Countdown

by Carey Baldwin

  Tahiti Iti

  “Rose!” Lilly threw herself into her sister’s arms. “I’ve been so damned worried. How the hell could you disappear and put me through all of this?”

  “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry. I made a terrible mess of things. But I was so afraid Tommy would hurt you. I thought I could fix everything, but . . .” Rose’s face felt hot and soaked with tears, her mind jumbled. “. . . how did you? I thought you were dying.”

  Lilly stepped away and brushed her hair from her dirt-streaked face. “If Tommy had his way I would be. When I was coming out of the restroom at the diner, I saw him putting something in my orange juice, so I switched my glass with his—it’s just too damn bad he didn’t drink it.”

  “But, I saw you. You were unconscious. You weren’t even breathing.”

  “I was faking it. I’m a con woman. Remember? I started to figure things out after you shot Tommy in the water. I knew you wouldn’t have done that without a good reason. That’s when I understood that everything you’d told me about him was the truth. I should’ve believed you when you told me he killed that poor girl, that Pamela Jean.” Lilly sidestepped down the hill to where Tommy lay unconscious on the ground. “And Rose, now that I know what Tommy’s capable of, I understand why you want him dead.”

  This should’ve been music to Rose’s ears, but it wasn’t.

  Something was off.

  This didn’t sound like her dear sweet Lilly at all.

  “It’s not that I wanted him dead. It’s that I wanted you safe, and now you will be.” She held up the thumb drive. “Pamela Jean told me to find Sadie, and I did. I’ve sent a copy to the FBI, and together, we can make them believe the truth about Tommy Preston.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” Lilly sighed. “That file has the numbers of all Tommy’s offshore bank accounts. We could’ve been richer than even Papa ever dreamed.” She fixed her gaze on Rose. “Anyway, you have to kill him now.”

  Rose’s arms were shaking. Sobs clogged her chest. A few yards away, at the bottom of the incline, Tommy lay prone. “I brought rope in my pack. I’ll hold the gun on him while you tie him up,” she said.

  “Where did you get rope and a pack?”

  “Does it matter? I bought them with the money I stole. I’ve been watching over you in town, as best I could with the cops swarming everywhere. And I’ve been trying to find a way to get us out of this mess. Good thing I bought the rope, because it looks like we’re going to need it.”

  Lilly’s eyes darted back to Tommy, who lay on the ground, his pistol just out of his reach. “We can’t just let him go.”

  “We’re not going to let him go. We’ll tie him up and hold him at gunpoint.”

  “Until what? The cops have a blaze of insight and realize we’re out here in the middle of swinging bridge nowhere?”

  “I’m a fugitive. They’re looking for me. Sooner or later they’ll find us.” But in her gut she knew Lilly was right. It probably wouldn’t be sooner. And it was too risky trying to walk Tommy back across the swinging bridge. “We shouldn’t wait for them to stumble onto us. I’ll stay here with Tommy, and you can go for help.” She retrieved her pistol off the ground, lifted her pack and edged down the hill to join Lilly. “Tie him up. I’ll cover you. I can shoot him in the foot if he starts coming around.”

  “I don’t want to go for help. What if I get lost? What if something happens to you while you’re alone with him. We have to stick together, Rose.”

  “Lilly, you can do this.” She rattled the rope. “Help me tie him up before he comes to.”

  Lilly took the rope from Rose’s hand, and then, slowly, she turned. “Kill him.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to do it for me. He tried to poison me. And he beat that poor Pamela Jean woman to death.”

  Tommy groaned. Rose whirled, training her pistol on him. He lifted his head and then dropped it again. It hit the dirt with a soft thunk.

  “I can’t do it, Lilly. Not like this.”

  “You haven’t even tried.”

  “I tried six months ago—and failed. After I warned you about him and you wouldn’t listen to me.” Her head was throbbing like it never had before. “Why didn’t you listen to me back then, Lilly? Why did you believe him over me—your own sister?”

  “I wish I had listened to you about Pamela Jean. I said that already. But I loved him. I couldn’t see him for the monster he is. But now I do. Go ahead. Shoot him for us. It’s the only way.”

  “Just hurry and tie him up.”

