“A cold war?”
“He wanted vengeance,” Dana explained. “He decided to take everything away from me. I thought…well…I thought he’d be jealous for a bit but then take me back. I didn’t realize how final it would all be for him.” She looked baffled, like a child that had let go of her balloon and then realized it wouldn’t be coming back. “I didn’t know he’d take it so seriously. After all, he’d cheated on me plenty and I forgave him. Affairs are just affairs. But he had a double standard, apparently.” Dana rolled her eyes. “Fred was insane.”
“What did he do?” Nora asked.
“He waged war,” Dana said. “And he won. Pretty thoroughly, I must say. He took everything from me. He went and spun his side of the story to Lillian so that I lost my best friend. He told me that if I wanted a single penny out of him, I’d have leave town. So I did leave town, and I lost my Rowan in the process. Fred was insane with jealousy. I loved that part. That’s why I thought I’d get him back eventually. He even killed for me. You don’t do that for someone you don’t love.”
“Killed for you?” Nora’s eyes widened. “The poolboy!”
“Poor Marco...” Dana laughed. “Marco was found dead in a swimming pool. I didn’t dig too deep into it, but I could guess who’d killed him.”
Nora felt her insides grow cold. “Fred? He had the poolboy killed?”
“He never said it out loud but…that was when I decided to take the money he was offering and get out of his sight for a year or two. I knew Rowan would welcome me back with open arms whenever I wanted anyway.”
“Fred killed a boy because of you. Didn’t you care at all?” Nora asked.
“Why would I care? He wasn’t important. The point was, Fred was stupid. So stupid.” Dana shook her head.
“Mom?” Rowan spoke from behind her in a small, heartbroken voice. Nora turned, as did Dana.
Rowan, Lillian and Adriana were standing in the kitchen doorway, all three looking shocked.
“The door was open...” Lillian said as if trying to explain. She was looking at Dana with disgust in her eyes.
“W-what are you doing here!?” All the color went out of Dana’s face. She sprang around to look at Nora, her face animalistic in its fury. “You called them here, didn’t you?”
Nora shrugged. “I just thought it would be good to have all four of you here at once.”
“You-” Dana tried to spring for Nora’s throat, but Lillian held her back easily.
“Enough, Dana!” Lillian said sharply. “You’ve made a fool out of yourself already. Don’t make it worse.”
“How could you, Mom? How could Dad?” Rowan looked heartbroken. “I was raised by monsters.”
“I tried to protect you from them as much as I could.” Lillian looked as though she felt sorry for him. “But even I never guessed their real colors.”
“Oh, please. It was love. You wouldn’t understand it,” Dana spat. “Fred and I really and truly loved each other. We had the kind of passion that only heightens through affairs and time and bloodshed. We destroyed each other but we built each other back up. I’m telling you, we were animals. But we were animals together. He would have come back to me in the end. I know he would have.”
“Yes.” In a weird sort of way, Nora did understand it. They had been two cruel, selfish people, and theirs had been a cruel, selfish love that cared for nothing else.
“He would have come back to you.” Adriana’s voice was strangely blank. “I think you’re right about that. Even when he was with me, I could tell he was using me to get to you. He was angry that you’d stayed away as long as you had, that you hadn’t come back begging for his love. First he tried affairs, but you weren’t bothered by them. After all, you were having your own. So he tried to manipulate you, using me. He pretended to be truly in love with me, confident that Lillian would tell you and that you’d come back. And you did come back…one month ago.”
Rowan looked crushed. “I let you in. Me. I thought you had come to see me! But you’d really come to poison the wine, hadn’t you, Mom? How could you!”
“Rowan, you’ve got it all wrong.” Dana looked shocked.
“Yes, Rowan. You have got it all wrong,” Nora agreed. “Dana didn’t kill Fred. She never would have. But the murderer’s here, alright. And I’ve never met a smarter woman.”
*****
Chapter 20
Revelations and Recriminations
Rowan stared at Nora with his mouth open. He couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. Dana was staring at Nora, too, still furious, but now confused. In Nora’s pocket, her phone began buzzing insistently. Without looking at it, she cut the call.
