“You said that.”
“Did I?” he asks mildly. “I think that anyone who might have overheard our conversation would agree that you were the one who thought the boys might be in the woods. I was being helpful, driving you here and helping you search.”
“You weren’t helping.” Her words are laced with venom, and she doesn’t care. “You were plotting.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. We split up when we got here, of course, to cover more ground. And then I heard you screaming for help. I searched until I found you . . . but it was too late.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’d fallen down a steep slope and hit your head so hard that you’ll never wake up. It will be a terrible accident. Such a shame. Eleanor and I will be so sorry to hear about it, but of course we’ll probably be long gone by the time they find your body. Funny how things work out.”
His matter-of-fact tone is as chilling as the awful things he’s saying—a blow-by-blow recap of something that hasn’t happened yet. But he’s no psychic. He’s a psychopath.
“You made it up,” she says in wonder. “What happened this morning, out on the road—you made it up.”
“You can’t prove that. Nobody can.”
“But why? Why would you do it?”
Her mind is cluttered with puzzle pieces, arranging and rearranging them. As they begin to fall into place, she desperately looks from side to side along the trail, instinctively searching for a path to freedom.
It’s just like last night, on that dark road with Grant. Except this time, her instincts are dead on. And this time, she doesn’t have to worry about making a break for it with her son in tow. This time, it’s only her.
Her ankle is hurting, but it’s not broken. She’s walking on it. She can run on it if she has to.
You can do this. Just look for an opening. Keep walking, keep him talking.
“You were the one I saw in the house that night in the hoodie. You told your wife you’d gone to see Our Town at Chautauqua, but you didn’t.”
“Oh? I had the program. Didn’t I show you?”
“Maybe you went just long enough to get that. And then you came back, and you were prowling around the house, looking for something. What was it? Leona’s notebook?”
“Oh, please, that’s useless. I’ve had it ever since—” He breaks off, tellingly.
Since the night Leona died.
The night he killed her.
“There’s nothing of interest in that notebook,” he says. “Even if there was, who could tell? Her handwriting is chicken scratch.”
“You’re the one who’s been coming and going through the tunnel in the closet.”
“Tunnel in the closet?” he echoes, sounding as if he has no idea what she’s talking about.
He’s just playing a role, she reminds herself. She goes on: “You’re the one who went through her papers, and you’ve been looking for her laptop because . . . because . . .”
Why?
Steve stops short, puts a hard hand on her shoulder, and jerks her around to face him. “Do you have it?”
“Why do you want it so badly, Steve? And why did you tear a page from Leona’s appointment book?”
The questions are met with a staccato laugh. “You expect me to tell you that?”
“Oh, come on. What do you have to lose?”
Another laugh, humorless. “I have everything to lose. But I’m not going to. I’ve worked hard all my life to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m going to get what I deserve. And so are you. Now let’s go.” He nudges her in the back to make her walk again.
The trail narrows ahead, growing steep. But she isn’t going to let him march her to her death. There must be a way out of this.
But there isn’t. There’s only Steve, and woods, and rain, and that gun . . .
Can she get it away from him somehow?
She’d have to catch him by surprise.
Make him think she’s given up, resigned to her fate.
As if.
“You know, I’m not afraid of dying,” she hears herself say as they continue pushing up the narrow trail, branches snapping back against her now, sharp twigs and wet leaves slapping her in the face.
“Yeah. Sure you’re not.”
“I’m not,” she insists. “I mean, it’s just crossing over. Like stepping into the next room. I’ll still be here.”
He snorts. “That’s a load of bull.”
“You really think so?”
“You don’t believe in any of that stuff. I could tell from the moment I met you.”
But something tells her he may not be as certain as he sounds. About her beliefs . . . or about his own?
Both, she realizes, hearing the slightest hint of doubt as he talks on. “No one in their right mind would buy into these parlor tricks. People around here might know things, but it’s not because ‘Spirit’ tells them. It’s because they snoop.”
She can’t help but thinks of Pandora Feeney. “Why do you say that?”
“I’ve seen it time and again. No matter how careful you are, they’ll find out your secrets and use them against you.”
A burst of clarity. There it is.
“That’s what happened with Leona, isn’t it? She found out your secrets. So you . . . you killed her and made it look like an accident.”
Just as he said he’s about to do to me.
“She was brushing her hair that night, and the wind was blowing.” Her voice is deceptively steady. “And you sneaked up on her and hit her in the head and made it look like she’d fallen. And then you walked out onto the fishing pier and threw her into the lake.”
“How the hell do you know any of that?”
Her gut churns. So it’s true. “Like you said, we find out your secrets. No matter how careful you are.”
“We?” He gives a scoffing laugh. “You’re not one of them. How do you know all this?”
Common sense. Educated guesses.
Nothing more. It can’t be anything more than that.
Stay focused.
“Everyone has secrets, Steve. Even me.” She stops walking and turns to face him.
Their eyes meet.
He recoils as if from a physical collision.
In that moment, seeing him falter, she makes her move.