  Tommy stirred again. This time he got his head and his shoulders off the ground. Rose had to use both hands to straight-arm the Glock. Pierre’s pistol was a heavier gun than what she was accustomed to.

  “I don’t know any fucking Pamela Jean,” Tommy whispered.

  “You beat her to death.” Lilly moved closer to Tommy.

  He raised his arm.

  “Don’t fucking move!” Rose ordered.

  Tommy looked her in the eye. “Rose, listen to me. I admit I gave your sister heroin—at least I thought I did. But I swear I was going to let you give her the antidote. And I don’t know Pamela Jean.”

  Why admit to the heroin and keep on lying about Pamela Jean?

  “Lilly’s a con.”

  He crawled onto his knees and then got into a sitting position. Rose was too numb to try to stop him. “Lilly’s conning you right now. Please don’t shoot me. Just tie me up and wait for the police. You’ve got everything you need on that drive to break me. And if you say you shot me in self-defense on our wedding day, I’ll back up your story. But please don’t kill me. I’m all Heather’s got left in this world.”

  Tears filled his eyes.

  In the time she’d known him, she’d never seen him cry.

  Lilly kicked him in the face, and he fell forward onto the dirt.

  Rose’s head seemed too heavy for her neck. She stared at Lilly, feeling oddly distant, as if she’d never seen her before. Then she gave herself a mental shake. If they didn’t hurry and tie Tommy up, he might regain his strength, and then Rose really wouldn’t have a choice except to shoot him. “Tie him up, and then we’ll talk.”

  “I—I can’t bear to touch him.”

  Rose pressed the gun into Lilly’s hand and took the rope back. “Then I’ll do it while you cover me.”

  Lilly shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  A frisson of surprise traveled down Rose’s spine. She’d expected Lilly to resist the idea of holding the Glock on Tommy. Lilly had never wanted anything to do with firearms before.

  And now she’d taken the pistol almost eagerly.

  As strangely as Lilly was behaving, Rose had to admit she’d outsmarted Tommy, and shown a great deal of courage. “I’m proud of you, Lilly.” Rose unwound the rope and knelt beside Tommy.

  “Don’t let her shoot me, Rose.”

  “Shut up and don’t move.” She turned her head to give Lilly an encouraging smile and her breath caught in her throat.

  With a raised arm, Lilly stepped close.

  Rose released her breath. Lilly was only trying to protect her. “Don’t worry about me. He’s weak, I’m sure it’ll be okay.” She ran the rope around Tommy’s wrists, once, twice, thrice, then tightened it. “I’m going to tie your feet next,” she explained, not wanting to startle him into making some crazy move.

  “Don’t shoot me,” he whimpered. “Please, just look at me. There’s no Pamela Jean. Lilly is conning you.”

  “The police will decide what to do with you.” But it was odd. He knew nothing could make up for the fact that he’d tried to poison Lilly and drown Rose, so why was he so insistent about Pamela Jean? What difference did it make?

  “I saw her with my own eyes,” she said, then tightened the ropes and went to work on his feet.

  “Don’t let Lilly shoot me,” he pleaded. “If not for my sake then for hers. She’ll spend the rest of her life in prison if she does.”

  “Lilly is not going
to shoot you.” But the way Lilly was looking at Tommy, not with hate, but with indifference, made Rose’s gut twist.

  She’d tied his hands and feet.

  He was helpless, begging for his life.

  Lilly aimed the pistol.

  “No!”

  A deafening boom preceded the stench of gun smoke.

  In slow motion, Rose turned her head and saw the gaping hole in Tommy’s back, blood pooling on the ground around him.

  “Is he dead?” Lilly asked, and then shifted her aim to Rose.

  Caitlin lunged across the last rung of the swinging bridge and fell headlong into the dirt.

  “Freeze! FBI!”

  She stayed down as Spense skirted her, Glock out front.

  “Lilly Parker, drop your weapon! Hands behind your head!”

  Caitlin heard soft weeping. She eased her shoulders off the ground and saw Rose on her knees facing her sister, tears streaming down her face. Lilly’s pistol was trained on Rose.

  “Get up, Rose,” Lilly ordered.

  “Drop your weapon! Now, Lilly!”

