Night of the Living Deb Read online

  I had to get out of the basement, or she’d never understand.

  So I shut off the light, felt for the knob of the door with my fingers, slowly turned and warily let myself into the still-dark kitchen.

  “Andrea?” Mother was squawking. “Are you there?”

  I could hear her now, clear as crystal.

  “Yes, I’m here,” I said, keeping my voice low, letting

  my eyes adjust to the dim again, closing the basement

  door and listening to the thud of my heartbeat as I told her, “You have to call—”

  The police.

  That’s what I would’ve said, anyway, if I’d been allowed to finish.

  Instead, something hard hit my wrist, knocked my cell from my hand, and I felt the sudden pressure of cool metal at my temple and the voice of a man, telling me, “Nobody’s calling nobody, girlie.”

  My gaze fell on his shoes—so shiny they glowed in the dark—and moved up the sharp line of his pants, creased to perfection.

  His face, too, was creased and hard as flint.

  Bernard, I presumed, and my head felt suddenly woozy.

  Maybe the gun pointed at my brain had something to do with that.

  All the while I kept thinking that I wouldn’t be much help to either Lana or Brian if Bernard turned me into mince meat.

  Chapter 23

  “Move,” Bernard ordered, nudging me with the butt of his gun, and I inched my way over toward

  the table, where he indicated I should sit down in a chair. “Don’t even twitch,” he told me in a voice that brooked no argument—as if his weapon wasn’t threat enough—and then he went to the light switch and flipped the fixture on.

  I squished my eyes shut against the brilliance, heard Oleksiy’s goon roll open a drawer and rummage around.

  “I thought I heard somebody in here before, and it was you, wasn’t it? I should turn you over to the cops,” he said, “for breaking and entering.”

  “Do that,” I said, not wanting to make Bernard mad so much as kill some time with conversation. I glanced at my cell, lying dead on the floor, and I hoped like hell that Mother had dialed the Dallas P.D. once I’d been cut off. I tried to peer beyond the window glass into the backyard; but all I could pick out was my own reflection, sitting at Petrenko’s dinner table like a cooked goose.

  Was Stephen out there still? Could he see me? Did he know I was in trouble?

  Mr. Shoe Shine returned, brandishing his weapon and a roll of duct tape. “So you want to be tossed in jail for trespassing?”

  I met his near-black eyes and fought the urge to pee in my pants. “What would be even more fun would be hearing you explain to the nice policemen why Mr. Petrenko has his wife drugged and chained to a wall in his cellar.”

  Something in his face shifted, turned even meaner, if that were possible. “What are you? A reporter? You sniffing around for a story, huh? Well, girlie, you came to the wrong place.”

  “I’m not a reporter.”

  He laughed, and it was a most unpleasant sound.

  “Yeah? That’s what they all say. We even had one try to get into the house by pretending to be a meter reader. How dumb is that?”

  “Not as dumb as kidnapping a lawyer from a strip club and stashing a dead hooker in his trunk,” I got out.

  Mr. Shoe Shine stopped smirking. “What’d you say?”

  “You know what I said.” I was trying to channel my mother, psychically urging her to speed-dial the Dallas P.D. before things got any dicier than they already were.

  “I’ve had about enough yakking out of you, girlie. Now put your arms behind your back and sit still.” He shoved his gun inside his waistband and pulled out a generous stretch of duct tape from the roll.

  I didn’t exactly cooperate, keeping my hands clasped tightly in my lap. “You sure you want to do this, Bernard?

  I mean, what would your mother think about you tying up innocent girls?”

  “That’s it. You asked for it, remember that,” he said and ripped off a piece of tape big enough to cover my mouth.

  Crap.

  I felt the adhesive stick to my lips and cheeks as Bernard patted it down. It pulled at my skin like an unwanted face-lift. I railed against it, desperate to bite or scream, but only producing ineffectual noises of protest as he situated my wrists, preparing to bind them.

  Just wait until Starsky and Hutch show up.

