A Killing Kind of Love: A Dark, Standalone Romantic Suspense (33 page)

The gunshot attracted the ear. The music, thundering in its wake, filled it, leaving no room to comprehend.

Then…

Camryn rushed to the parlor door. “Gina!”

“Stop.” Dan caught her arm. “Wait.”

More shots! Closer than the first.

The music dying . . . dead. An even deadlier silence following in its wake.

“Get back.” Dan whispered, his voice low, urgent.

“But Gina …”

“Back, Camryn.” He hadn’t let go of her arm, and when she stood as if rooted to the floor, he pulled her, roughly and without apology, and put her behind him. He cocked his ear toward the door. “Listen.”

Nothing. Only the wind and the spitting rain against the windows, and a dense quiet that rested uneasily within the walls of the big house.

She stepped to his side, took a gulping breath. The air entered her lungs like broken glass, but it jerked her out of panic mode. She took another. “Gina might be hurt. We have to check.”

“We will.” Dan looked around the dim, cluttered room, took in the small-paned windows, narrow transom openings at their tops, no way out other than the door they’d entered by. “No phone. Damn.” He looked at her. “You?”

“In my bag. I left it by the front door.”

He cursed, again scanned the room.

Camryn already knew the room provided them no escape. She cracked the door a couple of inches, put her ear to it. No sound. But light, from the family room, what there was of it, brightened the carpet at her feet, adding wattage to the dimly lit parlor. “We have to get out of here.” She shot him a look over her shoulder. “We have to find Gina. See if she’s okay.”

The added light disappeared abruptly. “I’m very much okay, Camryn.” Gina gave the door a push, causing Camryn to stumble back, and walked into the room, kicking the door shut behind her. “I couldn’t find any cheese and crackers, so I brought cake.”

“Cake?” Camryn echoed stupidly. Her mind didn’t work fast enough to accept Gina’s sudden breezy entrance, grasp what it meant. She was aware of Dan moving into the shadow behind the gooseneck lamp.

“I made it this morning.” She smiled, but her eyes were fixed, like tacks in a corkboard. “I didn’t think it was for a celebration, but there you are!”

“You’re all right?”

“Couldn’t be better,” she said.

From gunshots to celebration. Everything was so wrong . . . this house. Gina.

“What’s going on here, Gina?” Camryn forced herself to a calm she didn’t feel, determined to get, if not control, at least a grasp of what was going on here. “Those were gunshots. What happened?” Gina set the cake beside her abandoned wineglass on the messy table and frowned. “I guess cake and wine don’t make a very good combination, do they?”

Camryn strode toward her, grabbed her by the upper arms. “Forget the cake. Answer me. For God’s sake, what’s wrong with you?”

Gina blinked but the smile she’d walked in with didn’t budge; it seemed frozen on her face. “I don’t know what you mean.” She pulled back from Camryn’s hold and slid her right hand into her sweater pocket. “I told you I’m fine. As a matter of fact, I feel better than I have in months. It helps when things crystallize, doesn’t it? When things get clear in your mind.” The last was said more to herself than Camryn, then she tilted her head, her too-bright, eyes, studying Camryn as if they’d lit on her for the first time, as if they hadn’t been friends for twenty years. “You were always the organized one, Camryn, always the get-everything-right one, so you should know how important clear thinking is. When you’re feeling low, get busy, take action—that’s what you used to say.” She amped up her smile. “You made everything happen, exactly how you wanted it. Except maybe the baby thing. And now you even have that, don’t you? You have Adam’s child.”

“Are you actually saying I had something to do with Holly’s death?” Shock took Camryn’s breath away.

“Oh no, I know you’d never do that. Not Saint Camryn. She’d never do anything as
ba-a-d
as that.” She giggled. “No, all Camryn has to do is wait around, and everything will work out. Adam says you’re the last good woman—or his last woman …” She paused, looked confused for a minute. “I never really understood what he meant by that.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Camryn said, “but you’re my friend, Gina. All I want to do is help. But you have to tell me what’s going on. There were shots . . . upstairs, then you come down acting crazy. None of this makes sense.”

Gina’s fixed expression ignited. “I’m not crazy! Don’t say that! Don’t
ever
say that!” She looked through the shadowy room to where Dan stood silently, a large gray blur behind the lamp. “Come out where I can see you, Dan. Have some cake.” She smiled in his direction, but Camryn wasn’t sure she actually saw him. It was more like she sensed him, the way an animal would its prey. The smile she gave him was crooked, like a slash of carelessly applied lipstick.

