"Think Twice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Scottoline Lisa)

Chapter Eleven

Bennie waited for the scratching to start again. It was driving her crazy, and she wondered if that was why Alice was doing it. Her palms stung from pounding on the lid. Her knees ached, her feet throbbed. Urine soaked the back of her skirt. The box reeked of sweat. She had a hard time breathing.

She tried to get a grip on herself. Something about the scratching wasn’t like Alice, who always had a purpose for what she did, an angle she was working to get something she wanted. Alice was an excellent planner, she just didn’t dress like one.

Bennie remembered at trial, toward the end, the prosecution had produced a surprise witness, the proverbial jailhouse snitch who falsely testified that Alice had admitted she’d killed the cop and later recanted. Bennie was sure that Alice had gotten her to take back her story. She confronted Alice, only to realize that she had engineered both days of testimony, the original confession and the recanting, which left the prosecution’s case in shambles. Although Bennie knew Alice wasn’t guilty of the murder, she hadn’t known Alice had her own back-up plan to ensure her acquittal. It showed Bennie just how long-range Alice’s plans could be, and how purposeful.

Bennie frowned, coming out of her reverie to hear a new noise, a rumbling that sounded far away. She closed her eyes and tried to listen. It could have been a truck going by, but it didn’t disappear.

Suddenly the scratching started again, but it was faster, which terrified her. If it wasn’t Alice scratching, what was it? And what was the rumbling? Were they the same thing, related or not?

She started pounding and yelling again, fighting against the maddening noises, the confusion, and the pain.