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Rocks
MIA
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“NOT ONE MORE STEP, Mia.”
I freeze, lifting my arms slowly. My heart pounds in my ears.
“I have a gun,” she says. “I realized something last night, the best way to get something done, is to do it myself. Plus, then I get to keep the money. I’ve only paid a modest deposit.”
I turn, slowly, rotating on my feet, and come face to face with the barrel of an ugly black-metal handgun.
I know nothing about guns.
But I’m pretty sure that big black thing projecting off the front of it is a silencer. I suck in a long breath.
Sometimes I see things really clearly, like everything just makes sense. My place in the world, the things around me, the people. This is not one of those times. Nothing makes any sense. Annie—Annie—has a gun and she’s pointing it at me?
I look around frantically. A stick? A branch I can hit her with and run to the woods? Hide in the trees? It’s too far. Not a decent plan, and besides, there are no handy branches lying just within arm’s reach. Just snow dusted rocks and earth. Annie could shoot me before I got my hands on anything even halfway useful.
I need time. To think. To plan. To wait for a miracle.
“What money?” I ask.
“Oh, I keep forgetting!” she says in a happy voice, like we’re just hanging out chattering about good times. “You don’t know. I hired someone to kill you.”
What the fuck?
“You hired a hitman?” I round on her, spitting out the words.
She laughs, a self-indulgent chuckle, deep in her throat, that stops me cold. This isn’t a fight between two friends.
She’s not the Annie I’ve known all my life. Or maybe she is and she’s just shed her skin, but she’s different.
She’s crazy.
“No, Mia. You’re talking to me. You know me. I only hire the best. I hired the best hitman on the planet. I came across him when I was a journalist. Totally by accident. I was at a party at Senator Trahern’s house, near your parent’s actually. Anyway, I had to use the bathroom, but I got turned around, ended up in her office. Dropped something under her desk and got stuck when she came in with someone. Never knew who. They didn’t know I was there. They were talking about some black ops in Africa. Some guy, an assassin.”
I’m only listening with half an ear, still looking around frantically, searching for something, anything I can use as a weapon. A slight movement at the edge of the tree line just over her shoulder catches my eye.
A man. With black hair and slashing eyes, shoulders for days. He’s tall, with beard bristle, and I can’t see them because his fleece isn’t rolled up, but if it was, I’d see tattooed forearms. And if I was closer, I’d see hazel eyes.
I’ve missed him so much it makes my eyes burn.
Stranger.
He has such great timing. I don’t even care how he knew to come here.
I see him for only a second, then he’s gone, evaporated into the trees around him.
“He was too expensive though.” Annie prattles on, as easily as she used to chat about breastfeeding and funky Amy. “Luckily, I know someone with too much money. Three guesses who?”
I shake my head trying to clear it.
“Oh, you’re no fun Mia.” She tilts her head, the smile wavering, her eyes flashing. “Guess!”
“What... what...” I take a step away from her. “What are you talking about?”
“Turn around and walk toward the pond.”
I study the trees, but don’t see anything. Not even a flicker of movement. My breath is coming so fast my head spins.
“Turn AROUND!” Annie screams.
It freezes my blood—this woman she’s become bears no resemblance to the woman I’ve known, the woman I’ve loved, for so long.
It’s a wasted effort, but I have to try. I lick my lips, try to remember how much history we share, tilt my head, let her see I’m no threat to her. “What are you doing, Annie? Put that away.”
She shakes her head slowly back and forth. “I want you to bend over and pick up some of the rocks on the shore.”
That’s so random I scowl. “What are you talking about? This is nuts, Annie. I’m your best friend.”
She lets out a long caustic scoff. “Rocks, best friend. Now.”
“Why?”
Her nostrils flare, and she steps closer. The gun is level with my heart. “Pick up some rocks, Mia. Now. And fill your pockets with them.”
Then it clicks. The comment about the lake only being half frozen. She plans to shoot me and sink me in her pond. “No.”
She sighs dramatically, shrugs. “Okay. I’ll shoot you right here then. I was hoping to avoid it. I suppose the blood will wash away in the spring rain. Hmmmm... I don’t want to get any on myself. What did the internet say? Ten to twelve feet to be safe.”
She purses her lips, waggles her head back and forth studying the space between us and steps back a couple feet. “Alright, you ready?” She raises her brows and grins at me.
“No!”
“Then pick up the goddamned ROCKS!” Her voice bites across the freezing air, so loud a bunch of birds in the woods take off, squawking and flapping into the sky.
