Third to Die Read online

  “Whatever really happened to Justin, it won’t be good, will it? It’s not like he was actually abducted by aliens and in a few years he’ll return to us.”

  John came back cradling armfuls of beer. He was holding nine bottles in total.

  “Jeeze!” Alex exclaimed when he saw him. “I’ve got work tomorrow, you know?”

  “Drink up,” John ordered his friends as he carefully lowered the bottles onto the table.

  “Tonight we drown our sorrows and reminisce and tell stupid drunken stories. Tonight we honour Justin’s memory. Tomorrow we search for his truth.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” John shrugged, reaching forward for a fresh bottle of beer.

  The trio toasted their fallen friend and downed their copious bottles of beer. They ordered shots, they played their favourite songs on the jukebox and laughed gregariously together. As the alcohol worked its magic, the pain of Justin’s loss eased and they fell back into the familiar routine of being together, of having fun. For a blissful moment they were no longer three grown men but three high school friends just out having a good time.

  *

  “Brandy, your client is waiting,” Carol Cotton told her niece sharply.

  “Okay, yes, sorry,” Brandy quickly slipped out of her coat and straightened the dress she was wearing underneath. She’d been playing on her beloved piano and lost track of time. Not daring to waste another minute, she hurried over to a middle-aged woman with short, dark hair.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she told the woman sat in the stylist’s chair. She looked up at Brandy in the mirror she was facing and smiled thinly. “Not a problem.”

  “Was it just a cut?” Brandy asked as she picked up the nearby hairdressing scissors which were already sterilized.

  “Yeah, just a trim and tidy,” the woman clarified. She overly extended all her words on account of her Southern drawl. Brandy tensed slightly with the scissors in hand. The only Southern accents she was used to hearing belonged to her and her aunt.

  “Are you from the city?” Brandy asked politely as she began to trim away some of the woman’s loose ends.

  “Hell, no!” the woman chortled. “I’m here on vacation.”

  “How nice,” Brandy smiled warmly. As she worked, the woman observed her in the mirror with growing intensity.

  “I know you,” she eventually declared.

  Brandy paused and frowned, locking eyes with the woman in the mirror. Beneath her short dark hair she had heavily made-up eyes which now regarded Brandy with keen interest.

  “I definitely know you,” she confirmed, raising a hand to point a large ruby-red manicured nail at the mirror, thus at Brandy.

  “I…don’t think we’ve met,” Brandy told her politely. The woman was a total stranger to her.

  “I know you!” the woman cried, pouting her lips which were the same vibrant red as her nails. She was silent for a moment as her mind searching through its vast stores of memories.

  Brandy continued cutting.

  “You’re off the TV!” the woman suddenly shrieked, delighted to have remembered.

  “The TV?” Brandy shook her head softly. “I’m not on TV, ma’am, I work here.”

  “No, you were on the news!”

  Brandy lowered her hand, which held the scissors. She felt blood rush to her cheeks, causing them to turn as red as the woman’s nails.

  “There was that huge scandal in that small town.” The woman continued talking as her memories of Brandy rose to the surface.

  “You were in prison for killing your husband, you were on death row!”

  A few other nearby clients turned their heads in interest, some with fear reflected in their eyes. Even some of the stylists ceased working to listen.

  Brandy froze. She could feel their eyes upon her, could feel the heat of their accusations burning through her pale skin. She’d forgotten how awful it felt to be looked at in such a way.

  “You’re mistaken,” Carol stepped in, her tone bold and confident. She stood in front of the mirror so that the woman had to look at her directly.

  “I know the story you mean, that awful business that happened down in Avalon. But this here is Brandy Cotton, my niece,” she pointed protectively at Brandy, who remained rooted to the spot.

  “She just looks an awful lot like the Brandy White who was involved in that mess. She gets stopped all the time when we’re back home, it’s so frustrating.”

  “It’s uncanny,” the brunette swerved to peer round Carol, back at Brandy through the mirror.

