by Duffy Brown
“What?” I gasped.
“This was your plan!” Fiona yelled at Finn. “Yours and mine. We ate pizza, drank beer, fooled around. You booked this room in your name so Nate could get away.”
Finn did the innocent shoulder-roll routine. “Nice try, Fiona. I know you grew up with Nate so I don’t really blame you for trying to save him. I blame Nate for being a crook and killer and getting you involved. The room is booked in your name.”
“It’s a lie.” I faced Abrams. “It’s all lies. Finn is the one who stole all the money in Detroit, he’s the head honcho who set up the smuggling there, and he killed John and Bladen. He’s framing Nate for the murders and for taking the money and he’s framing Fiona and me right now. You’ve got to see that!”
“Nate’s your friend,” Abrams said to Finn. “You can holster your gun. I can take it from here. I got this covered.”
Finn gave me a smirky grin then stuck his gun in his back holster and Abrams said to Molly. “Cuff him.”
“No, no, no! You got this all wrong!” I jumped in front of Sutter. Abrams pulled me back and Molly took out her handcuffs and headed for Sutter. Then she did a quick sidestep and quickly slapped the handcuffs on an unsuspecting Finn.
“Finn McCabe,” Abrams said. “You are under arrest for the murders of John Bernard and Bladen Powers and for international smuggling, racketeering, money laundering, and-”
“And lying to me, you big fat rotten jerk!” Fiona yelled as she lunged for Finn, beating him on the chest with her fists and kicking him in the shins and was that a knee to where no knee should be?
“Get her off of me,” Finn yelped as he hunched over in pain, with Fiona now pounding her fists on his back. “Get her off! I want a lawyer.”
Abrams shoved a hunched over Finn into a club chair and flashed me an FBI badge. “We suspected Finn was behind the smuggling operation all along but couldn’t prove anything. Then Nate contacted us when he found John dead on the dock and we set things in motion. We never figured he’d go after Bladen but I think Bladen was on to Finn so he had to go too. Finn’s framing of Nate was flawless.”
“He’s a cop, one of the best I’ve ever known. He taught me a lot.” Sutter puffed out a sigh. “He knew all the tricks and he knew not to touch the five million. But then he needed to pay off the boat captain and the crew. We figured sooner or later he’d have to pay off someone.”
“We traced the wire transfer he made tonight and we nailed him.”
“But you won’t get him for murder?” Fiona asked. “I want him to hang, blast it all.”
“John cut his attacker with a box cutter that we have and my guess is Finn here has a fresh cut somewhere.”
“His side!” Fiona jabbed her finger at Finn and snarled, “I saw it with my own two eyes.” She swiped up the Young Bride magazine and flung it at Finn. “So there, you no good, two-timing jackass.”
“Mother!” I gasped. “The captain has her.”
“After explaining the difference between smuggling a few cases of champagne and getting involved in murder, Carman’s probably beating the pants off him in a game of poker while we take care of things here,” Sutter added all calm and cool and relaxed. Actually, the man was more relaxed than I’d seen him... ever.
“Mother knew? My very own mother was in on this?”
Molly nodded. “Nate needed a confidant on the island. Someone with a clear head which left me out.”
I held my arms wide. “What am I, chopped liver?”
“Girlfriend, what you are is a terrible liar,” Fiona said.
I glared at Sutter. “One little word is all I needed from you.” I walked toward Sutter backing him across the cabin. “Just one word that this was all going to end well. I worried about you. My cats worried about you.”
I poked Sutter in the chest. “I lost sleep, chewed my fingernails. I got wrinkles and I do not need wrinkles at my age.”
Sutter took me by the shoulders. “To pull this off we needed you in black cloud mode. We needed you to be Evie Bloomfield, the woman on a mission who never gives up no matter the odds. You had to be one hundred percent believable when everything was going wrong or Finn would have never believed that he was getting away with it. He would have smelled a rat.”
“You’re the rat!”
Sutter held me a little tighter, his eyes soft and warm, a smile on his face. “We could never have gotten Finn without you. I told you to remember that I love you and I do, I really do. You’re the very best thing that’s ever happened to me, Chicago. It might take some time but can you forgive me?”
“How much time do you have?” I grumped.
Sutter grinned, a devilish glint in his dark eyes. He wrapped his arms around me. “There’s a long cold winter ahead of us, Chicago. I bet we can figure something out.”
