The Cards of Life and Death (Modern Gothic Romance 2)

by Colleen Gleason

  It took only a quick moment to ascertain that Belinda Lawry’s medical records were not filed with the rest of Dr. Reardon’s patients. No sooner had Diana learned this than she heard approaching footsteps and she hurried back into the waiting area. She was just in time to be found examining the quilt that hung on the wall when the door opened.

  “Diana!” Marc’s smooth voice caused her to start and turn. “I’m so glad you decided to take me up on my offer. Come on back.”

  “Hello,” she smiled. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice—and on your lunch hour, too.”

  “Not a problem—never a problem for Belinda’s niece. We’ll be in the last examining room on the left. I’ll be there in just one moment.”

  Diana looked in vain for signs of the nurse Patty but could hear no one else in the office. She went into the examining room a bit reluctantly and found that she was too nervous to sit on the table. Instead, she looked out the window and tried to relax.

  The click of the door opening behind caused her to whirl. “I’m sorry, Diana, but it’s going to be just the two of us. My nurse has gone to lunch already.” He shut the door behind him without turning.

  When Diana looked at him, she knew he knew. The flare of understanding must have shown in her eyes, for Marc’s austere face cracked into a chill smile.

  “Ah, you’ve figured it out, then.” He stepped closer to her and Diana tried to move out of his way, frantically looking for something to fend him off with. The countertops were cleared of anything she might use as a weapon.

  Marc chuckled. “Come now, Diana, you don’t think I’m that foolish, do you?” With a swift movement, he snared her arm and yanked her so hard that she stumbled and hit her head against the storage cabinet.

  “What are you doing?” she managed to gasp as he imprisoned both of her arms behind her, pulling up on her elbows with such violence that she cried out in surprised pain.

  A cloth-covered hand groped at her face and she struggled to kick backward at him, to avert her nose and mouth from the sick, sweet scent of the drug, to shrug out of his grip.

  “Couldn’t you have left well enough alone?” he said breathlessly as he struggled to subdue her. “Wasn’t the money from your aunt enough?”

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked desperately, knowing she was losing the battle. The cloth found her nose and mouth and his fingers pinched into her face as he held her immobile.

  “I have no choice,” he said in that cultured voice. “You would upset my apple cart too much to let this pass.”

  The scent was sweet and cloying, clogging her nostrils and drying the inside of her mouth. Diana gave one last futile twist even as she felt her body weaken, succumbing to the numbing sleep forced upon her. Everything went dimmer, then dark, then black.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Diana became aware of voices and felt herself being lifted and moved. Jolted, none-too-gently, and then all at once she was falling.

  She managed to peel her eyes open as she landed on the edge of a sofa, then weakly rolled off onto the floor. As she struck ground, she noticed the rug with a shock of recognition and lifted her throbbing head to look around.

  Aunt Belinda’s den. She’d been dumped carelessly onto the settee on which she’d spent so many hours.

  “Well, look who’s returned to the living,” said a familiar voice.

  Diana looked up to see Marc Reardon smiling down at her with a thin-lipped, supercilious expression. The room tilted and spun, and her muscles felt like jelly, but she dragged herself up, using the settee as a brace. He watched in amusement as she crawled with agonizing slowness onto the narrow sofa, and sat, clutching its arm.

  “What …” she tried to speak, but her mouth was so dry she couldn’t even swallow. What had he drugged her with? And how long ago had it been? From what she could see, daylight still streamed in through the windows of the den.

  “What am I doing? What am I going to do with you? What are we doing here? Which very unimaginative question shall I start with?” he said mockingly. “I thought you might have been able to do better than that. Perhaps something like … how did I connect with my partner in crime?”

  Diana shook her head in confusion, but any coherent thought she might have had was caught in the cobwebs of the drug. Then she heard noises from the kitchen.

  She and Reardon weren’t alone. But who was with him? Something icy slipped down her spine and her heart began to pound. Who was it?

  She must have formed the question with her lips, for Reardon’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “Do you mean to say, you haven’t figured it out? I thought for certain ….” He smiled with genuine humor. “You aren’t as smart as I thought you were, Diana darling. You obviously figured me somehow—it was written all over your face when you walked into my office today. I’m not sure how you ever got to be so good at hiding your thoughts in court—for I understand that you are, indeed, quite an excellent attorney. It’s a shame I didn’t know you back in Oregon, or it might never have come to this. I don’t really care for Maine, you see,” he said, settling conversationally on the edge of the settee next to her. “I much prefer the cosmopolitan cities and the lifestyle they offer. But here I am, stuck in this tiny little shit-town because Marjorie Gaunt’s son got too damn suspicious and I had to disappear.”

  Diana could hear a low voice from the kitchen; it sounded as if someone was speaking urgently on a telephone. She couldn’t even tell the gender of the speaker, let alone discern the words. “Who is it?” she managed to croak out, glancing in that direction.

