The Stolen Bride

by Jacqueline Diamond

  “That’s not what I meant!”

  “Think of all the people I had to bribe or blackmail or hide from,” Marie went on with unnatural calm, as if they were having a conversation over lunch. “I thought I was rather clever about it. Of course, things got a little sticky after Todd spotted me and figured it all out. You’d think he’d have known better than to try to blackmail me.”

  “You shot him?”

  “Oh, I didn’t have to do it personally. I have friends in high places.”

  “What about me?” Erin knew she should run, but a morbid fascination held her in place. “Where did I fit in?”

  “You were the biggest threat of all,” Marie said. “And the richest prize. When you’re dead, I’ll have everything.”

  “No,” she said. “I changed my will.”

  Her aunt’s hands clenched. “Damn that Stanley. He should have done it right the first time. He’s such an idiot! What is it about you, Erin? You’re not that beautiful. Why did Chet care about you? He would have told you everything.”

  Last night when he produced the photo of her family, he must have intended to jog her memory of Alice. “You shot him and framed Joseph. Or did you have Stanley do your dirty work for you that time, too?”

  “Of course,” her aunt said. “I just hate shooting people. It’s so messy. But I’ll make an exception in your case.” She took a small gun from her pocket.

  A sense of unreality stole over Erin. She didn’t even feel fear, at least not yet. “How could you turn two businessmen into killers?”

  “You mean those two thieves?” Marie gave a mirthless laugh. “The same private eye I hired to track your mother’s activities for Lance did a little corporate snooping, as well. A compulsive gambler and a politician who needed money. I knew they had to have their hands in the till.”

  Erin pretended to pace, trying to put a little distance be tween them. If she kept Marie talking, maybe she could get far enough to make a run for it. “You’re the one who had the secretaries transferred.”

  “As it turned out, I might not have needed to,” her aunt said. “You know, this would make an interesting scientific experiment. I couldn’t fool Chet and Stanley, but you’d be amazed how many people simply accepted me as Alice. Well, no, I guess you wouldn’t be surprised, since you’re one of them.”

  Watching Marie’s lizardlike eyes, Erin shuddered. She should have trusted her instincts. I knew something was wrong, but I refused to believe it.

  She edged backward. A few more steps and she’d take the risk.

  “Well, I’m afraid I don’t have all day. Come on, little rich girl.” The words dripped with venom. “I’ll figure out how to get around your will later. Right now, we’re taking a boat ride.”

  “Okay.” Erin seized the excuse to start toward the front.

  “Not that way!” Marie barked. “Through the back!”

  The knob. She wrenched it and dodged onto the porch.

  The gun roared with her aunt’s fury.

  A GREEN SEDAN SPED past Joseph. Inside, he saw Tina Norris in the passenger seat with Gene driving. Neither of them glanced his way.

  Joseph let out a long breath. He still had a chance of reaching Erin, assuming that she’d made it to the Boldings’ house. He didn’t want to think about the possibility that she hadn’t.

  That financial officer had to be one of Marie’s cohorts. Joseph could see now that he should have suspected anyone and everyone connected with the Marshall Company.

  He loped along the shoulder, hearing the blare of sirens grow closer. One started up nearby, sharper than the others.

  Bob’s, he thought. Good intentions or bad, there was no way of telling.

  Rounding a curve, Joseph saw the house hunkering ahead. There were two vehicles parked in front of it, Gene’s and an empty sports car.

  The front door slammed open. Erin! He barely had time to register her presence before a gunshot blasted from inside.

  Joseph broke into a run.

  HUGGING THE HOUSE, Erin scooted away from the door and past the front window. Across the parking area, Tina was exiting a sedan.

  “Look out!” Erin screamed.

  Marie lurched onto the porch. For one uncertain moment, she eyed Tina before swinging toward her niece. Erin ducked behind the glider, the only shelter at hand. It was far too small to cover her.

  “No!” The cry came from Gene. What was he doing here? Erin wondered as he raced toward them.

  Marie wavered. Apparently realizing he intended to take the gun, she pivoted and fired.

