“It’s not that cold, you wimp,” Maggie said as Newt walked away. “See, I’m not even wearing my coat, and I’m fine.”
Newt did not respond.
Maggie slid her credit card into the slot, then placed the pump in the gas tank and watched as Newt disappeared into the restroom.
A minute later, the pump clicked off at 18.8 gallons. Maggie knew the Taurus had a nineteen-gallon tank. Newt was one lucky bastard. Another five miles and they would have been stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Maggie replaced the pump and went inside the station. There was no one behind the counter.
There were no customers either.
“Hello?”
No response.
Maggie stepped toward the counter and saw the cash register drawer was hanging open. She leaned forward a bit further and saw the clerk lying in a pool of blood on the dirty tiled floor.
Oh, shit…
Then everything went black.
Newt was standing at the restroom sink, washing his hands in the coldest water he’d ever felt in his life, when he heard tires squealing outside.
Newt dried his hands and opened the restroom door in time to see the taillights of Maggie’s car disappearing in the darkness.
What in the hell was happening? Had she decided to leave him there? Maggie could be a hothead sometimes, but he found it hard to believe she was so mad about nearly running out of gas that she decided to leave.
Newt stepped outside into the cold wind and looked around. There was one car in the parking lot—an early 1990s white Chrysler LeBaron—parked in the same spot as when they’d arrived.
Newt walked to the front of the gas station and looked through the window and saw Maggie lying on the floor.
11:09 P.M. EST
DECLAN’S BEDROOM, UPSTAIRS
DECLAN KNEW HE’D made a mistake by not bringing his pain medication with him. Now he was forced to climb the stairs back to his room, which caused even more pain—a veritable catch-22 if ever there was one.
When Declan was first diagnosed with end-stage renal disease, he was offered three options. The first was dialysis. The second was a kidney transplant, which he was told was unlikely due to his advanced age.
Declan chose door number three.
Declan chose to do nothing.
Like most men, Declan convinced himself he’d be able to handle the pain—no matter how bad it got. The last few weeks had proved him wrong. There was nothing he could do now, even if he wanted to do something.
Declan felt another jab of pain in his lower back so sharp it felt like someone had stabbed him with a knife.
He winced.
Declan pulled the bottle of pain medication from the drawer of the nightstand and shook four pills into his hand. He placed two of the pills in his pocket and then went to the bathroom and downed the remaining two with water from the sink.
Part of him was tempted to drop back into bed and call it a night, but something in the back of Declan’s mind told him he was supposed to go back down. He owed it to his family to be there, didn’t he?
Besides, what if this was the last party he’d ever attend? If it was, he didn’t want to spend it asleep. He had forever to do that.
As Declan was about to turn off the light, he saw two things he’d forgotten to bring down with him. The first was the cassette tape he’d made for Koda and Bruce. The second was the emergency response button Stormy insisted he keep on him at all times.
Upsetting Stormy Boyd was always a bad idea.
11:14 P.M. EST
THE MULVANEY MANSION BALLROOM
KODA GLANCED AT his watch to see it was already past eleven. The night was half over. Things had gone well. Luckily, it only took him, Graeme, Olympia, and Juniper fifteen minutes to run around the mansion covering all the mirrors with tablecloths. Three more hours, and he’d have pulled it off. There was only one thing standing in his way.
Where in the hell was Alec Yost?
Koda had spent several years traveling the world with some of his favorite bands. They were all very extremely creative, eccentric, and—in many cases—very demanding.
Kanye wanted a barber’s chair, four small Yoplait Yogurts, and one bowl of assorted nuts in his dressing room. Taylor Swift wanted three boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, one bag of red licorice Twizzlers, and one pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. Paul McCartney insisted on halogen floor lamps with a dimmer switch, twenty dozen clean white towels, and no leather seats in the limousine that picked him up from the airport.
Interestingly, Alec Yost demanded nothing.
Not even to be paid. He’d agreed to perform for free as a favor to his grandfather.
How his grandfather and Alec knew each other was a mystery. When Koda asked, all Declan would say was that the two of them had met many years earlier. How it was that the two of them knew each other, Koda didn’t care. Getting a performer like Alec Yost—with three hit records over the last few years—was a major coup for Koda and for the foundation.
The only thing Koda asked was that Alec be on time.
So much for that.
Koda looked across the room. His grandfather’s chair was empty. Koda knew Declan was sick—how sick, his grandfather wouldn’t say. Whatever it was, it was worse than Declan was letting on.
No matter how busy he was trying to keep everything together at the party, Koda knew he had to find his grandfather and see if he was okay.
11:16 P.M. EST
THE MULVANEY MANSION BALLROOM
MIKA SAT AT A TABLE watching Koda on the other side of the room. She was waiting patiently for the opportunity to get him alone.
She had to talk to him. She had to make him understand how much she loved him—even if she didn’t.
Mika was broke.
And broken.
She owned nothing. Everything connected to her was rented, stolen, or leased. She wasn’t sure she had enough gas to make it back to Savannah.
Then Mika saw the Southern Gentleman coming toward her. Oh, God, did he see her?
