by Evans, Misty
“Liar!” Melanie lunged forward and slapped him. “I loved her like a sister.”
Adam rubbed his cheek, but he made no move to retaliate. Or back off. “If you wanted me to leave, Melanie, all you had to do was ask. I thought we had a nice life here, you and I, but I guess you didn’t feel the same.”
“You killed Kristine, and now, like your sister, you’re trying to blame someone else.”
Ronni moved to block the door. “How did Melanie kill Kristine, Adam?”
His eyes were clear when he met hers. “The day you were at the salon, she came home mid-afternoon. I was in the chapel, but had stepped outside to get some fresh air. I saw Melanie sneak in the back door, then sneak out a few minutes later. Most everyone was gone that day to the holiday farmer’s markets, and at the time, I didn’t think much about it. But I realized while I was standing there that I heard an odd noise. I didn’t know what it was. In the hospital, when I woke up, it hit me. The sound was a gunshot. Soft, and a little odd sounding. That’s one reason I didn’t recognize it right away. I was too out of it at the time, but in the hospital, in my dreams, it kept playing over and over in my head. Like the horrible nightmares I have of the siege.”
Ronni’s chest tightened. “You have them too?”
He gave her an odd look. “That’s how I knew that sound. The gunshot. I hear it in my nightmares almost every night.”
Her stomach cramped. She had to force air into her lungs.
“You’re lying,” Melanie seethed. “I never came home that day. I was at the salon all afternoon.” She turned to Ronni. “You saw me. You know I was there.”
There were hours when Ronni hadn’t seen her. When Melanie had disappeared into her office. “Why would she kill Kristine, Adam, and stash the gun in your nightstand?”
“She wanted to be rid of me. To have complete control of the farm again.”
That jived with Melanie’s previous comments. She echoed Adam’s earlier question. “Why not just ask Adam to leave, Melanie?”
Adam raised a palm, inviting her to answer. She looked away and turned up her nose.
He chuckled. “If she asked me to leave without good reason, my followers would rebel.”
Ah. True. “But if you were a murderer,” Ronni said, “no one would want you back. Is that it?”
“Exactly.”
“This is all nonsense.” Melanie headed for the door. “Let’s go see those guns.”
Ronni stayed rooted, blocking the door. “Not yet. I want to hear what else Adam has to say.”
“He’s a murderer.” Melanie tucked her sweater around her body. “Why, right now, our lives are in danger just standing here talking to him. I’m calling the police.”
She tried again to get out the door. Ronni raised her hands to stop her, running through the timeline in her head. It was possible. “The police are already on the way for Jacob. I think they’ll want to talk to you too.”
“Whatever for? Your brother is unwell and making false accusations. I never touched Kristine.” She pointed a finger at Adam’s face. “He’s a crazy psycho!”
“That’s what you want everyone to believe,” Adam said, “but I’m not a violent person, even when I’m off my meds. I lose control of some of my thoughts, it’s true, and I say things—horrible things—but I’ve never hurt anyone.”
He cast a distressed glance at Ronni. “I’m so sorry for burning your picture and calling you those names. When I’m off the meds, my brain flips everything backward. What’s good is bad and what’s bad is good. But that’s why I never go off the meds. Ever.”
“Melanie said you still have episodes, even when on the meds.”
“I never did until I came here. Dr. Elgin and I tried different pills, but I still have episodes once in a while. I never understood it. I’ve been on the same medication since grade school and never had a problem until I moved here.”
Ronni zeroed in on Melanie, who’d moved to the fireplace and appeared to be ignoring them. “Maybe because Melly, here, was screwing with your pills.”
At the fireplace, Melanie braced a hand on the mantel and sighed dramatically. “You two really are a lot alike. Your imaginations are fascinating. Scary, but fascinating.”
Adam frowned at Ronni. “What do you mean, she screwed with my pills?”
“Someone replaced your lithium with sugar pills. We thought it was Jacob. Now I’m not so sure.” She moved toward Melanie. “Jacob taught you to shoot, didn’t he? That’s how you knew how to handle the .22 and kill Kristine without making too much noise.”