  Less than twenty feet away, Gene staggered and went down. Tina screamed.

  As a siren wailed up the road, someone else broke from the trees and pushed the frozen Tina to cover behind the sedan.

  Joseph. Relief mingled with dread. Marie would shoot him down, too.

  “Stay back!” Erin cried.

  He emerged from behind the car, yelling, “Run, Erin! Get out!”

  With a curse, Marie shot at him. Blasts rang out, one after the other. The car jounced on its springs as it took the hits.

  “Go!” Joseph shouted.

  Marie sighted him again. Committed to saving Joseph at any cost, Erin leaped up and flung her purse.

  Her aunt’s arm flew up for protection. Seizing on the break, Joseph sprinted across the clearing and ducked behind the sports car beside the porch.

  The barrel of the gun found its target again. Marie seemed fixated now on killing Joseph.

  Yanking off one of her shoes, Erin threw it as hard as she could.

  “Stop it!” Marie batted away the projectile.

  Erin flung the other shoe. This time she scored a direct hit to her aunt’s head just in time to send a bullet blasting skyward.

  Scuttling around the car, Joseph made a flying leap. His timing was wrong. Recovering, Marie took point-blank aim.

  “No! Not him!” Erin screamed. She scarcely noticed the black-and-white car hurtling into view.

  As if in freeze-frame, she saw her aunt pull the trigger. Amid a deafening series of booms, Joseph jerked to one side and collapsed.

  FIRE SEARED Joseph’s leg as the bitter scent of gunpowder filled his nostrils. Firecrackers were detonating all over the place.

  When he finished rolling aside, he saw blood splatter the doorway, the windows and the front of the house as if flung with a giant paintbrush. Marie, held upright by the force of the blasts, finally tumbled forward and slid halfway down the steps, the gun dropping to the ground.

  The cavalry had arrived, he thought with grim humor.

  “Nobody move!” Rick commanded. Behind him, Joseph heard Bob radioing for paramedics. “Who’s in the house?”

  Erin’s voice, trembling but clear, replied, “Just Lance, as far as I know. He’s been drugged. He’s on the living room sofa.”

  Joseph reached down to his leg. Although it stung fiercely, his hand brought up only a trace of blood.

  “Gene?” The wavering cry came from Tina, kneeling at her brother’s side. “Gene, talk to me!”

  More sirens. The chief had arrived, Joseph saw as he raised himself to a sitting position. There was going to be hell to pay.

  He didn’t care. Erin had survived, and that was all that counted.

  TEARS STREAKED Erin’s face. She wasn’t sure who she was crying for—herself, her mother, Gene or Joseph. Probably all of them. And even for her aunt, who’d wasted her life and destroyed so many others.

  As soon as Rick lowered his gun, she bolted off the porch to kneel beside Joseph. “How bad is it?” If she hadn’t feared hurting him, she’d have gathered him in her arms.

  “Just a flesh wound, I think. You?”

  “Safe and sound. She wasn’t my mom, you know.”

  “I figured that out.”

  He glanced uneasily toward the chief, who’d rushed out of his car and knelt beside his son a dozen feet away. “My mother hired an attorney. I’m afraid he’s going to have a lot of charges to deal with when he gets her
e.”

  “You’re damn right!” Norris’s face contorted with fury as he looked up. “This is your doing, Lowery.”

  To the other officers, he shouted, “Where are the paramedics? Can’t you see my son’s bleeding here?”

  Far off, more sirens approached. Help was on its way.

  “Don’t blame Joseph. Gene insisted on coming.” Tina crouched beside the two men. “He kept saying he had to make things right. What did he mean, Dad?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Norris said. “We know who’s the problem around here. The same jerk who’s always been the problem.”

  Officers hurried past them into the house, fanning out and searching for occupants. There’d been no sign of Brandy, Erin remembered. Was she lying somewhere drugged, or had she simply gone to the supermarket?

  She averted her face from her aunt’s bloody, crumpled form. It was too painful to look at her.