  “Oh, let’s not do that quite yet, shall we?” Reardon said with a smile. “Let’s talk about other things first. I’d like you to fully understand my position and where I was before I met up with my partner. That will make it all the more delicious when you see who it is, darling Diana.”

  She glanced around, looking for a chance to escape, but she knew her legs wouldn’t hold her. And even if they did, he’d catch her before she got far. And so she swallowed again, hard, trying to think, trying to clear her mind. But her thoughts buzzed like a swarm of flies, confused and random, and in the end all she could do was listen as the megalomaniac continued to speak.

  “I made quite a lot of money back in Oregon,” he was saying. “Getting rich ladies to pay me loads of money to help them into a dignified, painless death—all before they lost their hair and memory and succumbed to the intense pain I told them would be inevitable. I didn’t want them to suffer like that, the poor darlings. Most of them weren’t even terminal, but they believed me and allowed me to help them end their lives on their own terms, in their own ways. And then Marjorie’s son got suspicious, and I had the DA and then the Attorney General looking at all of my records … and so I knew it was time to disappear. Not that I’d done anything wrong—they couldn’t really pin anything on me. After all, it was suicide. I just provided the tools. And the motivation.” He smiled calmly.

  “I’d intended to go to Costa Rica,” he continued, “but I wasn’t able to get a good enough fake passport for Marc Reardon. And so here I am. On the opposite coast in a little po-dunk town, and hating every minute of it.”

  He smoothed the starched shirt he wore, adjusting his monogrammed cuffs and frowned. “I began to get bored with General Practice about two months after I got here and decided it would be best if I could find a way to leave the country as I’d originally intended. But there’s not a lot of money to be had here in Damariscotta, except from a few wealthy individuals. And so I began to diagnose a few cancer cases and one terrible aneurysm that was ready to pop at any moment. And then I got to know your aunt. She had a lot of money. She was elderly. If she had a heart attack, no one would think anything of it—especially if I had already been treating her for heart disease. All I had to do was charm her into changing her will. And that shouldn’t be hard, since her closest relative was a career woman in Boston who had neglected her for years. Or I could somehow attach myself to said relative.�
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  The rumbling voice from the kitchen had ceased speaking, and now Diana heard footsteps coming from that direction. Her stomach curdled with fear and apprehension as Reardon caught her gaze and gave her an arch smile.

  “My partner is about to assuage your curiosity, darling,” he said.

  But she wasn’t listening, for he’d already walked into the den.

  Diana couldn’t breathe. Her vision flashed dark, then bright, and then she went numb. Hardly aware of her fingers digging into the settee’s upholstery, she felt her entire world falling away, caving in around her.

  “Or,” Reardon was saying with a smile, “I could find the man the heiress was going to marry.”

  “Jonathan,” Diana managed to whisper.

  He stood over her, wearing an expression she’d never seen before. It was calm and yet laced with chagrin at the same time. Almost as if he were embarrassed or ashamed to be here—but not enough to change his mind.

  “Christ, Reardon, this isn’t a damned movie recap,” Jonathan said, running a hand through his hair. “This is business and we don’t have a lot of time for chatting. Let’s finish this up so I can get back to Boston. I’m supposed to be in New York and my office keeps calling me. Damned cell phones don’t work up here.”

  “What are you doing here?” Diana managed to say, anger and pain forcing the words out clearly. “Are you really involved with this, Jonathan?”

  His smile was weak but his eyes cold. “I needed the money, Diana. I thought after we were married I’d have access to whatever I needed—or, if worst came to worst, something could happen to you so I’d inherit. I didn’t really want it to go that way, but I don’t have any more time. No more choice. If I don’t pay the money, or at least prove I have access to it in three days, I’m dead.”

  Diana shook her head hard and seemed to dislodge some of the remnants of fog. “Money? To who?”

  “Gambling,” Reardon interrupted. “Your fiancé has a terrible gambling habit. He’s in deep, past his elegant ears, and he’s borrowed so much that there isn’t any more to borrow. Now his benefactors are getting impatient, and they need funds. What? You didn’t know he gambled?”

  She shook her head blankly, simply unable to assimilate what was happening. Impossible. It just couldn’t be. “But … how did you—”

  “How did we meet up? That’s the amazing, serendipitous part about it,” Reardon said congenially. “It was at a convention, about a year ago. In Vegas, of course,” he added, glancing at Jonathan, who had the grace to look away. “He was commiserating about his bad luck at the blackjack table, and I happened to be listening. One thing led to another and I mentioned I hated living in Damariscotta, and he recognized the name of the town. Apparently, you’d just recently met but hadn’t started to date, or somehow he knew about your connection here. From that initial conversation, we managed to put everything together—even to get your aunt in touch with you again, just by accident. All by accident.” He smiled, so very pleased with himself. “And of course, with a large inheritance on the horizon, your friend Jonathan became very motivated to get you locked in with a wedding ring.”

