Third Time's a Charm (Crimson Cove Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  “Isn’t Sage at your house yet?” Lainey grumbled.

  “No. She’s a no-show so far. I bet she isn’t back from the city yet.” I gave Lindsey a look. “Do you think she went to plead her case with Lucinda too?” Rita hadn’t talked to us since she’d said that was her plan.

  “No. She said she was going to see Rita.”

  “Why does she care more about Rita than the sketch?” I didn't bother sugarcoating my thoughts.

  Lainey’s face became red as she turned back around to the steering wheel and started the car. “I don't know.”

  “Oh my God, what now?” I narrowed my gaze, sitting up as we rounded the driveway and headed for the main road.

  “We aren’t sure Rita’s innocent in all of this.” Linds bit her lip for a moment, leaving me hanging. “She showed up here just before Rachel died. She knows Lucinda Wentworth and the Wentworth family. Her family is in debt up to their eyeballs and barely making ends meet. She liked Ashton and then Rachel died. She mentioned to Jake that she was worried about you and Sage being besties, what with the stepsister thing going on, and then you end up in a mental institute. Plus, we don't really know her that well.”

  I had nothing. How hadn’t I thought of that?

  Lainey gave me a look in the rearview. “And she was drugged when Rachel died, so she has an alibi, and she wasn’t in the photograph of us standing around Rachel. She will be fine, whereas the rest of us are screwed. As far as evidence goes, Rita is completely innocent. She has an alibi for every moment.”

  “Holy balls. Rita’s the killer?” I narrowed my gaze. “She isn’t the little dark-haired bitch who kept me locked up, but they could be friends I guess.”

  “This is why we didn't tell you. Rita might not be the killer, and you tend to go from maybe, straight to ‘let’s nuke the bitch’ in half a second with almost no proof. We need to calm down and let it sink in.” Linds sighed.

  “We need to go over the evidence and figure out if she has something to do with this. Once we talk to Andrew, maybe.” Lain met my eyes in the rearview.

  “So does Sage know about all your suspicions?” I wondered how long they’d all thought this and if they’d left me out on purpose.

  “No and yes. We just mentioned that Rita was on the list of people we didn’t trust and none of us should be free from this until we are cleared. We brought up a couple of points and Sage disagreed.”

  “I don’t understand.” I gave Lain a confused look.

  “Sage likes her, genuinely. And she spends more time with her than any of us.” Lindsey laughed. “She went there to snoop in Rita’s house and try to get to know her better. She wants to prove to us Rita’s not the killer. She thinks there’s a reason Rita’s so sketchy.” She rolled her eyes. “Like Sage is going to come up with anything.”

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t.” I sat back, not sure what to think about it all. Rita and I hadn’t spent a ton of time together before Halloween. “We aren’t close, but at the same time I don’t want Rita to be part of the evil.”

  We sat in silence as Lainey drove us up the coast to Massachusetts.

  The gray coastline and late fall weather were depressing, added to the fact I was about to do the one thing I swore I would never do: I was going back to the place where she had kept me.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Skeleton Key

  Run-down shit shack was the only thing I could think as we crossed the crunchy grounds to the solid metal doors of the seaside hospital I didn’t recall. The very ones I’d apparently gone through to check myself in.

  Linds and Lain still hadn’t let me see the video of “me” checking in at the mental institute that from the outside resembled more of a prison than anything.

  Lindsey reached the door first, storming up and pulling the skeleton key from her pocket. She wielded it like a sword, stabbing it into the lock. But I watched closely as the door pushed open before she turned the key. She froze. Her back straightened as a tingle crept up mine.

  Lain stopped and turned, giving me a look. “It should be locked up tight. Your dad said the property was being managed—”

  “Guarded. He said ‘guarded by a company.’ I don’t see any guards and this door should be locked.” Lindsey pointed and stepped back. She didn’t appear strong or confident the way she always did. She seemed scared. I tried not to let it scare me but it did.

