Red-Blooded Heart Read online

  “Shut up,” she says. “I’ve got the gun. You talk only if I tell you to talk.”

  “Oh, seriously? What does it matter if you’re going to shoot me anyway?”

  “Shut up.” She’s on her feet, jamming the gun into my stomach.

  I grunt. She’s strong. I keep forgetting how much she works out, tugging herself up on that chin bar. She’s got some muscles. That’s why she could knock me out so easily. Damn it.

  “Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath. She backs up, and she lowers the rifle. “I don’t want to shoot you. I only have this for, you know, insurance. If you try anything, I’ll have to use it.”

  I don’t say anything. She wanted me to be quiet, after all.

  She lifts her chin. “So, listen. This is how it’s going to go. You’re going to help me, because I know what you did.”

  Help her with what? What did I do?

  “And if you don’t help, then I’ll turn you in, and I’m guessing you don’t want anyone to know where you are.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say, even though she hasn’t given me permission to speak.

  “Oh, you know,” she says. “Your girlfriend, for one.”

  “What?”

  “I looked into it,” she says. “The other day, I was at the police station, and Officer Cooper mentioned that some private investigator went missing just like Graham did.”

  My chest tightens.

  “So, I called his office,” she says. “And he was investigating the disappearance of a girl named Alice Bailey, and I found a picture of the two of you together on her Facebook. And she disappeared. Her house burned down, and no one ever saw her again. You killed her. Just like you killed that private investigator and just like you killed Graham.”

  “Wait a second,” I say.

  “No, I’m not done,” she says. “You seem—”

  “I didn’t kill Alice,” I say. “I don’t kill women. Come on.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  -juniper-

  I’m sputtering. He’s denying it? I can’t believe he’s making this so hard. “Are you serious? You think that I’m going to believe that?”

  “I mean, maybe if I really had to, I’d kill a woman, but I’d try not to. That would be really wrong.”

  What the hell is he even going on about? I wish he would simply admit it so that we can get on with everything. I have a lot of things that I have to explain to him. “Oh, right, you didn’t kill her. Then where is she?”

  “She ran off,” he says.

  “What?” I’m flabbergasted.

  “I don’t know if she knew that anyone would be able to tell that there wasn’t a body in the building. I think she thought that if everything was burned up, they would assume she was dead. She made me promise never to tell her parents where she was, and then she would never tell that I set the fire.”

  I am just staring at him, not even knowing what to say or do. I probably can’t really shoot him. I’m threatening that, but if push came to shove, I’m not sure that I could do it. Maybe I could have a minute ago, but now I’m not sure. Maybe he didn’t kill anyone? He seems like he’s telling the truth? Or is a really good liar?

  Argh.

  I’m proud of myself for hitting him over the head. That came easy, and he went down quick too. I feel good about that and it makes me feel good about what’s to come. I can handle it. I’m strong.

  I set down the rifle. Forget this thing. He’s tied up, and that will have to do. “So, you did set the fire?”

  He cringes. “Well, yeah.”

  “So, then, you tried to kill her.”

  “No, I didn’t think she was in there,” he says. “I thought the house was empty. I’ve burned things before… I used to have this sort of thing for fire. I’ve been better, though, since I’ve been out in the wild. Not really as crazy as I used to be.”

  A thing for fire? “You’re a pyromaniac.”

  “I’m…” He shrugs. “Like I said, I haven’t started any useless fires in a long time. The house, Alice, it was all kind of a wake-up call. She could have died. She was in there, and she was screaming, and I knew the path the fire would take because of the accelerants I used, so it was easy for me to go in and get her. I won’t say I saved her. That would be bullshit. She never would have been in danger in the first place if it hadn’t been for me, so it wasn’t like I did something heroic. It was more like I averted disaster.”

  I don’t even know what to do with this stuff he’s telling me. Why make it up? Why confess to setting a fire and not to killing her?

  Actually, maybe that’s a thing that people do. I remember reading once about this guy who had killed his wife and kids and hidden their bodies, and he made up this story that his wife had killed the kids and he saw her and lost it and strangled her and then hid all the bodies.

  That way, he was sort of confessing, but not confessing to everything. He was making it a little bit better. So, sure, Deke didn’t want me to think that he killed his girlfriend. He wanted me to think I was safe with him.

  Hell, I kissed him, didn’t I? And he was obviously batshit crazy. He’d just admitted to being a pyromaniac, hadn’t he?

  “I’m not going to untie you,” I say. “It’s not like you can convince me that you’re not a murderer, and then I’ll be like, ‘Oh, okay, it’s all good. Let’s pretend nothing happened.’”

  He looks me over. “So, uh, what are you going to do with me?”

  “I told you, I need you to help me. This is blackmail, damn it. You killed your girlfriend, and you don’t want anyone to know.”

  “I didn’t,” he says. “Look, get my phone out of my pocket?” He nods at his jeans.

  I sigh. “What about the private investigator? If you didn’t kill your girlfriend, why did you kill him? Or are you going to tell me you didn’t do that either?”

  “Just get my phone.”