Since she arrived, half of Mika’s time had been spent stalking Koda—while the other half had been spent trying to avoid the Southern Gentleman, even if the creep had helped get her into the event.
Mika ducked down and pretended to be picking something up off the floor, and the man in the white suit went past without stopping.
Mika released a breath.
Koda had mentioned how the Southern Gentleman creeped him out at last year’s Restoring Savannah Foundation event, but Mika hadn’t noticed it then.
She did now.
There was something about the way he looked at her that sent shivers down her spine. When he’d placed his hand on her leg in the limousine, Mika literally found herself recoiling as if a spider was touching her. And the overwhelming smell of vanilla—like he’d just come from a twelve-hour shift at the Yankee Candle Factory. What was that about?
Then Mika watched Koda walk out of the room. This might be her chance. It might be her last chance.
11:22 P.M. EST
DECLAN MULVANEY’S STUDY
DECLAN ENTERED THE STUDY and made his way to the safe. Not bothering to turn on the lamp, he used the light from the hallway to guide him to the wall safe behind the big oak desk. The desk had been in the house when he’d purchased the place fifty years earlier—a carved behemoth so large Declan had no earthly idea how the previous owners had gotten it in the room. Which was why it was still there.
Declan did not particularly like the desk. But he had no idea how to get it out without tearing down a wall out. And, so it remained—like him, a fixture so a part of the place no one knew how to get rid of it.
Declan spun the dial on the safe several times around to the left before stopping on the first number:
Nine.
Then he spun the dial to the right, past the next number once before stopping at it the next time around:
Fourteen.
Declan turn
ed the dial to the right.
“Thirty-eight,” Father Fanning said from somewhere behind him, completing the combination.
“An important date,” Declan said.
Declan turned around and peered into the darkness, his eyes finally focusing on the dark form sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk.
“Oh, is that how you think of it?” Fanning said. “I think of it as the day you murdered a priest.”
Declan wasn’t surprised Fanning was there. He knew the dead priest was lurking around the house, keeping himself hidden—shrouded in darkness like a bad memory. It was only a matter of time before he’d show himself again.
“Your buddy is here,” Fanning said.
“My buddy?”
“Yeah, you know—Tommy. Young little Tommy. My favorite of all. Tommy’s got a secret to share with you tonight.”
“What’s that?” Declan asked.
“I don’t want to spoil the surprise. I’ll let Tommy tell you himself.”
“You can leave now,” Declan said.
“Leave? Don’t you want me here? For the final moments?”
“No.”
“The final moments—those last, precious seconds when you realize it’s over. That there is no more. No more time. No more doing. No more life. Come on, admit it—you’re scared. Scared to death. There’s no shame in it.”
“I’m not scared,” Declan said. “I’m too old and tired to be scared—especially of you.”
Suddenly the room filled with light, and Declan saw Koda standing in the doorway. “Who are you talking to?”
Declan glanced back at the chair where the dark form had been sitting a second earlier.
It was empty.
“No one,” Declan said coming from around the desk and turning out the light. “Come on, let’s get back to the party.”
Koda stepped into the hallway and saw a woman coming toward him. A mask hid her face. Then he recognized the dress, covered in silk monarch butterflies flapping their wings in the breeze as she walked.
It was Mika.
“There you are,” Mika said, smiling.
“How did you get into the party?” Koda snapped.
“Well, it’s nice to see you too,” Mika said, stepping forward to give Koda a kiss on the cheek. Koda made no attempt to kiss her back.
“I know,” Koda said.
“Know? Know what?”
“I know it was you who put my things on eBay,” Koda said. “You had me thinking it was Robyn, but now I know it was you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mika said. “I would never steal anything from you or your—”
Mika stopped when Declan stepped from the darkness of the study into the hallway.
“Hello, Mika,” Declan said.
11:24 P.M. EST
THE MULVANEY MANSION BALLROOM
STAN LEE WAS irritated. After being gracious enough to have helped Mika Flagler get into the event as his date for the evening, the woman had the audacity to ditch him. And he wasn’t imagining things. Even now, as he walked toward her table, she pretended to be looking for something on the floor to avoid him seeing her.
He’d had enough.
“Kill her,” Kara said from behind Stan Lee as he got in line at the bar.
Stan Lee nodded. He’d tried once before, but it ended badly—with his prosthetic leg in the mouth of Mika’s Great Dane, or whatever kind of breed Cujo was.
“I can’t kill her here,” Stan Lee whispered.
“Sure you can,” Kara said. “Just wait until she goes to the bathroom and slice her rich little throat. That will teach her.”
It’s too dangerous, Stan Lee thought.
Kara stepped out from behind Stan Lee and began flapping her arms up and down and clucking like a chicken.
“I’m not chicken,” Stan Lee said quietly. “I’m simply not stupid enough to do it here and risk getting caught.”
“That makes no sense,” Kara said. “You’re going to kill Declan, aren’t you? What’s the difference?”
The difference was that getting caught killing Declan would be worth the risk. Killing Mika wasn’t.
“Look, there she goes,” Kara said. “Follow her!”
