AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
This was a roller coaster, and until the ride was done, getting off would be impossible.
Chapter Twelve – Alistair
Gareth and Brianna sat in the two chairs facing my desk. They’d just finished telling me what they’d seen in the park, how Brett had called her not once, but twice today to taunt her. Gareth had a quiet intensity I’d seen on a few occasions before, where he wanted nothing more than to make someone bleed for him, while Brianna appeared resigned.
Rick hadn’t called me yet, I assumed because he was still handling things at the park. The first body had been found inside the Watts residence, but this one was left out in the open, in a public place, where anyone could’ve found it.
But Brett Banks had called Brianna right as school let out, like he wanted her to see it—and that told me he’d planned on her going straight there with Gareth.
And that, in turn, told me Brett was close by, and while the town and its law enforcement was busy dealing with the body, he was watching us from the shadows, learning how we moved, how we operated.
He was smarter than I’d given him credit for in the beginning. He had to have had this planned out in advance, to pull off dumping multiple bodies in such a short span of time, and given the fact that we’d been left a body a day, it was safe to assume we’d have a third body on our hands tomorrow.
“What are we going to do?” Gareth asked. “Have you found anything out? Anything we can use? Please tell me yes.”
I ran a hand down the side of my face. “I had Neo’s parents watched. I had the school watched. I’m pulling my eyes off Neo’s parents, and I’m having them put on the both of you. Anytime you leave this house, you can be certain you’re being watched.”
“What good does that do us? We need to find out what kind of car he’s driving, where he’s staying—”
I interrupted Gareth, “We can be reasonably sure, once the third body turns up, he’ll go after one of you. Maybe having eyes on you both will give him second thoughts.”
“No,” Brianna whispered faintly. “No, whatever he’s going to do, he’ll do it, no matter what. He said this is a roller coaster, and today was only the second loop.” Her dark gray eyes lifted, meeting my stare, a flash of the normal, feisty Brianna returning. “I don’t know how many roller coasters you’ve been on, but once you’re on, you can’t get off.”
Hmm. No, I supposed you couldn’t. Unless…
“I think we need to play his game,” she went on, which made Gareth whip his head in her direction and glare at her. “He’ll be the one waiting for us to get off once the ride is done. If we’re ready for him, he won’t be able to catch us off-guard.”
“He won’t get his filthy fucking hands on you,” Gareth hissed out, leaning over the armrest of his chair towards her. “I won’t let him.” An unusual display of affection—or possession, depending on how you looked at it—coming from him.
Brianna and Gareth bickered, and it was as if they were alone, not sitting in front of me. I watched them go back and forth, while my mind slowly came up with a plan.
Keeping with the roller coaster metaphor, it was true that you couldn’t get off once the ride started. However, every ride had safety mechanisms in place that, if they worked correctly, would stop the ride, no matter where the cars were.
Brett thought he was in control, but that wasn’t completely true. There were some steps we could take to throw a wrench into his plans… although, to get it right I would need everyone’s cooperation.
I was seconds from telling them to cool it—their arguing was getting a little heated. Gareth was busy telling her he’d kill for her, while Brianna was tossing back the cliched phraseI don’t need your help.
But, alas, my phone rang before I could speak a word, and as I pulled it out and saw Rick’s name on the screen, I pointed to the door.
“It’s Rick. Go, find something to make for dinner.” With everything going on, having an outsider step foot in this house wasn’t a good idea, so it’d be just the three of us for a while. No chef, no maid, nobody to tidy up after us and do our laundry.
Neither of them got up. Both Gareth and Brianna looked at me like I was crazy, as if I’d grown a third eye in the middle of my forehead, so I took on a sterner tone, “Go.”
They got up, muttering amongst themselves. Neither one was happy to have this conversation cut short, but soon enough they’d understand it had to be done. The person I’d need the most, ironically, was Rick.
As they filed out of my office, I answered the call, “Rick. Gareth and Brianna told me about the body in the park.”
If we all made it through this, which, if I had anything to say, we most certainly would, I’d owe Rick. Perhaps, once we were through the thick of it, I could wipe the slate clean after all these years.
“They did? How did they—she got another call from Brett, didn’t she?”
“She did.”
“Shit. So, they both saw, huh? Poor Mrs. Addler and her kids. She was pretty shaken up over it.” Rick paused, and I could hear him sigh explosively. “Did they tell you the body was fucked up?”
“Something about the face,” I said.
