“Really?” Ella said. “You will?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I thought you’d say no. You didn’t seem willing to leave when I brought it up before.”
“Well, that was before I’d been thrown down a flight of stairs,” Adam said, wincing as he carefully explored the bruise on his back. “That was before I was accused of stealing drugs from Kathryn Birkin and convicted on circumstantial evidence. Times change.”
“Good,” she said quickly, “I was ready to have to convince you.”
“No convincing needed. I assume we’re leaving now?”
“Can you walk?”
He got to his feet and tested himself by taking a few steps. His ankle hurt, but he could walk on it. “I’m good.”
“Perfect. Straight out the door and down to the dock, then.”
He followed her up the stairs and into the darkened kitchen. The place had a spooky, after-hours sort of feel to it. It felt like trespassing, somehow, like doing something wrong. Like if he was caught, he would be in trouble.
Although I will be in trouble if they catch me now, he thought.
And it wouldn’t be just him. By helping him, Ella was declaring her side openly, giving up the protection they’d both depended on for so long. She was choosing him over the dubious safety of keeping her head down and her mouth shut.
He would have to remember, once they’d gotten away, to let her know how much that choice meant to him. How much he appreciated her.
He had desperately missed the feeling that there was someone in the world he could trust wholeheartedly, he realized now. He had wanted to feel that way about Cody, but right from the start, Cody had been too erratic to put much faith in. He had started to build trust with Artem and Sara, but then they had died. Neither the Birkins nor the McTerrells had ever given him any reason to treat any of them with anything more than reservation and caution.
But Ella was saving him.
She was putting herself at risk to do it.
She could have taken the boat and left without him. She didn’t need him. She was choosing to bring him along. And she had believed in his innocence when no one else had.
He followed her through the kitchen toward the side door that led out onto the lawn. Once outside, the two of them sprinted in the direction of the yacht club.
“I’m not very good at sailing,” Ella panted as they ran. “I don’t suppose you know anything about it?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Only ever been on a boat like that once or twice.”
She nodded. “Well we’ll just have to make it work.”
They covered the ground quickly, although it seemed to take forever. Adam was acutely aware of the fact that at any moment, someone could look out of the window of the clubhouse and see them. He knew everyone was supposed to be asleep, but you never could tell—
They reached the yacht club building. Adam pulled open the door. “Get in, quick. We’ll go through to the dock—”
A familiar sound cut him off.
The sound of a gun being cocked.
Then Rhett Birkin stepped out of the darkness, his pistol trained at Ella’s head.
Chapter 20
“Going somewhere?” Rhett asked.
Adam couldn’t speak. They had been so close to getting away. Was this really happening? It couldn’t be, could it? How could Rhett have known they would be here?
“You really ought to try to be a little quieter if you’re going to get up in the night,” Rhett said to Ella. “I heard you moving the table we used to block the cellar door. I watched you go down there, and I listened to your conversation. So you thought you could escape?”
“You don’t care if we leave, Rhett,” Ella said. Her voice was shaking slightly. “It’s better for you if we leave. You know Adam’s the one who told everybody about the man you killed.”
Adam really wished she hadn’t reminded Rhett of that while he was holding a gun.
“They’ve all forgotten about it,” Ella said. “Or maybe it never mattered that much to them in the first place. But with us gone, they’ll have plenty to worry about and focus on. Nobody will care what you did. They’ll vilify us, and you’ll be able to move on. Let us go.”
“And let you steal the boat?” Rhett laughed. “Not very likely. You’d leave us all stranded on this island.”
“You don’t want to leave the island anyway,” Ella pointed out. “Everything you need is here. Your families are here. You have all the food and water you could ever need.”
“Stop talking,” Rhett barked. “Start walking.” And he gestured with the barrel of the gun back toward the clubhouse.
“Rhett—” Adam started.
Rhett pointed his pistol at the sky and fired. The sound of the close-range gunshot made Adam jump, and he had a sudden and unwelcome vision of the way the man on the boat had crumpled to the deck, bloody and lifeless, after Rhett had killed him. Would Adam be next? Would Ella?
“Go,” Rhett ordered. “Back up to the house.”
What choice did they have? Adam turned and walked back up the hill toward the clubhouse, hyperconscious of Ella at his side, trembling and fearful, and of the gun at his back.
The kitchen door stood open when they got there. Olivia McTerrell was leaning out, and she watched as they approached.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Go get everyone,” Rhett said.
“They’re coming already,” Olivia said, and sure enough, as they entered the kitchen, Adam saw the Birkins and the McTerrells coming in through the opposite door. They looked harassed and exhausted—they’d clearly been trying to sleep.
Rhett steered Adam and Ella into the middle of the room, nudging them along with his gun as if it was a cattle prod.
“Stop there,” he said finally, and they did.
“What’s going on, son?” Adam was surprised to see that Richard Birkin was wearing a red velvet bathrobe. There was something deeply out of place about that. It was far too luxurious for the situation in which they found themselves.
“He’s supposed to be locked up,” Marsden McTerrell said. He looked accusingly at Rhett. “Did you let him out?”
