Page 78 of Sinister Secrets

I laugh. I have to hand it to her. She’s got a lot of nerve.

“How about this? I’ll give you one chance to leave now, and if you don’t take it, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing,” I say, turning back to the wheelbarrow.

“Then we’ll do this the hard way.”

The electricity burns through my veins like fire. I hit the ground hard, raising a cloud of dust. My muscles twitch and spasm while Chelsea stares down at me with a blank expression, the stun gun clenched in the fist at her side.

I do my best to stay calm and ride it out, knowing that I just have to wait a few more seconds before I’ll be back in control of my body. Then I’m going to make her regret ever coming here.

But before that happens, she leans over me. Uncaps the syringe she removes from her pocket and sticks it into my neck. There’s the brief sting of the needle as it enters my flesh. Then there’s nothing.

CHAPTER 46

A heavy haze clouds my thoughts as I struggle to rise back to consciousness. The earthy scent of manure fills my lungs. That’s right. I was cleaning Sam Mule’s stall. I remember his ears pinning. His eyes rolling. Had he kicked me?

I’m always so careful, especially around him, but there’s no denying that my skull feels like it’s been cracked by a hoof. Only as my body moves, jostling from side to side, dipping and rising, I realize that I’m not in a heap on the ground. I’m not being dragged, either.

Sam had tried to push his way out the door. I’d left his stall. He’s not the one who did this to me. It wasn’t my presence in his space that had made him antsy. It was the danger he had sensed waiting just beyond it.

Chelsea.

My molars throb, a sharp pain stabbing through my head as I recall the feeling of the electricity flowing through my body. The jab of the needle. She’d drugged me with something. And though I long to move, to fight against the effects of whatever it was to get it to wear off quicker, I force myself to stay still. To take stock.

I’m curled on my side, pressed against a hard plastic wall. That’s where the smell is coming from. The motion. I’m in the wheelbarrow—just like the killer had used to transport Gordon’s body. The female killer, if Jeffery’s account can be trusted. Not Lucy. Not Nancy Dunn.

Chelsea.

But why? What connection does she have to Gordon? What could have possibly inspired her to put so much thought and planning into doing this to me before we even met? Is this because she wants Jake? Or because I told her to leave?

My hands are tied behind my back, the rough rope fiber sawing at my skin with every bounce and sway. My legs—I wait until we hit a hard rut, using the jarring motion to try to move my ankles apart. I can’t, they’re bound as well, which means the only thing I can use to my advantage is the element of surprise, assuming she doesn’t realize that whatever she gave me wasn’t enough to keep me unconscious.

We come to a sudden stop. I work to keep my breathing slow and shallow as I listen to the familiar creak of the gate that leads to Chomp’s pond opening. We’ve come full circle.

She grabs the handles of the wheelbarrow, grunting as she lifts. Mutters some nasty comments about my weight as we moved forward again, but nothing she says matters, because as the motion knocks my spine against the hard plastic wall behind me, I realize that she made one very huge mistake—she overlooked the gun in the paddle holster tucked into my shorts at the small of my back.

I can get out of this. I will get out of this. But before I can formulate a plan, she jerks the end of the wheelbarrow up sharply, sending my flying head over feet, landing face first in the pond. I roll onto my back, sputtering, coughing up the scummy water that entered my lungs while using my feet to pull myself up the bank to get my top half out of the water.

“Oh good. You’re awake.” She lands a heavy blow on my shins, stopping my escape, the sole of her shoe taking some of my skin with it. “That means we can begin.”

As I lift my gaze to meet hers, I’m stunned by the pure hatred I see. “You killed Gordon,” I say.

“I did,” she admits, frowning as she moves the collar of her shirt to inspect the fading bruise on her shoulder, the one she’d insinuated an abusive ex had given her.

Was Gordon her ex? Had he been the one to cause the injury? Or had it been the kick of the shotgun she’d used to kill him?

“Why?”

“Because Alicia was already dead and he failed. He was supposed to make sure the Sanctuary was destroyed. That you were left with absolutely nothing. Instead, not only does this place still exist, but you’re here living your happily ever after.”

I stare at her, not quite understanding. “You were behind what happened?”

“I was.” She gives me a big, proud-of-herself grin. “Three years of meticulous research, planning, ingratiating myself to the right people until I found my way into the same room with those who had the power to make it happen. Three years of my life that I’ll never get back.”

“Butch is dead because of you.”

I strain to sit up, to get my hands on the gun digging into my back. To put an end to this woman’s life for what she’s done. She sends me back to the ground with a kick to my chest. My head dips below the water with a splash. I strain my neck forward to raise it.

“He is.”