She leaps on him, grappling for the gun. They fall to the ground and roll into the moss and mud, entangled in weeds and wet ferns. Fighting for her life, she claws at his hand and the gun.
Wrangling it from his hand into her own, she rolls away and gets to her feet, panting hard.
She’s never touched a gun before in her life, let alone shot one. As she holds it in shaking hands, arms outstretched in front of her, she isn’t sure she’s capable.
He clearly doesn’t think so.
Lying at her feet with the barrel aimed squarely at his chest, he laughs.
“Don’t move!” Her thumb clumsily searches for a way to cock the weapon, like in the movies. “Don’t move, or I swear I’ll shoot!”
“Ladies shouldn’t swear.” With a chuckle, he gets to his feet.
“I said don’t move!”
He reaches out in an attempt to pluck the pistol from her hand, but she holds on tightly.
“I’ll shoot you! I will!”
“Not with that, you won’t. It’s a prop, Bella. We used it in a production of Arsenic and Old Lace years ago. I’m a theater buff, remember?” He holds out a hand. “Give it to me.”
Her fingers tremble. She doesn’t believe him. She doesn’t believe a word he says. He’s pathological. He lies about everything.
I have a little girl the same age . . .
He does have a daughter. Bella saw photos of her on Eleanor’s phone. She’s grown, though, expecting a baby of her own.
Why claim she’s a little girl Max’s age?
But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is Bella’s little boy.
He needs me. I have to get back to him.
She struggles to keep her aim steady. Focus. Focus.
She’s no longer relying on Spirit to bail her out of this.
I can do it myself. I’m doing it now.
“All right,” he says. “If you don’t want to hand it over, then just drop it.”
“Step back! Right now!”
“Don’t drop it, then. Don’t hand it over either. Go ahead and shoot me.” He raises both hands. This time when he looks her in the eye, she sees not a hint of misgiving.
She keeps the gun pointed squarely at his chest, but she knows it’s over. The gun is useless. A prop.
Again, he reaches for it.
Again, they wrestle for it.
This time, though, he wins. The moment he grabs the gun, he turns around, takes aim at a nearby tree, and fires.
The sound is deafening. Birds lift from overhead boughs, flapping and squawking.
And Bella spots, with alarm, a splintered bullet hole ripped into the bark.
Chapter Twenty
“Guess I lied.” Steve Pierson gestures at the tree and then at the gun, grinning at Bella. “I’ve never even seen Arsenic and Old Lace.”
A strangled, frustrated sound escapes her throat.
“Let’s go. Walk.”
He jabs the gun into her back and pushes her along the path into the woods.
Her ankle throbs as she picks her way along.
“Faster,” he says. “Faster!”
She trips.
Falls.
He bends over, nudging her with the nose of the pistol. “Get up.”
Fury darts through her. “No.”
“I said, get up.”
“No.”
“I’ll shoot you.”
“So shoot me.”
Two, she thinks, can play at this game.
He doesn’t want to shoot her. She’s taking a chance—a huge chance—that he won’t.
He’s already told her that he intends to make this look like an accident. If it doesn’t, if she’s found with a bullet in her head in the woods, the cops will leave no stone unturned to find out who did it.
It’s not as if he can go into hiding when he leaves here. He wants to take his wife back to their cushy, respectable, happy life in Boston. He wants to retire with full benefits and a nice salary so that he can travel to places that aren’t Lily Dale and go to the theater and run miles every morning.
That’s exactly what he’s doing now: preparing to run. He’s been poised to break away from the moment he and Eleanor arrived.
He’d gone through the motions of arriving for their annual vacation, but it was a ruse. He didn’t expect to have to stay here. Even if Eleanor wanted to, he knew they wouldn’t be able to. Not with Leona gone.
He didn’t bargain on my being here to run the place. I put a hitch in his plan. And I’m doing it again right now.
“Nothing happened to you on Bachellor Hill Road this morning,” Bella says boldly. “You made up that story because . . . because you did something to Bonnie Barrington this morning, and then you panicked.”
Again, his eyes widen just enough to let her know she’s on the right track.
“You realized there was only one way to make sure no one suspected you, and that was to make them think you were almost a victim, too. You told Eleanor that someone had tried to run you down, and God knows what else you said, but you scared the living daylights out of her. She thinks the two of you are leaving today because your lives are in danger. The truth is, you’re leaving because you killed Leona. I’m just trying to figure out why.”
“Why do you think?” He gives a brittle laugh. “Oh, wait, I’ll tell you. It’s because I’m sick of coming to Silly Dale. So I killed off our hostess. That makes perfect sense.”
“No. You were trying to keep Leona quiet about something.”
Bingo. She’s right. She can see it in his eyes. Slowly, aware of the gun, she gets to her feet.
“It’s why you tore out the page in her appointment book right before she died, isn’t it? Because your name was on it.”
“Nope. Sorry, Nancy Drew. You’re wrong. My name wasn’t on it.”
This time, he isn’t lying. The way he says it, with the emphasis on the My, drives home the truth.