“Do you mean to say that my mother didn’t kill him?” Rowan asked. “But she practically confessed!”
“Rowan!” Dana wailed. “I’m your mother. You, of all people, know how deeply I loved your father.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t a healthy love,” Rowan said. “It was…toxic. Dangerous. Just the same as his love for you.”
“It was intoxicating. All-consuming.” Dana shook her head. “It was one-in-a-million. I can’t expect you to understand. Nobody but me and Fred understood. Other people didn’t matter. It was just us.”
“And it was, in the end, the reason he died,” Nora said.
“You’re talking in circles!” Rowan looked frustrated. “First you said my mother didn’t do it, now you say my father died because he loved her.”
“Dana didn’t kill Fred,” Nora said. “She might have, if he’d married Adriana. Maybe her rage would have gotten the better of her and she would have stabbed him. But, on the whole, I think murder is a little too crude for Dana. She would have fought for him. She would have come back here and tried to seduce him.”
“That sounds like me,” Dana admitted. “So does stabbing someone in a rage, I must say. I’ve thrown more than my share of lamps at Fred when I was angry.”
“Yes. Passion. A red-blooded murder, that would have been you,” Nora said. “But the way Fred was killed needed someone with ice in their veins. Someone cunning, and patient.”
Rowan looked around the room. “Who? Who was it?”
“What you need to ask, really, is why was it done,” Nora said. “And how was it done. Those two hold the key to who did it.”
“Well.” Lillian’s voice was sardonic. “Enlighten us.”
“It was Eddie Shaw’s suicide that showed me the answer,” Nora said. “For, you see, Sheriff Ellerton was absolutely sure that the suicide note was genuine. Eddie Shaw really did confess to murdering Fred in his note, along with begging for forgiveness for all he’d done.”
“But, I’m telling you, Eddie Shaw could never have gotten close to this house!” Rowan sputtered. “He just couldn’t have done it!”
“I agree,” Nora said. “That’s what confused me even more. I kept racking my brain and trying to reconcile it. Then I remembered what the bartender had told me. He said Eddie Shaw’s son died of drowning.”
Dana gave a little gasp. “Marco?”
“He was your poolboy,” Nora said. “Young and innocent, and you seduced him, Dana. He unknowingly became a pawn in the power games you and Fred played. But then he died. And, though it would never be proved, I suspect Fred killed him. Poor Eddie was left in ruin. But even that wasn’t enough for Fred. He wanted to punish Marco even after his death. He cheated Eddie out of his land and left him a beggar as well as a drunkard.” Nora shook her head. “Both Eddie’s and Marco’s lives were ruined by Fred.”
“So Eddie did kill my father?” Rowan asked.
“No. But he wanted to. And he told everyone he met that he wanted to. He also told them exactly how he’d do it. But I suspect the one person Eddie ranted to more than anybody else was his daughter. His young daughter, who later left town,” Nora said. “Isn't that true, Adriana?”
Adriana trembled but didn’t say a word.
“What?!” Rowan spun around and stared at her. So did Lillian and Dana. �
�You?”
“When I first met you, Adriana, I immediately felt like you were fake,” Nora said. “At the time, I thought I was getting that impression of 'fake' because you were dating an older man for his money. But that’s not what it was. You felt fake because you were playing a part. You were playing the part of a gold-digger, acting like you'd expect one to act. Later on, after Fred had died and you confessed how you were falling in love with Derek, all of that finally felt genuine to me, because it was. Wasn’t it?”
“I regret falling in love with Derek.” Adriana nodded. “I never lied about that.”
“My son?!” Lillian gasped.
“What is even going on?” Rowan yelled. “Explain it to me from the beginning!”
“Isn’t it obvious? Adriana is Marco’s sister,” Nora said. “Her entire life was destroyed because of Fred and Dana’s games. Marco had told Adriana everything that was going on with Dana, and then he was killed by Fred because of that affair. Then, Fred even took revenge on Eddie for no good reason. And Adriana was the one who had to watch her family fall apart. She had to watch her father slowly become a drunken mess while she dealt with the grief of losing her brother.”