“Of course not,” Rhett said scathingly. “She did.” And he gestured at Ella with his gun.
All eyes turned to her.
“Ella?” Kathryn said. “Is that true?”
Ella stood stoically, refusing to speak.
“It’s true,” Rhett said. “I saw her do it. They were sneaking down to the yacht club when I got the drop on them. They were going to take our only boat and leave with it.”
“Ella, did you not understand?” Kathryn asked. “Adam stole from us. That’s why we locked him up.”
It was so condescending that Adam felt like screaming, but he managed to hold his tongue.
Rhett, however, managed nothing of the sort. “Don’t be so naive, Mother,” he spat. “She knows exactly what he did. She knows he’s a thief, and she helped him anyway. She’s probably been stealing herself. We should all check and make sure none of our things are missing.”
Charles nodded. “True enough. But we have to deal with these two first.”
“I say we shoot them,” Rhett said. “They’ve made enough trouble.”
“No!” Kathryn said.
The other Birkins stared at her in open astonishment.
“No?” Richard asked. “Kathryn, they eat the food off our table, and then they steal from you when your back is turned.”
“I know,” she said. “I know. But not Ella, please. If she’s gone wrong, it’s our fault. She’s not educated. She doesn’t know any better than to do things like this.”
“Kathryn,” Charles said, “If she’s going to go against what’s good for the rest of us—”
“I know,” Kathryn interrupted. “But it won’t happen again, Charles. I promise. I won’t let it. She’s like a daughter to me. Please understand.”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,”
Ella said.
Everyone turned and looked at her.
“I’m like a daughter to you?” Ella said. “That’s a laugh. That’s a real fucking laugh, Kathryn. I know you sabotaged my college applications! Is that how you treat your children? Would you do that to Rhett? Or to Langley? No, you literally let them get away with murder, is what you do. And you blew up my entire future. I could have made something of myself, but you were so determined to keep me as your maid that you ruined that. And now you have the nerve to point out to these people that I don’t have a college education? Who the hell’s fault do you think that is!”
“Shut up!” Rhett said.
But Ella kept going. “I’m not your daughter,” she said. “I’m nothing to you. And you’re nothing to me. Nothing but the woman who trapped me into working for you. I’ve been in a waking hell for years, Kathryn. Even before the virus hit, you ruined my life.”
Kathryn’s face was white as bone. “How dare you?” she hissed. “After everything I’ve done for you? After everything my family has done for you?”
“What? What is it you think you’ve done for me?”
“Ella, stop,” Adam said.
“Yes,” Rhett agreed. “Listen to the thief, Ella. At least he seems to have some brains in his head, even if he is a thieving bastard.”
“We brought you with us,” Kathryn said, her eyes sparkling with tears. “We brought you to Santa Joaquina. We could have left you back on the mainland to die.”
“Your son has a gun to my head right now!” Ella screamed.
“Stop it,” Adam said again. She was right, he knew, right about everything. But God, if she made them angry…this situation was so volatile already. One wrong word, one wrong move, and the shooting would start.
“And he isn’t a thief!” Ella cried. She seemed unable to contain herself now that the dam had burst. “Adam’s never stolen a thing from you. Ever since the day he got here, he’s done nothing but try to contribute. And the moment something goes missing, you just assume he’s guilty, because it couldn’t possibly be one of you, could it?”
There was silence all around the kitchen.
“What are you suggesting?” Richard said.
“Adam was telling the truth before,” Ella said. “He wasn’t the one who stole your drugs. Chase did it.”
“Oh, God, not this again,” Charles said. Chase looked from Ella to Adam, then shook his head sadly. He looked put-upon and a little betrayed, as if he couldn’t believe that people he had liked would malign him like this. Adam wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it. Surely no one could be that good a liar.
“We found the pill bottle in Adam’s room,” Olivia said. “He’d hidden it under his mattress. That proves he was the one who took it.”
“It doesn’t prove anything at all,” Ella said. “Did you actually see the pills under his mattress, Olivia? Were you the one who found them there?”
“Chase found them,” Olivia said.
“Of course he did,” Ella huffed.
“But I saw him find them,” Olivia said. “I was right there. He lifted up the mattress, and then he reached down and picked up the bottle.”
“Unless he already had the bottle,” Adam spoke up. “Unless he was palming it, or he had it up his sleeve.”
“This is pathetic,” Chase said.
“No,” Adam said. “What’s pathetic, Chase, is that I was going to try to help you. I didn’t tell anybody when I found out you were using because I wanted to help you get clean. What’s pathetic is that instead of accepting my help, you pinned your crimes on me.”
“Nobody’s buying it,” Chase said. “It’s a stupid lie, and everyone here is too smart to fall for it.”
Ella turned to Richard. “Check Chase’s room,” she said. “If he has nothing to hide, he won’t mind.”
“You’re crazy,” Chase said.
Richard turned to Langley. “Go and look in Chase’s room.”
“Now, wait just a minute,” Charles objected. “I’m not going to have my son treated like this.”
“It isn’t any different from how I was treated,” Adam pointed out. “You all searched my room. You can search his, too.”
