Single Elimination: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 4) (17 page)

“That I never knew. I want to be mad at you for not telling me, but the thing is, I keep asking myself when you should’ve told me, and I don’t know. I don’t know the answer. And then I think about how hard that must’ve been for you, keeping it a secret all this time. And when it first happened, and it didn’t work out, not having anyone to talk to…I can’t believe you thought you couldn’t talk to me about it! But I know you, and I know it wasn’t because you thought I wouldn’t listen or because you didn’t trust me. I know you just didn’t want to face it.”

“That’s true. I couldn’t deal with it, on top of everything else I was dealing with at the time. I didn’t want to talk about it, to make it even more real.”

“But, Brenna, how could I never know? That’s what’s killing me! Will never even saw you two together, and he guessed, but I never knew my own sister, my best friend—”

“Jake and I were together all the time. We were close because he was my coach. It would’ve been hard to tell the difference in how I felt. Plus, I tried to shut it off. I tried to shut it down. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of my training.”

“But what about after? How could I not tell then?”

“Because of when it happened.”

Blythe’s eyes widened, and I knew she’d put the pieces together. “Right after the Olympics?”

“At the Olympics. After I fought. What happened on the mat had already changed me. What happened with Jake got all mixed up in that.”

“I can’t believe it! I can’t believe he did that to you. That he took advantage of you like that!”

“He was devastated too, I’m sure.” Why was I defending him? Because he was a person. A person I’d cared about for a reason.

“Not like you were. He should’ve known better. He should’ve put you first.” She squeezed my hand.

“Thank you, Bly.”

“How are things with Will?”

“He says he loves me, but I’m still worried.”

“Did you see him after the meeting?”

I realized then that Blythe had no idea what I’d just been through and no idea how the Town Council meeting had gone.

“Oh, Bly. I’m sorry I didn’t call. The meeting went pretty well. Your speech was perfect.”

I told her about the decision to delay a vote on Harvey’s exemption, about the phone calls, about the sting at the park. I made us some instant ramen and we talked for a long time.

“So you don’t think Zack is the guy?”

“I don’t know what to think, but it sure sounded like he was trying to protect his sister.”

My phone buzzed with a text message.

“Will?” Blythe asked.

“Yeah, he’s home.”

“Are you going over there?”

“No, I’m staying here with you. Let me talk to him for a minute and find out how things went.”

I dialed Will and Blythe headed for the bedroom to change into pajamas.

“So what’s the scoop?” I asked Will.

“We’ve released Zack and arrested Delaney. He told us how he’d stabbed Dina in the heart.”

“Not the head?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t think that’s even possible with a meat thermometer. But how did he know about the murder weapon at all?”

“His sister. Once he realized we knew he was lying, he broke down. He told us Delaney told him about the meat thermometer. That he was trying to protect her. He felt guilty for not turning her in right away, and he believed someone should pay for the crime. He blamed himself for the conflict between his sister and grandmother. They fought over him, over what to do about him.”

“Delaney thought she should cut him off.” I scooped up Blythe’s tissue pyramid and stuffed it in the kitchen trash.

“Right. She was furious when Dina refused to stop giving him money with no strings attached. According to Zack, she’d found the thermometer in the grass and was planning on returning it to the barbecue area. She had it in her pocket when she and Dina fought. She snapped, and she killed Dina with it in a rage. She was distraught about what she’d done to her grandmother, and she came to Zack and told him what she’d done. Zack felt terrible.”

“He didn’t want his sister to go to prison.” I would never lie to the police about a murder for my my sister, but I had hidden the truth from her, in part to protect her.
 

“Right. I think he’s a little bit disturbed. He doesn’t make a lot of sense. Things are kind of twisted in his mind.”

I wandered around the living area as I talked, straightening pillows, wiping the counters. I said, “It seemed to me like he felt entitled and he didn’t blame himself for not getting the job done at school.”

“I don’t know if realizing how passionately Delaney felt changed that, or realizing Dina was gone because of it. Maybe the entitled attitude was his way of covering up feelings he had all along that he wasn’t deserving, that he was a failure.”