A tear trickled down Adriana’s face.
“Adriana left town eventually. She told her father that she would never return. But, like her father, Adriana hated Fred with a passion. She wanted revenge,” Nora said. “She changed her looks and then she came back, determined to exact revenge. She started dating Fred, and that’s when Eddie saw a photo of her online, together at an awards ceremony with his worst enemy. He went to beat up Fred but was overpowered.”
“That nearly ruined my plans,” Adriana interjected. “Luckily, Dad was too drunk for Fred to even realize what he was saying.”
“Yes, a lucky break. But you became determined to kill him fast, and you already knew how,” Nora continued. “Eddie had told you exactly what poison would be effective, and you had the idea to put it in a bottle of wine that Fred would only open on a special occasion. A fool proof plan, except for one thing: the occasion was never special enough.”
Adriana smiled.
“You kept pushing for marriage, not because you wanted Fred’s money, but because you wanted him to open the bottle of wine when he proposed,” Nora said. “That night at dinner, you were so eager - so genuinely eager - for him to propose.”
“I sure was.” Adriana’s face contorted with anger. “I wanted to watch him writhe. I wanted him to suffer the way my father suffered. The way Marco suffered.”
“Your father did suffer, when he realized what you had become,” Nora said, pity in her voice. “He realized he was responsible, too, in a way. He’d filled your head with tales of revenge. He’d even told you exactly what poison to use. Eddie Shaw’s suicide note looked genuine because it was genuine,” Nora said. “He realized what had happened and he killed himself because he had nothing left to live for. He tried to be noble just once, though. He tried to take the entire blame on himself in the hope that you would be free to live your own life.”
“Oh, my...” Lillian covered her mouth with her hand.
“I just found out what he did today.” Adriana was choked up. “Poor Dad. He didn’t need to do that.”
“That’s why you decided to leave town? You told Derek that you weren’t worthy of him?” Nora asked. “Your father’s death broke your heart, didn’t it?”
Adriana shook her head. “My father died a long time ago, on the inside. My heart broke then, too. I’ve been hollow ever since. When Marco died, we all knew what had happened, but we could never prove it. My father confronted Fred once and he said the look in Fred’s eyes was all the proof he needed. He never talked about Marco’s death. Even mentioning Marco’s name was too painful. But he talked all the time about the land Fred had stole from him and how he wanted to get rid of Fred. He told me how he’d do it over and over - the compounds he’d use, how to use household materials to make them. He drilled it into my head with repetition. I ran away from my father in the end because I couldn’t bear the misery we lived in. But, even in other towns, in other states, all the way across the country, I couldn’t let go of Marco. My brother never got justice, and justice is all I wanted.” Adriana hung her head. “So I came back. I began to date Fred. He scared me. He scared me more than any other man I’ve ever met. I’ve never met a man so ruthless. All he cared about was what he wanted. I thought…I thought he’d have some regrets about killing Marco, but Fred brushed it off the way one brushes off killing a fly. All he knew was that he’d wanted revenge, and then he’d gotten it. End of story for him.” Adriana was trembling. “But for me, every second was torture. Pretending to care about Fred, finding ways to make him happy, all so that I could poison him…it was the worst torture I could ever have asked for. He made my skin crawl, but I bore it. Send me to jail if you like. I don’t care what happens to me. My life means nothing. Whether it’s in jail or out here, I feel hollow on the inside anyway.” There was a gleam in her eyes as she raised her head. “Well, there’s one more thing really. One final chapter I have to close.”
“What do you mean?” Rowan was wary.
Adriana pulled out a gun, pointing it at Dana. “You killed Marco as surely as Fred did,” she said. “You cared nothing about his life. We all heard you. Why should you live when my brother died? He was a good kid, full of life and always with a song on his lips. Give me one reason you shouldn’t die!”
Dana looked petrified. She stared at Rowan and then at Lillian, willing them to come forward in her defense. Both stayed in their place, silent.