  I tried to comfort myself with the thought, not wanting to acknowledge the fact that they might never come; that Mother’s ruse of disturbed neighbor might fall flat; that Oleksiy might end up tossing me in a trunk without a pulse, as he had Trayla Trash.

  Where was Superman when you needed him, huh?

  My head jerked up at the sound of rending, and I watched helplessly as Petrenko’s goon tore off another length of duct tape, eager to seal me up like a package bound for UPS. “Keep your hands behind your back, right where I put ’em,” Shoe Shine growled, and this time I did as I was told.

  As he bent down to tape my wrists, the French doors flew open, and a black figure hurled itself directly at the squatting Bernard.

  Stephen?

  The chair I sat in nearly tipped over as Petrenko’s goon grabbed at it, fighting the weight of Mother’s beau on his back. Only one of my wrists had any tape on it, so I broke free easily and scooted away from the two men, who rolled around, duking it out on the kitchen floor.

  “Run, Andy!” Stephen managed to shout at me, his slender form fighting hard to keep the far stockier Bernard pinned down.

  But I wasn’t about to leave a member of my posse in an obviously untenable position. There had to be something I could do, some way I could help; besides, I needed the keys to the padlocks, and according to Lana, Bernard was the one who had them.

  The tape still on my mouth, I ran around to the wellstocked counters, thinking I’d grab a knife—but not exactly wanting to use one—when I spotted the George Foreman Grill.

  Stephen had lost hold of Oleksiy’s goon, and Bernard was scrabbling to pull his gun from his waistband, when I came up behind him and swung the grill as hard as I could. It landed with a resounding clunk against Shoe Shine’s head.

  He tottered for a moment, then shook it off, muttering, “Dumb move, girlie,” before he turned to me and raised his weapon, and I closed my eyes, prepared for the bullet that would surely sink into my chest and take me out for real.

  Instead, I heard a groan followed by a thud that made the earth move under my feet, and Stephen said breathlessly, “Good going, Andrea.”

  I opened my eyes and realized I was alive, and Bernard lay on the floor, a large egg-shaped welt turning purple at his left temple.

  I stared at the grill in my hands for a moment and did what any girl in my situation would do: I whispered thanks to the Big Guy.

  George Foreman, I mean.

  “You okay?” Mother’s ex-Navy dude asked while he got to work, using the duct tape to bind Bernard’s hands and feet. I saw Goon Boy’s gun, now stuck in Stephen’s belt, a much safer place than where it used to be.

  I nodded, unable to speak until I’d peeled off the strip of adhesive Bernard had used to shut me up. “I’m fine,” I said when I finally could. “Thanks for saving my tush.”

  Stephen didn’t glance up from binding Bernard’s ankles,

  merely replied with a perfunctory, “Any time.”

  As if stuff like this happened every day.

  I reluctantly put the grill away, half expecting Petrenko himself to surge into the kitchen upon hearing the commotion. Then I reminded myself that his mansion covered ten thousand square feet. He’d need bat ears to have caught wind of this. Besides, he was a heterosexual male who’d murdered his mistress and chained his wife to a pipe, so he was doubtless ripe for female company.

  I’d wager his full attention was focused on the very pretty and very blond Ms. Allie Price and her tight

  sweater. . . .
/>   The keys, I reminded myself.

  I crouched beside Stephen, sharing what Lana had told me as I picked Bernard’s pockets until I found a full key ring and palmed it.

  “The police’ll be here any minute,” Stephen assured me. “Your mother got worried when your call was cut off.

  She came to find me . . . well, after she ran into the other guard and sprayed the fellow in the eyes with her Febreze.

  But don’t worry, she’s okay, and I’m sure he’s only temporarily blinded.”

  Ah, so it could be used to neutralize a bad guy.

  “Where is she?”

  “I told her to wait in the car.”

  “And you think that’s where she is?”

  Hello? When did Cissy Blevins Kendricks ever listen to anyone?

  “If she knows what’s good for her, she will be,” he said, and he actually winked.

