“So you pushed his hot button, is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes.”
“And he murdered Ada for you.”
“Faced with the prospect of losing me, Jase will do anything I ask him to do,” Jory stated matter-of-factly.
“You have an awesome amount of power over him, don’t you?”
Jory didn’t respond. Just sat there examining the crumbs on the cutting board.
“What’s really behind that, Jory?” Des asked, studying her closely. “Is it chemical?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do. Those tranks you give him-is he addicted to them? Is that it?”
“Not really,” Jory replied, swallowing.
“Then what is it? How do you explain this power you have over him?”
“I just told you.” Jory’s voice rose defensively. “He can’t get along without me. The poor thing is just so fragile and innocent. He may seem like an adult to you, but in many ways he’s still a child.”
“Was he hip to the fact that you and Les had killed Norma?”
Jory shook her head. “I hadn’t dared tell him.”
“You just told him to kill Ada.”
“I did,” she acknowledged, turning woeful. “I shouldn’t have. I know that. Jase’s loyalty to me is something I’ve never, ever abused. But I did abuse it this morning. He… took the staff stairs. I told him to make it quick and quiet. And make sure no one saw him.”
“Did he wear gloves?”
“He did. Why?”
“He didn’t have any scratches on his hands, that’s why. Jory, let’s talk some more about Les, okay? There’s something I’m a bit confused about. You found out this morning that he’d lied to you about inheriting the castle, correct?”
“Correct,” Jory replied. “I heard him talking to Aaron about it in the taproom before breakfast. That’s when I realized that I’d been totally had.”
“And yet you didn’t let on to Les about it. Instead, you conspired with him to eliminate Ada. If you were already aware that Les had double-crossed you, how do you explain this?”
“One task at a time,” Jory answered simply.
“You just said what to me?”
“You can’t tackle every job at once. If you do that, you’ll get overwhelmed. That’s one of the secrets to running a successful inn. Norma taught it to me, actually. My immediate priority was Ada. Our immediate priority was Ada. So I let Les think I was still the stupid little slut he thought I was, and we took care of her.”
“Jase took care of her.”
Jory swallowed, her eyes filling with tears. “Yes.”
“And when that odious chore was disposed of, who took care of Les? Jase again?”
“When you banished all of us to solitary confinement, you put Jase and me in adjoining rooms. The bathroom vents connect. We could whisper to each other through them.”
“That’s when you told him to kill Les?”
“I didn’t have to. I just had to tell him how Les had used me. And how, given half a chance, he’d pin both murders on us. Les could, would put us away for life. I had no doubt. I made that clear to Jase.”
“This sounds a whole lot like you pushing his hot button again.”
“I did,” Jory admitted. “But this was something that absolutely needed doing. We couldn’t let Les destroy us. Jase knew this. Jase felt comfortable with this. Besides, he wanted to teach that disgusting old man a lesson. He was really upset about Les taking advantage of me physically.”
“You were with me in the hallway when I decided to let Les go downstairs for firewood with Mitch and Teddy,” Des recalled.
“I was, that’s right. As soon as you sent me back to my room, I told Jase that now was his chance. He went up to the third floor through his trapdoor and down the staff stairs. When they headed out to the woodshed, he followed them and killed Les.”
“Why didn’t he kill Mitch, too?”
“He likes Mitch. Mitch has been nice to him.”
“That’s my doughboy. Where are Jase’s wet things? His work boots, pants?”
“In the big freezer,” Jory said, glancing over at the walk-in commercial freezer in the new part of the kitchen. “Along with the gloves he had on when he killed Ada. He always keeps an extra pair of jeans and boots in the mudroom in case he needs them. I buy him the same brand of everything-four pairs of jeans at a time whenever they’re on sale, two pairs of boots. He jumped right into identical dry things and went back up to the third floor lickety-split. Finished drying off in Izzy’s bathroom and dropped back down into his room.”
“And now here we are.” Des continued to point her gun at Jory under the table.
“Here we are,” Jory acknowledged, puffing out her cheeks. “It’s too bad, really.”
