Authors: Carolyn Haines
I kept doing my best to dodge thoughts of
Hamilton , but it wasn't easy. I no longer believed he was a murderer, but I wasn't sure that mattered in the long run. I wanted a life where I fell in love with a man, then fell in bed with him, or vice versa, but also where he called me and asked me to dinner and where we could sit on the porch and sip moonshine and laugh. Murderer or not,
Hamilton would never fit that bill. The very intensity that drew me to him was the reason that he was not suited to the role of suitor.
Lost in the dense blackness of the night and my thoughts, I wasn't certain where we were when I saw the brake lights flare on the car in front of me. I hung back, hoping that Millie wouldn't know I was following her. To my surprise, the car turned left. I cruised forward.
We were at Delo Wiley's place.
It made sense. Delo's was where it all started. There was probably no better place to finish it. But how exactly I intended to finish it was something I hadn't thought through. Maybe I could just keep an eye on Millie and call the sheriff.
The
Lincoln bypassed Delo's house and bumped over the corn rows, headed out to the Mule Bog field. I parked the Caddy on the side of the road. In the darkness I'd have a better chance on foot.
As I got out, I realized that I couldn't leave Chablis on the front seat. Anything could happen.
"This isn't the time for bonding," I warned as I picked her up and stuffed her into my damp jacket. She was already wet, so it didn't seem to matter. We began to cut across the field.
A Daddy's Girl's imagination is often her worst enemy. As I slipped through the foggy fields, I imagined Sylvia Garrett carousing in her nightgown. She was out of the mental institution, again, and I could only hope she hadn't decided to come back to Delo's and do her rage-filled corn dance. My poor, battered heart couldn't take a vision like that.
28
Delo's house was pitch black, a term I now had a new appreciation for. I'd stumbled over the corn rows and finally made it to the front porch. Pushing open the creaking door, my nerve almost failed me. Only thoughts of Millie bouncing over the cornfield in her Town Car with her loaded shotgun made me move forward. All I had to do was get to a telephone. 9-1-1. 9-1-1. I droned the mantra as I forced my reluctant body to move forward.
One thing was for certain: As soon as the hardware store opened in the morning I'd have a flashlight that fit in my pocket. I'd make another stop at Johnny's Pawn-O-Rama and pick up a cell phone and, though I could hardly believe it, a gun. Creeping into Delo's house, I wished for the protection of even a can of Mace.
I eased into the living room and headed toward the table where I knew a lamp had been. It was risky to turn on a light, but I could stumble around that house for a long time without finding the phone. I wanted to dial, report, and run back into the safety of the foggy fields.
Or maybe even over to Cooley's house where I could crawl under the porch with the hounds.
I found the lamp and snapped the switch. Nothing happened. I tried again, a tiny click in the thick silence of the dark house. Nothing. Goose bumps danced as I wondered if it was the power company or someone with very different motives who'd shut off the electricity. Chablis's tiny head popped out of my jacket and she gave a low, warning growl.
There was no choice. I'd have to find the phone in the dark. Moving carefully I began to search with my hands. I took tiny little baby steps, shuffling forward, doing my best not to stumble over a piece of furniture, not
to
make noise.
I'd made it halfway around the room when my feet connected with soft resistance. I shuffled a little, surprised to feel the barrier quiver. Squatting, I began to examine it. As soon as my fingers touched it, it began to jerk and writhe. The movement was so unexpected that I almost shouted as I fell backward.
"Polyester!" I cursed.
Chablis leaped out of my jacket and began to snap and growl. The thing on the floor stopped moving and made angry, demanding noises.
Touching it, I identified ankles bound by a rope, then thighs. Working my way up I found breasts--an awkward moment--then long hair and a gag.
"I don't know who you are, but I'm going to take the gag out and when I do, you'd better stay quiet," I warned. "There's a woman out there with a gun, and she seems in the mood to use it."
I unfastened the gag.
"Well, if it isn't Cousin Sarah Booth," the cultured voice of Sylvia Garrett said softly. "You'd better get out of here before he comes back and gets you, too."
"Sylvia?" I rocked back on my heels.
"If you aren't leaving, you might untie my hands," she whispered. "I don't know where he is, but he can't be far."