“You’re all looney!” Melanie snatched up the poker from the fireplace and brandished it at Ronni. “And you’re leaving my home. Now.”
“Swing that poker iron, and you’d better plan to kill me, because I’m going to charge your ass with every felony in the book.”
The poker iron quavered. The hand holding it trembled. “Think you’re smart, don’t you?”
Adam stepped between them. “I won’t let you hurt my sister.”
“Oh, I’m going to hurt her and tell everyone you did it.”
“They won’t believe you.”
Melanie laughed, but this time it was menacing. “A hundred witnesses on this farm know me as the kind, loving, mother figure they’ve always longed for, and each and every one of them thinks you’re a killer, Adam. I’m good at what I do, they love me, and even a crazy idiot like you knows I could tell them that unicorns exist and they’d believe every word.”
Ronni snapped. “The only crazy idiot in this room is you, Melanie. And even though you sucked me in with your kindness, I see now how driven you really are. A business woman through and through. You’ve contrived quite a plan here. Are there actual guns in the chapel? Did you need Jacob out of the way too?”
Melanie rolled her eyes. “Another needy boy desperate for a mother figure. He thinks he can live here indefinitely. It’s paradise to him. But let me tell you, paradise takes a damn lot of work to keep it running and making a profit. Jacob doesn’t have it in him. He was useful with the website and social media stuff, but it’s time for him to move on.”
Didn’t answer her question, but came close. “I thought you two had a relationship.”
“If he’s in trouble with the law now…well, I can’t have criminals living here.”
“Guess you’ll have to kill me, too, then,” a voice behind Ronni said. She jumped and found Thomas standing behind her. “Cuz I heard every word about you using that poker iron on Ronni and blaming Adam for it.”
“Me, too.” This from Jacob, standing behind Thomas. “And the part about me being a needy boy desperate for a mother figure. I happen to have a damn good mother, thank you very much. I never needed you like that.”
Melanie lowered the weapon and switched back to her old self. “You don’t understand. She”—one of her fingers pointed at Ronni—“threatened me. She and Adam are trying to blame me for Kristine’s murder. They’re in cahoots. She’s confused and trying to protect him. I mean, he is her brother, and of course, she wants to believe the best about him…”
“I do believe the best about him,” Ronni said.
“We all have blinders for our own kin.” She returned the poker iron to its stand, laid a hand on the mantel again. “But you are seriously out of line.”
Jacob piped up from behind Ronni. “You replaced Adam’s lithium with sugar pills, then pleaded with me to take him one when he was losing it in the chapel. You knew my prints would be on the bottle.”
“Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t know how to even get my hands on sugar pills.”
Adam stepped toward her. “But Dr. Elgin would.”
“Oh, now he’s a killer, too, I suppose.”
“Melanie.” Adam’s voice was strained. “How could you do this to me and Jacob?”
She slapped the mantel, as if in disgust, and the next thing Ronni saw was a brick on the fireplace popping open.
Melanie’s hand whipped out a small black gun and p
ointed it at Ronni. “As easily as I could do this.”
“No!” Adam shouted at the same moment Melanie fired.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Thomas yelled, “Get down!” and Ronni’s body hit the floor, the edge of her forehead slamming into the sharp corner of the fireplace. Her head snapped sideways as pain, sharp and intense, ripped across her temple and down into her jaw.
Bam, bam, bam. She flinched at the back and forth volley of gunshots. Some came from Melanie. Some from Thomas, using Jacob’s gun.
A heavy weight was on top of her, pinning her to the floor and blocking her view.
“Adam?” She was half on her side, back against the wall, and he was lying over the top of her. All she could see was the edge of the fireplace.
Black dots danced at the edges of her vision. Acid rose in her throat. Her brain—ever so helpful—flashed back to Mount Royal.
Machine gun fire, tanks, barking dogs…
Her chest was tight. No air could get in.
Suffocating.
