They slid underneath the wooden arm and made their way past a red brick building with small, leaded glass windows. With the exception of random patches of curling shingles, the building still looked solid.
“We’re going down to the water,” Johnny said. It was the first time he’d spoken since telling her his feelings hadn’t been an act. That felt like a lifetime ago, although Emily suspected less than twenty minutes had passed.
“Why the water?” she asked, trying to remember what Levon had told her and Arabella. Something about a waterfall a couple of miles down the fast-flowing river. Someone tumbled over and died every year, he’d said. There was no surviving that open dam. But the water would be frozen by now, wouldn’t it?
Besides, the water might not be a bad thing. Emily recalled the photograph in It’s a Colorful Life, the one of a young Johnny with his brother, Jake. How happy they had looked, Jake’s arm draped protectively around his kid brother.
Maybe Johnny’s silent treatment didn’t mean anything. Maybe all he’d wanted to do was figure out the best way to share his past with her.
Delusion was the better part of valor.
45
The first thing Emily noticed was how fast flowing the water was, the only visible ice at the edges where the water’s movement stilled long enough to let it freeze. The water looked deep, dark, and dangerous.
The second thing she noticed was a dilapidated wooden rowboat tied up to the side of an equally dilapidated dock, both weatherworn and beaten down by time. But it was the third thing Emily noticed that convinced her she’d landed herself into some serious trouble.
“What’s Camilla Mortimer-Gilroy doing here?” she asked Johnny. “And why is she throwing the boat’s paddles and life jackets into the water?”
“Camilla,” Johnny said, ignoring Emily. “I didn’t see your car. How’d you get here?”
“I parked by the open dam, then hiked along the shore from the waterfalls, not that it’s any of your business.” She waved a leather-gloved hand in Emily’s direction. “This is your idea of not doing anything rash? Why did you bring her here?”
“What did you expect me to do? She all but accused me of murder. Given enough time, she would have figured out everything. Including your insistence on terminating her employment with Urban-Huntzberger. If you’d let that be, Michelle could have convinced her to stop her investigation.”
“And I warned you not to get involved with her.” Camilla pushed aside a blonde tendril of hair and sighed dramatically. “I’ll have to make the best of a bad situation.” She looked at Emily. “Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”
Emily shook her head. She wasn’t about to mention her text message to Arabella. “Johnny said he had something to show me,” she said, determined to keep the warble out of her voice. “I didn’t know that something would be my ex-employer.”
Camilla’s lovely face tightened into a distorted mask. “Johnny has a big mouth. So what if I’m a silent partner in Urban-Huntzberger? God knows Michelle couldn’t run the place without some serious business savvy. All the editorial skill in world doesn’t make the publishing world go round.”
“And the other silent partner?”
“No reason you shouldn’t know now. A man by the name of Eldon Thornbury.”
Emily recognized the name. Eldon Thornbury was the accountant who worked with Stonehaven on the Kraft-Fergusson brownfield land. The man her mother had suspected of money laundering and investment fraud. She wondered how much Michelle knew.
It was as if Camilla read her mind. “Michelle knew Eldon’s name, and she knew he was an accountant. But to her he was just the money guy in the Urban-Huntzberger merger. She never knew or suspected the connection between him and Garrett. Nobody did—with the exception of your mother. She got a bit too snoopy for her own good.”
“What are you saying?” Emily’s fear dissipated, replaced by raw rage. “Are you telling me my mother’s death wasn’t an accident?”
“You do the math, sunshine. All I’m saying is that I spent a lovely evening with your mom, sipping on cocktails while she told me all about the criminal lawyer she was going to see.”
“She told you about the lawsuit? She didn’t even know you.”
“Michelle introduced us. Of course I completely sympathized with your mother’s cause, had from the minute I befriended her at one of those tedious food fundraisers she was always putting on.” Camilla smiled slyly. “Who can fault wanting green space for inner city kids? And bringing a case or two of canned beans certainly wasn’t going to break the bank. But her going to a lawyer, trying to ruin Garry’s plans. So a few too many Vicodin landed into her vodka martinis. If it’s any consolation, she died peacefully.”