Camryn watched her hand, sliding out of her pocket, slowly exposing her wrist, her knuckles—Camryn’s chest went drum-tight.

Was that—?

The sound of the front door opening, then slamming shut, snapped Gina to attention, her expression a haze of surprise, confusion, and panic.

“Gina? Delores?” a man’s voice shouted. “Why the hell don’t you two turn some lights on in this place?” Heavy footsteps came toward them, the solid thwack of sneakers on the hardwood floor.

Pale yellow light again flickered through the door to color the stained parlor carpet. Gina shoved her hands deep into her sweater pockets. “Sebastian, what are you doing here?”

He ignored her question and tried the light switch on the wall inside the door of the parlor. Click. Click. He cursed again. “What’s with the damn lights?” He shook his head, looking irritated, then spotted Camryn; he nodded unsmiling in her direction. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said back. With the image of what her friend had in her pocket front and center in her mind, Camryn was grateful only a three-letter word was required.

When neither woman spoke further, Sebastian walked to where the bottle of wine sat illuminated on the coffee table. He was reaching for it when he spotted Dan. He went gravestone-straight. “Okay.” He swung to look at Camryn. “What the hell am I doing here?”

Gina shot a cold gaze at Camryn. “You invited Sebastian?”

“I thought—” Dear God, she had no idea what she had thought, but she knew what she had to do. She took in a breath. “I wanted him here because I thought he
^:
—we— could help you. But now”—she swallowed—“all I want him to do is take that gun out of your pocket.”

Gina’s eyes narrowed.

“Then,” Camryn continued, keeping her voice flat, “I want us to go upstairs and see what those gunshots were all about.”

Gina pulled out the gun.

“What the hell—?” Sebastian froze.

Dan snapped the gooseneck lamp up, shone its light directly into Gina’s face. The glare wasn’t much, but in the dim room, it was contrast enough that she raised the arm not holding the gun to shield her eyes.

Bolting from behind the chair, Dan made a dash to where Gina, now clearly illuminated by the focused lamplight stood, blinking—the gun glinting and wavering in her shaking hand. But the furniture in the room impeded him, giving her enough time to steady the gun. Aim it at him.

Camryn lunged for the gun. She was fast, but Gina was faster; she fell back, braced her back against the parlor wall, and fired.

The room, the people in it, hit STOP time and locked in place.

“Get back! All of you, get back!” Gina’s eyes, as wild as the shot she’d fired, bulged from their sockets. Her back was to the open door now, making her a silhouette, armed and dangerous. “Stay away from me.”

She was breathing heavily; Camryn could hear the rasps, and she held the gun in both hands. “Gina, stay calm. Think this through. You don’t want to do this.”

As if she hadn’t heard, Gina waved the gun. “I’ll shoot the first person who comes near me.” She tossed a quick, scared glance Sebastian’s way. “Even you, Seb. I’m sorry. So sorry, but it doesn’t matter now. One dead. Two dead . . . a dozen. It doesn’t matter.”

“Gina, what are you talking about? What the hell is the matter with you?” Sebastian stepped forward. “Give me that thing.”

“Stop!” she screeched. “I told you to stop!”

He stopped.

Dan stepped in front of Camryn, and when he spoke, his voice was as smooth as soft cloth. “Who’s dead, Gina?” He jerked his head toward the ceiling. “Who’s up there?”

“Delores!” Sebastian said. “Jesus, no, Gina . . . You didn’t—” Sebastian took a step toward the open door. Gina fired. The bullet caught him in the knee. He dropped screaming to the floor and clutched his leg. Blood spurted to the carpet.

“Oh, Sebastian …” She stared at him, her eyes moist—and terrified. “I told you not to move. I’ve got business here. Can’t you see that? Understand that? Doesn’t anyone understand?” She blinked against her tears and brushed at them jerkily with her left wrist.

Sebastian writhed on the floor, clutching his knee, blood soaking his pant leg. “You’re crazy, just like our mother. You’re crazy. “

“Shut up!” She arced the gun, took another step back, and waved it in a sweeping motion to encompass the parlor. “Shut up . . . Everyone just shut up! I’ll shoot again. I will. I’ll kill you all.” Her voice was pitched high, broke when she looked at Sebastian’s blood, the growing stain of it seeping into the ugly leaf-patterned carpet.