  Rose climbed to her feet. Across the distance she made eye contact with Caitlin.

  Dammit.

  Caitlin got to her knees and then eased into an upright position. Rose had been protecting Lilly all along. And past behavior was the best predictor of future behavior.

  Do not take the fall for Lilly. Not this time.

  “Drop your weapon!” Spense had his gaze lasered onto Lilly.

  Caitlin took a step closer to Spense. He didn’t object so she figured that was the same as a go for it. If he gave the signal to back off, she would. “Lilly put down your gun. Use your head. You’re no match for Agent Spenser, and the French police are on their way.”

  “Please put it down,” Rose said, her voice choppy and low. “We can use the money Papa left us for a lawyer. But if you don’t put the gun down something terrible might happen.”

  “More terrible than prison?”

  “You won’t go to prison.” Rose looked at Caitlin and then Spense. “I shot Tommy. Lilly’s afraid of me. That’s why she won’t put the gun down.”

  The silence seemed to stretch eternally, and then Caitlin took one step closer to the twins. “Is that true, Lilly? Was it Rose who shot Tommy?” She tried to make her tone credulous, though she knew it was a lie.

  Lilly looked to her sister and her face screwed up. She nodded. “Yes. I—I tried to stop Rose but she wouldn’t listen. She kept talking about money. About life insurance and how we needed it for the yoga studio. I—I tried to tell her I never wanted that studio. But Rose is obsessed. She’s obsessed with me. She couldn’t stand the idea of Tommy taking me away from her.”

  “Drop your gun,” Spense said. “And we can talk about it.”

  Lilly gave a shaky smile. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t trust her. If I put this down, she’ll lunge for it.”

  “If you don’t put it down, I’ll shoot you.”

  Lilly scoffed. “You wouldn’t. My sister just explained that she’s the guilty party.”

  Caitlin moved one more step closer. “Lilly, listen very carefully to me. Agent Spenser does not bullshit. He’s not a gamer. I know how hard that is for you to understand, but if he says he’ll shoot, he will.”

  “With me aiming this at Rose? I don’t think so.”

  Suddenly, Rose’s chin jerked up. “Put it down, Lilly.”

  “Why should I? You’re dangerous.”

  Rose didn’t drop her gaze. “No,” she whispered. “I see it now. I guess I had to be staring down the barrel of your pistol before I finally did. You’ve been conning me our whole lives. You’re standing there holding a gun on me, and somehow, I’m taking the blame for everything you’ve done. And do you know why?”

  “Because you’re stupid,” Lilly sneered.

  Spense jerked his head, and Caitlin stepped back. She knew he wanted her out of the way in case he needed to fire.

  “Because I love you. But you don’t know what love is. You never wanted us to go straight at all, did you?”

  “Well, gee. You finally heard me. How many times did I have to say it for it to sink in? The only thing I like about yoga is the smokin’ body it gives me.”

  “Wow,” Caitlin said. “Seems like you two have a lot to talk about, maybe we should have this discussion somewhere else. You must be tired and there’s a lot to sort out. Put the gun down, Lilly.”

  Lilly shook her head. “Stop shrinking me, lady. You think Rose is such a great sister. Well, I’m here to t-tell you she’s not. All m-my life, she’s been underestimating me. She thinks because I s-stutter I’m stupid.”

  “I never, never said that.”

  “I heard you and Papa talking about poor Lilly. You think you had it rough living with him? All you had to do was be Rose, pretending to be Anna. I had to be Lilly pretending to be poor Lilly pretending to be Anna.” A hysterical noise came out of her mouth. “It was fucking exhausting.”

  Caitlin’s gut tightened. Lilly was losing it right in front of them.

  “I’m not poor Lilly. I’m smarter than you and Papa and Tommy all put together.”

  “I’m sorry, Lilly. I truly am. I never meant to hurt you. I underestimated you, and that was wrong of me.” Rose’s face had paled, but her voice remained steady.

