Snakes and Ladders Read online

  Snakes and Ladders

  A Lizzy Ballard Thriller

  Matty Dalrymple

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Matty Dalrymple

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2018 by Matty Dalrymple

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Locales, events, and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, or institutions is completely coincidental.

  * * *

  All rights reserved

  With love to my rock star, Wade Walton,

  and with gratitude to my fellow authors at Table 25 for your support and friendship.

  1

  Lizzy Ballard struggled to move. Forward or backward—it didn’t matter which, as long as she could unwedge her body from the tiny space. The edge of the metal window frame, where it had caught on the back of her pants, kept her from slipping back into the basement room. The concrete wall outside, which had already scraped the skin from her bare shoulders, kept her from pulling herself up and into the freedom of the wide-open outdoors that beckoned only a few feet away. She could hear the rasp of breath in her throat and the pounding of blood in her ears. She could sense panic pushing its way to the surface, like the rattle of china in a cupboard as the first tremors of an earthquake strike.

  She had to calm herself, had to breathe. Breathe out the bad energy, breathe in the good. She stifled the incipient bubble of a hysterical giggle.

  She inhaled, bracing herself for the pain of her spine pressing against the unyielding metal window frame, then tried to relax into the exhale, which provided a moment of relief. If she could push every atom of air from her lungs, would it give her the room she needed to push herself free? Or would she merely wedge herself more inextricably, squeezed so tight that her lungs could no longer draw in air? Would she suffocate with the cool, sweet air of the Pennsylvania night right above her?

  She drew in as deep a breath as she could manage, hoping to store up oxygen for the exhale to follow, but the breath caught in her throat. Because being trapped in this metal and concrete box was evidently not her biggest problem. Because she could smell smoke.

  The house was on fire.

  2

  Two Months Earlier

  Lizzy lay on her yoga mat, arms outstretched, palms up. The lights of the studio were dimmed for the closing exercise, the thrum of New Age music almost drowning out the hum of passing cars.

  “Breathe out the bad energy … breathe in the good,” intoned the instructor, Donna. “Focus on and control your breath.”

  Control—that was why Lizzy was here. Because with control came the possibility of a normal life. A life filled with all the things that any other seventeen-year-old would take for granted, not the isolation and guilt she knew.

  She had almost lulled herself into that contemplative state where control seemed within reach when a loud bang from outside shattered her peace. She flinched, her arm knocking over the water bottle sitting on the mat beside her. A dribble of water began to form a small pool on the blond wood floor of the studio.

  She righted the bottle and snatched up her sweatshirt, which she had removed when the effort of the poses had warmed her up, and mopped at the spill. Others in the class cracked their eyes open to see what the commotion was.

  Donna knelt beside her. “Don’t get your sweatshirt wet,” she said softly as she wiped up the small puddle with a towel.

  “Sorry about that,” Lizzy whispered.

  “No problem. Just try to get back into the exercise. Try to relax.” She bent toward Lizzy and said, too low for the other students to hear, “It was just a car backfiring.”

  Lizzy nodded, feeling simultaneously foolish and grateful. She lay back on her mat and resumed her breathing. Breathing out the bad energy. Breathing in the good energy. It had to work one of these times.

  A normal life was all she wanted. But what stood between her and a normal life were Louise Mortensen and her enforcer, George Millard. Louise and George were the reasons Lizzy and her godfather, Owen McNally, were hiding out in Arizona. The death of Louise’s husband, Gerard Bonnay, was the reason Louise and George were on their trail.

  At the end of the class, Lizzy hurried to roll up her mat and pull on her shoes, but Donna managed to catch her at the door.

  “Are you okay, Elizabeth? That’s the second time I’ve seen you jump like that at a loud noise.”

  Lizzy nodded. “Sure. Just got startled.”

  “How one reacts on the mat is how one reacts in life,” said Donna. “Is it something you’d like to talk about?”

  “No, thanks. Really nothing to talk about.”

  The last student stepped out the door, and they were alone. Donna sat down on the bench under which the students stored their shoes during class and, with a gesture of her hand, invited Lizzy to sit down next to her.