Camryn, horrified and achingly sad, stared at her friend. “Gina, why?” she asked, her voice as calm and low as she could manage from her tight throat. “Tell me why.”

The room filled with a grim silence. Dan wrapped his hand around her arm, tried to pull her back. “Camryn, move. Get back.” She refused to budge, determined to reach her friend in whatever way she could. He loosened his grip but didn’t let go.

Gina waved the gun between them, then her mad, dark eyes met Camryn’s and held; the moisture of tears burning in their resolve.

And confusion. . . .

“Cammie, I . . .” Her voice trailed off, and for a moment she appeared limp, exposed.

When Camryn took a step toward her, reached for her hand, Gina leveled the gun and shook her head. “No. It’s too late.” Her lips flattened over her teeth, and her shoulders straightened.

Dan’s grip again tightened. He was trying to put himself in front of Camryn.
No!

“Please, you can’t do this! You can’t!” Camryn pressed the hand she’d extended to Gina flat over her chest—but it wasn’t the frantic beat of her own heart she felt; it was the pounding of Gina’s broken one, her aching weariness, and then the racing of her dark and chaotic mind. It was as if her friend’s thoughts flew out of pattern, fast, and too heavy and desperate to bear.

Camryn knew this as if Gina had spoken it, had exposed her soul. Her own soul whispered back:
Where are you, my smart, funny, Barbie-doll friend? Where are you
?
Wherever you are, come back. Come back . . .

Their eyes met and held.

Gina shook her head, the gesture one of longing and defeat. “I love too much. I hate too much.” Tears slicked her cheeks and made her eyelashes glisten. “Delores, Adam, Holly . . . even you. I even hate you, Camryn. I hate myself . . . what I feel. What I’ve done. I’m sick with hate, and there’s nowhere for it to go except the grave.” She pointed the gun at her face. “Why, Camryn? why does everyone get who they want… except me?

“You mean Adam.”

“My Adam. He’s dead, you know.” She half-smiled. “Dead and gone.” Pain slashed through her eyes.

“No, Gina. You didn’t. You couldn’t.”

She went on as if Camryn hadn’t spoken. “I love him and he’s mine now. He’ll always be mine.” She smiled fully then, wistfully. “He didn’t want this, you know. He refused to kill you, didn’t even want me to kill you for him. But, of course, I have to now. It’s the only way.” She gripped the gun in both hands, and spread her legs slightly.

Dan tugged Camryn back a step, his fingers urgent, digging pain into her arm. “Camryn, move away.” His tone was low, urgent.

She heard him but couldn’t react, couldn’t take her eyes from the death in Gina’s hand.

“For God’s sake, get back!” He didn’t raise his voice, but he snarled. “Now!”

Gina gave him a sad look. “It won’t do any good,” she said, her tone as steady and directed as the gun in her hand. “I’m going to kill you all. I have no choice.”

Camryn stepped back, as if a few inches of distance from Gina’s ugly weapon would add time to her life, and, following the quick shuttering of Dan’s eyes, she looked down—and was instantly mesmerized. Her mind clicking through a disjointed series of events.

A body. Behind Gina.

More dead than alive.

A wake of blood and ooze in its tortuous trail.

A red-slicked hand reaching out, unfurling bloody fingers, coiling them around Gina’s ankle.

Muscles straining their last. Finger bones locking. A deathgrip.

Gina’s head turning, looking down. Too late. Her slow, blinking eyes. Their widening. Her scream. “No!”

From the floor—the crawling thing, a groan, a heavy rattling breath, a last draw on strength—all as one.

A hard, twisting yank.

Gina stumbling, falling face forward. Her elbow hitting the floor. The gun exploding its evil load . . .

The bullet searing through Camryn’s soft flesh, her falling with Gina. Eyes wide. Down. Down. Her head hitting something, an emptying of her lungs. Gasping.

She lay beside Gina, heard Dan curse, saw him kick the gun from Gina’s hand, heard it clatter into the far corner of the room. Everything dimming. . . .

“Camryn. Jesus, Camryn, are you okay?” His hands were on her thigh, tearing at her slacks.
Good slacks,
she thought, her thinking woozy, her eyes unable to focus.
These are my good slacks.
She saw Gina’s hand, her nails digging into the carpet, crawling.

She reached for her, wanted to help, but the darkness denied her.

Dan had applied a rough bandage to Camryn’s thigh. It was a damned nasty wound, but not as nasty as the brother’s knee. For both of them he’d had to make do with applied pressure and some hastily grabbed towels.