Where are you, Stranger? I’m half expecting her to shoot me in the back as I bend down and pick up a smooth stone, then another. There’s an idea forming in the back of my mind, one that terrifies me even more than Annie and her gun.
The rocks in my hand are smooth, cold enough to make my bare fingers ache.
“In your pockets. Fill them full.”
I stuff the stones in the pockets of Greg’s old coat. Moving as slowly as I think I can get away with. I wonder what he’ll think when he hears I’m gone, when his coat is missing, when the police come. There’s no way they won’t interview my best friend when I disappear. And my mom will notice when I disappear. Dad will notice. They won’t let this go.
“Now walk over to the canoe,” she says when she’s satisfied.
I move slowly, passing her, so I stand between her and the canoe. Her back is to the tree line... and Stranger. Wherever he is.
“This is stupid, Annie. My mom and dad are going to miss me disappearing. They’ll call the police. They’ll figure out we’re friends.”
She makes a weird strangled noise. “Seriously, Mia. You can barely look at me. You think when I open the door with my leaking tits they’ll bother looking at me twice? Most they can do is get a warrant and search the property. You’ll be eaten by wolves by then.”
Charming. Jesus, when did she get so cold?
I scan the edge of the woods.
He’s there, a finger held over his lips. He’s holding something in his hands. A gun like Annie’s, only longer, and scarier. My eyes fill with tears. I have no choice now.
I have to trust someone.
I screw up my face, perched on the edge of indecision. I think I get it now, all of it. Who Stranger really is, what he wanted from me all along, why he’s here.
He’s the killer.
She hired him.
I stare at his face for a long minute.
That’s what he wanted all along. Why he bothered with me.
He fucking joined the writers’ website to kill me.
I’ve been wrong about everyone, always trusting the wrong person.
For once, I’m going to trust myself.
“Go on,” Annie says. “Get in the canoe.”
Jesus. Her plan is to send me out in the canoe, with my pockets full of stones and let me sink to the bottom. The canoe will get me out into the water, and not much more.
The pond isn’t enormous, but it’s not tiny either, and no one comes down here. With the stones in my pockets, I may never be found.
I peel my gaze away from Stranger.
The canoe didn’t look good from far away, but up close it looks worse. It’s swayed and buckled, the wood wet on the bottom and warped, but dry and cracked on the top.
To get to it, I’ll have to step in the slushy bank of the pond. My pants and boots will get wet, and then I’ll be slow and freezing.
I cast her a dubious glance.
But I’m not alone. I have a hitman on my side. Maybe?
Stranger’s behind her, a finger still held over his lips, his eyes locked on mine, begging me, daring me, I can practically feel him screaming at me silently.
I know him so well. After all this time, all the chats and the phone calls and the texts and the days we spent in each other’s pockets. The look on his face screams at me that he’s real, demands that I trust him.
I remember James and Gogo, the farm house. The expression he made when I threw the computer at him, like he was finally getting what he deserved.
Something must flicker on my face, because Annie’s shoulders twitch as she starts to turn to follow my gaze.
I don’t even think. Just move by pure instinct. I raise one of my too-small river rocks and hurl it through the air right at her face.
It connects with her cheek bone.
I’m screaming.
She’s screaming.
I think.
I don’t know.
There’s no cover. If she sees Stranger, she’ll probably start shooting at him, but if she looks at me, she’ll definitely shoot at me. The canoe is my only hope. And that Stranger will stop her.
I take a running jump, stomp through the slush and dive into the canoe.
My motion sends it gliding out into the water, pushing through slush, until I’m out over frozen black water. Ice water like a thousand tiny blades flows over the edges of my boots, tangles in my pants, weighs me down.
I barely hear the soft popping of the silenced gun, but I hear the wood of the canoe splinter. Not once, but twice. The old buckled bottom shifts under my feet.
It starts to fill with water so icy cold my hands stiffen instantly. I move clumsily to my feet, trying to keep my balance in the topsy-turvy canoe, arms held out wide. There are no paddles.
Shore is more than fifteen feet away. Fifteen feet of black water thickening with strands of ice and patches of slush.
Stranger shoots, shouting, but I can’t hear him.
There’s a bang so loud my teeth chatter and my ears ring, and a fine puff of pink cloud that erupts in the air around Annie. She collapses to the ground.
Stranger’s there, standing over her, gazing down with a face I’ve never seen on another human before. Ice cold.
He looks up at me.
I shout, or rather I try. Nothing comes out of my mouth but a hoarse, chattery whisper.
I yank off the stupid, rock-filled coat, tug off the boots, and dive into the water.