  Lizzy sat.

  Donna smoothed the silky harem pants that were part of her usual class garb. “Do you feel like you’re getting what you want out of the classes?” she asked.

  “Yes. I really enjoy them.”

  Donna waited a beat, then asked, “And what is it that you’re hoping to get out of them?”

  “More control over my life.”

 
Donna nodded and folded her hands. She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Yoga isn’t really about control.”

  “But what about controlling the breathing? Isn’t that supposed to help us control other things in our lives as well?”

  “Yoga is less about control and more about being able to weather difficulty. We meditate to navigate the suffering that is an inevitable part of our lives. Concentrating on our breathing helps us with that meditation.”

  A tiny tinge of anger crept into Lizzy’s voice. “If I could have more control, I’d have less difficulty to weather. And there wouldn’t be so much suffering, in my life or anyone else’s.”

  Donna smiled kindly at her. “That’s a big responsibility for one young woman to take on.”

  “Yeah. Well.” Lizzy fiddled with the strap of her rolled yoga mat. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but if that’s all yoga is—just recognizing that our lives are going to suck and we need to deal with it—it’s a little … disappointing.”

  Donna nodded. “That’s not all there is to yoga. It’s also about being aware of what triggers us and causes us to suffer so we can heal, make different decisions, and move forward. We learn about ourselves during meditation so we can apply those learnings to other parts of our lives.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m looking for,” said Lizzy, her voice now animated. “Understanding what my triggers are, and then finding ways to control—. Okay, maybe not control, but to deal with them. To make the outcome different.”

  Donna put her hand on Lizzy’s arm. “Maybe to find a place where the intrusions of the outside world—like a car backfiring—don’t seem like more than they are.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Lizzy stood and slung the strap of the mat across her shoulder. “Sorry again about the water.”

  “No need to apologize. See you on Monday?”

  “Yup, I’ll be here.”

  “I’m glad. I think the practice will bring you benefits that you can’t necessarily foresee now.”

  Lizzy nodded to Donna, then stepped out of the studio into the stunning Sedona afternoon, the January sky an electric blue over the red rock buttes that surrounded the town. She unlocked her bike from the rack and turned it toward the house where she and Uncle Owen were staying.

  She could never tell Donna that in the moment they rang out, those sounds weren’t backfires, but pistol shots. And that the long-sleeved, back-covering tops she wore to class were to hide the scars those shots had left behind.

  3

  Louise Mortensen smiled politely at the woman serving dinner. “Gracias, Juana. La cena se ve deliciosa.”

  Juana smiled. “Gracias, Doctor Mortensen.” She placed a plate in front of the young man who sat opposite Louise.

  “Gracias, Juana,” he said. “Se ve maravilloso como siempre.” When he had learned that Louise knew Spanish, he had memorized a few phrases to use with Juana at dinner.

  Juana bobbed her head. “Gracias, Señor Pieda.”

  Mitchell Pieda saw what he frequently did when he scanned Juana’s thoughts: a low-grade resentment of his insertion into the household and a grudging curiosity about the reason for his extended stay. All this set against a semi-permanent backdrop of sadness at the death of Louise’s husband, Gerard Bonnay, the previous month. Tonight it was overlaid by a concern about the success of the dessert she was preparing. He pinged her thoughts again. Lemon meringue pie.

  Juana nodded to both of them and disappeared down the short hallway leading to the kitchen.

  Louise lifted her wine glass to Mitchell. “Cheers.”

  Mitchell lifted his glass in return and took a sip. “This is very good,” he said. With Louise’s permission, he had been spending some time in the wine cellar in the basement of the Pocopson, Pennsylvania, home. Armed with a huge reference book he had found in Gerard’s library, he had begun to develop an oenophile’s expertise. He prided himself on the fact that he could have held a reasonably informed conversation with a sommelier at any fine restaurant in Philadelphia at an age when most of his peers were still making runs to the beer store for cases or kegs.

  Tonight he had picked out an ’82 Mouton.

