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My mouth was drier than the sun-baked hillsides surrounding the town. “But…why?”
He waved with the gun toward the wall, and I flinched. It would be just my luck for the thing to go off accidentally and take me out at the same time. “Miriam wanted the house. There’ve been some developers nosing around who thought this location would be just perfect for a new resort, but Hank and Nora would never agree to sell it to someone who only wanted to tear it down. Miriam figured she’d buy the place and then sell it off. Easy peasy.” Al frowned then. “Except then your parents decided they had to have it.”
“And so there was a bidding war,” I said.
“Yeah.” He reached up to scratch his head, mussing his gray-flecked dark hair. “Turned out your parents had deeper pockets, and Miriam had to drop out, since she was putting up her own money, figuring she’d get it back tenfold after she sold the place to the developers.”
While I was relieved that Al seemed inclined to keep talking — maybe he felt the need to get all this off his chest before he buried a bullet in me — I couldn’t quite figure out why Miriam had played the middleman in all this. “Why didn’t the developers just buy the house themselves? Obviously, they must have the money to do it.”
“Because Hank and Nora put a clause in their contract that the property had to be preserved as it was, with no major changes,” Al explained. “Miriam had to buy it first, and then she could sell it without any of those restrictions.”
“Right,” I said. The gun had drooped a little, was now pointing roughly at my bellybutton rather than my chest, but I had a feeling it would do just as much damage there if it went off. My gut clenched, but I tried to sound calm as I went on, “And so when she lost the bidding war for the house, she decided instead to try to scare my parents into selling the place.”
He nodded. “It seemed like an easy enough plan. Miriam got the idea from Hank and Nora’s stories about ghosts, and thought conjuring demons would make the house even less attractive.”
“‘Stories’ about ghosts?” I asked. Maybe that wasn’t the most important thing to be worrying about right now, but the words slipped out anyway.
The question got me half a smile. “The place wasn’t really haunted. Hank and Nora always thought it should be, though, so they made up a bunch of stories about a ghost. Anyway,” he went on, “Miriam figured you would put your own two cents in, since you were into all that woo-woo stuff and would convince your parents this wasn’t a good place to live.” Al’s heavy brows pulled together as he added, “We didn’t think you’d be pulling in all sorts of outside experts.”
“And so you pushed Brant Thoreau down the stairs,” I said, even as I marveled a bit at how calm I sounded.
“No,” Al replied at once, looking indignant. “I mean, I realized I probably would have to, because he was listening to the wall through a stethoscope and would probably figure out soon enough that the sounds were fake, since I ripped them off from the Conjuring movies and some other stuff. But just as I was approaching him, Brant startled at a noise or something, and he lost his balance and fell.”
This story didn’t relieve me as much as I would have liked it to. Yes, Brant’s death had apparently been an accidental one, but Al Loomis was still standing there with a gun pointed at me.
I almost asked whether he was going to deny pushing me, then decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
“And Father Neil?” I inquired.
Now Al looked abashed. “Miriam told me to stop him from coming out here, so I did. But man, I’m going to be going to confession for that one for years.”
Did they have confession in prison?
Probably better not to ask.
“Look, Al,” I said, trying to sound as gentle and persuasive as I possibly could, “it really sounds like Miriam was behind all this, and you’re just someone who got dragged into her schemes. I think what we need to do is go talk to Chief Lewis and let him — ”
I broke off there, because the gun had lifted at those words and was now pointed back at my chest.
“No cops,” Al said. “Henry Lewis isn’t going to care that this was Miriam’s idea. He’s still going to arrest me for being an accessory to murder. So, the only real solution is to get rid of you. Luckily, there’s lots of desert here in Arizona. A body can go missing for years.”
My heart began to thump painfully in my chest. How unfair was it that I was going to get murdered just as everything was going so well between me and Calvin? And over something so stupid as a real estate deal?
“I can call my mother and tell her to sell for whatever price Miriam wants — ”I began, but Al only shook his head.
“That won’t work. They’ll know who was involved. The only way to make this right is to make sure you disappear.”
I tried to swallow past the lump in my throat. Anything to make my mouth a little less dry. How was this possible?
His finger tightened on the trigger, and I tensed.
The front door opened, letting in a blaze of sunlight. “Al?” came an incredulous voice.
Standing in the doorway was Brett Woodrow, Josie’s handyman nephew. Probably, she’d sent him over here to take a look at the hole in the stairwell and start working up an estimate.
Never in my life had I been so glad of Josie’s busybody nature.
Al half turned, startled. I knew I had just this one chance.
