Convicted Read online

  "I'll talk to you later," Terry said, slipping back behind the wheel.

  He eased the car around the accident and whooped the siren enough to get the rubberneckers moving out of the way. When finally the car had moved out onto the road again, Deacon breathed a sigh of relief. It felt like ants were crawling over his skin, so anxious was he to get to Lisa.

  "You think she went to the office?" Terry asked for the third time.

  "Yeah." Deacon managed to keep his temper, recognizing he was at the other man's mercy. At least for now. "To check the video."

  "So Doug had you under surveillance, huh?" The amusement in Terry's voice made Deacon frown.

  "Yeah."

  Terry snorted. "Can't say I blame him."

  "Just drive," Deacon said. "If we get there and something's happened to her..."

  He let the comment ride the air between them. Terry cleared his throat, pressing on the accelerator. The car sped through the night, just minutes from their goal. Deacon could only hope they weren't minutes too late.

  * * * *

  "Don't worry," Allegra continued calmly even as Lisa wheezed in terror. "I won't kill you or anything." Her grin was feral and terrifying. "I'm not that crazy."

  "Al, this isn't funny." Lisa found her voice, the big sister disapproving tone of it making Allegra flinch.

  "I'm not trying to be funny." Al's eyes wavered, glancing around the office like she was watching for something that wasn't there. "You want to see something funny? I mean funny ha-ha, not funny weird."

  "No," Lisa said. "I want to go home."

  Allegra cocked her head. "I sorta kinda figured you were here to see the video."

  "I don't need to see it," Lisa said. "Come on, Al. Let's go home. We can talk to Mom and Dad--"

  "We can talk to Mom and Dad!" Allegra's voice mocked her. "No, thanks. I have something you need to see."

  She held out a stack of videos. Lisa reached for them, but drew back her hands when Allegra yanked them away. The pile shifted in her sister's hands and fell to the floor with a clatter.

  "Stupid bitch," Allegra yelled, but Lisa couldn't be sure which one of them her sister meant. Allegra bent to scoop up the tapes. "Now they're out of order."

  She began counting under her breath, rocking while sorting the tapes, all of which were blank and unnumbered. She fit them into an order only she could comprehend, piling them on the floor, then rose to her full height. With the light shining from behind her, she looked entirely too familiar.

  "It was you," Lisa cried, cringing back against the doorway. "Oh, my God, Allegra! At the house, it was you."

  As Allegra stepped to one side to expose the desk, and Lisa saw Deacon's helmet and leather jacket.

  "Of course it was," Allegra said. "Dummy. You didn't recognize me then--or three years ago either."

  "What do you mean?" Lisa asked, her mind still trying to wrap around the concept her sister had actually attacked her.

  "At The Circle K," Allegra told her. "That was me, too."

  * * * *

  Just as they reached the stretch of road that led to The Garden Shadd, Deacon saw something in the ditch along the road. "Stop!"

  Terry glanced in the rearview mirror, his eyes annoyed. "I thought you were in a hurry, Campbell."

  Deacon couldn't point, not with his hands cuffed. He jerked his chin toward the ditch. "Look!"

  Terry slowed the car and pulled over. "Looks like a car."

  The car had settled in such a way that only the back fender was clearly visible. It was the license plate that had caught Deacon's eye. BADGRRL.

  "Allegra's car," he said.

  "Shit." Terry climbed out, leaving Deacon to strain his neck trying to see. "She's not in here!"

  "No," Deacon said to himself, watching Terry shine his flashlight all around the vehicle. He looked up the small hill to the dark Garden Shadd. "She's up there."

  * * * *

  Lisa clutched the doorframe feeling woozy. "I don't get it."

  "You don't?" Allegra asked. "And I thought you were supposed to be the smart one. I'm the pretty one and you're the smart one. Lisa's the smart one. The smart one. Not so smart now, are you?"

  Her sister's words had begun to take on a rambling, repetitive quality Lisa didn't like. Allegra seemed about to break from reality. Lisa didn't know much about psychology, but she knew that couldn't be good.

  Allegra stretched herself up, then slipped on the helmet. Only the ends of her dark hair showed. She pulled on the bulky jacket. Her stance became more masculine, even menacing. In the dark, she'd easily pass for a man.

  She flipped open the visor top. "I'm tall. Surveillance videos aren't very clear. You were ready to believe it was him. What can I say?"

  "No," Lisa said softly. "I didn't want to believe it. But I had to answer them honestly when they asked me if it was him in the video, and I had to say yes. I thought it was. But I never wanted to believe it."

  Allegra shrugged, the shoulders of the leather jacket creaking. "What's the difference?"

  Lisa thought of three years lost and knew it made a lot of difference. "Why, Al? Why would you do that?"

  In reply, Allegra tore off the helmet and tossed it to the floor. She struggled out of the jacket and let it fall, too, her lip curled in disgust. She kicked the clothes vehemently. She paced the tiny office rubbing her arms. Every movement pulled up her shirtsleeves to reveal more of the freakish writing.

  "You were spending all your time with him," Allegra said. "All. No time left for me. Your sister! And you were going to marry him and go away. Then who would I live with? What would I do then, Lisa? What would I do then?"

  Her sister's assessment of the situation startled Lisa. "We never talked about getting married."

  Allegra shot her an empty look, continuing her pacing. "I could see it in your eyes. Smell it on you like bad fish. You loved him. Love him. You love him!"

  Lisa reached out to stop Allegra and force her to look at her. "I do love him. And I probably did then, too, but--"

  "See?" Allegra's pretty mouth turned down in a frown so deep it carved lines in her normally smooth cheeks. "You'd leave me!"

  Lisa felt like a tightrope walker. One wrong word and she'd plummet into the precipice. She let go of Al's arm.

  "It has to happen someday," she said.

  "Not with him." Allegra frowned. "He's not good enough for you."

  "You don't have to protect me," Lisa began, but Al's hot glare stopped her.

  "And Terry Goody-Two-Shoes," Allegra continued. "Boring Mr. Perfect. You didn't really want to spend the rest of your life with him, did you?"

  "My life is for me to decide," Lisa cried. "How dare you try to interfere, Allegra!"

  Lisa's anger did nothing to affect Allegra, who merely kept her pacing. Now she began the peculiar habit of ticking off the fingers of one hand with the other like she was constantly making a mental list.

  "You just wouldn't see them for what they were, would you?" Allegra questioned. "No matter how hard I tried to show you."

  All the pieces fit together like a puzzle after hours of bleary-eyed concentration. "You took my purse that day. You put it in his office and wanted me to find it, didn't you?"

  "But you wouldn't look."

  "So you put it in his house where you knew I'd find it someday."

  "It worked, didn't it?" Allegra asked, for the first time focusing on Lisa. "You ran out of there like a scalded dog, didn't you? Right to where I was waiting for you."

  "You tried to hurt me," Lisa accused. She swallowed heavily, fighting the urge to choke on the sick feeling of betrayal.

  "Only a little bit. I only ever wanted to scare you," Al said with her old guileless smile. Her voice changed, but remained eerily familiar. "I see everything you do. Remember?"

  Where would it end? "You made the phone calls? You stole my laundry?"

  "Oh, you were so easy," Allegra said. "So wrapped up in your daydreams. It was easy to misplace your stuff for you. Do you