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t believe in this stuff. But your wife does. Eleanor had the appointment. And Leona told her something she didn’t want to hear . . . or was it something you didn’t want her to know?”
He laughs. “You can think whatever you want. I don’t care.”
“Sure, you do. Because it’s all true. And if I know what really happened, then who else does?” She shrugs. “You can get rid of me, but what about everyone else?”
He glares at her.
She’s getting to him.
“This town is filled with people who somehow know things, Steve. It doesn’t matter how they know—parlor tricks, magic, spirit guides. But they know. You can run—you’re always running, aren’t you? You love to run. Every single day. But sooner or later, the truth is going to catch up to you. And when it does . . .” She shakes her head sadly. “I just feel sorry for your family.”
“You know nothing about my family.”
“I know that your wife loves you. Eleanor believes in you, no matter what you’ve done to her.”
“What are you saying?”
She isn’t quite sure—but obviously, she’s struck some kind of chord with him.
“Your wife and I had a nice little chat about you.” She almost added the other morning but thought better of it. Why pinpoint the time? Why not pull the rug out from under him and let him think it transpired since he last saw Eleanor? If he needs information Bella alone can provide—if only to know what to expect when he returns to the guesthouse—then he’ll have to keep her alive. At least, for now.
“What did she say?”
“What do you think she said?” Bella returns.
“So she knows? Is that it?” Panic is creeping over him.
“Did you really think you could keep secrets from her, Steve? After more than twenty-five years of marriage?”
He rakes a hand through his hair. “How much does she know?”
“Everything,” she says simply. “Leona, Bonnie . . .”
He shakes his head impatiently. He knows she’s bluffing.
But somehow, she has to keep him talking, keep him convinced that she knows what they’re talking about when it’s all she can do to maintain her own composure facing a loaded weapon.
“Do you mean your other secrets?” she asks, her thoughts careening through possibilities. “Are you talking about what Leona told her in that last reading, back in June?”
“Of course not. She didn’t tell her ‘everything.’ She barely told her anything. I was sitting right there the whole time.”
“Wait—are we talking about the same thing? When you were in Lily Dale, in June?”
“We weren’t here in June.”
“No, I know, I meant . . . I meant the phone reading. In June.”
Bingo.
“I heard Eleanor’s side of the conversation,” he says. “Leona kept talking to her about Paris and April—and of course Eleanor thought she meant the city and the month.”
Paris. April.
Bella remembers now that Eleanor had told her about the trip she was so certain her husband was planning to surprise her for their silver wedding anniversary next spring.
“All that time—six years—Leona never brought them up in a reading. Don’t think I wasn’t worried that she would. Don’t think I didn’t do everything in my power to keep Eleanor away from her—from Lily Dale. But my wife has a mind of her own.”
Good for her. She’s going to need it, Bella thinks as he talks on.
“And then out of the blue—bang. There they were: Paris. April. Maybe it was because I’d just seen them the night before. Who knows? But how long do you think it would have been before Leona brought them up again? And next time, she might have figured o
ut who they are.”
Who they are. Not what.
Paris and April are people.
Six years . . .
I have a little girl the same age . . .
One of them is his daughter, she realizes. Her name is Paris. Or April. The other must be his mistress.
A secret like that could destroy a man like Steve Pierson if it ever got out. If his job—his reputation, his livelihood, his future—is on the line because the taxpayers don’t agree with him over the school budget, imagine what they’d do if they discovered he has a love child with another woman.
“It was only a matter of time before Leona figured it out and told Eleanor. That’s why . . . that’s why I had to make sure that wouldn’t happen.”
“Eleanor knows anyway, Steve,” Bella tells him. “About April and Paris.”
“Who else knows?”
“You mean besides me? And poor Bonnie?”
“Not poor Bonnie,” he snaps. “The woman was a nuisance. She should have known better. At that hour, all I wanted to do was drink my coffee in peace and then go for my run. And then she shows up and starts telling me that she’d been channeling Leona’s spirit and that she thinks she was murdered. She was insisting that we call the cops. And the more I say that’s crazy—she’s crazy—and tell her to shut up, the more she badgers me. And then I see the way she’s looking at me and I know . . .”
He trails off, shaking his head, and Bella absorbs the terrible truth. Bonnie had perceived that Steve was Leona’s killer.
“So you decided to get her out of the way, too,” she says quietly. “You decided she should die to suit your selfish purposes.”
“I’m not the one who gave her the death sentence.”
“What are you talking about?”
Seeing her startled expression, he attempts to gloat. “So there’s actually something Miss Know-It-All didn’t know?”
“There are plenty of things I don’t know,” she tells him. “Like how you could have hurt an innocent woman.”
“Innocent, maybe. But she didn’t have much time left anyway. She told Eleanor yesterday about how she just finished another round of chemo and the doctors are running out of options.”
Bella remembers the wig. To think she’d suspected Bonnie might be using it as a disguise when, in reality, she’d been ravaged by treatments in a fight for her life.
Nine Lives Page 27
