Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  “Then stay,” he said. “Marry me.” His eyes drifted shut, his breathing suddenly shallow. Jenny rapped on the door again. I heard her ratchet the safety off her gun.

  I wasn’t coming back from this—I was suddenly certain of it. Whatever Jenny had in store, wherever she planned to take me, there was no way I could survive. But if I could save Diggs…

  “I’ll marry you,” I said to Diggs. I turned off the waterworks and forced myself to be calm. “Just stay alive. Just live, for me. Okay?”

  “You’ve got till three,” Jenny said. “Then I start shooting. One.”

  Diggs opened his eyes. The pain there was endless. He held tightly to my arm. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I do,” I said. I ran my hand down the side of his face, my voice even now. “This is always the way it had to end. If I can come back to you, I will. I always have. I won’t stop now, if I can help it.”

  I pried my arm from his grip. “I’m coming out,” I called to Jenny, then looked at Kat. “You two stay. Save him, okay?”

  “I’m not letting you—” Kat began. I shook my head, more certain than I’d ever been about anything in my life.

  “Stay here, damn it,” I said. “Save him. If there’s any way in hell I can come back, I will.”

  I went to the door, where I knew Jenny was waiting just outside. I glanced back at Kat, Maya, and Diggs.

  And opened the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The second the truck came to a complete stop, Jack was in motion. It had come to rest in the front yard of the farmhouse, demolishing the fence and the Christmas tree but miraculously leaving the house itself unscathed.

  “Go get whoever’s inside the house out,” he instructed Jamie. “If there are explosives, we need everyone out of here.”

  “But—”

  “Go!”

  She nodded and ran, flat-out. Meanwhile, Jack approached the truck with more caution, his gun drawn. The truck had landed on the passenger’s side, and the impact had smashed the truck’s grill, and cracked the windshield, but otherwise it seemed intact.

  “Help me!” a girl called to him. Her body was angled half-in, half-out of the driver’s side window, above him. She was dressed in a camisole and blue jeans, nothing more, her face and shirt blooded.

  “Please,” she cried. Her voice bordered on hysteria.

  “Where’s Nate?” Jack asked.

  “He’s here,” she said, sobbing now. “He’s hurt.”

  “Can you get out?”

  “I don’t want to leave Nate.”

  “I’ll go in and get him,” Jack promised. “But I need you out of the way and safe first.” He took a step forward, waiting until he had her eye. “Trust me, okay? Just come on out. Can you do that?”

  She nodded, still crying. He climbed up on one of the wheels and held out his hand. The girl leaned out. Jack could smell leaking fuel. He noted the gash in her forehead, the blood drenching the front of her thin top. She was shivering, ice cold, when he finally held her hand.

  Jack reached for her waist and helped her down. He noted that she wasn’t armed—not something difficult to ascertain, since she was wearing so little.

  “I didn’t know,” she said. There was a glaze of shock on her tear-stained face. “I thought I could help him.”

  Jack shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around her.

  “What’s in the back of the truck?” he asked.

  “I don’t know—Nate wouldn’t tell me. Just that we were leaving, but we had to set everybody free first. He killed—” she sobbed again. “Did you see? Did you see my father? I thought—”

  Jack gently took hold of her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “We’ll deal with all of that, okay? But right now, it’s just important that you’re safe. Someone is getting people out of the house—I want you to go over there, all right? Stand over there with them.”

  She nodded, still weeping as she walked away. Jack brushed the snow and sweat from his face with his sleeve and used the wheel to hoist himself up and into the trailer. It was slippery going, the wind crippling him further, but eventually he was on top of the truck, peering into the cab.

  Nate Simpson was dead—there was no question of that, as soon as Jack saw him. What concerned him more was the man’s obvious cause of death:

  He sat slumped in the passenger’s seat, his throat slashed.

  Nate hadn’t been driving—which meant only one person could have been.

  He climbed back down from the truck and scanned the horizon. The fuel smell was getting stronger; beneath it, for the first time, he smelled smoke. Through the snow, he could just make out Laurie as she reached a cluster of other forms—presumably, Jamie and the residents of the home.