  “Dad, leave Joseph out of this,” Gene wheezed. “You know Todd killed Mr. Nguyen. And I—”

  “Shut up!”

  Gene forced out the words. “You shouldn’t have covered for me.”

  Erin’s gaze met Tina’s. What she saw there was shock and horror.

  All along, the chief had been protecting his son. Erin wondered at what point he’d intervened, although it hardly mattered now. Obviously he had skewed the investigation to ignore any evidence clearing Joseph’s father.

  Since her aunt had provided Todd’s alibi, she had to have known he’d committed the murder and that Gene was involved. After assuming the role of her sister, that must have given her ammunition with which to blackmail Chief Norris into closing Joseph’s investigation, and doing who knew what else.

  “What are you talking about?” Tina asked her brother.

  “The robbery was my…” He groaned, pain halting his words.

  “Shut up!” their father demanded. “Don’t you have any brains?”

  From the way Joseph stirred, Erin thought he was going to respond, but he held himself in check. “Let the other cops hear it for themselves,” he murmured to Erin.

  At one side, Rick had produced a pad and was quietly taking notes. Apparently he didn’t need to advise Gene of his rights as long as the information was volunteered.

  Gene pushed on, addressing his sister. “I thought it was easy money. But it all went wrong. Dad said he ‘fixed it,’ but it didn’t stay fixed. I’m ashamed of what we did to Joseph’s father.” His voice weakened.

  “Dad, is this true?” Tina demanded.

  Her brother went limp. “Gene!” The chief bent over his son. “For God’s sake, don’t die!”

  Sirens reverberated, coming closer. With a sigh, Gene opened his eyes. “Marie made you kill Todd, didn’t she, Dad?”

  “Shut up! Don’t you have a grain of sense?” his father demanded.

  “Who’s Marie?” Tina asked.

  A paramedic unit came into view, trailed by an ambulance and a fire truck. Erin turned away in time to see two officers assist a wobbly Lance out the front door.

  Sandwiched between the emergency vehicles rode Alice’s familiar car. In the windshield, Brandy’s face had gone paste-white.

  Norris pointed to the new arrival. “Take that woman into custody. Nobody talks to her but me.” He indicated Lance. “Or to him, either. I don’t want their testimony tainted.”

  “Disregard that order,” Rick told the men. “Chief, I’m placing you under arrest for obstruction of justice. Give me your weapon. Now.”

  “You have no authority…”

  Two other officers drew their weapons and faced the chief. Glaring, Norris reached for his holster.

  “Stand aside, Tina!” Rick raised his gun

  “I’m not a damn fool.” Angrily, the chief handed his revolver to one of the other officers. “When I get done with you, Valdez, you won’t have a career left.”

  “You refused to put out an APB to protect Erin Marshall, and we can all see the results,” Rick said. “Everyone here heard your son’s statement. You’re not above the law, Chief.”

  “You’ll never see my daughter again, you scumbag.”

  “That’s up to her,” Rick said levelly, and took out his handcuffs.

  There was no further chance to talk as rescue workers poured across the scene, more ambulances arrived and the police gathered their suspects. Chief Norris. Lance. Brandy. Erin saw a cruiser arrive with Stanley Rogers inside. They’d rounded up the whole gang, or at least its surviving members.

  A paramedic took Erin’s blood pressure to make sure she wasn’t in shock. In the confusion, she got separated from Joseph.

  “Where is he?” she asked Rick.

  “They’re putting him in the ambulance.”

  Through the welter of emergency vehicles, she glimpsed a stretcher sliding into a white van. “I’ll go with him.”

  Rick’s hand on her arm halted her. “Erin, there’s no room. Besides, you’re one of our key witnesses. I need you at headquarters for questioning.”

  She ached to be with Joseph, but he would want her to help wrap up this case, wouldn’t he?

  “Believe me, we’ll get updates on his condition as soon as they’re available,” Rick added.

  “What about the charges?” she asked. “Is he still accused of murder?”

  “I have a feeling we’re going to dispense with that by the end of the day,” the detective told her. “That’s one of the areas you can help with. You’re his alibi for last night, remember?”

