I nodded and smiled. “Sounds cool. Want to take the Rolls?”
“Yeah,” he said, scratching his head. “That’s what I was going to ask.”
“Of course. Have fun. The keys are on the hook in the kitchen.”
He gave me a sweet smile and my heart melted a little. Then he paused and tilted his head.
“Don’t,” I said.
He shrugged. “A guy can try, right?”
He grew closer and reached up to tuck my hair behind my ear. I felt myself drawn to him. I swallowed the lump that was suddenly in my throat. He moved in to kiss me and I sidestepped, grabbing his wrist gently. I leaned over to his ear and whispered,
“You’re a great guy, Conner.”
Then I walked past him, proud of my self control.
Sabine and Clint came downstairs and said they’d called a car to take them to the train station. Clint was heading to Paris. They were going to have a late dinner and he was catching a midnight train and then Sabine would hire a driver to bring her back here.
I didn’t ask why the plans had changed. Once again, it was none of my business.
After everyone left, I grabbed a bottle of white wine and retreated to my bedroom.
I slid the deadbolt and stripped naked.
In the bathroom, I ran the water as hot as I could into the large Jacuzzi tub.
Bubbles were nearly overflowing the tub and I’d just poured a glass of wine and was about to get into the water when my phone rang in the bedroom.
I rushed into the other room, wondering, as always, if it would be Rose or a nurse calling about Nico.
It was Ryder.
“I’ll be there at four,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m escorting you to the festival. You have tickets, right?”
I did. They were electronic tickets on my phone. I’d received a reminder about them earlier.
“Maybe.”
“I think we should go. I’m your escort. I know you might find this hard to believe, but I clean up okay and do own a tux. I’ll be there in an hour.”
And then he hung up before I answered. I stared at my phone. How cocky! Arrogant!
I tossed the phone across the bed.
I had plans for a long bath and then I was going to crawl into bed and read a book until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. This was the first night in days I had the entire villa to myself.
Despite all of this, I felt a slight tremor of excitement. The festival might be fun.
And it probably would be good for me to get out of the villa. The entire place had a pall about it. It wasn’t just the recent murders. And it wasn’t a pall that existed before I arrived. It was something else. If I didn’t know better I would say that the dark shadows of my past—all the grief I still carried around with me—were flitting around my peripheral vision at every turn.
Maybe Ryder was right.
Sitting home alone tonight suddenly seemed depressing and slightly creepy.
Inside the walk-in closet, I unzipped the garment bag containing the dress Dante had chosen for me. I trailed my fingers across the dark green silk. It was gorgeous. It was Celine. It was sleeveless and had a very low cut neckline, nearly to my abdomen, but was structured so that there was barely any cleavage to be seen. It hugged my hips and legs to the ground. I wasn’t into flouncy, puffy skirts. It would do perfectly. A black faux fur wrap was on another hanger to bring in case it was chilly inside the theaters. There was another bag with the black patent leather Christian Louboutin pumps with the four-inch-heels.
Dante had also packed dangling emerald earrings.
With everything laid out on the bed, I realized I didn’t need to think about anything. Dante had done it all. The only thing I needed to do was bathe and then put on some dark eyeliner and lipstick and dress. My hair would be brushed out and could hang down my back. It was freshly washed and didn’t look too ragged yet.
Sometimes having a super stylish gay best friend was the best thing ever.
Despite myself, as I slipped into the bath and sipped my wine, I started to get a little bit excited about what the night would hold.
I told myself it had absolutely nothing to do with spending more time with Ryder. In a tuxedo.
The red carpet was a blur of bright flashes as the paparazzi snapped photos of Ryder and me, wondering the whole time who we were, I’m sure. Pulling up in the Maserati that had been parked in the garage had caught their eye, apparently.
Inside, we found our seats and settled in for the first film. It was good, but I soon grew antsy and told Ryder I wanted to go have a smoke.
We grabbed flutes of champagne and headed off to an enclosed garden area where others had snuck off to spark cigarettes and joints.
Ryder led me to a small bench near some Jasmine bushes and lit my joint for me, taking a puff first. He exhaled with his eyes slightly closed, which I found extremely sexy for some reason.
“I haven’t smoked marijuana in years.”
“Really?”
“It was used as a treatment for my wife’s cancer.”
His face seemed to close up then and his body slightly turned away. I placed my hand on his. “I’m sorry to pry.”
Then he turned toward me and fixed me with such an intense gaze I nearly gasped.
“I haven’t really spoken about her to very many people,” he said. “I would say it’s still fresh, but it’s not. It’s been three years.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said.
“She was very kind and gentle,” he said. “The opposite of me. She was a school teacher. Her whole life revolved around children and the bitter irony was that she could not conceive. Her first bout of cancer was when she was young and they took all those parts out to save her life. She always said it was worth it to live and meet me. But then it came back.”
He looked down. I squeezed his hand and he continued.