  His head spun. Laurie, the truck potentially filled with explosives, or Erin and Diggs currently in a fight for their lives.

  He texted Jamie: Laurie did it. Keep her away frm family.

  If there were explosives in the truck, they were about to blow—there was nothing he could do about that. Out of ideas, he turned and ran headlong toward the farm. The smell of fuel permeated the air. The good news was that there were no other houses in the immediate area. If the truck did go up, the farmhouse would be destroyed, but it looked like that would be the extent of the damage.

  Jamie had herded the family toward her SUV. Not far from them, Jack heard sirens headed their way. He continued looking in all directions, searching for some sign of the girl. When he reached Jamie, he pulled her aside.

  “Did you get my text?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Laurie never came to me, though—I don’t know where she is. Where she went. What do you want to do?”

  “This is everyone in the house?” Two young children and a woman were crowded into the SUV. The smaller of the kids—a little boy—was crying, while the mother and the sister tried in vain to quiet him. Jamie nodded.

  “The husband’s away on business. They just moved in—there’s no livestock yet, no pets.”

  “Well, that’s something, I guess.” He looked back toward the truck. It was still smoking, but he saw no flames. If there were explosives, they should have gone up by now.

  “What do you want to do?” Jamie asked.

  A fire engine pulled in, followed by two police cruisers. Sheriff Finnegan emerged from one.

  Before Jack could answer Jamie’s question, his cell rang again. The number wasn’t familiar.

  “Agent Juarez?” a woman said. “It’s Kat Everett—Erin’s mother.”

  “What’s happening?” he asked immediately, stepping away from Jamie.

  “I’m at the clinic—I’m hoping to get Diggs airlifted out of here, but I don’t think it’ll happen in this weather. He’s stable, though. But Jenny took Erin.”

  “Took her?” He blinked snow out of his eyes. Refocused. “Took her where?”

  “Back out to the island, I think,” Kat said. She sounded rushed. Harried. Afraid. “Goddamn Erin decided today was the day to become a martyr for the cause—she made Jenny promise to leave the rest of us, and she headed out there alone. In this weather, her odds of even getting out there are slim to nil. I tried the Coast Guard, but they can’t send anybody out in this; they have to wait for the storm to clear.”

  She hesitated. “I didn’t know who else to call. Cameron’s already out there…”

  He closed his eyes. It would take twenty minutes to get back to the wharf. Another hour to get out to the island, at least. There was chaos all around him, but it seemed like a safe harbor compared to what he would find on the water tonight.

  “Why do you think they went to the island?”

  “Jenny said that’s where they were going—God knows why. I think she and Cameron set a trap out there.” There was another moment’s pause. “Look, I don’t want to be rude, but I can’t go out there—I promised Erin I’d stay with Diggs, see him through this thing. I’m not going to break another goddamn promise. Not to mention, I couldn’t do
a thing once I did get out there. But you—”

  He nodded, the decision made. “I know. I’m going. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

  “If you need a boat…” she began. Jack glanced toward Jamie. She’d gotten the woman who owned the farmhouse out of the SUV along with her kids, and was walking the three of them over to the police.

  “No,” he said. “I’ve got it covered.”

  “Good. Jack…” This time, the pause was endless. “Just…thanks, all right? Whatever you can do…”

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  He ended the call, then jogged over to meet Jamie and Sheriff Finnegan. Jamie watched him as he approached, keen awareness on her face.

  “I need to go,” Jack said as soon as they were close. “I just got word that Erin’s been taken—it looks like they’re headed back out to Payson Isle.”

  “In this storm?” Finnegan said. “Jesus, is anyone sane on this goddamn mission? I can try and get in touch with someone in the Coast Guard, but I’ll tell you right now there’s no way in hell they’re sending anyone out.”

  “I know,” Jack said. He hesitated. “It’s all right. Send someone as soon as you can. I’m going over now.”

