multiple reasons was something Amie did not want her attention on.
Seeming to realize Ziya wasn’t going to say anything, her friend Alison spoke up.
“Yeah!” she chirped. “We made sure to hit all the rides before getting food. Last year I got sooo sick on the Gravitron. No one wanted a repeat of that.”
“Totally,” Amie agreed, still watching Ziya.
“Hi, I’m Alison,” Alison said to Raina, glancing at her friends as if to say, Why am I the only one talking?
“Raina. Hi.”
Ziya’s other friend, Jamilah, elbowed her. “Did you want to tell Amie something?” she prompted.
Finally looking away from Raina’s arm, Ziya blinked at her. “Huh?”
“You called Amie’s name,” Jamilah said. And everyone is wondering why you’ve put us in this awkward situation, her expression added.
“Oh. Right. Um …” Ziya looked at Amie. “I just, uh, wanted to make sure you were okay.” She glanced at Raina, giving her a tight smile. “But looks like you are.”
“Yup,” Raina said before Amie could speak. “We were actually just about to ride the Ferris wheel. We should probably go before the line gets too long.”
“Right,” Amie said, her heart starting to pound at just the suggestion of riding the Ferris wheel. Of course, she wasn’t about to try to argue with Raina. Not while Ziya was within stabbing distance of that knife, at least. “It was good seeing you guys.”
Ziya had an odd expression on her face, but Amie was too concerned with getting Raina away from her to decipher it. She wanted to alert Ziya to what was happening, but she couldn’t think of a way of doing that without endangering her and her friends.
“Good seeing you, too!” Alison said, smiling.
“Yeah.” Ziya attempted the tight smile again. “Tell David I said hi.”
“I will.” Amie was being pulled away. As they turned, she had a thought.
“Tell Genevieve I said hi, too,” she added, trying to keep any urgency out of her voice.
“Who’s Genevieve?” Raina asked, suspicion staining her voice as Amie hurried them away.
Amie stiffened. Maybe she hadn’t sounded as casual as she’d hoped.
“Her … dog,” Amie stammered. “Genevieve’s her dog.”
“You told her to say hi to her dog?”
Now Amie couldn’t tell if the negativity in Raina’s tone was from doubting her story, or just a general disdain for dog people.
In an attempt to distract her captor from the attempt to signal Ziya, Amie asked, “So did you know Savannah was selling the store? Is that why you killed her?”
She felt a pinch as Raina pressed the knife closer. “Keep your voice down. Jesus.”
Amie straightened her back to try to avoid further contact with the weapon. It turned out being threatened at knifepoint was incredible for one’s posture.
“I knew,” Raina continued, her voice so low Amie had to lean in to hear her over the ambient noise of the festival. “That she was planning on it, at least. I made her an offer—it was low, I knew. I’d been planning on saving for a few more years before she was ready to sell, but I’d hoped …”
She scoffed. “I was an idiot. That woman didn’t care about how many years of my life I gave to that store. She laughed when I told her what I was willing to offer. Laughed. God, I could’ve fucking killed her right there. But I didn’t. I kept my cool.”
“Yeah, you seem really chill and levelheaded. Ow.” Amie winced as the knife pricked her back again. “Sorry.”
“I was,” Raina insisted. “I’d waited that long, I knew I could wait a little longer. Try to buy it off of the next owner. I could be patient. But then I found out that she was considering selling to Madeline. That wasn’t gonna work.”
“Because she was going to combine the businesses,” Amie said. “You’d never have a chance of buying it in the future.”
“Right.”
They stopped at an intersection, waiting for a break in the foot traffic.
“But if you didn’t want the store to go to Madeline, why were you pushing her to talk to Andrew after … oh.” Realization hit Amie like a truck. “You wanted her to upset Andrew so that he wouldn’t sell to her.”
“You got it.” Raina pushed Amie through the intersection.
“I knew it was too soon for her to bring it up at the memorial. She knew, too. Luckily, it didn’t take much work, especially when I kept validating Andrew’s suspicion of her over the next few days.
He was grieving, and he needed someone to blame. I just offered him Madeline.”
“And then you offered him Jonathan Oakland,” Amie said. “You gave him Oakland’s business card and told him you thought Savannah would’ve wanted to sell the store to him. Did you know that wasn’t true?”
“Oh, yeah,” Raina said. “She was trying to figure out if she could sue him for giving her bad advice. But I knew she hadn’t told Andrew. I think she was embarrassed.”
As they turned a corner, Amie suddenly noticed that they were, in fact, heading for the Ferris wheel. Before she could submit a formal complaint, Raina spoke again:
“I figured the old guy was better for my long-term plan than Madeline. He’d told Savannah he’d be willing to sell the store back to her at a higher price once it began making money again.
I knew Andrew wouldn’t take that offer, so I thought maybe Oakland would sell to me instead.
I was willing to wait. But then Savannah said she was going to sell to Madeline. That was a problem.”
“So you came up with a plan to kill her.” Amie watched the Ferris wheel appear to grow in size as they approached. “And found a scapegoat for your crime.”
Raina huffed. “I knew nothing was going to happen to David,” she said, as if annoyed Amie had even implied such a thing.
“There wasn’t enough evidence against him.
I just needed someone for the police to put their attention on long enough for my trail to cool.
I’d see David walking to and from the grocery store every Monday morning, so I knew he’d be there.
I just needed to set Savannah off about something and send her in his direction. ”
“So you canceled the flower order,” Amie said. “And after she rescheduled, you rescheduled it again so it’d be delivered that night, to make her go back to the bookstore, where you were waiting.”
Raina actually looked surprised. “You really have been investigating,” she said, sounding impressed.
“Yeah. I convinced Savannah to wait when the flowers didn’t arrive first thing Monday, but as soon as I saw David go by, I told her they must have canceled the order. That was enough to get her going.”
They stopped at the end of the Ferris wheel’s line, which was shorter than Amie would’ve liked.
“What are we doing here?” Amie asked, as if there was a chance they were going swimming in the lake beyond instead of getting on the very obvious ride in front of them.
“I need time to think without worrying about you running away.” Raina dug into her windbreaker pocket with her free hand, pulling out an accordion of tickets. “Rip off two.”
Amie obliged, ripping off the tickets from the end. Raina returned the rest to her pocket.
“Why David?” Amie asked as Raina took the tickets from her.
“Savannah was literally blackmailing Benny. He had a motive. You were even trying to get me to suspect him.” Another truck of realization struck her (by this point, Amie was wishing the realizations would come to her a little less violently).