Page 41 of Sour Layer

Chapter 24

I sat across from the crazy lunatic. The wig on the man’s head was crooked. His lipstick outside the lines. The dress he was wearing was buttoned up to the neck, the sweater pulled tight around his chest. He stared at me over the rim of his coffee cup. The table was set for two. Plates, forks, and thank you, dear God, a knife.

“Drink up, dear,” he said in a voice that was slightly different from the one that had yelled at me in the bomb shelter.

“No, thank you,” I answered, watching him closely, unsure what to expect.

“You must be wondering why I brought you here,” he said.

“That and more.” Fear had clogged my throat when he’d pulled me inside the house and into the checkerboard-back splashed kitchen. This was where things were going to happen; only now the rest of the Bennetts were out of harm’s way.

“Ask away,” he said, taking another sip, never taking his eyes off me, like I wasn’t taking mine off him.

“Lynnfield, right?” I asked.

“Betty Lynnfield,” he/she corrected.

That’s what I was afraid of. Danger was one maniac. This guy appeared to be at least two.

“Betty. Why the young girls?”

Betty visibly shivered. “He’s a monster, isn’t he?” She sighed and tilted her head. “Unfortunately, you can’t pick your family. I wasn’t around when he took them. No, I wouldn’t have condoned such a thing had I been, but once I saw them, I knew he was going to kill them, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

This was bad. Real bad. The woman was certifiable, but as long as I kept her talking, maybe with a wing and prayer, I could talk my way out of this situation without the use of a lightning strike.

“Is that why you brought me here. To tell me that you helped stop him.”

“Of course,” she said, rising from the table and turning her back to grab the coffee pot.

I slipped the knife from the table onto my lap and out of view.

“I can help you,” I offered, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. “Let me help you.”

She poured more coffee into her cup, and I picked up mine for the first time and sipped the now lukewarm brew.

“I don’t need help, dear,” she said with a sigh. “But I’m afraid you do.”

I lowered the cup back to the table. “Is that why you brought me here? To kill me?”

“Heaven’s no,” she said. Her voice slipped from the high pitch to a slightly lower tone, and I watched as she closed his eyes and shook her head back and forth, violently, until she finally stopped. Her eyes opened and met mine. “I brought you here to warn you. He’s fixated on you now. You took away his toys. You need to leave town.”

“Thanks for the warning, but you could have told me that back at the inn.” My heart sped up, and the muscles in my neck tensed. I slid the knife up my sleeve before I rose. “I’ll just be on my way out of town if that’s the case.”

He/she watched me over the rim of her cup as I walked backward to the door on shaky legs. She moaned and swayed, eyes squeezed shut. I turned and had my hand on the doorknob when I felt her rush up behind me. “Thanks, Betty,” I offered without turning around.

A hand grabbed my arm and flung me around. Okay—I wasn’t dealing with Betty any longer.

His thick fingers grabbed my neck, and he lifted me off the ground, my legs kicking in the air, his wig now completely off.

“I’m stronger than she is. She couldn’t hold me back.”

His wild eyes gleamed with evil as I clutched his fingers, trying to pull them from my neck as I struggled to breathe.

I slid the knife out of sleeve and plunged it into his chest as hard as I could. He dropped me, and I coughed as I reached for the door and, in two seconds, was outside.

The house was surrounded by forest, and I ran for the trees without looking back. If I was lucky, the knife had nicked an artery, not that I was ever that lucky, but I wasn’t waiting around to see.

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