  I go to him, and I reach into his pocket. It suddenly feels intimate and strange, me so close, my hand inside his clothes. It makes me feel warm all over, the way he usually makes me feel, and I wish he wasn’t still affecting me.

  He shouldn’t be attractive, now that I know he’s a murderer. But the problem is, he still is. In some ways, he’s more attractive. His features have taken on a lethal grace.

  I have the phone. I back up, glaring at him.

  “She’s at the top of my contacts list,” he says. “She’s the only person with an ‘A’ name I have programmed in there. Call her.”

  But I can’t unlock his phone without his fingerprint. “Your phone’s locked.”

  “Well, here,” he says, even though his hands are tied behind his back.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter that you’ve got some chick at this number pretending to be Alice—”

  “What? Why would I do that? How would I possibly anticipate that? It wouldn’t work on the police or anything, so it would be pointless.”

  Oh, damn it, maybe he’s right.

  “Let me unlock the phone,” he says. “Call her.”

  All right, let’s call Alice. I go around behind him and press his fingertip against the sensor. Then I open his contacts and select Alice’s name.

  The phone rings.

  And rings.

  And goes to voicemail.

  I let it drop, hanging up. “Nice try, asshole, but—”

  His phone is ringing.

  I look down at it. It’s Alice, calling back. I sigh. I answer, bringing the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  “You’re not Deke,” says a female voice.

  “No,” I say. “I’m not. Is this Alice?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the person who’s pretty much convinced that Deke killed his girlfriend, and he says that she’s alive, and—”

  “Who are you?”

  “Are you Alice or not?” I demand.

  “Look, did my parents hire you?” she says. “How did you get Deke’s phone?”

  “He gave it to m
e,” I say. “To prove that Alice is alive, because I accused him of killing her.”

  “And are you working for my parents?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t even know who you are, let alone who your parents are, but I’m not working for anyone.”

  “Well, I’m not dead,” she says.

  “So, you are Alice?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you can’t prove that,” I say.

  “What? Why would you think that Deke killed me?”

  “He set the fire, right? And you disappeared.”

  “Well… I always figured they would have thought it was accidental,” she says thoughtfully. “Do people think he killed me? Deke would never do that. Deke couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  I snort. “We talking about the same Deke? He kills all his own food, you know.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in a long time.” She pauses. “Is he really there? Can I talk to him?”

  “I’ll put you on speaker phone,” I say, and I do. I nod at Deke. “Say hi.”

  “Hi, Alice,” he says and there’s a catch in his voice, like he feels weird about talking to her. “Sorry. I know you said not to call this number unless it was an emergency.”

  “Hi, Deke.” Her voice softens. “How are you?”

  “Good,” he says. “How’s Vanessa?”

  “Oh, she’s good,” says Alice.

  “Who’s Vanessa?” I interject.

  “My girlfriend,” says Alice.

  “What?” I say.

  “Alice is a lesbian,” says Deke. “She told me that, and then I burned down her house. Not my finest hour, I admit.”

  “I thought you two were dating,” I say.

  “Well, we were,” says Alice. “But then I realized that I couldn’t be with a man, and then the house fire happened, and it was such a perfect opportunity to run off. I needed to get away from my parents.”

  “They’re evangelicals,” says Deke to me. “They would never have accepted her.”

  “They probably would have carted me off to one of those awful places where they try to ‘cure’ you with electric shocks,” Alice says. “They’re really anti-gay.”

  I’m rubbing my temples.

  “Look,” Alice says again. “Who the hell is this chick, Deke?”

  “My new girlfriend,” says Deke, winking at me.

  I glare at him. He is not my boyfriend. He’s my prisoner.

  “Huh,” says Alice. “I guess you’re wondering if you can trust him.”

  “He seems to have a lot of secrets,” I say.

  “I have secrets?” says Deke.

  “Well, you two sound like you have a lot to talk about,” says Alice. “But I’m not dead, okay? And if you could not tell my parents that, I would really appreciate it. I have to go now. Bye.” She hangs up.

  I stare at the phone for several seconds before I toss it on my couch. I am shaking, I realize. When did I start shaking?

  “Hey,” says Deke in a quiet voice. “Why don’t you untie me?”

  “I told you I wasn’t going to do that,” I say.

  “Well, this blackmail idea of yours—”

  “So, you didn’t kill her,” I say. “You got the private investigator’s number in there too? You going to say you didn’t kill him? You going to say that you didn’t kill Graham?”

  Deke doesn’t answer.

  “That’s what I thought,” I say. “So, whatever. I can still blackmail you.”

  “I don’t have any money,” he says.

  “Not for money, for help,” I say. “You help me, or I will turn you in.”

  “You don’t have any proof that either the PI or Graham is dead,” he says.

  “Damn it, why won’t you cooperate?”

  He tests the ropes and the muscles in his arms and chest bulge. “If you wanted my help, you could have asked.”

  “I am asking.”

  “This isn’t asking.” He shakes his head at me, making a tsk tsk noise.

  I want to hit him. “Look, this isn’t the kind of thing you just casually ask for help with.”

  “No?”