  “You look just like her.”

  “Yeah,” Brandy finally found her voice. “I get that a lot.”

  *

  “Thank you,” Brandy was alone in the small staff kitchen with her aunt. The observant client was long gone and the salon would soon be closing. “For helping me out with that woman before.”

  “It’s all right,” Carol tenderly patted Brandy’s hands, which were resting on the cool counter.

  “I never expected anyone here to recognize me, which is stupid really,” Brandy blinked rapidly as the jewel of a tear formed in the corner of her eye.

  “Just remember that Brandy White is gone,” Carol told her gently. “You’re Brandy Cotton now. This is a fresh start for you.”

  “Do I ever get a fresh start?” Brandy wondered sadly. “I mean, will I ever truly get to put Avalon behind me?”

  “Of course you will,” Carol reassured her. “One day it will all just be a bad memory, that’s all.”

  Brandy nodded but she wasn’t so certain. She hated to admit that something was still connecting her to Avalon, well not something, but someone.

  *

  As Aiden staggered out of Skinny Jacks, the cool night air billowed around him, intensifying his intoxicated state. He was leaning precariously against John, who in turn was draped over Alex and the three of them were singing loudly, and badly, an old Guns N’ Roses song which Justin used to love.

  Strung together like some macabre humanoid, they almost collectively fell over as they each became unsteady on their feet. Aiden untangled himself and ambled along the street. The street appeared to tilt slightly as though on an axis.

  “Where you going, Connelly?” John drunkenly called after him.

  “He’s going to call his wife!” Alex cried. “A booty call!” he added suggestively.

  Aiden laughed at them as he removed his cell phone from his jeans pocket. He clumsily scrawled through his list of names, stopping when he saw Brandy’s details. His heart trembled in his chest. He couldn’t call her, he shouldn’t. But the liquor in his veins made him bold.

  “Tell Mrs. Connelly we said hello!” John shouted loudly as Aiden raised the device to his ear. It was ringing. His heart began to hammer madly against his rib cage as though it might suddenly break free and drop to the ground, crashing in a bloodied mess at his feet.

  Two rings. Three rings.

  She wasn’t going to answer. He should just hang up.

  “Hello?” Brandy’s sweet, angelic voice directly entered his ear. Aiden’s breath caught in his chest and then he panicked and swiftly ended the call.

  *

  “Hello?” Brandy spoke again, crossing her arms across her chest as she stood in her apartment wearing a short blue nightdress. The loud shrill of her telephone had pulled her back from the cusp of sleep and she felt groggy and disorientated.

  “Hello?” she became more insistent, certain she’d heard someone breathe on the other end of the line. She nervously tapped her bare feet against the wooden floor, waiting for the caller to speak, to reveal themselves. But there was nothing. They had disconnected and all she could hear was the steady, monotonous drone of the dial tone.

  Chapter Five

  In Sickness and in Health

  “I can’t stay any longer,” Aiden slammed down the trunk of his car and turned to face John who was standing beside him on the motel parking lot.

  “Alex said he should have the files by Friday
at the latest.”

  “I’ll have to come back,” Aiden sighed, leaning against his car.

  “But you’ll come back?” John asked uncertainly, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.

  “Of course,” Aiden reassured him.

  Even though the hour was still early, the sun shone brightly above them, promising a blisteringly hot day in Greensburg.

  “You got commitments back in Avalon?” John seemed reluctant to leave the parking lot, to leave Aiden.

  “Yeah, I’ve got a friend who…is sick.”

  “Well that sucks.”

  “It does.” Aiden raised a hand to his temple to shield his eyes from the sun but also to massage his right eyebrow as pain throbbed beneath it; the early stages of an intense headache. He only had himself to blame. He was hungover. He’d awoken back at his motel splayed across the bed with the bitter taste of tequila still on his lips.