“What is, Jory?”
“I’m thinking about those damned pills of Norma’s. Les shouldn’t have stolen them when he did. He should have waited until this week, when everyone else was here. If he had, you would never have figured this out.”
“Trust me, you would not have gotten away with this. No chance.”
Jory gazed at her curiously. “Really, why not?”
“Eventually, we would have brought Jase in for routine questioning, and there’s no way he would have held up. Not given how attached he is to you. If we’d played him even a tiny bit, told him that you’d confessed to the whole thing, he’d have caved in a heartbeat.”
Jory said nothing to that, just sat back in her chair with her arms crossed, watching Des.
“Jory, I’m curious about your state of mind right now,” Des said, studying her. “Because I’m getting such a strange vibe off of you. Are you at all sorry? Do you regret any of this?”
“Not one bit.” Jory sounded defiant now. “You try living in my skin for a few days. You’d have no regrets either. You can’t imagine with it’s like being saddled with him, Des. Having to watch over him every single minute of every single day. That boy can’t make up his mind about anything without my help. He’s a total baby. And ever since I was a teenager, he’s been the story of my life twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No holidays. No vacations. No relief. No life. Not one boy in town would ever go out with me,” she complained, her voice rising. “Not if he was a decent, hardworking boy, a boy who was looking to build a life with somebody. Who’d want to take on me and that skulky, needy brother of mine? The only ones who’ll even look at me are the Spence Sibleys, who figure I’m so lonely and desperate that I’ll give it up, no effort required. So I’ve watched as one after another of those nice boys have hooked up with my girlfriends, gotten serious with them, married them-even though not a one of those girls is as good-looking as I am. I’m a pretty girl, Des. I have a terrific figure, a head on my shoulders, a warm and caring heart. Good things are supposed to happen to a girl like me. I’m supposed to be happy. I deserve to be happy! Do you have any idea what it’s like to wake up one morning and realize that you’re nowhere? Every single friend I’ve ever had is married now except for me. God, how I despise going to the market. I always run into one of them and she always wants to talk about her wonderful baby and the wonderful addition they’re building on to their wonderful house and how they’re going skiing this year in the wonderful White Mountains and… It’s over for me, Des! I don’t get a life. Not Jory. Not me. Uh-uh. I don’t get any of that. You know what I do get? I get to share that dingy cottage with my stupid little brother until the day I die. And I am so sick of it. So sick of sitting up here in this damned castle watching my life just…” She came up for air, her eyes burning at Des across the table. “My life was passing me right on by. That’s what I woke up one day and realized. So when that one chance came along, a chance to make something happen, I reached for it and I grabbed hold, even if it did seem a little wrong. It’s not like Norma had very long to live, you know. She was genuinely sick. We were just helping her along. That’s how I look at it, anyway. Besides, she was a mea
n old bitch. Treated Jase and me like her personal slaves. Always so patronizing and condescending.”
“I thought she seemed pretty nice.”
“Yeah? Well, you didn’t work for her.”
“Jory, let’s say Les hadn’t turned out to be a two-timing liar. Let’s say this hadn’t all blown up in your face…” Des thought she heard the creak of floorboards in the dining hall. She glanced at the doorway, but there was no one approaching. “Would you have gone through with it?”
“Gone through with what, Des?” asked Jory, frowning at her.
“Would you have married Les?”
“To get Jase out of my life? Oh, absolutely.” Jory seemed quite certain of this. Frighteningly so. “I believe that a really strong case can be made that Jase needs serious long-term care in a residential treatment facility.”
“By that you mean a mental hospital?”
“Well, yeah. And with the financial resources of Astrid’s Castle behind me, I could have done that. Actually put him somewhere. Actually had a life of my own. He’ll never be able to function independently, Des. I swore to my dad on his deathbed that I’d take care of him, and I have. I’ve kept my word. I’ve been a good daughter and a good sister. But, God, when is it my turn? When do I get to take care of me?” She sat there in bitter, angry silence for a moment. “You have no idea what it’s like being stuck with Jase. No idea just how deeply and intensely I hate him. How much I wish he’d never been born. How much I wish-”
A sudden flurry of sound interrupted her.