  She nodded. It distressed her, all the same, to let Joseph go.

  There was no reason they couldn’t continue being friends and lovers. But as the rear doors of the ambulance slammed and it pulled away, a lonely sense of distance grew inside Erin.

  Years ago, she’d believed nothing could come between her and the man she loved, but she’d been wrong. She desperately hoped it wasn’t going to happen again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The days after Marie’s death proved hectic. What Erin wanted most was to stay with Joseph, whose wound had developed an infection. But once he began recovering, she had to leave the role of guardian angel to Suzanne.

  On Thursday, dental records identified the body from the lake as her mother. Although Erin had suspected as much, hearing the confirmation tore at her heart. She faced the sad prospect of arranging a funeral and saying goodbye.

  On Friday, Abe Fitch read Alice Marshall Bolding’s will, leaving everything to her daughter. Erin was now sole owner of a company worth more than a hundred million dollars, a company that had recently lost its chairman of the board, CEO and CFO, and which required an immediate audit to learn the extent of the embezzlement.

  During the next few days, while she stayed by herself at Joseph’s house, reporters and news vans dogged Erin’s every move. Knowing he would need rest and quiet when he came home, she transferred her belongings to a vacant penthouse apartment in a Marshall-owned building adjacent to headquarters.

  There, she was protected by strict security and had a car and driver at her disposal even after she regained her driver’s license. Occupying her own place also permitted her to install the extra phone lines, fax machines and computers necessary to keep in touch with the experts whose assistance she required.

  On Monday, a former Marshall CEO came out of retirement to help her locate an executive search service, a corporate consulting firm, an independent auditor and a top public relations agency to get her through this emergency. In addition, the company’s lawyers and staff served at Erin’s beck and call. Nonetheless, the responsibility for major decision-making rested on her shoulders.

  Erin had to stretch beyond the hesitant, compliant self she’d accepted for so long. Without Joseph to lean on, she found the strength to make sure everybody knew that she—not the consultants, the lawyers or the staff—was in charge.

  Although Marshall was primarily a property development and management organization, Erin also wanted it to foster a stronger community spirit and promote
good works in Sundown Valley. As she began learning the ropes from the former CEO, she kept this long-term goal in mind.

  Throughout the long workdays, welcome thoughts of Joseph frequently filled her heart. Erin wished she could lie in his arms every night. Soon the time would come, she told herself, and tried not to worry.

  When he left the hospital, Suzanne requested that Erin avoid his house for fear of provoking a media circus. Her son still tired easily, she explained apologetically before putting him on the line.

  Joseph sounded weary and a bit detached. He was glad he’d been cleared of all charges, he said. With Norris in jail, a captain named Mario Hernandez had been appointed acting chief. Erin gathered that the interim chief took a more favorable view of Joseph than his predecessor.

  “It looks like there’ll be some promotions,” Joseph told her. “If you ask me, Rick deserves a medal.”

  “So do you.” Erin wanted to talk about more personal issues, but not over the phone. “I hope I’ll see you at Mom’s funeral on Friday.” The coroner had finally released the body.

  “Of course.”

  They talked for a while longer with a kind of wistful formality. This was only temporary, Erin told herself.

  But, her mind warned, her newfound power and immense wealth weren’t temporary. She could only hope they made as little difference to Joseph as they did to her.

  ON THURSDAY EVENING, Joseph propped his sore leg on the coffee table, set his aluminum cane beside the couch and clicked on the TV. He’d deliberately avoided newscasts during the past week, but tomorrow at Alice’s funeral he’d have to face the whole town. He might as well find out what people had been hearing.

  Suzanne arrived from the kitchen with an aromatic bowl of popcorn. “I can’t believe you’re watching this.”

  “Armoring myself,” he said.

  “I tried to do that a long time ago, but it never helped.” His mother settled beside him. “At least your father’s been vindicated. I hope somewhere he knows that.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Joseph glanced at her fondly. There was a little more gray in her brown hair, probably put there by worrying about him, but she looked as vibrant and down-to-earth as ever.