  Aiden had stood in the small motel shower for almost half an hour, trying to wash away the fatigue and the residue of the night before. He’d enjoyed being with his old friends. As the drinks mounted up, his fears about Edmond, the space left by Justin, gradually began to disappear until all that remained was the euphoria of the moment.

  “I’m exhausted,” Aiden admitted. The twelve-hour stretch of driving ahead of him felt impossible and unbearably infinite. His limbs already ached and he wasn’t yet behind the wheel.

  “Then stay another day,” John urged. “Rest up.”

  Aiden wished he could. But when he woke up there was more than just the bitter aftertaste of his night out to greet him. Edna Copes had called, leaving a stilted message on his phone. Edmond’s chemotherapy had been brought forward a day, could Aiden still take him to hospital? She finished by saying how she hated to put him out. She sounded tired and barely there as if, like Edmond, she too was slowly fading away.

  “I can’t.” Aiden shook his head sadly. “I’ve got to get back to Avalon for my friend.”

  “So are they real sick?”

  “Yeah,” Aiden rubbed at his eyes. “Real sick.”

  John lowered his head and kicked absently at a stone near his feet.

  “Tell Alex I said bye, I’ll be back on Monday. The report should be available by then.”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell him.”

  Aiden straightened and opened his car door.

  “It’s been nice having you back,” John called to him.

  “It’s been good.” Aiden smiled, but as he did the pain in his head intensified.

  “Do you think we’re just chasing ghosts?” John asked suddenly. Aiden turned to face him and saw the desperation lurking behind his eyes.

  “No, we’re just looking for answers. And we’ll have them soon.”

  John nodded in satisfaction.

  “Well, drive safe, Connelly.”

  “You too.”

  Aiden climbed into his car and turned the air conditioning up full blast. Behind him, John swung out of the parking lot in his pickup and turned back towards Greensburg.

  *

  It was already dark when Avalon started to appear on the road signs. Aiden felt his spirits lift slightly upon reading the familiar name. He was exhausted. During his drive back from his home town he’d seen an entire day pass via the view through his windscreen. Within his car he felt surreally removed from what was going on around him. He’d hoped to use the drive to think things through about Justin, to consider what plausible reason there could be for the absence of information on his death certificate. Instead he listened to the radio and stopped regularly at gas stations to purchase sugary snacks and energy drinks in an attempt to stay awake.

  He drove through Avalon as though in a dream; relying more on memory than his sight as he guided his car back to his home and parked up on the drive. The house was already in darkness. In his malaise he’d forgotten to tell Isla that he was coming home a day early. Wearily Aiden unlocked the front door and headed inside. He was grateful to be home and desperate to fall asleep in his own bed.

  *

  Brandy had always found libraries daunting. In high school it was seen as social suicide to be caught in one but that wasn’t the reason she avoided them. It was more what they represented that scared her. Libraries were sanctuaries for learned people; people who loved to read and conduct research.

  “Great people read great books,” her English teacher had once told her when Brandy privately voiced an interest in reading Flowers in the Attic. She’d heard some girls talking about it in the corridor at school, about how scandalous and tragic it was. Brandy had liked the idea of getting lost in a story more tragic than her own. Yet when she asked her teacher about borrowing the book from the library, the bespectacled woman had scowled and sharpened her voice. “You are not a great person, Brandy. A book of that calibre would be wasted on you.”

  Back then, Brandy had believed her. People were always telling her where she was supposed to fit in, how she shouldn’t wish for greatness. Then she met Aiden.

  “Darn it,” Brandy audibly berated herself as she walked through the front doors of the library. She wasn’t going to think about Aiden anymore. He was back in Avalon with his wife, with his child. She needed to start living for herself.

  Brandy paused in the foyer of the library and looked around. A great space opened up before her, divided into aisles by numerous bookshelves, all of them stacked high with a rainbow of spines. Above the aisles were labels offering direction. For Adventure, take a left, for Fantasy, go straight. For non-fiction, go upstairs.