  Lainey I could handle being scared, but not Lindsey. She was the pit bull in the group of us. The only one who ever really put Rachel on her ass. I faked a lot of my rage but Lindsey was it—it was her truth. It was why Vincent loved her. She was his equal, his superior. She was superior to all of us, except Lainey. I never would have conceded my adoration and obsession of Vincent to Sage, but Lindsey was no contest.

  She was a better person, hands down.

  She and Lain.

  They were the two I didn’t understand, in any of this. The two who didn’t make sense. No one could hate them, not even for being friends with Rachel.

  “We should call your dad and ask him where the security company is.” Lain nodded at me.

  “No. If we call him, he’ll flip out about me being here. Let’s just get this over with.” I marched forward, pushing the door open wider and walking into the eerie light. “But be ready. There’s no way she got me here without help. God knows who else is here. The bitch has henchmen.”

  The smell hit like a sack of bricks to the face. I gasped my breath, fighting the tremble in my legs. It was the same stale air mixing with the ocean just outside.

  Every memory rushed back in, like they had been waiting for this moment, as the stench of the place hit my nose.

  I would never forget that smell. That pain. That fear. That shame.

  The dim light coming in the windows wasn’t enough to explore the room with my eyes and my feet refused to move. I couldn’t see in the shadows or under the tables of the ancient waiting area and it made me nervous. I sensed her eyes were on me. She sat in a shadow, holding my diary.

  The nurses’ desk, like a front desk in a shitty hotel in a third world country, stood alone. The cameras above it, the ones that had lied about me once already, sat perfectly still, pointing at my face. I wondered if they were on and catching the bead of sweat starting to trickle down my clammy forehead.

  “It’s this way,” Linds muttered and pulled at my left arm as she moseyed through the swinging doors.

  But I didn’t want to move. Everything was frozen and flashing, mixing old and new and things that hadn’t even happened yet in my head. I stumbled forward, letting Lindsey lead me by the arm. She didn’t pull but directed until we reached the room where they had found me.

  My knees buckled, taking me to the carpet.

  My fingers scratched the way they had the first time I was here, when the nurses and doctors came, grabbing me and pinning me to the dirty floor. I lowered my face, forcing myself to take in a lungful of the stale carpet. Tears threatened but I shook them away.

  “Sierra?” Lainey lifted me. Lindsey was already gone.

  I clung to my friend as she helped me up. She didn’t ask anything, but I confessed it anyway, “This was where they found me.” The words tasted strange, lost in my mouth. “When I escaped the cell.”

  “Creepy.” She held me to her. “We should go back to the car. I don’t like it in here.” Her soft voice made the dim space worse, like we were already hiding.

  “We can’t leave Linds behind.” It wasn’t a question. It was a rule. No one got left behind, not here.

  “As soon as we find her, we leave.” She clung to me as I dragged her to the door that led to the billowing hallway. The one with the curtains and the windows and the cell.

  The crisp sea breeze was gone, replaced by cold stale air. The smell and sound of the ocean had vanished. But the sight hadn’t changed. The cold Atlantic toyed with the rocks on the shore, dragging some of them back and forth. The windows were closed this time so the creepy billowing sheers didn’t ad
d to my horror.

  We passed by windows, the first five, before we stopped next to the box. Her mouth dropped open but she didn’t speak. Her eyebrows lowered over her eyes that shone with emotion. But her mouth didn’t move except to tremble slightly.

  “This is it. The doctor at Silver Hills said it was a solitary confinement cage.” I lowered, gripping her and crouching to get a better view. Her fingers dug into my skin as we both dropped to our knees to see into the small opening.

  “I don’t understand. Was it for sensory deprivation or to torment? What the hell was this place?” Lainey leaned in more, curious and maybe worried. She reached with a shaking hand for the edge of the steel box, peering into the dark of the cell.

  My eyes narrowed as I tried to focus on the shadows moving beyond the door someone had cut for me.