“When she went to the cancer ward to get her treatments they said she lit up the entire place. Her whole goal during her last days was to make everyone else okay. She was kind and wouldn’t hurt a soul. I’ve never met anyone as generous and loving and giving as she was.”
He sobbed as he spoke.
I waited a few seconds and then said, “She was obviously an incredible blessing to everyone who knew her.”
He drew back and looked at me. “Yes. That’s it.”
We stood to go back inside and I couldn’t help but think that he couldn’t have described a woman who was more opposite than me.
15
After we all got home, Ryder offered to make us nightcaps. While he made our drinks, I’d run upstairs and changed into baggy shorts and a cropped top before coming back down to the pool.
Conner sat on the end of my lounge chair and trailed his finger down my bare leg. I jerked away and then felt guilty. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the startled, hurt look on Conner’s face or the way Ryder quickly looked away when I glanced over at him. He was sitting near the others across the pool.
Fuck.
Without looking our way, Ryder stood up and headed into the house.
I stood and followed. I was a little unsteady and realized that I was drunk.
Ryder wasn’t in the kitchen.
I found him in a small sunroom on the main floor. It had floor to ceiling windows and had an astonishing view of the bay with the moon rising over it. The entire room was lit up nearly as bright as day in a blueish glow from the moonlight.
I wasn’t sure how I’d missed this room before.
“Hey, sailor,” I said, to try to lighten the mood.
He looked at me and gave me that squinty smile. His teeth were brilliant white and I found myself mesmerized by them until he turned back to the view.
“It’s so ethereal,” I said walking over to stand beside him.
Standing that close, I could smell his cologne. And something else, darker, primal. He turned slightly toward me and his arm brushed mine sending an electric charge through me. With t
hat simple touch, I was suddenly overcome with desire for Ryder.
It was ridiculous.
I held my glass up to him in a salute, swirling the melting ice in the amber liquid at the bottom of it.
“Where can a gal get a refill around here?”
“Don’t you think maybe you’ve had enough?”
I scoffed. “Hardly.”
I stood and stretched languidly. As I did, my top rode up, exposing my stomach.
His eyes flickered over me slowly. I held my breath and couldn’t look away from his mouth. When his eyes rose to meet mine, heat spread throughout my core. I couldn’t even remember the last time a man looked at me in that way. Even sweet and sexy Conner hadn’t looked at me like that. Finally, I broke eye contact.
“So no drink?”
He shook his head.
“Don’t judge me, sailor,” I said. “I think finding two dead bodies in the space of two days might warrant a little overindulging.”
He laughed.
I frowned. “What?”
“Please,” he said.
My mouth was wide open.
“Don’t act like you’re traumatized by dead bodies, Gia.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You forget how we know each other.”
Oh. Yeah. Dante probably told him my whole fucking life story.
I backed up, staring at him with my eyes narrowed.
“You aren’t some damsel in distress, so drop the fucking offended and traumatized princess act.”
Instead of giving in to my desire to punch him, I trailed my fingers down his tattoo. His entire body reacted. A tremor ran through him, and he dipped his head into his shoulder. I could see his jaw clench. He was fighting for self-control. Good.
I leaned down and whispered in his ear. “So what am I then?”
He grabbed my wrist, and I gasped.
His mouth was hot near my ear. “You are the same as me.”
“Oh yeah? And what is that?”
“A killer.”
I yanked my arm away and headed back outside where everyone else was, my face flushed.
But Ryder never came back out. I waited about thirty minutes and then went to the front of the house and looked out the window. His car was gone, too.
Damn it.
16
When I got downstairs the next morning, the group in the living room turned as one toward me. They looked so serious. I quickly scanned to see who was missing because they sure looked like they’d found another dead body. There were only the two of them: Conner and Sabine.
“Where’s Hannah?”
“She’s gone,” Sabine said and sniffed.
I stared. Was this a euphemism for “murdered?”
Conner saw me pause.
“She took the car. We don’t know when or where she went.”
Relief filled me. I didn’t think I could handle another dead person under my watch. I realized that I hadn’t set the alarm last night after Ryder left.
“I think we need to go look for her,” I said.
Conner walked toward me, but I quickly deflected his advance. “Why don’t the three of you take the Rolls. You can drive, Conner,” I said. “Maybe head down to the harbor and promenade and split up from there. If she left last night, maybe she went to the clubs. We should show people her picture and see if anyone saw her.”
“Um, okay,” he said, seeming disappointed, but I also noted that he didn’t mind me handing him the keys to the convertible Rolls Royce.
I had an idea where Hannah might be, but I wanted to confront her alone. It was my best chance of saving her.
I’d figured out the night before that she was the killer.
After Ryder left, Danny had emailed me something interesting information.
Hannah had been the only survivor in a bizarre accident that had taken the lives of her mother, father, and baby sister. She claimed to have gotten up in the middle of the night, hungry for a midnight snack. She decided on grilled cheese and turned the stove on, but then claimed to have sleepwalked her dog in the middle of the night. The house filled with gas and later exploded.