“If you search Chase’s room,” Charles said, “we’re going to search all of your rooms. And not just for the missing drugs. We’ll be looking for anything that seems suspicious.”
“Fine,” Richard said. “We have nothing to hide. Do you?”
Adam took Ella’s hand, threading his fingers through hers. He felt the muscles in his neck and shoulders begin to relax ever so slightly. At least they were focusing on something other than him right now. Rhett still held the gun, but his gaze had turned to his father. He was waiting for instructions.
It was an improvement.
“Langley, go on,” Richard said.
“Olivia,” Marsden spoke up. “You go with him. And make sure you watch his hands.”
Olivia nodded and followed.
“What are you saying, McTerrell?” Richard asked. “You think my son would plant evidence?”
“I don’t know,” Marsden said. “That’s what Chase has been accused of doing. I don’t want us to go around and around about this. If Langley comes back with anything, I want a second set of eyes to verify that it was really there, that’s all.”
“They’re not going to find anything,” Chase grumbled. “This is a waste of time.” But Adam couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t meet anyone’s eyes when he said it.
“We can afford to waste a little time,” Richard said. “We’ve got Ella and Adam under control. We might as well make sure we’re confident that we’re doing the right thing here. We’re certainly not going to go shooting someone because of what they might have done.”
Adam thought of reminding them all that that was exactly what Rhett had done to the man they’d found on the boat, but it didn’t seem like a prudent thing to say while Rhett had a gun on him, so he kept his silence.
For a long time, nobody spoke. The kitchen was oppressively quiet, oppressively dark. The moonlight through the windows was enough to allow them to see each other and to make out the expressions on each other’s faces, but everyone looked sort of ghostly in the pale light. It was as if the people standing around them were evil alter egos of the people Adam knew during the day.
Then again, maybe these were the people they’d always been. Throwing accusations and suspicion on whoever it seemed like they would stick to. Holding guns on people in the middle of the kitchen.
They can’t shoot me here, Adam thought wildly. They’ll get blood all over the countertops. They have to eat in here. But maybe this whole situation had gone beyond that kind of logical thought. Maybe they were already past the point of no return.
Could that really be true? Could it be that tensions and suspicions had grown so high that there was simply no way to defuse things? Adam knew that Ella had been afraid of things erupting into violence for a long time now. It seemed like she had been right. Maybe there was no avoiding some kind of bloodshed, some kind of confrontation.
He tried to gauge the distance from where he stood to the door, his hand instinctively tightening on Ella’s. Suppose he tried to make a run for it? Would he be able to make it outside without being stopped? Was there even a prayer of their getting down to the boats? Rhett would fire on them, he was sure, but if they didn’t run in a straight line, if they swerved and zigzagged and dodged…it was possible. Not very likely, but possible.
He would wait for a distraction, he thought, and if he saw a chance, he would make his move.
Just then, Langley returned to the kitchen with Olivia in tow. Literally in tow, in fact. He had a firm grip on one of her wrists and was pulling her along behind him.
“What are you doing!” Charles ran forward. “Let go of my daughter!”
Langley released Olivia, propelling her forcefully into her father’s arms. Charles caught her and drew back, holding her against him.
�
�She was trying to conceal evidence,” Langley announced.
“What evidence?” Richard asked.
Langley brandished a plastic baggie full of various pills. “This evidence.”
Gasps traveled the perimeter of the room.
“Where was it?” Richard asked.
“In his room.” Langley jerked his head toward Chase. “He’d taped it to the back of his curtains. Pretty clever. Olivia spotted it first, and she tried to pull it down and stuff it in her pocket when she didn’t think I was looking, but I saw her.”
Olivia was crying. Adam felt a pang of sympathy for her. She had been trying to protect her brother.
“Give that to me.” Richard held out a hand, and Langley passed the baggie over. Richard offered it to his wife. “Are these yours?”
Kathryn examined the pills. “Yes.”
“All of them? There are a few different kinds in there.”
“Yes, they’re all mine,” she said. “This is what was stolen from me.” She looked up and across the room at the McTerrells and shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe it.”
“Rhett,” Richard said, “let Adam and Ella go, please.”
Rhett lowered the gun.
“We never should have let you stay,” Richard said to Charles, his voice growing deeper and more ominous. “We should have trusted our instincts. We knew you were no good.”
“Now, hold on—”
But Charles never got to finish. With a roar of outrage, Chase McTerrell pushed past his father and threw himself forward, directly at Ella.
Chapter 21
Everything happened very quickly.
Adam reached out for Ella, wanting to pull her out of harm’s way, but Chase had moved first and was faster. Time seemed to slow down, allowing him to realize just how helpless he was. This would be nothing like the fight between Chase and Rhett. Ella was so much smaller than Chase was. Did she even know how to defend herself physically? He had no idea.
Then there was a noise so loud it could only have been an explosion.
Chase’s forward momentum halted as abruptly as if he’d run headlong into a wall. For a moment, Adam couldn’t square what had happened in his mind. He stared, stunned and confused, as Chase crumpled to the ground, his body going into spasms.
Escape The Dark (Book 2): Fearful World Page 15