  “I might want some help killing someone,” I say. Okay, wow, I just said it out loud.

  “Who do you want to kill?”

  “Did you kill Graham or not? Just admit it.”

  “I’m tied up here. I’m at a disadvantage. I’m not admitting anything.”

  I clench my hands into fists and release them. “Fine, fine, fine. Listen, I have a sister who’s ten years younger than me…”

  * * *

  It’s very hard to talk about, even though it didn’t happen to me.

  It all happened to little Elsie, who was six at the time. I was sixteen, and I was tasked with babysitting her more often than I liked. I was supposed to watch her every day after school, which really cramped my style. I was stupid and young and rebellious.

  I’d take Elsie home and keep in touch with my friends, who were all off doing their own thing, having fun. I only got free on the weekends and not always then. My parents didn’t like me going out on school nights, and I could only go out on Fridays or Saturdays if they didn’t already have plans. I felt like an indentured servant.

  I love my sister, don’t get me wrong. I’ve always loved her. She was born when I was ten years old, right at the tail end of my love affair with dolls. She was like my own living doll, perfect and tiny and sweet. I would spend hours with her, playing peek-a-boo, changing her outfits, carting her around to meet my stuffed animals. I adored her. I felt like she’d been given to me to take care of.

  Even after she wasn’t my own little baby doll, I still thought she was especially neat, and I liked spending time with her.

  So, it was never Elsie that I was angry with. It was my parents, because I felt as though they were ruining my adolescence.

  One Friday night, I was out with my friends and we met this older guy named Henry Watson. He gave us some free weed, and he said that we could come by whenever we wanted. He talked to me, saying he’d seen me with Elsie, walking back to our apartment. He said that he had lost his daughter and his wife in a car accident, and that his daughter had been about Elsie’s age. He said that if I ever needed someone to watch her, he’d be happy to do it.

  Later, I would realize that he only said this stuff after I complained about having to watch my sister all the time. He was manipulating me. He didn’t have a dead daughter. He made that up to get what he wanted.

  He seemed like a nice guy to me. He showed me a baseball bat he had from when he was a kid, said it was his most prized possession even though it wasn’t worth much, because money wasn’t the be-all, end-all of everything. He told us stories about how he and his friends almost got caught with weed. He seemed cool. I trusted him. He was probably ten years older than we were, but I didn’t think anything of it.

  I started dropping Elsie off with him all the time.

  Elsie didn’t mind at first. She said that he gave her ice cream and that she liked it, but that it was weird because she was always tired and taking naps at his place.

  Then she started to get to the point where she didn’t like to go. She said his ice cream tasted funny and that she didn’t like falling asleep all the time.

  I was so happy with my newfound independence that I didn’t pay her any mind.

  It went on for months.

  No one figured it out, not even after Elsie got a urinary tract infection and had to go to the doctor for it. It was because she said it hurt to pee and she was complaining of pain down there all the time, and no one knew.

  She even woke up once when he was molesting her, and she didn’t say anything to me because she didn’t understand and she was embarrassed and ashamed.

  Eventually, my parents found out that I was leaving Elsie with a stranger, and they grounded me and put Elsie in some after-school care thing that they had to pay for. They made me get an after-school job instead of watching her or hanging out with my friends. I had
to pay for her after-school activities out of my paycheck, since it was my fault that they had to send her there.

  And we still didn’t know what happened.

  Elsie didn’t tell anyone about it for two more years.

  And then it came out when she was in therapy because she was acting out really bad. She had anorexia and problems with diet pills and stuff. She was eight. Everyone could see that wasn’t normal. She couldn’t be a normal little girl anymore, because he screwed with her body and screwed with her head.

  And it was all my fault.

  It is all my fault.

  Because she’s still not normal. She’s still screwed up, and there’s nothing I can do about it now. I can’t fix her. I can’t undo it.

  After I found out, I went looking for Henry Watson, but he was long gone. It took a lot of time following his trail, but eventually, I traced him out here. I found out that he was living on this off-grid trailer in the middle of nowhere.

  My first plan was to drive out here and shoot him in the head and then just leave.

  But then I figured I need to be smarter than that. Maybe I wouldn’t get caught if I killed him that way, but maybe I would. I began to think that it had to look more like a crime of passion, some sort of accidental meeting. I would happen upon him, and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.

  So, that was when I began to make a very big deal about living off the grid. I made it the focus of my life, and I began to plan.

  It took me a long time to save up all the money to get out here.

  And during that time, I happened upon Graham, and that put the last piece of my plan into place.

  It wouldn’t be a crime of passion on my part. No, no. What I would do is establish a relationship with Graham, who had a history of violence. He’s been arrested for domestic disputes and bar fights and being drunk and disorderly. Anyone would believe that he’d lose it.

  The story would be that Graham and I went to meet our new neighbor, and I realized who he was. I lost it, and Graham got drunk and killed Henry Watson—out of outrage, of course. He would do it for me, because seeing Watson had such an awful effect on me.

  In actuality, I would do the killing. I would have Graham completely drunk out of his mind when it happened, and he wouldn’t remember a damned thing.