  “There’s nothing here except that crappy toilet,” Lindsey burst out, crawling from the darkness of the cell, making Lain and I both jump. “The back of that cell is weird. There’s a door that leads to a hallway but no handle on the inside. There are other cells when you get into the hallway too, like four others. They all have the little doors and the little slit in the bottom that opens to slide food and water through. The tunneling was done in that hallway. I think it’s supposed to look like you got lost in the cells and hallways and tried to dig your way out. It still kinda smells like ass in there.” Her eyes darted to mine, freezing her words for a moment. “You okay?”

  “No.” I said it before I had contemplated the fact I wasn’t okay.

  “We won’t be here much longer. We should go to the basement before we leave. We’re technically searching for the records room anyway, for Lucy W.” She climbed out completely, cracking her back and fixing her hoodie. “And they’re always in the basement.”

  She headed off, on a mission.

  But I was stuck.

  My gaze fixed on the small opening I had crawled from after days there.

  “Come on.” Lain tugged at me, dragging me away.

  We walked back to the front door, searching for the access to the basement.

  No one moved, nor did the air when we got back to the main area. The silence was maddening in some respects and a huge relief in others.

  I wasn’t ready for the trip into the basement, not after the one I’d endured at Silver Hills, but the records room was a must. We needed to find out about Lucy W.

  Every bit of me wished Finn were with us.

  Linds used her magical key to open doors, peering in and closing them again. We checked several before she paused and nodded. “This way.” She entered a hallway with us behind her. At the back of it there was a small sign pointing down with the word “stairs.”

  Linds opened that door with some difficulty as Lain and I clung to one another; she trembled as hard as I did. Lain had her own reasons to be afraid.

  The stairs were lackluster, dark but not creepy at least. The light of our cell phones dancing about the dark space was the only creepy factor. The stairwell consisted of a metal railing and concrete stairs. It looked like every industrial stairwell in the world.

  At the bottom was a single door. Linds used her key to open it.

  “Oh my God, it smells like a friggin’ tomb in here.” She wrinkled her nose and slipped inside, holding it for us. She obviously didn’t think the word “tomb” would make us uncomfortable. It did for me.

  My insides tightened when we crossed the threshold. Everything inside me cried out that this was a terrible idea. The basement didn’t smell like it had another way out, and if someone blocked this door we would be stuck down here.

  “Someone should stay here and guard the door.” Lainey glanced around nervously, saying exactly what I was thinking.

  “You and Sierra wait here and I’ll go see if I can find the room.” Linds didn't wait for us to argue. She rolled her eyes and turned and left, her flashlight on her cell eventually becoming the only thing we saw.

  “She’s like Nancy Drew,” Lainey whispered. “She doesn't care if she has to walk into the darkest cellar and hide for days to get some kind of dirt; she’ll do it.”

  “I think we’re both the opposite of Nancy Drew. I don't care about the weird facts found under the stairs, and you are comfortable with the educated guess you’ve already made about the people.”

  She nodded but didn't speak. Instead, we both listened as our breaths became the only sound we heard.

  Anxious seconds trickled by, moving slower than they might have if we weren’t standing in the dark listening to each lungful we took with our hearts pounding and our minds wandering.

  “It’s warm down here,” Lain whispered after what seemed like an eternity.

  “Yeah. At least it isn’t cold.”

  “But it should be cold. No one’s here. The place is supposed to be locked up. The basement temperature should be set for maybe five degrees above freezing so the pipes don't freeze, not that they would here. We’re well below the recommended frost line. It’s only four feet and we have to be nearly twelve below ground level.”

  My eyes drifted to hers as worry covered both our faces.

  “I’ll go see if Linds is okay.” She sounded as if she regretted volunteering but I couldn't move. I physically couldn't walk into the dark alone. As she took her first step away from me, I panicked but I didn't say anything. I stood frozen in fear as she and her light got smaller and smaller until she was gone, and I was alone in the dark again.