Stan Lee reached down and felt the knife in his pocket. He could follow Mika, he thought—just to see if the opportunity presented itself.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked.
“Nothing,” Stan Lee said and then stepped out of line.
Kara was right. Mika Flagler was a bad person who’d treated him poorly. She deserved to die.
Stan Lee followed Mika into a portion of the mansion he’d never been in before, which was an odd feeling. He’d lived next door to the Mulvaneys for over thirty years now—following them when they went to fancy restaurants in Charleston for dinner—watching them eat so many times he knew their favorite meals. Watching them through binoculars for hours on end as they moved about the mansion doing mundane things, having no idea they were being observed.
Yet, walking through the portions of the house now, Stan Lee realized that—in so many ways—he didn’t know them at all.
Not really.
What bothered Stan Lee most was that in all the time he’d lived next door, the Mulvaneys had never walked over to knock on the door to say hello. And, as rich as they were, they’d never so much as sent a fruit basket or Honey Baked Ham for the holidays. The only time he’d ever heard from them was after he’d bought the place out from under their noses. They sent the realtor, Lullaby Logan, over to see if he was willing to sell the house so they could build their precious heliport.
The gall.
Stan Lee came to the end of the hall and stopped when he heard voices. Familiar voices.
“Hello, Mika,” Stan Lee heard a man say. Stan Lee didn’t need to see the man to know it was Declan Mulvaney.
“Declan,” Mika said. “What a surprise.”
“Don’t believe anything she tells you, Koda,” Declan said. “Mika’s been stealing things from my study. I had Stormy check out her finances. She’s broke. On the edge of bankruptcy. Everything about her is a lie.”
“We had a deal,” Mika snapped.
“Yeah, well the deal’s off,” Declan said. “There’s nothing you can say to anyone that can hurt me now.”
“How about that for a kick in the skirt,” Kara said quietly from behind Stan Lee. “Mika Flagler is—”
“—penniless,” Stan Lee whispered.
“Come on, let’s get out of here before someone sees us,” Kara said.
“So, we’re not going to kill her?” Stan Lee asked.
“Nah,” Kara said. “It’s better to leave her alive. Being poor for her has got to be worse than being dead. I say we leave her twisting in the wind.”
11:27 P.M. EST
PAMPLICO, SOUTH CAROLINA
WHAT HAPPENED?” Maggie murmured as she slowly opened her eyes and saw Newt kneeling over her.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Newt said.
Maggie reached her hand back and winced as her fingers touched a knot on the back of her head the size of an egg.
“Do you remember anything?” Newt said.
“Not really. I came inside and—”
Then Maggie remembered leaning over the counter and seeing the man on the floor. “The man behind the counter. Is he—?”
“Dead?” Newt asked. Newt nodded and helped Maggie to her feet. “Did you happen to get a look at who hit you?”
Maggie shook her head. “I need Advil.”
Newt grabbed a bottle of Advil off a shelf and opened it, shaking three of the salmon-colored pills into Maggie’s hand. Then he grabbed a bottle of water from a refrigerated case. “Where’s your phone?”
Maggie swallowed the Advils and shook her head. “I left it in the car.”
“And your purse?”
“It’s in the car.”
“And your coat?” Newt asked.
“My coat isn’t the problem,” Ma
ggie said. “He got my gun.”
Newt shook his head and pointed to the window. Maggie looked out the window and saw that her car was gone. “Well, that’s just great,” Maggie said. “They must have a phone here, right?”
“I already checked,” Newt said. “Ripped from the wall.”
“God, this feels like a bad movie,” Maggie said. “Do we even know where we are?”
“Somewhere south of Florence, South Carolina,” Newt said. “The last town I remember on the map was Pamplico—but we could be anywhere.”
“So, Einstein, what do we do?”
“There’s a car out front,” Newt said. “I’m assuming it belongs to the guy behind the counter.”
Newt stepped behind the counter, looked down at the man, and saw the bullet holes—two of them. One was to the chest, which Newt surmised was probably the first shot, fired over the counter to take the man down. The second bullet hole was in his forehead, most likely fired from behind the counter to make sure he was dead. Maggie was lucky to have come away with only a big bump and a bad headache.
“Try not to disturb the crime scene,” Maggie said.
Newt shook his head. “Seriously?”
Newt slid his hand into the man’s left pant pocket. The keys weren’t there. There was nothing in the other pocket, either.
“They must be in his coat,” Maggie said.
Newt and Maggie spent the next five minutes searching the gas station, including the back office, but came up empty. The clerk’s coat was nowhere to be found.
“Maybe it’s in the car,” Maggie said.
It was unlikely, Newt thought, but worth checking out anyway.
“I’ll go,” Newt said. “You stay here.”
Newt opened the door and stepped outside into the howling, freezing wind and walked quickly to the white LeBaron. He tried the door. It was open. Newt slid into the front seat and checked the ignition. No keys. He checked over the visor and then the glove box. The keys were in neither place.
Newt looked over the seat into the back of the car. Other than an array of empty candy wrappers and a few discarded soda cans, the car was empty.
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