“Consolation? You’re telling me you killed my mother, and I’m supposed to take comfort from the fact that you didn’t bludgeon her to death?” Emily’s anger flared. She moved forward, ready to push that lovely face down in the icy water, when a strong pair of hands reached out and pulled her back. Johnny. She’d forgotten Johnny was there.
“You’d do best to reconsider your actions,” he said to Emily. He turned to Camilla. “What the hell were you thinking, spilling every detail?”
Camilla shrugged. “It’s not like she’s going to live to tell anyone about it. Now toss me your car keys.”
“My car keys?”
“Yes, your car keys. I have a plan.”
“What sort of plan?” Johnny asked, but he tossed her the keys.
Camilla put the keys in the pocket of her parka. “Enough chatter. I’m getting cold and bored, never a good combination. Emily, I need you to get into the boat. You too, Johnny.”
Emily figured if going over the falls didn’t kill her, it wouldn’t be long before hypothermia set in. She thought about trying to make a run for it and might have chanced it, twisted ankle and all, except for one tiny new detail.
There was a gun in Camilla’s right hand.
46
Emily glanced over at Johnny. Based on the glazed expression on his face, he appeared to be in shock. “Into the boat?” Johnny said. “Both of us? I don’t understand.”
“What did you expect? That I’d take care of Emily and you’d walk away, free and clear?” Camilla laughed softly. “You always were a dreamer, Johnny. No, I’m afraid some unfortunate soul will find your car parked by the dam, and the remnants of a battered rowboat floating in the water. As for your bodies, who knows where and when they’ll turn up? By that time I’ll be safely ensconced at the Gilroy Mansion, sipping Earl Grey tea and eating scones with strawberry preserves and clotted cream.”
“Why would Emily and I be in a rowboat in late November?”
“Why indeed? I suppose I’ll have to share my suspicions with that nice Detective Merryfield. Tell him all about how you were responsible for your brother’s death. How Emily, fishing for a story, found out and decided it was murder, not an accident.”
“You know damn well that I never meant for Jake to drown.” Johnny turned to face Emily. “Jake promised to meet me near the falls, help me get out of a spot of trouble. I’d talked some not very nice guys into investing in Garry’s pyramid scheme. When it all fell apart, things got ugly fast. But Jake was an incredible paddler. He should have made it, in spite of the storm. Garry must have done something to the boat.”
“Maybe Garry did, and maybe he didn’t,” Camilla said, still waving the gun in their direction. “Unfortunately, that won’t be the version I tell the police. Now, into the boat you go, or I’ll have to shoot you.”
Until that moment, Emily had been staying silent, trying to think up a plan of escape that didn’t involve trying to navigate a rowboat without a paddle or a swim in glacial waters. But the journalist in her couldn’t let it go. She had finally connected the dots. If only Levon had been a bit more forthcoming, a bit less concerned about pissing off Arabella.
“You’re Millie,” she said, trying not to think about the gun pointed in her general dire
ction. “I should have realized it when you said my mother was trying to ruin Garry’s plans. Only people from his Camp Miakoda days knew him as Garry. He made sure to erase all that when he transformed himself into Garrett Stonehaven.”
Camilla clapped, her leather gloves dampening the sound. “Bravo. I wondered how long it would take you to figure it out. I’ll admit I was starting to give up hope. Then again, I’m surprised Levon didn’t mention it, though given his annoying infatuation with Arabella Carpenter I suppose I shouldn’t be. And I couldn’t entirely trust Johnny here, either. Not once he started falling for you like some pathetic schoolboy with a bad crush.”
“I would never have betrayed you,” Johnny said. “Unlike you, I have some scruples.”
“Easy to say with a gun pointed at you.”