  Unsure where to go, Brandy proceeded into the Fiction section. The air smelled musty but inviting. As she walked, she raised a finger and let it follow the line of books beside her. There were thick books, thin books, hardback and paperback. She wondered if every book ever written resided here in this vast library. Were all libraries this immense?

  After twenty minutes her search came to an end. In the alphabetized General Fiction section she had found Flowers in the Attic. She starred at it on the shelf, not daring to even touch it. The faded title on the well-worn spine looked out invitingly at her. Brandy tentatively stepped closer to the book. The space within the aisles of the bookshelves was quite compact and for a brief moment she felt the various tomes begin to come in on her. Closing her eyes she took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was no longer in a prison cell; trapped within four walls. She was in Chicago, in a library, she was free. When she opened her eyes again, the books were where they should be and she sighed contentedly.

  Reaching forward, she picked up Virginia Andrews’ famous novel. It was relatively thick. Not as dense as most, but enough for Brandy to know that a formidable story must be contained within the yellowed pages. She looked down at the cover. There was the silhouette of an impressive house which appeared gothic and menacing. Brandy softly ran her hand over the cover. It didn’t seem real to be there, to be holding the book, but it was. Thanks to Aiden.

  “Darn it,” Brandy scolded her thoughts again, pushing the words out with angry force. Aiden had saved her, but she didn’t owe him her life. She didn’t owe him anything. Yet as she held the book, the first thought which flickered through her mind was how she wanted to tell him about it, just to hear his voice.

  *

  “Aid?” Isla mumbled sleepily as her husband crawled into bed beside her.

  “Hey,” Aiden muttered as he rolled over and tucked himself in beneath the sheet. His whole body instantly sagged with pleasure as he was finally able to lie down and rest. He let his eyes fall shut but had to snap them back open in the space of a second as Isla flicked on her bedside light and sat up.

  “I thought you weren’t coming home until Friday,” she noted as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

  “I had to come back early, can we talk about it in the morning?”

  “Did you get everything done that you needed to? Did you help your friend?” Isla was looking down on him, her voice now bright and alert. Sighing, Aiden rolled over to face he
r.

  “No, I need to go back.”

  “What? When?”

  “Next week,” Aiden shielded his eyes from the light which seemed impossibly bright. “Can we just talk tomorrow?” he begged. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Fine,” Isla said sharply, reaching down to switch off the light and plunge the bedroom back into comforting darkness. “But you can’t keep coming and going like this,” Isla lamented. “I mean, waking me up in the middle of the night! I didn’t know who the hell it was! It could have been Buck Fern breaking into make good on his threats! You need to keep me informed, Aiden. Aiden?”

  She nudged her husband for a response, but his breathing had already deepened. He was asleep.

  *

  “Are you checking this out?” the librarian asked as she scanned the book.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Brandy nodded solemnly.

  “Do you have your library card?” the woman asked, staring at Brandy from behind her glasses which were perched on the tip of her nose.

  “No, I’ve not used the library before.” Brandy wanted to add that she’d not used any library before.

  “Not a problem,” the woman rummaged beneath the desk and produced a single sheet containing a form.

  “Just fill this out,” she instructed. “And we’ll send you your library card in the post.”

  “Okay,” Brandy nodded as she reached for a pen. The form was requesting simple details like her name and address in Chicago. She felt a shiver of delight run down her back as she wrote her apartment’s location, along with her full name of Brandy Cotton. Seeing all the details written down made it all more real somehow, like this was who she truly was. She was no longer Brandy White, murderer. She was Brandy Cotton, library card user.

  When the form was complete, she pushed it back towards the woman. She briefly eyed the details and then typed something into the computer positioned on the desk.

  “Make sure you return the book before the borrowed date lapses, or else renew it via that machine there,” she pointed at what looked like an ATM located by the main doors. “Once you’ve finished, just drop it in the returns box.”