Another moan came from somewhere in the room. The hair on my neck honestly stood on end. Chablis moved away in the darkness and began to growl.
"It's Millie," Sylvia said as she shook her hands free of the rope I'd untied.
It couldn't be Millie; she was out in the car with the shotgun. The moan came again, and I crawled over the floor until I bumped into another female form and this one was crying.
"It's okay," I said as I worked.
She shook her head, making it hard for me to undo the knot. As soon as the gag was loose, she took a deep breath. "We're not safe. He's around here somewhere."
"My safety wasn't your top concern earlier," Sylvia said, and she sounded perfectly sane and very pissed-off. "You tricked me into coming back here with you. You said
Hamilton was here."
"I had to do what I did," Millie said. "I didn't have a choice." Her voice broke. "They said they'd tell me about Janice. I knew all along that they'd done something to her, but I hoped I could find her." Her voice disintegrated in grief. "He showed up at my house, and I thought I'd have a heart attack right on the spot. He said if I'd get Sylvia from Glen Oaks, he'd tell me where Janice was. I'm sorry, Sylvia. Since you got me to bring you out here the time before, I didn't realize it was a trap." Millie's sobs were harsh and raspy. "He said Janice was happy, that she'd found a good man and settled down. He said she had three children, two girls and a boy."
Sylvia's voice was low and tight with anger. "You thought he'd tell the truth? What a luxury to be naive at fifty. I was seventeen when I learned the ugly reality about the people I'd been taught to trust."
Sylvia Garrett might not be insane, but she was consumed with bitterness. I crawled past Millie and headed toward where I thought the phone might be. I had followed the exchange pretty well, except for one thing. I slowed my crawling and asked Millie, "Who told you to get Sylvia?"
"That would be me." The unexpected male voice was accompanied by the beam of a flashlight, which caught me directly in the eyes. I was blinded, and I threw up my hands to block the light.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked, fighting that terrifying fear that came with the knowledge that he'd been sitting in Delo's chair listening to us the entire time.
"Well, if it isn't Sarah Booth Delaney. The last time I saw you, you were a little girl in pigtails running around the courthouse with your daddy. So glad you dropped by."
I thought I had lost my mind, but I recognized Pasco Walters's voice. He'd deliberately triggered the perfect memory for me to identify him. He was alive, and not ten feet from where I sat on the floor. I heard a chair creak and the sound of footsteps as the flashlight rose up and came closer.
"You couldn't mind your own business, could you?" he said, but there was no anger in his voice, only mild bemusement. "Your folks were always hard to deal with. Strange people, I'd say, always interfering in things that didn't concern them."
I wanted to say that I thought he was dead, but even though shock had impaired my ability for witty repartee, I managed to bite that back. I was actually too busy to talk. My brain had finally manipulated the pieces of the puzzle into a picture.
Pasco had killed Guy Garrett and most likely Veronica. He'd also stolen Veronica's Lalique collection, and after all this time, he'd begun to sell off the pieces.
Another thought came to me: When I'd been hiding in the hedge, eavesdropping on
Hamilton , the other man had said he'd lost his father, too. Gordon Walters was the other man. He and Hamilton had some kind of hellish alliance.
"You're mighty quiet for such a nosy woman,"
Pasco said.
"It isn't every day I get to talk with a zombie," I answered. In all of my psychology classes, there had been no mention of tactics for talking to someone risen from the dead.
"Let me tell you,"
Pasco said on a soft laugh, "the afterlife has been wonderful. The last nineteen years have been the best anyone could ever wish for."
I wanted to see his face in the light. I shifted, and I heard the hammer of a gun click. The flashlight beam swung back over me. "I wouldn't make any sudden moves," he cautioned.
"What are you going to do with us?" Sylvia asked in her cool, controlled voice. She sounded so much like
Hamilton , so unwilling to show fear or any other emotion considered weak. My heart dropped to my knees.
Pasco seemed to be making up his mind. "You, I'm keeping, so your brother stays in line. I don't think I could get rid of the last two Garretts without drawing suspicion." There was a pause. "The others . . ." He let the sentence fade, and since I couldn't see his face I had no idea what that might mean. My womb was strangely silent, but my gut was telling me this was not good. "I think they probably know too much," he finally added with a nice touch of fake regret in his voice.