  A firefighter in full gear approached the group, gesturing Finnegan over to him. The sheriff didn’t move, clearly torn.

  “Go,” Jack said. “Take care of this. I’ll report back as soon as I can.” When the sheriff had gone, he and the firefighter gesturing toward the smoldering truck several yards from them, Jack turned to Jamie. “Can I borrow your car?” he asked.

  “I’ll give you a lift,” she said. “I’m used to the weather—I’ll get us there faster.”

  There was no time to argue.

  They drove too fast through the driving snow, the road barely plowed from the latest onslaught of fluffy white powder—the kind of snow that drifted and blew to near-white-out conditions in the bitter cold. Jack thought of Erin. Lucia. The child J. had taken from him, when they murdered his wife. Why? How had he ended up back in J.’s clutches after Cameron had worked so hard to extract him? Why were they so intent on destroying his life? Making his loved ones suffer?

  “You asked why I keep coming back,” Jamie said.

  He pulled himself from his thoughts. When he looked out the windshield at the snow coming at them, it gave the illusion that they were floating—flying. Completely apart from the car, and the road beneath.

  “I did,” he said.

  Jamie didn’t look at him, her hands tight on the steering wheel. He got the sense that whatever she was about to say, admitting it wasn’t an easy thing.

  “It sounds ridiculous,” she said.

  “More ridiculous than a seventy-year-old national conspiracy coming to a head on a deserted Maine island in the middle of a blizzard?”

  “Probably not,” she said with a laugh. “It’s not like we have some deep connection or something—I didn’t know you before that first meeting up in Black Falls. But when we met…” she trailed off.

  “You got a feeling,” he supplied.

  She nodded. He wasn’t sure how far they were from the Littlehope wharf, but it felt like they had to be getting close. He hoped to hell they were, anyway.

  “I’m supposed to save your life,” Jamie said.

  He looked at her sharply. Studied her serious profile in the darkly lit car. “What?”

  “I told you—it’s just a feeling. Sometimes there are flashes that come with it, but… There it is. I’m supposed to save your life.”

  He fell silent. How did someone respond to something so ridiculous, proposed by someone as earnest, as grounded, as Jamie Flint?

  In his marriage, Lucia was the believer of the two. Jack had his faith: he went to church, took confession, accepted many of the more extraordinary miracles the church set forth as gospel. Lucia, however, believed. She believed in the nature of good and evil; the notion that there was a plan… That God always had his reasons for the pain they suffered.

  Jack didn’t know what he believed anymore. Lately, he wondered if it was anything at all.

  Neither he nor Jamie spoke again until she half drove and half slid down the steep grade to the Littlehope wharf.

  It was deserted, nearly every boat pulled out of the harbor. Jack got out of the SUV before Jamie had turned off her engine. “I need to borrow your boat,” he said, shouting over the wind.

  “I’ll drive,” she shouted back.

  He shook his head. “Not this time.”

  “Jack—”

  “You’re supposed to save my life,” he finished for her. “I know.” He took a step closer. Set his hands at her arms, lost for the briefest moment in the serious blue eyes that gazed back at him. “Not tonight. Whatever is supposed to happen between us, it doesn’t happen tonight. Please? Stay here.”

  For a few seconds, she didn’t respond. He wondered what she was thinking—what rarely spoken thoughts, feelings, ran through her head in that moment. At last, she nodded. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a key.

  “This is a suicide mission, you know,” she said.

  He imagined Lucia’s wide eyes, dark with terror. Heard her crying his name until the very last. He shook his head and stepped away from Jamie, breaking their tenuous contact.

  “It’s not. It’s just what has to be done.”

  He turned and left her standing on the wharf, watching him go.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I don’t remember much about the ride back to Payson Isle that night—just that it was terrifying. I kept flashing back through the highlight reel of my life with Diggs:

  That first interview when I was fifteen; the fights and the stories and the drama and the laughter; that first kiss, in a crowded Portland bar when something just…slipped into place. Running for our lives in Black Falls—when it became so painfully, brutally clear that we could never just walk away from each other.