  Bernard took that moment to groan, before Stephen slapped a strip of duct tape over his mouth, and I had a lovely sense of justice being served, in a small sense anyhow.

  The rest would be taken care of once the cops showed up on Petrenko’s doorstep.

  But I couldn’t wait for them.

  Call me antsy.

  I crossed the kitchen to the basement door and opened it, just as I detected the wail of sirens in the distance, drawing nearer.

  If I’d needed an extra boost of courage, I felt it then, and I descended the well-lit steps into Oleksiy’s wine dungeon, sure of where I was going this time and what I would see.

  I went to Lana first, found the key that unlocked her chains and set her free, though she was too weak to do much more than stay put until help arrived. She wept as I told her that would be soon. I could only imagine how happy she’d be to crucify her jerk-off husband after this.

  My fingers trembled as I shifted through the ring for the key to undo the padlock on the door in the cellar’s rear.

  When I pulled the latch off and pushed wide the heavy wood, my heart zigzagged as I smelled something very familiar:

  the scent of citrus-tinged cologne mixed with sweat.

  Malone was there.

  He was lying on a flimsy mattress, between racks of what I assumed were Petrenko’s most priceless bottles of vino. Dusty old things that leant a musky odor to the cramped room.

  “Malone, oh, God.” His name slipped from my lips as I flew the few steps between us and knelt beside him, weeping with joy as I pressed my cheek against his, saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” over and over again, as he breathed guttural breaths, like someone in a deep sleep.

  I drew away and looked him over, making sure he was all in one piece, noting with dismay the torn state of his pink shirt, the bruises at his jaw, and his unshaven cheeks. One eye was puffy and purple. His glasses were missing.

  His feet were bare and filthy.

  My God, what had they done to him?

  He had empty water bottles around him, as well as one

  still half full. It looked as cloudy as Lana’s.

  “Oh, Brian,” I said, and I buried my head in his shoulder, feeling such relief that it made me dizzy. I ran a hand over his rumpled hair, and his eyes fluttered against my cheek.

  “Andy?” he murmured.

  “Yeah, baby?” I looked into his face, saw his dilated pupils try to focus on me.

  “I had the strangest dream.”

  “I had it, too, but it’s over now,” I told him. “The nightmare’s ended.” I pressed my lips against his forehead, holding him close.

  No more fake ransoms, no more strippers, no more worries about whether my heart had been broken to bits.

  From this moment forth, life would be a piece of cake.

  And I would savor every morsel of it.

  Epilogue

  Thankfully, Brian and I had a few days to rest and recover before we had to face another

  gauntlet.

  My birthday dinner at Cissy’s.

  Which meant no torn jeans, no ponytails, no whining about the birthday cake, even if it was some kind of froufrou mousse soufflé.

  Though I didn’t feel much like complaining about anything these days, not after I’d had the fright of my life and realized how much I could have lost and how easily, before I’d even had the chance to grasp how much I cared about Malone.

  I’d learned more about my beau in one night of living hell than I had in the four months before it.

  It was way too easy to take someone for granted, wasn’t it? I had vowed, after surviving such a scare, that I would never do that again.

  And I wouldn’t.

  Which meant enjoying Mother’s catered celebration to honor my turning thirty-one, even if it killed me. Cissy had invited twenty of my nearest and dearest, which translated mostly into her nearest and dearest, though I knew my old pal Janet Graham would be there. Janet had already phoned, after she’d caught wind of the “Petrenko Stinko,” as the media had taken to calling it. Janet was dying

  to do a piece for the Society pages she edited for the Park Cities Press and wanted an exclusive. She already had a headline for it: night of the living deb.

  As tight as we were, I’d declined.

  Brian and I had been through enough already, and I honestly didn’t want to relive the horror of it, not even for the length of an interview.

  The Dallas police—namely Starsky and Hutch—had raked poor Malone over the coals as soon as he’d been fit enough to answer their grilling; though they’d ultimately let him off the hook. After Lana Petrenko started talking, no one doubted for a moment that Oleksiy was behind Trayla’s death and Brian’s kidnapping.