  Louise picked up the bottle and looked at the label. “This was a favorite,” she said, setting the bottle down. “Nicely chosen, Mitchell.”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes, Mitchell trying not to wolf down the filet, asparagus, and parmesan-topped potatoes.

  Louise picked at her meal and eventually pushed it away. “I have to tell Juana not to serve so much red meat.”

  Mitchell reluctantly put down his fork.

  Louise took a deep breath. “The lawyers just notified me that the Pennsylvania attorney general, Russell Brashear, is launching an investigation of Vivantem.”

  Mitchell sat forward. “What?”

  “Two of the Vivantem mothers became friends—evidently they struck up a conversation in the waiting room when they were at the office for their fertility treatments, which I didn’t foresee. Both of the children died—one in September and one in October—and autopsies were performed. Both had experienced cerebral hemorrhages.”

  “They gave themselves strokes?” asked Mitchell, aghast.

  “Apparently. Not a result that has appeared in any other cohort. Although I had made a slight adjustment to the treatment for those two women.”

  “How old were the children?”

  “Not quite a year old.” She folded her hands on the table. “At first, the police suspected child abuse, but there were no other indications—no signs of external injuries. Unfortunately for us, one of the women was a friend of a friend of Brashear, and she brought their stories to him. Now he wants to see the records of all the Vivantem clients so he can see if there are any other anomalies.” The knuckles of her folded hands whitened. “They were planning to announce the investigation right after Christmas, but when Elizabeth Ballard murdered Gerard, they postponed the announcement until now. Evidently,” she added tightly, “a month is a sufficient amount of time to wait to show your respect for the dead.”

  After a pause, Mitchell said, “Are you still … experimenting on the children?”

  “Strictly speaking, we’re not experimenting on the children at all, we’re experimenting on the mothers. But to answer your underlying question—no. Once Gerard and I knew about you and Ballard, I suspended my experiments. I’ve been reviewing the data to try to see what was different about the treatments received by each of your mothers from the other patients. And what was different between you and Ballard that resulted in different abilities.”

  “Have you found anything?”

  “No.” She sighed. “The results from subject to subject are so inconsistent that it makes the investigation challenging.” She looked toward the tall dining room windows, which were framed by gauzy silk curtains. The glass was opaque with the darkness beyond, but during the day it would have revealed a stretch of lawn, lightly covered by a recent snowfall, with a distant view of a Chester County horse farm.

  She was silent for some time. A person’s silence was usually not much of an impediment to Mitchell Pieda learning what they were thinking, but Louise was an exception. He tried to open his mind to hers, but hers was as opaque as the window, the scenes beyond her mental boundary hidden from his view. He didn’t sense it was an intentional blocking, but rather her natural state—not like the inhabitants of a castle pulling up the drawbridge, but like an island with no bridge at all.

  Finally he broke the silence. “If you started the experiments again, which would you try for—telepathy or the ability to cause strokes?”

  “Based on your own situation, we might not have to choose one or the other. You can read minds and you took care of the man who bullied you at work.”

  Mitchell thought back to Brett Ludlow, his boss at his first job out of college. Mitchell had at first thought Brett would serve as a mentor and a model for his own path up the ranks of the company, but when Mitchell had dared to question Brett duri
ng a sales presentation, Ludlow had called him a piece of shit and orchestrated a department-wide shunning of Mitchell. A week later, Ludlow was dead of a stroke.

  “But that took days,” said Mitchell. “Days of me spending hours and hours with him. I can’t just walk up to someone and do what—” He stopped.

  “What Ballard did to Gerard?” asked Louise.

  “Yes.” After a moment, he added, “And to Lucia Hazlitt.”

  Louise gave a single nod. “She has great power, there’s no doubt of that. But she’s unsophisticated in her use of it. She wields her ability like a sledgehammer. What we want is more like a scalpel.”

  “A sledgehammer may not be very sophisticated, but it—” He stopped again.

  “It gets the job done, one might say,” Louise finished bitterly.

  Mitchell nodded.

  She looked toward the window again and took a deep breath, then continued in her usual brisk manner. “It may get the job done, but it leaves a mess. And messy is what we don’t want.”