  “Damn straight. I’m a better con than you’ll ever be . . . I heard Tommy telling his lawyer on the phone that if anything ever happened to him, all his secret account numbers were on a file labeled SADIE. So I hired an actress to play Pamela Jean and convince you Tommy had beaten her. I told her to whisper find Sadie in your ear. I pitted you and Tommy against each other and I didn’t give a damn which one of you came out on top. As long as one of you wound up dead, I’d win three million dollars. If you killed each other, I’d hit a jackpot worth six million. And when you screwed everything up by marrying him instead of getting rid of him, I adapted. After you shot him in the water, I kept on fueling the fire. I gave him the phone you sent me. I set you both up. But guess what? I don’t even care about the money anymore. I don’t even care if I go to prison. All I care about right now is getting you out of my life forever.” Lilly’s shoulder lifted slightly.

  Boom!

  Lilly’s arm jerked, and then her gun tumbled to the ground.

  “Stand down,” Brousseau told his men.

  They lowered their weapons.

  Spense rushed over and scooped up the fallen pistol.

  Caitlin hurried to Lilly to check her wound. The inspector’s bullet had grazed her right shoulder. Caitlin motioned and several deputies arrived with radios and bandages. Rose, too, came to her sister’s aide, attempting to hold her good hand. “It’s going to be all right, Lilly. We’re going to get ourselves the best lawyers money can buy.”

  “With what?” Lilly jerked her hand free. “I moved all Papa’s money to the Cayman Islands.”

  “Let’s get a tourniquet above that wound,” Caitlin said.

  Under Caitlin’s watchful eye, Rose accepted a cloth from a uniformed officer and wound it around her sister’s arm.

  Brousseau placed his hands on his hips and looked to Caitlin and then Spense. “I’ve got this,” he said. “You two have somewhere else you’re supposed to be.”

  “We do,” Caitlin replied. “But I want to say something before we go.” She leveled her gaze at Rose. “Tell the truth. Tell Inspector Brousseau what really happened here today and on your wedding day. You think you’re helping your sister by covering for her, but all you’re doing is helping her game the system, and in the process you’ll be killing your own chance for a decent, normal life . . . and I promise you, such a thing really does exist.”

  Chapter 35

  Sunday

  Sunset Minus Fifteen Minutes

  Dolphin Beach

  Tahiti Nui

  Dolphin Beach was more than an hour’s drive from the swinging bridge. Spense and Caity made a mad dash across it, and then back to the Jeep, arriving at the be
ach only a few minutes before sunset. Spense parked right up on the sand, just yards away from a cabana.

  “Stay where you are,” he ordered Caity.

  This was their wedding day.

  At least it was supposed to have been and damned if he wasn’t going to get her door for her. He came around and helped her down from the 4x4.

  Caity fixed her eyes on him.

  He tore his gaze away to check out the sky. “If we hustle, there’s still time for a sunset wedding.”

  During the course of the day they’d been attacked by branches and brambles. An odd mix of dirt, sand, and sweat streaked both their faces.

  Caity’s hair, as untamed as he’d ever seen it, had twigs sticking out of it.

  So beautiful.

  “The bride wore brambles?” She flashed him a smile, and he trembled at the thought of ever having to live without her.

  This wasn’t how he’d planned it.

  She deserved a perfect wedding, not because she was a perfect person, but because she was perfectly Caity. He took her hands in his. “I promised you nothing was going to ruin our day. I never meant to let you down.”

  “You didn’t let me down.” She brought his palm to her lips. “We had to get involved, Spense. If we hadn’t, then right about now Brousseau would be bringing us news that Lilly not only killed Tommy, but Rose, too. I realize we said we’d say no, but sometimes yes is the right thing to do. And honestly, yes is kind of our deal, so maybe we should just learn to go with it.”

  “I wanted to give you your dream wedding.”

  “I’ll settle for my dream husband. It’s no tragedy to have to reschedule the ceremony.”

  “Maybe the preacher’s open tomorrow.”

  She laughed out loud. “Tahitian priest.”

  A strong thump landed between Spense’s shoulders. He’d been so focused on Caity, that with the sand muffling the sound of their footfalls, he hadn’t noticed his family’s approach. He turned to find his brother grinning at him. Next to Dutch stood Gretchen, her gorgeous blond hair billowing in the breeze, her olive skin darkened by the tropical sun.

  And there were the moms, too, a little ways off, standing at the entrance of the cabana, arms crossed with a determination he didn’t dare defy.