I’d stayed up late thinking.
Too many things didn’t add up.
I replayed every interaction I’d had with Hannah from the moment we’d met.
One thing that stuck out was that she’d known Lucas had hit his head before ending up in the pool. Even though she’d never seen the body. That first morning she’d said, “It was an accident. He must have had too much to drink, hit his head, and fell in the pool and drowned.”
She said this without seeing the body or the blood.
In addition, it seemed odd that she had been pursued by someone on the island. It had likely been a story to deflect suspicion. Same with the story about her overhearing Owen threaten to kill Lucas.
She could easily have put the drug into Lucas’s drink and then had some of the drug put in her water later after she killed him. Too many things didn’t add up.
I could only come to one conclusion: Hannah had killed both Lucas and Amanda.
I planned to take Hannah aside, maybe on a drive today, and get her to confess.
But she had made that a little tougher by disappearing.
I had a good idea where she might be. And it was not ideal.
It was a place that she’d only go if she wanted to end it in a different way.
Two hours later, I pulled into Cassis, just south of Marseille.
I was less interested in its quaint village setting and more interested in the limestone cliffs. La Ciotat as they were called, were the highest seaside cliffs in Europe. They had been a landmark to sailors for centuries. The area, according to Hannah, was also the setting for the world’s first motion picture shown in public: L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, a fifty-second film that premiered in Paris in 1895.
Hannah had spoken so passionately about this area the first night we met.
The significance of this location to her could not be understated.
She’d also mentioned another reason for wanting to visit here: It was where the movie A Deadly Union had been filmed.
When I asked her about the movie, she’d given me a brief synopsis. I’d forgotten most of it except that in one of the most dramatic scenes, a new bride is found dead at the base of the cliffs.
If my hunch was right, the cliffs were where I’d find Hannah.
I only hoped I’d find her in time and she’d still be on top of the cliffs—not at the bottom.
After I drove through town, I found the road leading to the cliffs. As I came up on them, I saw the Chevy Tahoe parked on the shoulder of the road.
I found Hannah standing on the edge of the cliff, facing the sun. I snuck a glance over the side as I walked over to her. The water was hundreds of feet below. As I glanced down, I saw there was no chance she could land in the turquoise water below and survive. Not at that height. And it was much more likely she’d end up on the rocky outcropping at the bottom where the surf was breaking. Or, if she didn’t fall out far enough, she would strike the jagged cliffside all the long way down.
The odds weren’t good any way you looked at it. It wasn’t a chance I would take.
She was wearing a loose maxi dress billowing in the wind. My first thought was that if she tried to move, she would probably trip on its hem, and she would fall. She was also wearing high-heeled wedge sandals with the toes overhanging the edge of the rock. If she shifted slightly, she would also tumble over the edge.
I tried not to show alarm.
As if she sensed me coming, she turned. I braced for her to lose her balance and fall but only her head swiveled. The rest of her continued to face the sea.
“It’s you.”
I gave a small shrug.
“Where are the police?”
“Why would they be here?”
“Because I killed people!”
“Oh,” I said. “Want to talk about it?”
&n
bsp; I was trying to keep her talking while I figured out a way to get her away from the edge of the cliff. The rocks she was standing on did not look very sturdy or secure. I took a few steps closer.
“Back up. If you don’t, I swear I’ll jump right now.” Spittle flew out of her mouth. Her eyes were wild.
“Listen, I just want to talk.”
She shook her head. “You think I’m a freak, a monster.”
“You think you’re the only one who has killed someone?” I gave a small laugh. “I’ve killed quite a few times, in fact. I’ve actually lost track of how many people I’ve killed. Definitely more than two, though.”
Her eyes narrowed now.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
She shifted, and a pebble under her foot loosened and plunged to the rocks below.
“Just so you know that anything can be fixed. Even when it seems like it’s all over, it can get better. I promise.”
Now she glared at me. “What game are you playing?”
“I’m not playing a game, Hannah,” I said, now meeting her eyes straight on. “I just think that you need some help.”
“Fuck you,” she said.
“I don’t think you’re a killer.”
Her lower lip began to tremble and then a flood of tears rolled down her face.
“Well, I’ve killed more than two people, too.” She had a smug look on her face.
“Do you mean your family?” I said in a soft voice.
Her face crumpled. “Yes. But they deserved to die. They didn’t like me. They hated me.”
“Okay,” I said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“But there was someone else.”
“Really?” I said, genuine interest in my voice.
“Amanda is the only one who knew. That’s why she had to die.”
I remembered the conversation I’d overheard between Lucas and Amanda.
“I’m not going to wait much longer,” she said.
This time I heard him answer. “Be patient.”
“If it doesn’t happen tonight, it’s over. I’ll do it myself.”
“She’ll know it was you. You’ll ruin everything.”
“Don’t you push me. Don’t you tempt me. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
Dark Shadows (Gia Santella Crime Thrillers Book 11) Page 10
