Vero sat up on her knees, her arms extended in front of her. She gripped an orange plastic pistol in both hands, swinging it wildly from side to side. Her lips were blue and her face was a sickly shade of car-sick green, her eyes wide and feral. Pine needles stuck in the strands of her hair, most of which had escaped her ponytail in a sunburst of static and snarls.
She collapsed back on her haunches and lowered the flare gun as I pressed a finger to my lips, hoping no one had heard us.
“You scared me to death!” I whispered. My heart was galloping so fast, it could probably run back to South Riding on its own.
“What took you so long? I could have suffocated in there!”
“Keep your voice down.” I darted an anxious glance at the cabin,then at the woods all around us. Vero’s legs were a little unsteady as I helped her to the ground. “Where did you get that?” I asked, pushing the nose of the flare gun away from me.
“The emergency kit in the spare tire compartment.”
“That’s a safety device, not a Smith & Wesson.”
“And this isn’t duct tape,” she whispered, shoving a flimsy roll of first aid tape at me, “but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.” She lifted the cover to the wheel well and removed the tire iron from the spare. “Take this,” she said, passing it to me. My elbow buckled under its weight. She hooked a small pair of pruning shears into her belt loop and jumped down from the back of the van. “What now?”
“Nick’s on his way,” I whispered, handing her the tape.
“You called him? Why the hell did you do that? What did you tell him?”
“I told him I needed help and to get here fast. Come on. If we leave now, we can call him from the road and tell him not to come.” I would worry about how to explain why once we were a safe distance away.
We started through the brush toward my minivan. A rifle cocked behind us. Vero and I froze.
“Drop everything in your hands and turn around slowly,” a woman said.
Vero dropped her flare gun. I let my tire iron thump to the ground.
“Phones and keys, too,” the woman demanded.
We dropped our phones and our car keys and slowly turned around. One by one, the members of Mrs. Haggerty’s book club came into focus. Viola Henry aimed her rifle right at us. “You two had better come inside. We have a few things we need to discuss.”
CHAPTER 22
Mrs. Haggerty and her friends directed us down a narrow path through the woods to a small, rustic cabin with a handful of tiny windows and wide front porch. It was nestled deeply in the trees, camouflaged by the thick landscape. If it hadn’t been for the oil lamp burning in the window, I might not have spotted it at all.
“Watch your step,” Kathy said, pointing out a fallen log beside the porch. On second look, it wasn’t a log at all, but a long human-shaped bundle wrapped in green tree netting.
“Keep moving.” Viola nudged me between the shoulder blades with her rifle. The warped wooden planks creaked under us as we climbed the porch steps. I paused at the top to steal a look at our surroundings. The cabin overlooked a pond at the bottom of a hill. Beyond its dark, rippling surface, it was all woods and shadows as far as the eye could see. I wasn’t even sure I could find our way back to the minivan in the dark. And even if we could, these women had my keys.
The rusty hinges on the screen door whined, calling my attention back to the house. Lola held it open as we all filed inside. The air in the cabin was close and musty, as if the place hadn’t been used for a while. A lantern burned on a table, casting a soft halo of light around a low-ceilinged room with warm wooden walls and butter-yellow curtains. It was sparsely furnished but cozy. Or maybe it was only staged to look that way.
“Sit down,” Viola said, pointing out two wooden chairs beside a rickety table. Vero looked to me, but I didn’t see how either of us had much of a choice. We both sat down. Gita and Lola came behind us with bundles of tree twine. It chafed against my skin as the women tied my wrists behind my back. Judging by Vero’s wince, they were rough with her, too. I was beginning to regret making Nick promise to come alone. A little police backup suddenly didn’t sound so bad. And the risk of going to prison seemed preferable to being murdered and wrapped up like a Christmas spruce.
Lola held Vero’s cell phone in front of her face, using the facial recognition to access her home screen. Destiny held mine, and I turned away too late as she waved it in front of me.
Vero leaned toward me. “Is this karma?” she whispered out of the side of her mouth. “It feels like karma. All we’re missing are donuts and bags over our faces.”
Mrs. Haggerty sighed. “I wish you girls hadn’t come here.”
Birdie pulled out another chair and helped Mrs. Haggerty sit. She looked down her nose at us and shook her head. I felt like a student in her homeschool classroom, but I didn’t imagine she’d be giving out stickers for good behavior.
“If you didn’t want us crashing your book club meeting, maybe you shouldn’t have framed my ex-husband for murder.”
“I don’t see what you’re so upset about,” Mrs. Haggerty said dismissively. “All you’ve wanted for months is to be free of that duplicitous, horrible man. What’s wrong with letting him suffer a little? Besides, there’s no death penalty in the state of Virginia, and a few years in prison won’t kill him.”
“She has a point,” Vero whispered.
“Steven didn’t murder anyone,” I reminded them both. “He may have done some terrible things, but killing Penny’s husband wasn’t one of them.”
