The Inmate (35)

Oh. Oh God…

Chelsea is on her knees next to Brandon, who is lying on the damp porch on his back, his chest a mess of dark red blood. The same dark red material is dripping out of his mouth, and his eyes are cracked open, staring at nothing. Chelsea is holding his hand, sobbing uncontrollably as the rain pours down on them.

“What happened?” I manage.

“Oh, Brooke!” Chelsea scrambles to her feet and throws her arms around me. She clings to me, even though she’s getting blood and water all over my clothes. “I came downstairs because Brandon wasn’t in bed. I saw the door was open so I looked outside and…”

“Is he dead?” Kayla squeaks. She looks like she’s about to throw up.

Tim kneels beside the body. He places his fingers against Brandon’s neck, searching for a pulse. He shakes his head. “He’s gone.”

Chelsea dissolves into louder sobs. She’s still holding on to me, and I feel like I’m mostly keeping her upright. In another few seconds, the both of us are going to be on the floor.

“Get her into the house,” Shane tells me. “We’ll deal with what’s out here.”

Kayla and I help Chelsea back into the house and get her onto the sofa. She buries her face in her hands, unable to stop crying. I rub her back while Kayla reaches for her phone that she had abandoned on a coffee table when she found out there was no service. She looks down at the screen.

“Still no service,” she grunts. She looks up at the door and calls out, “Shane, you said there’s a landline, right? Where is it? We have to call the police.”

“It’s next to the bookcase!” he calls back.

Quick as a flash, Kayla goes over to the bookcase. She picks up a cordless phone. She pushes a button on the phone and presses it against her ear. She frowns, pulls the phone away from her ear, and presses another button.

“Shane!” Her voice has taken on a hysterical edge. “The phone isn’t working!”

A crack of thunder shakes the house, although it is softer than earlier in the evening.

“Shane!” Kayla screams.

After a few seconds, Shane comes into the house, slamming the screen door behind him. His face is slightly pink and his hair and shirt are damp. He strides over to where Kayla is standing with the cordless phone and grabs it out of her hand. Kayla watches him, wringing her hands together.

“It’s dead,” he declares. “Storm must have damaged the phone lines.”

Kayla’s eyes fly around the room. “So there’s no way to call the police?”

“No.”

She shakes her head. “Then I’m getting out of here. Chelsea, where are the keys to your car?”

Shane presses his lips together. “Kayla, will you calm down for a minute?”

Lightning flashes, illuminating Kayla’s small face, making her look almost demonic. “No, I will not calm down. Someone was just murdered in this house, and now the power and the phone are out. I’m getting the hell out of here right now. If you don’t want to come, I’ll send a police car when I get back to town.”

Shane grimaces. “Kayla…”

Kayla gives him a look. “We need to leave, Shane. Why don’t you want us to leave?”

Kayla makes a good point. We don’t want to leave a crime scene, but we have to contact the police. And if the phone lines are down, we have to drive to the station. My parents are going to absolutely demolish me when they find out what I’ve been doing tonight, but I can’t think about that. Someone is dead.

And there’s a very real chance that somebody in this room is responsible.

Chelsea rises to her feet, her eyes still moist. “Kayla is right. We have to get out of here. I don’t know who did this…” She raises her eyes to look at Shane, and then at Tim, who is lingering in the doorway. “But we are obviously in some kind of danger. We need to get out of here.”

I concur.

Chelsea and Kayla put on their completely inadequate shoes and coats, and march out of the house, ignoring the rain still falling heavily. I slide into my own sneakers, but they are no match for what feels like an icy river forming outside the front door. My sneakers fill with mud and freezing cold water. I can’t wait to get home and away from this horror show.

But just before we can pile into Chelsea’s Beetle and get back home, she stops short. I hear the sharp inhale of her breath a second before I realize what she’s looking at.

All four of her tires have been slashed.

“What the hell?” she gasps.

We go around the side of her car to Shane’s Chevy, and the situation is the same. Tires slashed to smithereens.

“What the hell?” Shane is furious now as he examines the damage to his tires. “Who would do this?”

Kayla is stepping backward, hugging her chest as she shakes her head. “Somebody doesn’t want us to be able to get out of here.”

“Kayla…” Tim reaches for her arm. “Look, we’ll figure this out—”

“No!” Kayla jerks away from him, her eyes suddenly wild. “One of you killed him. One of you did this, and now you don’t want the rest of us to get away.”

“Kayla, that’s crazy,” Chelsea says.

“Is it?” Kayla blinks back tears.