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Crassleys. She’d never really known them, though she’d heard about them for years.
“What happened? Where’s Harry?” Clarice demanded.
“We had some trouble. He’s here.”
“Where, Booker?” she snapped.
He half-turned, and Clarice followed his gaze outside the open garage door.
They could hear someone coming, though it sounded like they were dragging something across the tarmac. A body? Amanda’s body?
God, please, no. Delta steeled herself, but it wasn’t Amanda Harry flung onto the garage floor.
It was Ellie.
* * *
Ellie hadn’t felt like waiting for Delta any longer and knew she’d just gotten the brush-off. Well, no more.
She’d been driving home, thinking, and decided to turn around and break in on their lawyer/client meeting. But she was famished, so she ran up the steps to her apartment, hit the refrigerator, and groaned when there was no food. She needed sustenance to continue, and she was bound and determined to continue.
There was only one drive-thru in West Knoll, and it was a coffee shop that closed at 9:30. She raced into the drive-thru lane and had to get out and rap on the window. The girl shook her head and pointed at the clock.
“There are three minutes left!” Ellie screamed.
Reluctantly, the girl opened the window, and Ellie ordered a maple scone, the only item left from the day’s sales. She munched it as she drove to Amanda’s, dropping crumbs, not caring. As she turned in the Forsythe drive, she thought she saw a figure move in the shadows of an oak tree, and she dropped the remainder of her muffin into the footwell.
“Shit.” She looked down, her foot on the brake.
Crash!
The driver’s window burst in. Ellie moved her foot from the brake to the accelerator, and the Escort jumped forward, but the assailant had thrown his upper body inside and grabbed Ellie by the neck. She fought him, scratching and clawing as the car slowed to a stop. Ellie’s toe sought to find the accelerator again, intending to rush forward and throw him out, but then everything went black.
* * *
“You killed her?” Delta whispered in horror.
“Nah, she’s alive,” Harry said.
“Was that crash her car?” Clarice snapped.
“Had to smash the window in.”
“Damn you, Harry. Another vehicle . . .” She looked ready to explode.
“Bitch’s lawyer’s down from the window,” he informed her with an uncaring shrug.
Clarice thought hard for a moment. “Good. Suicide.” Then, referring to Delta, said, “Tie her to the chair.”
Delta instantly stood up, but Booker strode forward, knocked her back onto her seat and held her down with viselike fingers. There was a discussion about what to tie her up with. Harry rummaged around and found, of all things, a jump rope from a box of toys. Delta stared at the rope and remembered playing with Amanda when they were young. Amanda’s initials were stamped in pink onto the ends of the r
ope’s handles. Delta had begged her parents to do the same for her. It hadn’t happened.
Harry handed the rope to Booker, who strapped Delta in. She exclaimed when he pulled it tight and, satisfied, knotted it in the back. Ellie was lying on the floor a few feet away, and Delta could just make out her breathing.
“Gale should be here,” Clarice snarked at the two men.
“He shouldn’t a’ done what he did. Then he woulda been here,” Harry said, somewhat resentfully.