“Could be. He did seem to take his sister’s comments to heart. And she
was
mean about it. I mean, I was a total stranger, and she told me what a screw-up he was, right in front of me.”

A familiar pat-pat-pat sounded on the window pane, getting louder and faster by the second. So much for the beautiful weather. The rain was back, pattering against the glass.

“Maybe that’s why he was such a screw-up,” Will said. “Who knows which one came first? He’s used to being blamed and this time he decided to take the blame. Maybe he felt like he could finally do something right, in his own twisted way. He knows his parents and everyone else will be much more distraught over Delaney going to prison. Can you imagine how he felt, knowing that?”

“So he just accepted his fate as the family loser?”

“Looks like it.”

“What about Delaney? Is she talking?”

“Oh, yes. She confessed.”

“What?”

“She took the blame, and she verified her brother’s story.”

I plopped down on the couch. What a shame. “I never would’ve thought…”

“That she’d be capable of that?”

“That she’d agree with her brother on anything. How sad.”

But it just didn’t feel right. Maybe that was because of my own bias. I’d bought into the narrative she’d sold me—she was the responsible, stable one, and Zack was the screw-up. She wasn’t very nice to her brother, and that had really turned me off from liking her. But I couldn’t help sympathizing with her frustration, thinking what Zack really needed was some tough love. Could it be that she cared that much about her brother, that she couldn’t stand seeing her grandmother continue doing something that could ultimately help him ruin his life? Could that have made her snap?

“Yeah,” Will said, “I guess that’s the best word for this whole thing. “
Sad
.”

I said good-night to Will and went to get ready for bed. It was midnight. In one hour, Gunter Hatton would be getting his mysterious delivery. Gunter Hatton, who still felt like the killer to me. If Zack would lie to help Delaney, would she do the same for him? What if neither one of them was guilty? The information about the meat thermometer could’ve gotten out. It was possible. Or, maybe the killer was someone else they knew, and they’d found out from him or her.

If I wasn’t convinced Delaney was the killer, how could I pass up this chance to find out what Gunter Hatton was up to? What if this was my one chance to catch the real culprit? I glanced at my phone, considered calling Will. He was exhausted, and he thought he had the murderer in custody. No, I couldn’t call him until I was sure I had something. Something worth losing a much-needed night of sleep over.

Instead of putting on my pajamas, I started dressing for stealth. I glanced at the window. Stealth, and rain. Though I’d been immersed in an indoor sport for most of my life, I was still an outdoor girl. I had a rain shell—A pretty, pale minty green one Blythe had bought me. Not quite the color for night-time spying. I needed to be invisible. So, a navy blue hoodie and black leggings were the best I could do. I pulled out a pair of dark gray running shoes and started to put them on.

“Brenna? What are you doing?” Blythe sat on the edge of her bed, ready to tuck in for the night.

I paused, then confessed, “I found out Gunter Hatton is involved with something dirty. He’s expecting a delivery soon. I’m going to find out what it is.”

She gestured at my choice of clothes. “I assume Gunter didn’t invite you over? And he doesn’t know that you know about this?”

“Right.”

“More snooping. Is there anything else you forgot to tell me?”

There was just a teensy trace of bitterness in her tone. So unlike Blythe. But then the last few days had been so unlike normal for us.

“I’m sorry. There’s a lot going on. I need to do this.”

“Fine,” Blythe said sharply. She got into bed, shut off her bedside lamp, and turned her back to me.

26

I peered out the front window at the fine streams of rain. It wasn’t coming down all that hard. Maybe it would even let up.

On that hopeful note, I opened the door and stepped out of the cover of the font step. Thunder boomed, and rain pelted the stairs. Bigger and bigger drops, until they weren’t drops at all; they were streams, shooting from the sky and bouncing off the concrete. On the bright side, the rain itself was now almost as loud as the thunder had been. If this kept up, I wouldn’t have to worry about making any noise.

By the time I’d gotten within a block of Gunter’s house, I was thoroughly soaked.

“Brenna!”

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Blythe called my name. I pointed at her shiny pink rain slicker. “What are you wearing?”

“It’s pouring down rain. Where’s your rain coat?”

“At home where it belongs. Not being spotted by a criminal is more important than staying dry. Give me that.” I held out my hand for her raincoat.