Emily decided to speak up. What was the worst that could happen? The way she figured it, she was dead either way.
“You won’t shoot us, Camilla. For one, how can you explain having a gun to the police? For another, it’s not your style, far too hands-on, far too messy. You much prefer arranging accidents, hence sending Johnny and me out in a boat without paddles or life jackets. We’re sure to die, either from hypothermia or from going over the falls. But before we go, can you tell me one thing? The night he died, how many drugs did you ply Graham with before he decided snowmobiling was a good idea?”
“He was an adult. He knew what he was doing,” Camilla said. But something in her expression told Emily she’d hit on a nerve.
“So you say. The same cannot be said for Ambrose Ellis.”
“Ungrateful bastard. Garret gave him a job and then he threatened to go to the authorities.”
“And Carter and February? Why did they have to die?”
Camilla shrugged. “Neither of them would be dead if they hadn’t been so greedy. Everyone thought Carter Dixon wouldn’t sell the apartment building, but the reality is he wanted an exorbitant amount for it. Gloria, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to be reasonable.”
“So Carter had to die?”
“Carter was never meant to die. All we wanted to do was scare some sense into him. But that moronic waitress took it a step too far, stole his EpiPen. And then she got greedy and tried to resort to blackmail. As if that was about to go unpunished. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, February. Getting the drugs into her was child’s play.”
“You seem to know a lot about it, for someone on the sidelines,” Emily said, trying to stall for time. If Stonehaven was responsible for the deaths of Carter and February, then her suspicions of Johnny were unfounded. There was still a chance if they worked together.
“Do I look like someone who would be satisfied with staying on the sidelines?”
“So you and Stonehaven were a team.”
“From the day we met in grade nine.”
“You bitch,” Johnny said, hid face contorted with rage. “You told me Stonehaven was back to his old tricks, except he’d learned a thing or two since Camp Miakoda. You told me we couldn’t watch him cheat honest business people out of their hard-earned money. You gave me the drugs, told me to go to his room, pour them into his red wine. I stayed and watched him die because of you.”
“He was going to leave me, Johnny. After everything I’d done for him.”
“He was always a womanizer,” Emily said, remembering the way he’d played the room at various housing functions. “Surely you knew that.”
Camilla favored her with a venomous glare. “This time was different. He’d managed to fall in love. ‘True love for the first time in his life,’ the smug bastard told me. With that floozy bartender Betsy Ehrlich, no less.”
“Betsy isn’t a floozy,” Emily said, immediately regretting the outburst.
“She’s worse than a floozy. She’s a money-grubbing floozy. He was going to let her in on the ground floor of StoreHaven. And fund her way in. Talk about rubbing my nose in it. But the final straw was the night of the presentation, that ridiculous toast of his at The Hanged Man’s Noose. He stared right at me when he said it. Not ashamed of anything he’d done. Willing to die like a man, was he? Well, he got what he asked for.”
Johnny shook his head. “I still don’t understand, Camilla. Why not call the police, tell them everything? I would have backed you up, told them all about the pyramid scheme Garry ran at Camp Miakoda. I know it was a long time ago, but I’m also sure he hid the money and the list of investors somewhere in the building. I’m equally positive someone on that list killed Jake. With your word and mine, the police would have been forced to do a proper investigation, not just for the Neighbors Helping Neighbors scam, but also for Jake’s death. Don’t you see? You could have gotten your revenge that way.”
“Are you seriously that clueless, Johnny? Did you actually believe Stonehaven was behind Neighbors Helping Neighbors? That he would have come to Lount’s Landing on his own volition? It was me calling the shots, Johnny. It was always me, right from the first pyramid scheme that sent Garry to Camp Miakoda.”
Johnny stared at Camilla, his black eyes glassy. “Are you saying that you arranged the pyramid scheme at camp?”