It was the sound of Mitch getting shoved through the doorway, looking ashen with fright.
Behind him, Jase stood there with a crazed expression on his face and a thirty-eight pointed at the small of Mitch’s back. “You told me you loved me!” he sobbed at his sister, utterly freaked out. “No one else, just me”
“I do love you, sweetie,” Jory gulped, her eyes bugging with panic.
“You’d better put down that gun, Jase,” Des told him quietly, her own weapon still trained on Jory under the table. She did not want to show it to Jase. It might set him off. She did swing it ever so slowly over in his direction. Only, there was a wooden kitchen chair in between them. She had no clear shot at him. Not where he was standing. “Put it down right now. You don’t want to make a bad situation any worse, do you?”
“You lied to me!” he wailed at Jory, ignoring Des completely. “When we were parked together at the station, you said we’d have everything we ever wanted. That it was all for us. And you never meant any of it.”
“I did, too,” Jory swore. “Honest, I did.”
“You hate me! You want to have me locked up! I just heard you.”
“Sweetie, that’s just a story I made up,” Jory said soothingly. “It’s not the real truth, I swear to you.”
“Put down that gun, Jase,” Des repeated, wondering if she’d ever be able to unravel the real truth. Whose idea it was to bump off Norma. What Les had promised Jory for her help. What she had promised him in return. With Les gone, there was no way to know. “Where did he find that thing, anyhow?” she asked Mitch, her voice low and calm.
“Behind the bar in the taproom,” Mitch answered tightly.
“Is everyone okay in there?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Mitch replied, struggling to keep his own voice steady. “No one’s been hurt. Nothing bad has happened. It’s not too late to just put the gun down, Jase. We can sit right here and talk, the four of us. We’re all friends here.”
Jase didn’t respond, didn’t budge. Just stood right where he was, gun in hand, his eyes bulging with rage and hurt and confusion.
Des couldn’t blame him. The only thing he’d been able to count on his whole life was Jory’s love. Now he didn’t have that. Didn’t have anything. “Mitch is right, Jase,” she said. “Listen to Mitch. You trust him, don’t you? Why don’t you sit down with us, and we’ll talk this out.”
“Please sit, sweetie.” Jory managed a coaxing smile, her eyes shining at Jase. “It’s going to be okay. You don’t have to worry. You know I love you. Everything I do is for us. All for us.”
Jase considered Jory’s plea carefully. For a brief instant, Des thought that he was giving in to her. The gun drooped slightly in his hand, and some of the coiled tension eased out of his shoulders. Until, that is, whatever it was that held Jase Hearn together suddenly snapped deep down inside of him, like a rubber band that has been stretched too tight. And he mouthed these words: “There’s no us.”
Before he whirled and shot his sister full in the face.
Jory made a single, awful choking noise as she pitched over backward from the table, a gaping hole where her left eye had just been.
Right away, Des was up on her feet, squeezing off a round of her own at Jase. But she was a split second too late. He’d already gotten off another shot-this one at her. She took it in the forearm of her gun hand, sending her own shot harmlessly into the wall. Her right hand went numb instantly, the SIG dropping to the floor with a thunk.
Now Jase was dashing out the kitchen door into the courtyard, still clutching his thirty-eight.
And Mitch was diving to the floor for her SIG and starting out the door after him.
Des cried out, “No, Mitch! Let him go!” Wondering what on earth that sweet, chubby fool could possibly be thinking.
But she was too late. Mitch was already gone.
CHAPTER 17
Here is what Mitch was asking himself as he went rushing out the kitchen door after Jase, SIG-Sauer in hand and Des yelling after him to stop:
What in the hell am I doing?
He was a card-carrying creature of the darkened screening room, a wielder of a flashlight pen, a critic-not some gun-toting lawman. So why was he doing this? Why was he chasing Jase Hearn across the castle courtyard, tramping his way through deep snow and ice, panting for breath, his chest heaving?