  I could only imagine what Lana would say on the witness stand. If I were Petrenko, I’d start having my tailor whip up a few custom-made jumpsuits in jailhouse orange.

  Call me vengeful, but the thought made me smirk.

  “Andy, do I look all right?”

  I turned to see Brian standing in the bedroom doorway, wearing the new pair of glasses that Lenscrafters had cranked out for him in an hour flat. He still had a shiner that ringed his right eye and made him look like he’d been in a bar fight. Other than that, he appeared to be the same Malone, and I was eternally grateful for that.

  “You’re gorgeous,” I told him, and was about to say something frighteningly mushy when my cell rang, playing that idiotic music until I made it stop.

  “Hello?”

  “Kendricks? Where the hell are y’all? You’re late, you know.”

  I sighed, met Brian’s eyes and mouthed, Allie.

  “Your mother’s chomping at the bit, and my new Manolos are kind of pinching. So could you hurry up and get a move on?”

  Cissy had invited the Blond Menace to my party, and I had made not a single noise of protest. How could I, when she’d been the one who’d done the most to get me through the “missing Malone” mess? She’d smoothed things over at Abramawitz, Reynolds, Goldberg & Hunt, so that Malone had kept his job; in fact, he’d been named “Associate of the Week” after a number of pieces of stolen artwork were found in Petrenko’s possession, and after one of his goons had ’fessed up to disposing of Trayla after the Boss Man had killed her in a rage with Malone’s Big Bertha.

  Petrenko had a lot more on his plate now than money laundering, seeing as how he’d been charged with kidnapping, art theft, and murder one.

  Brian’s firm was no longer representing the Ukrainian bastard, thank God, as Malone would be testifying at his trial. I planned to have a front row seat, as I didn’t want to miss a lick of the proceedings. If I had never been interested in Brian’s work before, I was now.

  But first, another type of trial: dinner at Chez Cissy.

  “We’ll be there in twenty,” I told Allie, before I hung up on her, albeit with more affection than malice. Really, I’m sure she felt it, too.

  “You ready?” I asked Brian, and he nodded.

  “If I can handle being drugged and locked in a wine cell
ar for two days, I can sit through one of Cissy’s dinner parties.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.

  “But I do feel bad about something,” he told me as I helped him shrug into his jacket. “I had a card all ready for you, but I couldn’t find it. I nearly tossed my place looking, but it wasn’t there.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said and smiled ear-to-ear, meaning every tooth of it. “I don’t need a card when I have you here.”

  Hmmm, would lightning strike me, for lying by omission?

  Was it wrong not to admit that I’d dug up the Frankenstein greeting card with his scribbled “I love you”

  while I was pawing through his things, desperately seeking clues on where he’d disappeared to?

  Naw.

  What Malone didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  “But at least my birthday gift is intact,” he said as he followed me out of the bedroom. “A whole four days away, in a cozy little cabin in Kennebunkport, Maine.”

  Ah, yes, the trip. The surprise penned in red on his calendar.

  We’d be gone at the same time Cissy went to Vegas with Stephen.

  Talk about perfect timing. I wasn’t going to protest my mother’s trip with her beau, not after what Stephen had done to help me get Brian back. But I didn’t want to have to think about it.

  I sighed.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” I prodded. “Allie reminded me we’re late.”

  I wrapped a pink pashmina around my shoulders (a gift from Lu McCarthy, as it were, which had come with a note thanking me for not having her and Cricket arrested and forgiving me for covering her in red dye, which she was still scrubbing off days later).

  I grabbed my purse off the hall table and was reaching for the door when a knock sounded on the other side. I peered through the peephole, seeing a pair of faces, distorted by the fish-eye lens and yet vaguely familiar.

  Something told me they weren’t reporters, which was a good thing, as I’d seen enough of them to last a lifetime.

  So I pulled the door inward, uttering a civil “Yes?” to the couple standing on my welcome mat.

  “Andrea Kendricks?” the woman said, and I realized her blue eyes were very much like Brian’s.