“God, you’re slow. Even Jake had that much figured out. He was going to report me to the authorities, the stupid son of a bitch. He said it was best for all of us to come clean. As if.” Camilla laughed, a high-pitched screeching sound that chilled Emily more than the thought of the icy-cold water. The woman in front of her was a certifiable maniac who would stop at nothing to save herself.
“That’s why Jake had to die, wasn’t it?” Emily said.
“You’re too smart by half,” Camilla said, waving the gun in Emily’s direction.
It was the final blow. Johnny lunged at Camilla, stumbling in the attempt. Camilla lunged back, kicking and clawing and screaming obscenities.
Emily considered her options. She could try and make a run for it, bad ankle and all, and hope Camilla wouldn’t shoot her in the back. Or she could get in the rowboat and take her chances navigating the river.
The sharp crack of a gunshot told her she’d hesitated a moment too long.
47
Emily sat shivering in the rowboat, icicles forming streaks of glitter in her long, dark hair, her left ankle throbbing in pain. Everything was happening so fast. One minute she was standing on the shore wondering how she was going to escape, and the next minute there was a harsh, popping sound. Gunshot. The time for deliberation was over.
She stumbled in her haste to get away, then bit her lip to hold back a scream as she went over on her bad ankle. Her body hit the river face first, the mud and the muck of the sludgy bottom sucking her further and further into the icy abyss.
She was a good swimmer—hell, she’d completed an Olympic-distance triathlon this past summer, a one and one half kilometer swim in Lake Ontario with a hundred like-minded individuals thrashing about like clothes in a washing machine. But the water in July had been merely chilly, and she’d been wearing a wetsuit, not jeans and a wool jacket, goggles instead of sunglasses, a swim cap instead of a toque.
The water pierced every fiber of her being, saturating her clothes within seconds. The heaviness of the fabric cloaked her skin like a shroud, and she could see the rowboat out of the corner of her eye. Temporary sanctuary. It was a million to one shot, but it was better than drowning in five feet of water. Better than giving in to Camilla without a fight. She sent a silent prayer to her mother and hoped someone up there was listening.
Against all odds she’d managed to scramble her way out, a survivor instinct that somehow managed to kick in when her breath kicked out in ragged gasps. She grabbed the boat’s edge and pulled herself up and over, all six hundred pounds of sodden wool and drenched denim. Another gunshot rang out, excruciatingly loud, and the water in front of her splashed as the bullet entered the water.
“It’s got to look like you shot Johnny and tried to escape,” Camilla said, her voice eerily calm as she leaned over to untie the boat. “Sorry to say the odds of yo
u surviving the falls are slim, but you might get lucky—until you find yourself getting battered and bashed along the rocks in the swirling whitewater.” A maniacal look of glee crossed her face. “It might speed things up if I shot you, too.”
Emily stared at Camilla, then down at Johnny’s lifeless body, his beautiful black eyes staring blankly upward, a thin trickle of blood at the edge of his mouth. She wished she had something clever to say, something that might save her life.
She didn’t. But then she heard footsteps, followed by a voice.
The voice of a friend.
“For God’s sake, Camilla, put the gun down,” Levon shouted. “I’ll tell the police Emily shot Johnny. You and me, we can make this go away.”
“Levon? What are you doing here?”
“I had a feeling you were in danger.” Levon’s voice was soft, soothing, and seductive. “I came as soon as I could.”
“Johnny’s dead. I shot him, not Emily.” Camilla looked at the gun. “ I shot him.”
“We can tell the police otherwise. It’s not too late.”
“I never meant to hurt him, Levon.”
“I know, Camilla, I know.” Levon kept walking toward her, arms outstretched, his heart pounding. “Please, give me the gun.”
“What about her?” Camilla pointed to Emily.
“I’ll take care of her. Make sure she gets the boat ride she deserves. Nosey bitch. Come on, Camilla, give me the gun.”
Levon figured she might have even done it except for one thing.
Arabella entered the clearing—upright and standing, no less.
What part of “best if you stay back” did that woman not understand?
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