“Roanna?” Adam’s voice was a whisper.
Shut. It. Down. She couldn’t afford a flashback. Not now.
“I’ve got you,” she told him, trying not to pass out.
His voice, still a whisper, was panicked. “I can’t move my leg.”
Adam’s legs were tangled in hers. One of his arms was underneath her. Blood from her head injury ran down the side of her face, and she wiped it away as she rolled Adam to the side. His eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out.
Ronni scrambled to untangle her legs from his and patted his cheek to wake him up. She glanced over his shoulder to see what was happening.
Bam, another shot rang out and she flinched, grasping Adam tightly. Wood splinters rained down on the floor.
Thomas yelled, “Put down your weapon, Melanie! Put it down. Now!”
Melanie laughed, high and hysterical. “God, I’ve wanted to shut her up since the day you two arrived.”
Her. As in me.
Something sticky and wet was soaking into Ronni’s shirt and jeans. Adam’s face was even paler then before. She probed the wet area and her fingers found a flow of blood coming from his side, around his hipbone area.
No, no, no. He’d been trying to protect her, and he had. He’d taken a bullet meant for her.
Ronni’s arm trembled as she leveraged one hand on the nearby fainting couch and slid both of their bodies across the hardwood floor and away from the fireplace. The couch was a mammoth old red velvet thing with a dust ruffle covering the legs. Terrible cover but better than nothing. She flipped it on its side to give her better coverage.
“All I ever wanted was some peace and quiet,” Melanie said. “A nice, little farm. I was going to sell the salon and expand the organic products business.”
Dizziness swamped her. She fought through it, fingers searching for a pulse in Adam’s neck. His skin was cool, clammy.
There. The soft pulse was light but steady. It wouldn’t stay that way long if she didn’t get him medical attention and fast.
Rolling him over so he was better hidden, she carefully sat up, making sure to stay behind the couch. Thomas had taken cover behind a large sofa in front of the window, but where was Jacob? She peeked the other way and saw Melanie sitting on the hearth, legs sprawled in front of her. A red stain was spreading over her left shoulder and down her chest. She’d been hit, but still held a gun in her hands.
“Two years I’ve worked to get this farm back,” she said. “Two years, waiting for it to become profitable. Planning. Putting up with all this cult shit. And all it took was for you”—she fired a round at the fainting couch, the bullet ripping through the fabric just past Ronni’s cheek as she ducked—“to ruin everything.”
Thomas rose from the sofa, aimed directly at Melanie. “I don’t want to shoot you again, Melly, but I will. Put the goddamn gun down.”
“Shut up.”
Ronni could see Melanie’s reflection in the large antique mirror by the door. Melanie gritted her teeth, kept her gun trained on the fainting couch. “Or I’ll kill your girlfriend.”
The police were already on their way for Jacob, right? Ronni just needed to speed things along. She pulled out her phone, dialed 911, and hunched over Adam’s body, feeling for that soft pulse again. Blood from her head wound dripped onto his shirt and into her eyes. She hastily wiped it away.
“One bullet and I kill you,” Thomas said. His voice was eerily calm. Ronni had no doubt he hated the thought of ending Melanie’s life, but he would do it.
Before the responder on the other end could say anything, Ronni reeled off the address. “Emergency!” she said and ended the call.
“You can’t save him!” Melanie yelled. Ronni heard shuffling. Melanie was struggling to stand and still keep the gun aloft.
Thomas’s gaze dropped to Ronni. He met her eyes…
“I won’t let…”
Ronni nodded. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger.
An explosion of sound erupted in the room…the gunshot, a cry from Melanie, the crack of a second bullet…
Something hit Ronni in her left bicep with the force of a baseball bat. Her upper body fell over Adam, her breath frozen in her throat.
“Ronni!” Thomas was by her side in an instant. He caught her, held her to him, the blood from her head wound staining his shirt. Head aching and her arm on fire, she didn’t need to look to know he’d done exactly what he’d said he’d do. “Is she dead?”