Blythe whimpered softly and took it off. But instead of handing it over, she carefully folded it and stashed it under a bush by the sidewalk. I eyed her matching pink rain boots.

“No way!” she whispered fiercely. “Let’s go home, please, Brenna. It’s either nothing, or it’s not the kind of thing we should be involved in. It’s too dangerous.”

“You’re making it dangerous. You—”

“Shh!” Blythe pulled me back at pointed furiously down the road. An old Volkswagen van plowed its way through the standing water on the roadway in front of Gunter’s house.

“Let’s go. In back. That’s where his shop is. There’s a driveway from the alley. If anything’s going down, I’ll bet that’s where.”

We darted through spongey grass, around bushes, toward the back of Gunter’s house. Instead of a fence, an evergreen hedge separated Gunter’s front yard from the back. I should’ve thought of the alley to begin with, and come in the back way. It was too late for that now and I wasn’t about to let a hedge stop me. I was going to back up and try hurdling over it, but Blythe tugged my sopping sleeve.

She pointed at a tiny gap in the hedge. I slipped in front of her, sucked in my stomach, and held my arm over my face as I scraped through. I spat out rain water and bits of shrub. Behind me, Blythe sneezed. We both froze for a second, but all we could hear was rain. It occurred to me then that it wouldn’t be any easier for me to hear someone sneaking up on us than it would for someone else to hear us sneaking up on them. Such a comforting thought in the wet and the shadows, with a murderer lurking somewhere around town.

“Aah-choo!” Blythe blew her way out of the hedge with a sneeze.

I looked around frantically so see if anyone was there, if anyone had heard.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I got something in my nose.”

I waved off her apology, held a finger to my lips, then motioned toward Gunter’s truck, parked off to the side of his driveway. Did he always park it there, or had he maneuvered it out of the way because he was expecting someone else to pull in, possibly with something heavy, or a lot of stuff, or…

The same van that had driven down the street in front of the house moments ago was coming down the alley. It was him! Gunter’s mysterious visitor with the goods. It had to be. Blythe and I ran for cover behind Gunter’s truck. The van came to sloshing stop in the middle of a growing puddle in Gunter’s driveway. In the glow of the headlights, the color of the van was clear—green. Very green. A yellow smiley face air freshener swung from the mirror. Under the circumstances, Mister Happy-Face took on a decidedly sinister air.
What kind of contraband was inside? Drugs?

I shivered, then took deep, intentional breaths to slow my pounding heart. The same technique I’d used to keep composed when I was fighting on the world stage, under the lights, with a full stadium cheering against me.

Who conducts a highly secret operation in a lime green VW van, anyway?
I asked myself. Maybe this was nothing more than a visit from an old hippie friend.
 

The driver backed up until the rear doors of the van were close to the studio door. Then he cut the engine. A young man slipped out and shut the door behind him with care. Hmm. Not a quick slam, even in this downpour. He was driving a very conspicuous vehicle, but he’d brought it around to the back, and he was apparently taking some measures not to draw attention.

As the young man, wearing jeans and a light rain jacket, approached the studio door, it creaked open. Next to me, Blythe gasped. It was pitch dark in there, and we’d assumed it was empty, that Gunter would be waiting in the house. In the studio doorway, a flashlight beam flicked on. It was Gunter. He held the beam low, aimed at the ground.
 

“You brought her?” Gunter said.

His voice was hoarser than usual. With nerves, fear, or just excitement? It was hard to tell.

Next to me, Blythe mouthed, “‘Her?’”

“Of course. It just took me a little longer than I expected. I got lost,” the young man said in a low voice. “Couldn’t see in this rain.”

“Is she secure?”
 

“She’s all strapped down. Don’t worry, she’s not going anywhere.”

“Wait! We can’t let her get wet. I’ll be right back.”

I braced myself for the sight of a body emerging from the back of the van. Or—a live person? Could Gunter be involved in kidnapping? Human trafficking? That sick son of a—

Gunter ducked his head and darted through the downpour. He gripped an open tarp in his hands, and it billowed behind him in the wind. “We can’t keep cutting it this close, you know?”