He was going to kill us, and I had to give him credit, it was a perfect setup. By keeping Sylvia alive, he could control
Hamilton . His sister's safety was his Achilles' heel. And even if Sylvia swore on a stack of Bibles that she'd been abducted by Pasco Walters, everyone would think she was just a little crazier than they originally thought. She'd be back in Glen Oaks in five seconds, this time by court decree.
"You got the money, didn't you?" I asked. "You took it off Mr. Garrett after you killed him."
"God, it was a beautiful sight," he answered, his tone boastful. I didn't need a light to feel his ego swell and fill the room. "I opened that briefcase and saw all of those fresh hundred-dollar bills, and I knew my life had changed forever."
My Daddy's Girl training kicked in and I recognized an opportunity. "What a brilliant plan," I said. "You got the money and a brand-new life without anyone even thinking to look for you. It's pure genius."
Pasco chuckled. "It was a perfect plan. Absolutely perfect. I walked out of one life and into another. For nineteen years I've lived like a king. But a million dollars will only stretch so far. We had to sell some of the baubles, and just when things were looking grim, we heard that Delo had buried another sack of money. The old bastard had pulled a fast one on us. That's when we decided to pay him a visit and get the rest."
So
Pasco had run out of cash and begun to sell off the jewelry. It was the first misstep that he'd made. The second was in coming back for more money. Beside me, Millie gave a ragged sob, and it seemed my brain jolted forward. If Millie was on the floor . . . "Who was driving Millie's car?"
As if to answer my question, a feminine voice came from my right. "Since we're all gathered here, I think it's time for some light. I flipped the breaker back on."
There was a scrabbling sound on the floor beside me, and the lights came on in a blinding flood just as Sylvia gained her feet and prepared to launch herself at the woman who stood in the doorway of Delo's kitchen holding a shotgun.
"You goddamn bitch," Sylvia said, and she dropped to a crouch. "For nineteen years I've dreamed of this day. I'll kill you with my bare hands."
Veronica Garrett's laughter was as cool as rippling water. "You always were overly dramatic, Sylvia. I detested that about you, always playing for the center of attention." She aimed the shotgun at her daughter. "You're not in a position to do much of anything."
"I knew you weren't dead." Sylvia was panting. "I knew it. I told them you weren't dead and they thought I was crazy. When I demanded to see your body, they thought I was morbid and insane. But I knew it wasn't you. What poor son-of-a-bitch died to give you a new life?"
Millie let out a wail. I put a hand on her shoulder and tried to comfort her, but there was nothing that could blunt the force of her pain. She had finally learned the truth of what had happened to her sister.
I had to do something, but I didn't know what. Sylvia was liable to charge into the muzzle of the gun, but I felt as if a wizard had cast a spell on me--I was mesmerized by Veronica.
The woman who stood before me was well over fifty, but she looked no older than thirty-five. Her face was unlined, and her moon-glow blond hair, so like her daughter's, cascaded down to her shoulders in a thick, luxurious fall. She wore a black pantsuit cut sleek and stylish, and on the shoulder was an exquisite hummingbird pin. Lalique. My gaze returned to her face. It seemed impossible that she was old enough to be
Hamilton 's mother.
She stood in the kitchen door, and
Pasco , who showed his age, sat by the dining room table. They had us caught between them.
"Janice . . ." Millie sobbed. "She was just a kid, just a happy kid."
"The girl's death was a lucky accident," Veronica said, her gaze shifting to Millie. "I didn't mean to hit her. But she was going to die, and I realized it would give me a new life if everyone thought I died in the wreck."
I hadn't felt actual bone-aching horror until that moment. When I realized that Veronica and Pasco had put an injured woman in Veronica's Jaguar and then aimed it at a tree with enough speed to send the young woman's body through the windshield, I knew with certainty that cold-blooded murder was something of a habit for them. There was also the small matter of the dead body in
Pasco 's casket.
Even as I accepted the danger of our situation, I couldn't help but be impressed by
Pasco and Veronica's criminal cleverness. Fel Harper wouldn't dare question
Pasco 's finding that Veronica had died in the wreck. So there had been no autopsy. No attempt to make certain that the disfigured body was actually Veronica Garrett. It was a masterful plan.