Penned In - Lynn Cahoon Page 0,25
should have known you weren’t up to this. You’re a B student at most.”
“Hey, I’m Dean’s List, just like you.” Sara shot back. “I wrote most of your damn book.”
“And now you’ve ruined the whole thing.” Glen stood up and pulled a gun out of the back of his pants. “I guess it’s going to have to be a Halloween massacre story. Thank God I wrestled the gun away from him before crazy Tad took us all out. Thanks for the poor little rich boy story. That will help with the motivation.”
“I don’t think so.” A man spoke behind where Glen stood. “Lower your weapon or you will be the first down.”
Angie looked up into the face of Sheriff Allen Brown, Ian’s uncle. He and several other law enforcement officers stood with guns drawn all focused on Glen’s back.
“How did he know?” She whispered to Ian.
“Beats me, but I’m glad he’s here.”
Chapter 9
Angie and the crew gathered around the table where they’d eaten dinner. It seemed so long ago. She sank into a bench to watch as the police first brought out Glen and Sara to patrol cars, then Pat’s body to the coroner’s wagon. A small woman pulled up in a Mini Cooper and ran towards Marty. She didn’t even glance at the cart while it wheeled her ex-husband to the wagon. Angie watched as Rachel threw her arms around the clearly tired Marty. “True love always wins.”
Ian followed her gaze and smiled. Then he stepped forward to talk to his uncle. “Are we free to go? Or do we need to hang around longer?”
Allen Brown took out a handkerchief and mopped at his face. “You can go. We know where to find you in case there are more questions. Miss Turner, I can’t believe you got yourself into another situation here. Didn’t we just talk about this?”
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t schedule this outing, Matt did.” She rubbed her face. She needed sleep before service tonight. “Hey, how did you know we were in trouble? The doors were supposed to open at six, which was only fifteen minutes ago.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you. Your goat got out of her pen.”
Angie’s heart missed a beat. Visions of the trucks that sped down the road in front of her house filled her head. “Precious? Tell me she’s okay.”
“She’s fine. Erica called me to tell you that she took her over to the goat farm since she didn’t know how to fix your fence. She’s heading out of town to visit with her parents, so she wanted to make sure someone knew where Precious was. I tried to call the emergency line so I could get a message to you, but it was off line. That phone is always supposed to be open. So the security company checked an open feed to the common room, and that female guard kept staring at the camera and mouthing SOS. When Glen would walk by, she’d pretend to be sleeping. So we had a pretty good understanding of what was going on about an hour ago. We just had to get people here. Once Glen started talking mass killing, we knew we were out of time.”
“Precious saved us?” Angie started giggling.
Allen exchanged looks with Ian. “I said all of that and all she heard was her goat saved you?”
“She’s had a long night.” He slapped Allen on the back. “We’re taking off. I’ve got to get her home so she can get some sleep, or no one’s eating at the County Seat tonight. Besides, it sounds like I have a fence to mend.”
They said their goodbyes but as they were leaving the area, a school bus stopped at the gate to the penitentiary. The teacher was trying to figure out who to talk to with the police and ambulances blocking the way.
“I think their Halloween party just got cancelled.” Ian looked up at the kids hanging out of the windows, staring at the building.
“I bet a lot of people died in there,” one little boy said to his friend.
The other one pointed to the door, “Look, there’s a real live prisoner standing at the doorway. Maybe she escaped.”
Angie turned to see a woman dressed in a 1940’s traveling suit. She held a suitcase. She smiled at Angie and nodded her head. Then she looked up and disappeared.
“Wicked cool. Did you see that? She was a ghost. And not one of those stupid sheet covered people. I bet she’s a hologram.