Because there is no one else.
Because he’d just seen Jase murder his own sister and shoot Des’s arm to pieces. Because Jase would get away if he didn’t go after him. Because he knew this guy and, strangely enough, liked this guy. And because, well, it wasn’t coming from his head, this impulse to chase after him. It came from Mitch’s hands, which had picked up the gun from the floor without hesitation. It came from his feet, which just kept moving forward as he slip-slided and crashed his way through the snow, the sun breaking out overhead. It came from being cooped up in that cold, dark castle since last night, witnessing one person after another get strangled, hatcheted, shot. And he’d just plain had enough.
So he ran, Des’s gun feeling heavy and unfamiliar in his hand.
Jase was sprinting like mad out ahead of him, stumbling, falling, getting back up. He could definitely hear Mitch’s footsteps behind him. He kept looking over his shoulder at him, eyes wild with fear. And as Jase neared the drawbridge over the frozen moat, he spun around and opened fire.
Mitch immediately pancaked himself to the snow as two shots whizzed right over him. He did not return fire. There was no point. No way he could hit Jase Hearn from this distance. Besides, he didn’t want to shoot him.
He wanted Jase to surrender.
Now Jase was dashing across the drawbridge. Mitch scrambled back up onto his feet, covered with snow, and lumbered after him, huffing and puffing, seeing his hot breath before him, the winter air a jagged knife deep in his lungs. He didn’t have on his jacket or gloves. His hands were wet and numb. The snow that clung to his sweater was quickly beginning to melt from his considerable body heat. He felt like a slow, hairy mastodon. Also a bit dazed from that blow to the head he’d taken.
And he was not exactly used to getting shot at.
When he’d crossed the drawbridge, gasping, he discovered that Jase had vanished. There wasn’t so much as a glimpse of him anywhere in the distance. No movement. Nothing but virgin snow-covered meadows and forest. Mitch held his breath, listening. Not a sound.
But he still had Jase’s footprin
ts to go by. All Mitch had to do was follow his trail through the snow. Jase could not get away from him. No, he could not.
So Mitch tracked him-in the direction of Choo-Choo Cholly’s miniature depot, which still lay crunched under that huge fallen sugar maple. As Jase’s footsteps approached the little station, they veered around it and made for a wide, cleared corridor between the trees. The railroad tracks, Mitch realized. Jase was following Cholly’s snow-covered narrow-gauge tracks all the way down the mountain to the front gate, to Route 156, away.
Mitch pursued him, running hard, the sweat beginning to stream down his face. Jase’s footsteps made a clear path before him down the center of the tracks, the cross-ties deep underfoot beneath the snow and ice. Wherever Jase ran, Mitch ran. Around the trees that had come down alongside the tracks. Over the trees that had fallen across them. Mitch ran and ran. Until he could run no farther without his chest exploding. He paused for just a second to catch his breath, his ears straining for a sound, any sound in the frozen winter silence. Crunching. He could hear the definite crunching of footsteps. Not very far away either. He was staying right with Jase. Maybe even gaining on him.
Heartened, Mitch forced himself farther on down the tracks. There was a quaint, hand-painted wooden sign up ahead now-“River Walk Station.” And a big bend around an exposed scenic overlook where there were handrails and benches and wonderful river views that Mitch had no time to look at. As he came charging his way around the bend, Jase’s footsteps before him veered off the tracks and curled into the woods. Crashing his way in among the fallen trees, Mitch followed Jase’s footprints until, suddenly, they stopped entirely right there deep in the woods. No more footprints. Yet, no Jase either. It was as if he’d disappeared into thin air. Either that or Scotty had just beamed him back aboard the Enterprise. Mitch stood there, baffled, seeing no sign of Jase, hearing no sound other than his own heavy breathing. How was this possible? How could Jase’s footsteps simply halt right here, two feet from the base of a beech tree? Where the devil was he?
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