  The shaking started in my hands.

  My flashlight twitched on the floor.

  I forced myself to look at it, even though I could feel eyes on me and breath on the back of my neck.

  I didn't move.

  I couldn't move.

  I closed my eyes and accepted the truth I would die here, alone. It was something I’d prepared for already.

  My entire body tensed all at once, expecting pain.

  Instead, Lindsey laughed and came around the corner with Lain. I opened my eyes, flinching only slightly when their lights bobbed around the corner along the concrete floor. I relaxed a tiny bit as they got closer, so close our lights joined each other on the floor.

  Linds lifted her hand, showing me a small book. “Found something. Not much but a little is better than nothing. You should be glad you didn’t come. It’s really creepy back there.” Their lights flashed in front of my feet, wobbling as they walked. One of them lifted her light while the other one pointed hers on the ground in front of me. “Sierra?”

  “What?” I held my hand up to shield my eyes. “Lower the light.” It was blinding me. One of them shouted something, maybe my name again. Whatever it was I didn't have a chance to listen.

  A hand slid across my mouth, dragging me backward. I struggled as something hit me over the head.

  My eyes fuzzed with stars bursting in front of them, regardless of the darkness all around me.

  Breath and grunts filled my ears, followed by the closing of a door.

  “You can’t run away from this, slutface,” the person with me in the dark whispered and pushed me to the floor.

  It wasn't the girl with the dark hair, but someone who knew she called me that. I winced and waited but nothing happened.

  My hands scratched around on the ground, feeling for the floor of the cell. How had they dragged me only a few feet and put me back into the cell? Had that happened? Had we gone up the stairs?

  I paused and listened but there was no sound except me. And then Lindsey.

  “Sierra?”

  “In here!” I looked in the direction Lindsey had cried out and listened for the other person in the room with me.

  “Are you okay?” she shouted.

  “I think so.” I leaned forward, crunching down on something with my knee. Fumbling in the dark I groaned when I felt my phone under me. The flashlight still shone but only on the floor. I lifted it, watching the quivering white light bounce around the small dark room. The walls were black, same as the floor. It was shockingly like the c
ell, including the aspect of being alone. Somehow I was alone and the only door was the one in front of me, the one I’d come in. On this side there were no handles though.

  Lain and Linds were on the other side. I could hear them.

  But the person who had dragged me in was gone, vanished into dust or thin air.

  I lifted my hand and banged, still panicking and looking behind me, like the person would jump out from the shadows that didn't exist. “LET ME OUT!”

  “The door won’t open!” Lainey shouted again, banging on the other side of it.

  The sound was the same as in the cell, my voice and movements echoing off the walls.

  I dropped back, sitting on my heels. The walls tried to close in. The space tried to get darker. But I wouldn't let it. I had to wait a minute.

  One minute.

  They would have me out. It was logical and I had to stay logical to stop myself from going crazy. It had to be the way things would go. They weren’t going to leave me in here, no matter what my imagination tried to tell me.

  But then they went quiet. The voices were muffled. A sound of shock and a man’s voice maybe?

  My heart raced as I leaned forward, trying desperately to hear them.

  Metal snapped and the door with no handles popped open. It wasn't Lain or Linds I saw though. It was him.

  The guy from Silver Hills.

  Finn.

  His dark-blue eyes were wide with worry as he reached inside the small room and pulled me to him. I didn't fight it. I didn't know him well enough to go to him and yet I did. I let him lift me up from the floor where my phone sat, cradling me against his chest. His lips trembled as he pressed them against my forehead. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

  I closed my eyes and clung to him, inhaling deeply as he carried me to the hall and we sat on the stairs, in the dark. We breathed and clung and sat for several seconds before Lindsey spoke, “You must be Finn.”

  He nodded against my forehead. “Zach, but she calls me Finn.” His voice was like a song I hadn’t heard in a while—one that made me happy for no reason whatsoever.