“Please, don’t do this,” Dana begged. “Nora, tell her not to do this. You can change her mind.”
“I don’t think I can,” Nora said placidly. “Just two minutes ago, Dana, you were laughing about Marco’s death. Nothing I say will stop her from killing you.” In Nora’s pocket the phone buzzed with a life of it’s own, but she didn’t reach down to pick it up.
“I didn’t mean it!” Dana got on her knees. “Please…please let me live and I’ll spend my life making up for it. I didn’t realize. I was blind! Please!”
“Oh, but I don’t want to kill you,” Adriana said. “It’s Rowan who must die. You should know the pain you put my father through. If anyone takes your life, Dana, it’s going to be yourself. You’re going to know the very depths of misery.”
“Adriana! No!” Dana sounded horrified. “Please! Not Rowan! He’s never done anything.”
“My brother never did anything, either.” Adriana pointed the gun squarely at Rowan. “Sorry, Rowan. It’s not personal. If someone taught me to be a monster, it was your parents.”
She pulled the trigger just as someone barreled in through the door and tackled her to the ground. Dana gave a scream and lunged forward, shoving Rowan out of the way. There was a horrible crack and a slow pool of blood formed under Dana’s body. Adriana laughed manically even as the sheriff handcuffed her and read her her rights.
*****
Chapter 21
The Hospital
There was a burst of confusion. Nora, assuming that Adriana would confess, had texted Sheriff Ellerton, too. Unfortunately, he hadn’t come early enough to prevent her from pulling the trigger. Still, his heroic tackle had come just in time - it had pushed Adriana’s shot off course and, what would have been a fatal shot to Rowan’s head, had instead delivered a flesh wound to Dana, who had jumped in the bullet’s path.
It wasn’t until the ambulance had come for Dana and the paramedics confirmed that she was still alive that Nora, with a deep breath, finally switched her phone on again and looked at the stream of missed calls and messages she’d gotten.
“Mom! Where are you???” From Hazel
Five missed calls from Harvey.
“The baby’s on it’s way!” From Jacob
“We’re heading to Milburn General Hospital, see you there!” From Austin.
Grace, herself, had presumably been too engrossed in preparing for labor to t
ext or call. Nora had driven at a breakneck speed to reach the hospital as fast as possible and pulled up only a few moments after the ambulance with Dana had pulled in.
“I can’t believe I missed it!” Nora exclaimed as she burst into the waiting room. Harvey, Hazel, Austin and Kaylee were all present. Kaylee was nervously chewing her fingernails while Hazel had an arm around her. Harvey was pacing the room, while Austin stared up at the ceiling. Jacob and Grace were nowhere to be seen.
“I can’t believe you missed it, either!” Harvey said. “Where were you anyway?”
“Tracking down a murderer,” Nora said. She explained everything to them briefly and Harvey shook his head.
“Anyone else would have left it alone, but not you.” There was wonder in his voice. “But how did you ever guess it was Adriana?”
“It was the only solution, really,” Nora said. “I suspected Lillian pretty heavily but, even then, the method seemed wrong. A 'normal' murderer would not wait so long to see his murder being carried out. He or she would lose their presence of mind. This murder was done by someone with insane determination. Plus, Eddie Shaw’s suicide note confused me. I kept thinking it was a well-made fake. At least, until the moment I accepted two things. First, Eddie Shaw really did write that note. And, second, Eddie Shaw did not come anywhere close to the wine bottle. If Eddie really wrote that note but hadn’t committed the murder, it meant that he had confessed in order to protect someone. That someone had to be his daughter. It all clicked together.”
“Amazing.” Harvey shook his head. “Nora, you keep talking about me retiring and yet you’ve never retired yourself. You put yourself in danger again, without even thinking of the costs.”
“I had to know,” Nora said. “You know that, Harvey.”
“But Adriana wasn’t evil,” Austin piped up. “I thought she was a good person, really. Didn’t she offer to testify for Harvey?”
The Milburn Big Box Set Page 191