  Jenny almost wrecked the boat a couple of times, barely avoiding the shoals while the storm raged and the wind buffeted the boat perilously close to the granite shore. The waves were black, but the rest of the world was pure white—a wall of blowing snow that seemed to determine to keep us back. Jenny was more determined.

  Somehow, we made it.

  There was another boat near the dock—this one wrecked, the hull splintered. There was no sign of anyone on board, and I didn’t see a soul when Jenny and I set foot on the island.

  I kept my head low. I’d stopped crying ages ago; now I was just numb. Numb, frozen, and ready to end this. Jenny grabbed my arm and pushed me forward roughly. Apparently, she was just as ready.

  “So, this is what you’ve been after, all this time,” Jenny shouted above the wind. “You wanted the truth, right? Well, here you go.”

  The trip up the steep incline from the dock was slick, wind howling in my ears all the while. A foot of snow had fallen since Diggs and I had left that afternoon—powdery light stuff that I plowed through with my head down, not even sure any longer where I was.

  Eventually, we reached the Payson House. Snow had blown up to the doorstep and beyond, reaching nearly to the doorknob. I looked at Jenny blankly. She waved the gun at me.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Open it.”

  There was a feverish intensity in her eyes. She didn’t have long, I realized—her face pale, her speech slurred. Diggs had done that. This woman would die, and when she did, it would be because he had killed her, protecting me.

  And might well have killed himself, in the process.

  I opened the front door.

  Jenny gestured me inside, keeping her distance. I stumbled up and over the threshold, into the Payson meeting room.

  Cameron was at the table. He stood as soon as we opened the door.

  “Erin—I told you to stay away.”

  Jenny followed me inside, and he paled. “What the hell did you do?” he demanded of her.

  “I sweetened the pot,” Jenny said, “just like I said I would.�
�� Finally inside, she leaned back against the wall. Her hand fell to her side. The gun just hung there. If I wanted it, I could take it now. I didn’t think Cameron would stop me.

  “What do you mean, you sweetened the pot?” I asked.

  “Dad wanted him to come,” Jenny said. “But he wouldn’t admit that this was what it would take to get him here.”

  She scanned the room at about the same rate I did. My eyes fell to a painting above the blazing fire: Christ on the cross, a thousand warriors in flames around him. Isaac’s old painting. It hadn’t been here before.

  “I tried to get your perfect Katherine, too,” Jenny said. Her eyes burned with hate. “But Erin was the best I could do. You think she’ll be enough to draw him out, though? Knowing what else we have?”

  The plastic container I’d taken from the Crack—the one Jenny had stolen from me—was on the meeting room table. I looked at Cameron.

  “You were working together,” I said. “All the people who died—Reverend Diggins, Mike Reynolds…”

  “They would have killed,” Cameron said. He sounded so reasonable. “That’s what J. makes: killers. They made me. The least I can do is kill the other killers they’ve made.”

  “And draw them out,” Jenny said. “Right, Dad? We kill the killers, find J.’s secrets, remind them that Payson Isle holds the key…and make them come to us.”

  “You weren’t supposed to come back,” Cameron said to me. He shook his head. “I did everything I could to keep you and Diggs out of this when the time came. But I have to admit, I never would have found everything your friend had been hiding, without you. You did what you were supposed to do.” He paused and looked at Jenny again, suddenly stern. A father who lived by the sword. “I told you to keep them away from here tonight.”

  “And I told you—this is the way to bring him out. If I brought her, he can’t stay away. You’re here. I’m here. The magical Erin Solomon is here. And all his secrets are here.”

  I went to the table. No one tried to stop me.

  In the kitchen, I heard the door open and shut again. Cameron closed his eyes, but he didn’t move. Jenny looked toward the sound. I’d never seen her afraid before, but she was afraid now. Deathly so. For a minute or more, nothing happened. There was no other sound from the kitchen, and neither Jenny nor Cameron made a move to investigate.