His face came into view as he gently laid her on her back. “Shit. The bitch shot you.”
“Is she dead?”
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s dead.”
A halo of light hovered around his head. His eyes, filled with anger and concern, searched hers. Fingers probed her bicep. “The bullet passed straight through. Two inches to the right and it would have hit your heart.”
“I’m okay,” she said, and surprisingly, she was.
“Should have shot her the minute I had the chance.”
“No.” Ronni pushed his fingers away. “You did the right thing.”
He shucked off his shirt, tore it into. With one section, he balled the fabric and pressed it into her arm. The second piece he handed to her for her head. “Stay with me, partner.”
In the distance, she heard sirens, or maybe her ears were still ringing from the gunfire. Thomas’s very naked and very yummy chest was messing with her concentration. “Quit worrying about me. How’s Adam?”
He glanced at her brother. “Bleeding, just like you.” He raised his head and said over the top of the fainting couch. “Jacob, Melanie’s dead. There’s nothing you can do for her. Get over here and help me out.”
Footsteps, then Jacob appeared in Ronni’s peripheral vision. There was no light halo around his head, but she thought she saw tears in his eyes. “You didn’t have to kill her, asshole.”
“Yes, he did.” Ronni tried to sit up, but the room titled sideways. She went back down, Thomas’s hands catching her and easing her to the floor. “She used you, Jacob. She framed Adam for murder, and she tried to kill all of us. You’re lucky I can’t stand up, because I’d kick your ass for being such an idiot.”
Thomas patted her cheek. “That’s my precious snowflake.”
He untied Jacob’s hands. “Take off your shirt and put some pressure on Adam’s wound.”
Jacob did as instructed, and Thomas gently raised Ronni’s head and put it in his lap. Voices sounded in the yard. The coonhound bayed. Someone knocked on the front door. “Everything okay in there?”
Thomas met her eyes. “Is it?”
“Yeah,” she said, squeezing his arm. Her shoulder had gone numb and her head pounded like a bass drum. But her chest?
No tightness. No constriction. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Everything’s okay.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Her forehead needed fourteen stitches. The gunshot wound was cleaned and packed with gauze. Thomas st
ayed with her through it all and kept her updated on Adam’s progress in surgery.
The bullet had nicked the top of his hipbone and lodged in the fleshy part of his side. He’d lost some blood, but the doctors surmised he’d passed out from a combination of stress and shock, rather than blood loss.
Because of the knock to her head, the ER doctor wanted to keep Ronni overnight for observation. She declined, preferring to stay with Celina. Or maybe Thomas.
She and Thomas gave their statements to the local police while waiting for Adam to come out of surgery. Cooper arrived within the hour with Bianca in tow. Cooper took Thomas into an empty private room down the hall to debrief him and shut the door.
Bianca gave Ronni an unexpected hug, her floral perfume knocking out the antiseptic hospital odors. “God, you’re a mess.” Bianca examined the bandage on Ronni’s head. “How do you feel?”
Ronni laughed, not because any of this was humorous, but the stress she’d been carrying for days finally broke free. She either had to laugh or cry. “Like shit.”
“Didn’t they give you any pain meds? I can go yell at them.”
“No need. I’ve had a dose of Percocet and something else. It’s not the pain. It’s just…” How to explain? She was so tired, she could hardly put one foot in front of the other. So relieved she wanted to shout from the rooftops.
She dragged herself to the nearby waiting room, directly across the hall from the room Cooper had taken Thomas into, and dropped into a beige colored chair, rubbing her eyes. Bianca followed, briefcase slung over her suit.
Thankfully, the room was empty so she and Bianca were alone. A daytime soap opera ran on the TV in the corner. “I had misgivings about Melanie here and there,” she told the NSA agent, “but I never dreamed she was capable of murder. She didn’t fit any of my profiles, but I should have figured it out. I blew it.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Bianca turned off the television and sat beside her. She opened her briefcase. “There was nothing in her background that hinted at it either. I checked. Jacob, Adam, Lance…they were all ideal suspects.”