  Diana actually curled her fingers into a fist and would have punched him in his supercilious face if Jonathan hadn’t been looking out the window and made a sudden noise of alarm.

  “What is it?” Reardon asked, and Diana stiffened, ready to use the distraction as an opportunity to escape.

  But she’d barely had the thought when Jonathan moved suddenly, out of view of the window, and all at once there was a silver gun pointing at her. A gun! “It’s your new boyfriend. What’s his name—Tannock. He’s just pulling up the driveway.”

  Diana’s heart leaped—he was two days early!—and then at the same time, it plummeted, leaving her cold and shaken. Oh, God, what if he walked into the house? Which was just what he would do. He’d walk right into this.

  No, Ethan, no ….

  She tried to think of a way to warn him, but the other two had moved into action. The gun didn’t waver from its focus on her, and Jonathan’s expression told her he wasn’t feeling ashamed at all at the moment. “Don’t make a sound. Don’t move.”

  “I know how to get him out of here,” Reardon was saying. “He’s not going to want to see her with anyone else—everyone in town knows his first wife screwed him over.”

  “I can’t be seen here,” Jonathan said sharply. “And your car is out there because I drove here in hers.” He turned a tight smile on Diana. “You’d better do exactly as I say, or your boyfriend’s going to be the next casualty.”

  She heard the slam of a car door as Jonathan dragged her out of the den, ignoring her stumbling feet and weak knees, into Belinda’s bedroom. He shoved her toward the bed and she fell onto it. “Make it good, Diana. Put a little effort into it for once. Or I’ll put one of these into your boyfriend’s head.”

  She was shaking and still weak from the drug, but she watched as Jonathan slipped behind the long curtains across the room. She could see the barrel of the gun between the curtain and the wall, aimed right at the open bedroom door. He’d have a perfect shot at Ethan.

  Reardon had unbuttoned his shirt and slid onto the bed next to her just as she heard Ethan calling from the front. “Diana?”

  He’d wonder about Marc Reardon’s car being parked out there next to hers. And he’d walk in.

  And then she couldn’t think of anything else as Reardon yanked her shirt open. Buttons scattered and the next thing she knew, her bra was unfastened and he was pulling her on top of him in a straddle position.

  “Make it look good, darling,” he murmured, sliding a hand up and over her shoulder while another held her firmly at the hips. “Lean down and kiss me like the little slut you are.”

  “Diana?” Ethan’s voice was closer, sharper, and then she heard the front door open … and close. Footsteps. “Diana!”

  She was cold and shaking, and she looked over at Jonathan. He caught her eyes from behind the curtains and she saw the cold determination in his face. Swallowing hard, she placed her hand on Reardon’s bare chest and as those steps came closer, she closed her eyes and bent forward.

  “Don’t worry,” Reardon murmured, “I’m just as revolted as you are.” Nevertheless, a warm hand slid down over her breast and gave her nipple a sharp tweak. She gasped in surprise and pain and then his eyes became slits. “Make it good, Diana.”

  She swallowed back the rush of nausea and revulsion and moved closer, forcing her mouth to touch his. He kissed her back, his lips dry and smooth and she nearly gagged, but didn’t move away.

  The footsteps stopped abruptly. She heard a sound in the doorway—something guttural and low and agonized, and she couldn’t control herself. She jolted upright, turning to look. Reardon released her, but it was too late.

  Ethan was gone.

  The front door slammed, the house shaking in its wake.

  She heard the squealing, grinding of a key turned too far in the truck’s engine, then the terrible pealing sound as Ethan sped away down the stone drive.

  And then Diana was left alone with two murderers.

  ~*~

  Ethan felt nothing.

  He slowed the crazy careening of his truck to one of a normal speed and drove up to his cabin. He kept his mind blank. He couldn’t feel his fingers or his legs.

  Hell. Cady wasn’t even here to greet him, to comfort him. She was still with Joe Cap.

  Ethan had come to see his other lady first thing on his arrival. And look what changing his loyalties had gotten him. Look what the thought of surprising her had done.

  He slammed the door of the truck a little harder than necessary and let himself into the cabin. Closed the exterior door with a bit too much force.

  He walked into the living room, into the kitchen, yanked out the bottle of Scotch he kept on hand, and poured himself a nice healthy drink. And then he stared down into the golden liquid, realized his hands were shaking and he felt like puking, and whipped the
glass across the room.

  It shattered against the fireplace with a short, vehement sound.

  How the hell could this happen to me again? What the hell have I ever done to deserve this?

  God, Diana. How could he have been so wrong about her?

  When he found out about Meghan, he’d drunk himself into a stupor for a few nights. He’d been enraged. He’d been sleepless. Then he’d gone on a revenge bender, hitting the bars and taking a different woman home each time.

  But this time, he felt nothing. Hollow, empty, numb.

  He wasn’t going to fall apart this time. He was going to be cool with it. He was going to handle it.